More Adventures in Salt Lake

My friend Chad and I decided it would be fun to go around to all the temples close by here (which is some 7 or so within an hour or two) and do baptisms for the dead. Since he's endowed and neither of us have family names, he baptizes me. So far we've gone to Provo (of course), Mt. Timpanogos, Draper, and Salt Lake City. Yesterday we went to both Draper and Salt Lake City. It's interesting how every temple does the same thing, yet they all have their little differences in how they run things. Bismarck is definitely the odd one out, because it's so small. It was kind of cool going to the Salt Lake temple, because to get into the baptistery you have to find this little doorway that's kind of hidden and press a doorbell-like thing. It kind of makes me wonder how many non-members try to get in and how annoying that would be.

I love going to Salt Lake City. There are so many strange people there, I'm definitely not used to big cities. I love the train we take from our parking lot to Temple Square...I don't know what I love about trains so much, but that's half the fun of going to Salt Lake City for me. After we did baptisms there last night we went out to eat at an amazing place called Tucanos. It's a Brazilian grill, and you start off with a salad bar, then go get some potatoes and rolls, and waiters come around every two minutes or so with little pieces of different meat and give it to you. I love the barbecue chicken and garlic sirloin...but the chicken hearts aren't my favorite. They're not bad but they have a funny flavor. One of our waiters laughed at me because I was eating more than Chad. The way I look at it is even if I stuff myself way too much, I really need to make it worth his money. If he's going to spend some 30 dollars on just my food, I better eat 30 dollars worth. Anyway, the food there is so amazing that if I didn't eat every bite that I possibly could, I think I would regret it. After we ate, we went back to temple square, walked around a bit and took pictures.

For anyone that may be wondering, Chad is madly in love with me, and I think he's alright, but there is nothing between us. He's probably one of the nicest, most spiritual people I've ever met - Nick is still ahead of him in both of those areas - but he weirds me out sometimes (not often, but every now and then I can't help but stare and think "Did you really just say that?") and I just don't think anything would ever work between us, and he knows that. I do things with him because it's fun, he makes me laugh, and he buys me food. He kind of drives me crazy sometimes because he makes it a little bit obvious sometimes that he would marry me on the spot if he could, but I can put up with that for a couple more weeks till he leaves for California...if he keeps buying me food. ;)

I PASSED!!

Today I had 3 tests to take. One was the practical floor test, another was the written final to get out on the floor, and one was the weekly chapter test. It took all 8 hours at school to finish, it was absolutely crazy. Even though the tests aren't hard, I was terrified because I feel like the teacher I have right now is...lacking in ability to teach. I'm so glad that we're done and out of her class!!! She always puts things on tests that we never go over, and whenever we take tests (about 3 tests a week usually) she's really noisy with her little student friends that are already out of her class. She never shuts the door to our classroom during tests, even when it's really loud outside. It's so disrespectful and rude to us as students, I am so sick of it. But as I said before, I passed all of them and I am officially a student hairdresser ready to go show the world how awesome I am!!!

Working Hard at School

This is me at school...jamming out to my music before a test. It's hard work there, I tell you. Sometimes I don't know what to do with myself it's so much work. :P Tomorrow I have two written tests to take, plus my 7-hour practical floor test, and we haven't really reviewed for anything at all. I sure hope I'm ready. I think if I do fail anything it's going to be the written test, which I can just retake on Tuesday if I have to, so it wouldn't be a big deal anyway. But if I pass, I will finally be able to actually be on the floor and have clients!! I must say I'm pretty sick of just working on my manikin. She is getting boring and her hair is starting to be in kind of bad shape, probably because I'm slightly careless with it and I don't really care much if I scorch her hair or rip it out. Or burn her face or scalp. (Note: I will not treat real people the same way, no worries. Unless their name is Annabell, in which case I may accidentally think they're my manikin and we would have problems.) Our guest artist today was a nail technician, and guess who the model was? Yup, you guessed it. My friend Anika. No...just messing, it was me. The thing with being a nail model is that usually they do really weird things on your nails, and they never do all ten fingers. So I went to the temple tonight with one bright purple glittery nail, one green, purple swirly glittery nail, and two french-manicured nails, the last three being witch-like long. Ugh. Luckily, they were nice at the temple and said my nails were fine, which is good because the only thing that can take them off is filing (no acetone for this kind...) and I think I would have used about 56 emery boards if I'd tried to do it that way.

