Wow what a week!

This week has been amazing and eye opening.  Not only did the Prophet announce the change in the age that missionaries can serve, but I had some revelations that changed my thinking a little bit.  But lets start from the beginning (Ooooh sounds like I am leading into a fairy tale with an intense back story, its a good thing this isn't really the beginning...)

Once upon a time..... JUST KIDDING!  this week has been crazy, actually it wasn't even the whole week that was mind blowing but just the past few days.  Here is the low down.  

This week I changed my major.  I was an Architecture major and am now a construction management major with a business management and Architecture emphasis.  My thinking on making this change was simple. BYU-I only has an associates of Architecture and it is an unaccredited program, so basically an associates from here means nothing to employers or accredited schools.  However BYU-I has a Bachelors in Construction Management and many students receive full time, well paying employment and internships during and right out of school.  By having an Architecture emphasis I get to take many of the same Architecture classes that I would being and Architecture major, so my desire to build and design will hopefully be satisfied.  If I am not satisfied with construction management when I graduate I can then transfer to another school that has Architecture and will accept hopefully a lot of my credits, not to mention I will then have employable job skills and be able to work through school.  Seems like a good plan right? I hope that God thinks its a good plan too.  

Shortly after changing my major I joined the ACMS (Architecture and Construction Management Society).  They had a meeting, on Thursday which I attended after a full scheduled day.  At the meeting it hit me:  I am an adult, I have now become what I have only ever envisioned becoming, a responsible adult.  Its kind of mind blowing   It also hit me how little amount of time I have before I have to enter the work world and how when I do I have to be professional.  (I DON'T KNOW HOW TO BE PROFESSIONAL, guess Iahve to learn pretty fast)  What a scary thought.  I have to care about and think about not only a job, but a career. That's a lot of pressure. In order to graduate as a construction management major I have to take two internships.  This means one between my sophomore and junior years as well as the summer of my Junior and Senior years.  To find an internship by then means I have to start researching now.  CRAP! LIFE IS STARTING!!! 

I attended another meeting of a construction management and building company that was offering jobs and internships to people.  WOW! (I think I was the only freshman there.)  It is interesting to see what kind of jobs are out there and how to advance in the work world.  I was focused more on what values the company had, while those hoping for work were interested in salary and benefits.  HOW DO I CHOOSE WHO TO WORK FOR?  Ill pray a whole ton!!

 

I cant get over the fact that I have gotten to this stage in my life! Nothing is ever going to be the same again.  WOW!

Well I guess Ill move on, even though my mind can't...

Saturday was the first sessions of conference not counting the Relief Society one that I attended, which was wonderful!

The first session was, as we all know, historic.  The Prophet announced that men can now serve their missions at age 18 and women at age 19.  How amazing and wonderful at the same time.  As room mates we froze mouths wide open in astonishment.  After the announcement I was jumping up and down.  I love missionary work, missionaries and the Gospel more then words can explain.  I cannot wait till I can serve a mission.  Now that the age is lower, I really want to make sure that I am as ready as I can be to serve a mission, so now is the time to keep preparing even harder! 

Later that evening I went to a Women's Walk during the priesthood session of conference where all of the women were invited to walk around campus to different buildings and watch Mormon Messages and videos similar to them.  It was very touching and spirit filled.  I am glad I went.  While I was there I met a super nice girl from Nigeria who is now 21 and excited to serve a mission.  Her and I shared a moment where neither of us could put into words the amount of love that we have for missionaries and for the Gospel.  I know she will do amazing on her mission!  

At some point  during the walk one of the videos hit me and I had another revelation of the week.  The video was full of women that you can only expect people to look up to. (of course the video topic had nothing to do with my revelation  but yea)  I realized that now that I am in Relief Society I have gone from being in the inspired shoes to the one that can be inspiring and that others can look up to.  It brought me to tears upon this realization, I can make a difference in this world, and now I am at the state and have the opportunities where I can change the world.  I want to be inspirational and make a difference and now I can do it.  I have realized that I am not a kid anymore.  This is sad but exciting, there have been a lot of good times in my past, but I am sure even more good times to come in my future, I just have to go out and find them.  I am excited for the prospects that my future holds! (but terrified at the same time...)  

