Selfies

So I had never really taken a "selfie" until recent. I was introduced to an app we call snapchat and the rest is history. People had explained the point of this app back when I got off my mission but I never really understood why people liked it. I mean isn't it vain taking a photo of you and only you?
Who really looks good that close up anyhow! Don't you feel stupid snapping a photo and other people looking at you thinking selfie!? Just look how ridiculous this 50 year-old woman looks behind Ashley and I.

After taking more awkward selfies than I can count and deleting more photos then I actually send :) I'm now a defender of the app. I can carry on snapchat selfie convos, I still think it's utterly pointless but who cares!

Have I mastered the selfie taking pics? Heck no. Don't know if I will ever get there. Just look at these photos my sister and I TRIED to take when she came down to DC for a slumber party shopping weekend. I wouldn't let her go home until we successfully took one selfie together. Mission failed. Between her eyes being closed or us laughing mid photo (hence the blurriness) it was a total disaster.

                 

                 

So here's to the only selfie of the 73939101984747  photos I've snapped that I look remotely... decent?  Or emotionless? Or bored? Or maybe I just like that necklace. While I have gotten over the I'm-too-cool-to-take-selfies mentality, I still need some help.

                                      

I'm still opposed to posting a pic like this on FB or Insta and don't know if I will ever will get over that (I think that's a good thing?) but here's to improving my selfie skills one selfie at a time. 

to the time

So a couple weeks ago my dear best friend went through the temple for the first time. It was an unforgettable moment and words won't suffice as to just how unbelievable proud and happy I am for this girl.

A year ago she made the decision to get baptized.

And who would've guessed that exactly a year later she would make an even bigger covenant with God and go through the temple? I did! :)

It has been so amazing to have seen Erika's journey and the beautiful person she has become. It all started at the 2012 Halloween dance. We were in the church bathroom when I struck up conversation with her and Rebecca...not an awkward place at all which is why I love Brasilians! We exchanged numbers, went out a couple weeks later to eat Brasilian food and the rest is history. 

Erika has allowed me to be apart of her life and journey and for that I am eternally grateful. She has been more than a blessing in my life. 

I was there the first time she went to institute, stood up and introduced me (as if I was the visitor, not her)! To the time we went to see the temple lights and she dissed the Sister missionaries and told them that if she ever had questions she'd ask Rebeca and I, not them. To the time the missionaries first approached her after institute and she felt semi uncomfortable. To the first time she laid hands on a Book of Mormon and told me she would read it. To all of her lessons with the missionaries.  To the first time she said she prayed about the church and knew it was true. To the time she accepted baptism. To the time she started feeding the missionaries before she was even a member. To the time I saw her dressed in all white and was overwhelmed with emotion and tears on the day of her baptism. To the time she gave her first testimony. To the time I helped her write her first talk. To the time she accepted a calling in her ward. To the time she promised to never work another Sunday. To the time she became a member missionary and taught others through her personal conversion. To the time I saw nearly her whole family discover the truthfulness of the gospel in Brasil and get baptized. To the time she sent me a picture of herself in her first one piece. To the time she got out her patriarchal blessing. To the time she swore she would never wear garments to the time she was counting down the days until she could wear them! To the time she decided to remove some of her tattoos despite the costly procedure.  To the special reunion with Elder Nelson (missionary who'd taught her) and our friend Tom (intern at the time who'd participated in all the lessons) the weekend she went through the temple. To the time I captured a glimpse of Heaven, as I witnessed her in all white inside the temple. 

To this time, I will never forget. 

dang it dang it dang it!

Sadly, after 2 long years with my iPhone 4 I had to part ways. While I loved the cracks on the screen, the fact that it died in the toliet and was resurrected, randomly froze or turned to a white screen, added a blurry effect to all my photos and made my adding/deleting apps a well thought out process due to my lack of space, I just had to let it go. 

What did that mean? A new iPhone 5s Gold (might I add) iPhone.  I have only been drooling about this for the past year! I met a new person named Siri, deleted my flashlight app because it comes with one, I text someone a date/time and it marks it so I can store the date in my calendar, my fingerprint opens the phone, and can we just talk about the new iOS? I realize people have had this for some time but not me! I didn't have the space. I mean I did. But my phone was jacked and saying I didn't. So let me get all designer on you and tell you the look of  the new iOS is SO beautiful. I love the feel. It's clean, sophisticated, I love the flatness, the transparent effects, the typography….Ok I will stop boring you. 

When I got my new phone it's safe to say I felt like Ivy in this video. 

Merry late Christmas to me!

its true

I haven't blogged in quite some time and maybe this is why. In case you had your speculations, I'm saying it here.... I have a boyfriend. Weird huh. Nate called it early on. He too found the news rather shocking. Thanks Nate. What a great friend you are!

walking dead

I am obsessed. Work has been slow. In the Summer quarter there's not much going on.  So what do I decide to do? Become a Walking Dead junkie. I started and maybe finished all 3 seasons of Walking Dead. I'm not even going to go into how long or shall I say how short it took to finish all of them. Slightly embarrassed but for all those who have seen the show, you'd understand. And for all those who haven't, you're missing out. It only stands as having the highest ratings on its premiere night than any other show in Cable history! So here's what has happened since I started watching the show..

I maybe went to the AMC website and "Deaded Myself"

I know you want to dead yourself too

Don't I look good as a Zombie?

I maybe had a dream that I actually remember (it's a miracle) where I was killing zombies left and right.