Salt Lake City Adventures

I had the opportunity to go to General Conference live for 3 of the 4 sessions this weekend. I went with some friends on Saturday and we listened to conference in the tabernacle for the first session, then after that we decided to go beg for tickets and see if anyone had any extras. To my surprise, within about 30 seconds of holding up a sign that said "tickets" we had all we needed, and the same thing happened for both sessions today. It was pretty sweet, I must say. I didn't know so many people ran around temple square with extra conference tickets. The protesters sort of made me laugh...they come up with the weirdest things to yell at us. One guy was screaming about how we shouldn't try to be like Joe Smith and take rabbits out of hats, because it's of the devil, and another guy was saying something about it being wrong to dress up as the Pillsbury Dough Boy. ???? For real, where do they even come UP with things like that? At least the people telling us to read the Bible made more sense, even though it might have been good for them to do some research and learn that we do read the Bible. It was pretty cool though, because a lot of time, while the people were yelling at us, members would line up along the sidewalks and sing hymns. It's interesting to me, I wonder if those people read the Bible. If they do, they must have missed the verse that says "By their fruits ye shall know them", unless, of course, they think screaming at people that they're going to hell is good fruit...

Anyway, conference was very good, as it always is. When I was younger, I used to wish that I could hear Joseph Smith speak, because he was such an amazing prophet and such, but I realize now that President Hinckley was and President Monson is every bit the man that Joseph Smith was. I'm so thankful that we have him to guide us and help us. It was amazing every time he walked into the room for conference, the entire room of 50,000 people instantly got silent and stood on their feet till he sat down. I love seeing the respect and reverence the church has for the prophet. I have never, ever in my life seen so many people get quiet so quickly. I'm not sure if there is anything that makes me love the church more than General Conference does. There's something about seeing and hearing the prophet speak that is really powerful, I can't really describe it. All I can say is that I know it's true, without a doubt in my mind.

So I don't think that I was allowed to take pictures...but I did anyway because I turned my flash off and that's the main reason they don't want people taking pictures anyway. I don't think President Monson would like to be blinded while trying to give a talk. Just a guess.

It was pretty funny on the drive home, because at almost any point between Salt Lake City and Provo, I could look out the window and see at least 3 chapels and a temple. At one point, I could see 8 chapels and 2 temples. Crazy, huh? I thought so. That's not exactly something you see in Minnesota very often. :P

Anybody want a haircut?

Or a fro?

Anyone? Anyone??

Bad Girlfriend??

My roommates don't seem to think that I'm the best missionary girlfriend ever, and I don't see why. He's been gone a whole week and two days, and I've only been on like 6 dates. I lost count a little while ago. I think 6. But hey...that's less than a date for every day he's been gone so I think I'm doing pretty good!! :) My roommates are pretty jealous though, that not only do I have a boyfriend but I get more dates then all of them combined. The ones who are engaged don't really count, which is half the apartment (yup...3/6), but the other two are jealous. To be honest, they are all driving me insane - right now I'm so annoyed with boys that I don't even want to look at one. Why can't they EVER be happy just being friends?

I went to a western themed dance last night, and it was fun but it was slightly awkward because I didn't really know many people at all, and there was like one slow song, which was really disappointing because I like slow dancing better than the awkward dancing where you just stand in awkward little circles with your awkward little friends and make awkward little dance moves that don't make any sense. But whatever. I'm over it. I suppose it's better than dancing with a short guy with bad breath and B.O. that asks you what color your toothbrush is. That actually happened to me once...no joke. I did ride the mechanical bull (I think maybe they should call it the maniacal bull), and totally owned it. I don't know exactly how long I was on there but I think it was more than 8 seconds. So I owned it. I borrowed my home teacher's cowboy hat because he wouldn't let me get on the bull until I had one, so I yelled and waved it in the air while I was on the thing. It was pretty exciting, I wish I had a video to put on here, but you'll just have to imagine it I guess because I don't have one. My belt buckle is pretty sweet, no? We made them with cardboard and aluminum foil.

Oh and I am so excited!! I don't know for sure if this is going to work out or not, but I'm excited anyway. I met this guy at the dance that has a band, but they need a bass player...enough said. I hope it works out because I want to do it so bad. But I suppose if it doesn't, I'll get over it. Eventually. I'm pretty optimistic about it, because bass players are really hard to find and I'm going to be around all summer. So we'll see. :)

Elder LaDuke

Well, my wonderful, amazing, handsome boyfriend is officially gone in England to be a missionary. He left yesterday morning at around 11:00am and got into Preston sometime around 8:00am their time. At least he was supposed to, I really wish that he could at least call his family to let them know he made it, and they could tell me...it would just be nice to know. But rules will be rules and you really just have to trust the Lord with something like that. Not to mention that if he didn't make it, we would probably know very quickly. It's hard because I'm so used to having constant instant gratification when it came to knowing where he was and how he was doing, and now I have to wait for a letter. But hey, at least it's England and not Tonga or something! Letters only take about a week. I don't know how long packages take, but I don't think he'll get many from me because a small one that's more than 5 pounds or so is about $50. Ouch!! I've heard, though, that pictures are something that missionaries absolutely love, so I will have to stick to that most of the time. Anyway, I am hanging in there!

His MTC address is as follows (I sure hope I have it right):

Preston England MTC
Nicholas Allan LaDuke
England Leeds Mission
Temple Way, Hartwood Green
Chorley, Lancashire
PR6 7EQ
United Kingdom