AY AY AY! MEXICO!

So yesterday as I was driving to a Relief Society activity and my father called me and informed me that we might be going to Mexico to build houses over spring break. WHAAAAT?? We haven't been in 4 years and I have missed it so so much. I couldn't be more excited. Now I just have to figure out if I can get work off and if I'll still be able to make enough money for Belize if I miss a week. We'll have to see if I can actually go. But for now, here are some pictures from our last Mexico trip. Ah, the memories.

 MEXICO 2008

BAMM!

SLAM BAM TURKEY AND HAM!! Guess who got a second job at Cafe Rio?! THIS GIRRRL. Really starting to roll in the dough for Belize! Getting so excited! 

P.S. Hot medium or mild sauce?! (:

 

                                                              

 

    Which one would you rather have?!      

If Life Were Easy, It Wouldn't Be Hard

This weekend while I was at home I found a book by Sheri Dew titled "If Life Were Easy, It Wouldn't Be Hard." I am not even through the first chapter and I have already learned so much. 

1. Without trials we wouldn't go as far as we're capable of going. In other words, without something continuously challenging us and making us want to be better  we would be content with where we are and never excel to our full potential. 

2. The gospel requires work. "...surely we couldn't expect to inherit the gift of eternal life or to receive ongoing bestowals of charity or to be taught the mystery of godliness or to learn to communicate clearly with the heavens without making a diligent, consistent effort--in other words, without it requiring a lot of spiritual work."

3. This life was designed to be a test to determine if we WANT to be a part of the kingdom of God more than we want anything else. I was so blessed to be born into this gospel, just like many of you. We need to stick with it and not take advantage of it. ITS TRUE. 

4. Do we demonstrate our faith by our choices and priorities, by how we live out lives? God didn't send us here to earth to spend hours on FaceBook or even Blogging. A little of it is okay, but just watch yourself; I know I need to. Make every decision as if God was standing there with you--BECAUSE HE IS. Would you chose to sit on your butt all day or watch that inappropriate movie or spread that gossip if God was there? 

5. The gospel requires sacrifice. If you never had to prove your faith and beliefs they would be hard to keep. Be constantly finding ways to share your testimony. 

6. If we seek the Lord "we shall be the richest of all people, for [we] shall have the riches of eternity" (D&C 38:39). Can I just say I love the word "eternity"? 

7. Life is an open-book test. We have so many sources available to us each and everyday. We just have to do the work (because the gospel requires work) to learn the answers. 

8. Don't just work harder at the difficult situation your in. Work harder to involve Heavenly Father in the situation. When things get difficult don't ever ease up. Don't ease up on your efforts to seek after Him, to communicate with Him, to learn of Him. Because that is what will get you through. 

9. We don't really know if we care about being virtuous men and women until our virtue is tested by some glaring temptation right in front of us. 

10. Sometimes things happen that test our faith and make us ask ourselves, Okay Ali, do you believe it, or don't you? 

Study the scriptures, pray daily, and grow near to your Heavenly Father in a way so that when that day comes when you're tested you can tell yourself, YES, I BELIEVE. 

143

I recently decided that I most definitely hated the look of my blog so today I decided to change it. I also changed the name of it. For those of you who don't know, 143 stands for "I love you". Why? Because there is 1 letter in the word "I", 4 letters in the word "love", and 3 letters in the word "you". 143 is something that Nic and I use all the time. Its "our thing" I guess you could say. So why not name my blog after it? 

The last couple days I have been finding some amazing songs on YouTube by artists that barely anyone knows. I found this song called "Plans" by Plug in Stereo and I absolutely love it. It describes my life 100% correctly right now. And for those of you who also have missionaries, it will probably describe your life as well. So take a listen! I hope you enjoy it. 

BUGGED.

Sorry, I just have to get this out there. 

Yes, I'm waiting for a missionary. GET OVER IT. 

365 Days of Ali.

January 26--London, Jami and I at the Aggie Basketball game

January 28--Nathaniel, Nikki, Jami and I at the temple

January 29--Sunday Dinner with the roommies

February 1--London party rocking at the mall haha

February 2--Roommates decorated my room for my birthday (: 

February 3--Tiff and Drill team at State

February 4--Brooke and I at the temple. Love her! 