Well that was a lot of words to basically say one thing, It has been a great week! 

After the final session of conference today we invited our family home evening brothers and one of our apartment's Home teachers (he was alone for the weekend) for homemade pizza.  It was a lot of fun and they are some pretty great guys! I am blessed to be at such an awesome place surrounded by such amazing and inspirational people. 

 I LOVE BEING A MORMON!!!!

Sorry there are no pictures this time guys,  pictures cannot describe emotions.  

Hi World,  It is Emily.

I just thought I would let you know that I am still alive.

I am at BYUI, apartment number 314 or 3.14 if you like pie.  My roommates are awesome, and my classes are not half bad either.

Idaho is pretty different then Virginia.
I looks very different:

Virginia trees!

Idaho Landscape

It feels different:  The change in elevation and distance from the ocean not only causes the land to be dryer, but there to be no humidity, thus super dry air.  These changes have messed with my nose and gums, my nose is always stuffed and my gums are sore.  My skin is also dryer.

The people are different:  As with anytime someone moves you get to see a different aspect of life.  There are people from all over; Africa, California, Alaska, Germany, Colorado, Nevada, Arizona, and Virginia! (Plus so many more!!)  These people all come with so many different backgrounds, experiences, and personalities, all with one thing in common we all believe in the same Gospel and the same Christ.  Now we are all  where each of our lives will turn a different direction.  There are so many different possibilities in life and I cannot wait to see what happens.

There are lots of boys: (And cute ones at that)  This campus is full of Men.  Tall, short, fit, funny, handsome, married, unmarried, we got them all.  We even witnessed someone get proposed to on the Saturday before classes started, and heard about another one.  I have also seen a ton of Return Missionaries, which by the way as furthered my desire to only marry an RM.  It also has made me REALLY want to serve a mission.  Especially a Spanish Mission!

The church is different: SIKE!!!!!!! The church is the same everywhere!!!  I go to church at 1 and have Relief Society first, then Sunday School, and then Sacrament meeting.  Our ward seems pretty awesome! We are one of the few Wards that has more boys then girls. YAY!  Our Family home evening group has 9 boys and 6 girls!  The FHE group is pretty fun.  Two of the guys came over and visited us one day and they were a lot of fun to hang out with.  I saw them while I was ushering for Devotional and they recognized me, but I don't think remembered my name. (Which is understandable because I stink at remembering names)  I saw one of them in the hallway and he punched me and said hi, so I guess he knows me. :)

There are a lot of things different about Idaho, but it is not bad.  However I still think that Virginia is the best!
Well I have to head to church! Ill write more later and put some more pictures up.

Spanish!

Hola familia y amigos,

Yo quiero escribir en espanol hoy.  Yo no pienso que me Espanol es perfecto, pero you quiero tratar.

Esto semana es la primera semana de escuela a La Universidad de Brigham Young en Idaho.  Esto lugar es lleno de possibilidades.  Yo empiezo mis clases in la manana.  Yo pienso que yo voy a tener un tiempo dificil a ir a mi clases porque yo no se donde esta los clases. Todo esta bien. :)

Family Vacation!

This year for our family vacation we decided to take some day trips.

This is how the events of the week took place.

 On our first day together we took a trip to the zoo:

We drove to the metro station, then took the metro into DC

Check out those two bear sloths

Didn't take a ton of pictures, but here is one of my favorites!

On our second day together Lydia wanted to go to splashdown, however the cost of splashdown for seven people seemed unaccomplish-able. So...

We built our own:

 Homemade slip and slide

complete with a pool...

and water guns!!!

We also took turns sitting on our homemade tree swing and throwing water at each other! It was fun!!









Our next adventure was rafting!!!

We took a trip down to the Shenandoah river in Front Royal and rented two rafts.

Between racing the other raft, getting stuck on shallow rocks, and losing paddles, half of the family ended up in the water. Some jumped in and swam, others fell in, and some were even pulled in. It was one of the most adventurist things that our family has done.

 This is the beautiful river we rafted down!