I maybe start thinking people on the streets were are zombies and out for the kill.  Yesterday was no exception. As I was walking home from the metro there was a lady hobbling in front of me. Something was wrong with one of her legs and what did I instantly think? Zombie! Where's my knife so I can stab her in the head. Ok..that last part was a joke. I haven't turned all violent and everything but I have imagined some people as zombies. I have a problem. And admitting it is the first step to recover right?

Time to start watching something else... that is until the Walking Dead Season 4 premieres.  Already counting down the days. Can October come any faster??

drum roll

I'm the new Relief Society President. Who called it? Not me! I'm pretty sure I did this when the Bishop told me the news.

Except imagine 2 hands on my head, saying what?! telling him that it's a HUGE responsibility, that I've never been in any RS presidency before, that I have only been in the ward a short time, that I am really young and the list goes on. I was shocked.

When he told me he wanted to talk to me I thought... why me?
Did I just speak in church? Check.
Did I just get a new calling? Check.
Did he just ask me about my love life at the Summer Soiree activity a couple days before and did my reposnse get cut off due to a sudden distraction? Check.
So maybe that's why he's calling me in? To hear the rest of my story? Wrong.

Now that I have had a couple weeks to let it settle in, now that I officially got called on Sunday, now that he's set me apart and come Sunday I will have a full presidency up and running I am feeling a little bit better about it all.

When he called me in the first thing he wanted to know was whether my job was official or not. I had to say no. He extended me the calling anyhow and the next day I got my official offer letter. I love how the Lord works.

I guess I'll be staying in DC for awhile. One of the other RS presidents said to me on Sunday "here's to the next 3 years or until you get married." I guess only time will tell which will happen first. And remember in my last post when I said my life was busy and it was only going to get busier? Ya. I'm already starting to feel it. Wish me luck...

Duck Beach

Lately I've been busy. But this isn't anything new. I'm always busy. And my life is just about to get even busier. It might have taken me days to get through this post but I did it.

Sooo lots of things have been happening but my 2 highlights were
Duck Beach round #1 with my friends and
Duck beach round #2 with my family.

Duck Beach Round #1 was Spring Break gone wild mormon style. People from all over the United States congregate Memorial Day weekend to....go to the beach when some people have one in their back yard or less than 15 minutes away?  To come meet other mormons when they are living in Utah and the whole state is populated by them? Or my personal favorite to go and meet "the one." I guess that has happened for people in the past but like my favorite movie says in "He's Just Not That Into You" those people who actually met "the one" at Duck Beach are the exception, not the rule.

It obviously didn't happen to me and I'm not bitter by any means. My goal for the weekend was to get a tan and I can easily say...mission accomplished.

All those people ahead of us...Mormons after Mormons after Mormons

So just 2 weeks after that I had Duck Beach Round #2.
It was the first time my family had been together in almost 4 years. All we needed was my sister and her husband to be there to make things complete! The week consisted of fishing, kayaking, swimming, dolphin watching, sports, eating good food, staying up late playing cards, dancing gangnam style, art classes with my mom, glow in the dark dance parties with my neices and nephews and laughing our heads off throughout the night.

Some of my personal highlights were
1. Ryan (the most passive and calm person in our family) throwing all his cards at my sister Lindsay during a round of Nertz because someone got a little too heated. Don't worry immediately afterwards he said, "I feel bad about that." I still don't know who would've won that round..

2. The fact that my 4 year-old niece Ivy almost drowned in the pool and was saved by my 8 year-old niece Grace WASN'T a highlight but her response was. When my sister asked Ivy what happened she sang Taylor Swift's song Trouble " I'm drooooowing I'm droooooowning I'm drooooowing"

3. Karaoke night
Combined with Ryan's classic/famous dance moves and Lindsay and my impromptu dance number it all had us laughing hysterically. We definitely got the party started by the end of the number. Too bad Ryan and Rayna won the karaoke competition.

4. Conservative Jeremy in the gangnam style video. Because he's my brother-in-law and doesn't have the crazy I-want-all-the attention blood that's in the Vogel family, this was shocking to see. He even put on a yellow shirt to play the part!

 (please go to 1:06 to understand what I'm talking about)
(And don't forget Hunter's perfected pelvic thrust at 2:46)

6. Basketball against my mom and my sister Lindsay. When we weren't dying in hysterical laughter we did manage to play some ball and bring out the claws.

7. Being with my nieces and nephews. Aside from anything gospel related I love them more words than anything in the world.

8. The games. My family is really competitive and we had 4 brackets drawn out on poster boards listing the tournament rounds for basketball, volleyball, pool and fooseball. Each day we had to play our individual matches and while my 12 year-old niece and I did terrible at basketball against the athletic boys in our family, Zack and I made up for it when we became the fooseball champions!

9. Just being with my beautiful family. I sure am the luckiest girl ever. By the end of the trip it had me saying...my family is crazy, we know how to have fun and I love each and every one of them. So glad I can be with them for eternity.

Hate my hair in the picture (thank you humidity) but you
do get to see my beautiful family in almost its entirety...just missing Molly and Ken!

This amazing woman keeps us all together.

Cant wait for the Vogel Reunion 2015! While I disappointed my family by not bringing a significant other, maybe the next one I won't let them down. Afterall, I found out during our game night of Family Feud I am most likely to be married next. It's a good thing I beat my 6 year-old neice Hazel, 2 year old nephew Henry and my sister Brandy who's married with 5 kids!