February 5--Celebrating my birthday at my home

February 6--Nikki and I in the car

February 7--Donating plasma for the first time. Eeek!

February 8--Actually taking notes. haha

February 9--Allae likes to sit on me. 

February 10--Got poked twice while donating. Bleh.

February 11--Kelsi and I at Nikki's choir concert

February 12--Mardi Gras with the ladies

Lets just say I love my life. Thats all for now, folks.

Half A World Away

My cousins new song that just got put on Itunes. Feel free to check it out and go buy it! It's great. (Especially for those of us waiting for missionaries. It's about him and his girlfriend that waited for him on his mission.) LOVE.

Prostitute.

I guess you could call me a prostitute because I am officially selling my body for money. hahaha Totally kidding. Well, I really am selling my body but not as a prostitute. I actually just donated plasma for the very first time yesterday! Be proud. I was pretty nervous.

Allie, Me, and Kinsie right before we donated plasma

It actually wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. The worst part was probably the finger prick. My finger is still sore from it! I have a feeling that every time I go I will get major anxiety about everything but once the needle is actually in me I will be fine. I'm just gonna have to deal with it because I NEED the money. Making $4,000 by May isn't gonna be easy. But it's definitely possible and you better believe I'm going to do it. 

I'm going to donate plasma twice a week making $55/week. And I am also going to be working at Kneaders and a call center. Making around $300 a week. It's probably gonna be really difficult but I just keep telling myself its all worth it. Because guess what? I am OFFICIALLY accepted to go to Belize this summer! I leave May 10th and will be there until July 25th. I'm excited to say the least. 

So here's to the hardest working 3 months of my life! 

Beautiful picture of Belize

Yup. Going here for 2 months.

Luckiest Girl.

So Nic told his mom to get this cake for me for my birthday. Who even comes up with the idea to have a cake made with a picture on it?!

Yup. I love this boy. 

I'm OLD.

What in the world? I swear I turned 12 yesterday. Time flies by way too fast. And I realized today that birthdays get less and less exciting as you get older. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. When I was younger I had some great birthday parties with lots of friends, fun activities and most importantly to a young girl, PRESENTS. But I'm not young anymore. I'm 19 to be exact. And not gonna lie it's kinda freaky. But I realized today that it's not what you do or how many presents you get, it's about who you're with. Today, on my 19th birthday I attended FCHD 1500, Gymnastics, and Institute. I then went to the gym and worked out with two of my favorite people in Logan, Allie and Mckinsie. We also went tanning, attempted to donate plasma, and ate at this delicious cafe called Kneaders where Steven joined us. YUM. Unlike every other day where I barely text anyone, today my phone was pretty much blowing up with texts from old friends and I LOVED IT. And although I know you're thinking in your head, "Wow, what a boring birthday." It actually was a blast. London got my whole gymnastics class to serenade me in Happy Birthday as I walked into class. My institute teacher made it a point that my birthday was also the same day as Groundhogs Day or "National Sausage Day" as he calls it. Allie, Kinsie and I had some pretty funny experiences while working out, tanning, and attempting to donate plasma. We almost died multiple times from my awesome driving, accidentally ate cheese (long story), and laughed as Steven sang a solo of "Happy Birthday" for all of Kneaders to hear. And it's only 6 o'clock! My roommies still have plans for ice cream later. I'm pretty pumped for it! Then tomorrow I get to go home and see my family! See? Even though I'm old and didn't do anything too great, I'm still very blessed and very happy with the life I live.
And the most important part of my birthday was getting a wonderful package from this guy.

Yes, he is still his crazy self. hahaha He even sang me a beautiful rendition of Happy Birthday over the tape recorder. And for those of you who know Nic, you probably already knew I was being sarcastic. Him and his companion sang a horrifically bad yet insanely funny version of Happy Birthday for me. It was nothing close to beautiful, but it was exactly what I needed. I'm blessed to have each of you in my life. Thank you for all you do for me! 

HAPPY NATIONAL SAUSAGE DAY EVERYONE!