The office and paddle return

Life vests!!!!!!!

Our next part of the week we spent at home spending time with family and participating in events.

The girls went to a bridal shower one of the days, we went on a hike one of the days too, and we camped out in the back yard for three nights.  :) It was a lot of fun!!!!

Hike:
Those that wanted to, went on a hike to a water fall.  We never found the water fall...
We got lost, and taking direction from a hiker we decided to follow this road back to our car. just fyi, there was no sidewalks, we walked super close to the cars and thought we were going to die...

Camping:  looks totally like camping huh?  We have always like watching movies in the tent.
Can you guess what movie this is?
AGENT CODY BANKS!!

Today was a great day!

This has been one of he most pleasant Sundays that I have had in a while. Everything is just so peaceful and happy.  Everywhere I turned there have been smiles and joy.  At church today I received my Young Women medallion.  I have really enjoyed the young women program and have grown so much through out it.  I have had so many great leaders and have been surrounded by so many beautiful and inspiring young women. I did not realize until recently how much influence that I can have on these girls and the amount of influence they have had on me.  I will miss them dearly, and am so excited to see where they go in this world.  There is no other group of young women that I know of that can make as much of a difference in the world as these girls will.  

This church is so unbelievably amazing.  I cannot in words describe the joy that it makes me feel.  I know that the only way to truly be happy in this life is to stick to the teachings of the Gospel.

My friend also received her medallion today as well.  It is her last Sunday in our ward before she heads off to BYU.  I will miss her dearly. She has one of the strongest testimonies that I have ever seen, and will definitely do amazing things with her life.  I am sad to see her leave this week, but I know she will do amazingly.

When I was driving home from babysitting for the Bishop's wife, I was thinking about all of the fun I had just had with the three cute kids, and I was looking at the beautiful nature of Virginia, and the thought that came to mind, was that I am really going to miss this place.  I have had so many good memories here and have made so many good friends that I will never forget this place.  At the same time I also had a huge sense of peace, I knew that though life from now one will be different, it will be okay, and it will be good.

I am excited to start this new area of my life and I feel ready for it.  Young womens, church, family, school, seminary, leaders, and friends have prepared me.

One week from yesterday till I will leave on a plane to explore a new part of my life.

Here comes a grand new adventure!

-Emily Ward

CATAPULT!!!!!

Bet ya' didn't know that I built one of those.  Unless... you read my Moms blog, I think that there is a post about it and my house on her blog.

 Well...

This is my Catapult.  My partner Kat (Featured below) and I were the only girls in a class full of about 20 boys, so of course we named our catapult LAS CHICAS!   Kat is an amazing partner, she is on our schools winning robotics team, and is going to be an Engineer after college.

This is also in Mr. Schmitdke's class! We started off the project with researching the best ways to build a catapult, and all of components that a catapult entails.  We had to keep a daily journal of our progress, which in the end turned in to a required 10 page paper on the project.

Not to go into too much detail, the requirements were that it had to fit in a shoe box, we could only use the supplies given to us, and it had to be released with one hand.

 Ours was the smallest catapult in the class, not to brag, but it also looked cooler then everyone else.  Just kidding there were some pretty intense designs.  With the help of the teacher and the the internet we put in ample supports so that a drop would not break it.  The above video is a launch of the catapult. Its technical name is a penny launcher because that is what it launches, but either name works.  

The penny launcher was graded on two tests.  The first was accuracy.  

 We had to aim for the mug in the center of the bulls-eye.  You had ten shots where each shot landed was the grade that you got.  The final grade was an average of all ten shots.  Our launcher got the penny into the 9 circle nine of the ten times and the last time it landed in the ten circle.  It got pretty close nicking the cup the final time.  Out final grade was a 99% the highest grade that anyone has ever gotten. I believe the mug is 15 feet away from the launching spot.

The second grade was distance.  We had one day to make adjustments to the launcher and then we saw how far we could fling the penny. With our extra wood, since our catapult was so small, we made an extra long arm.  In a practice round our penny flung 40 feet after hitting the ceiling and the wall. During the graded three launches we didn't get it that far, but we still got 30ish feet, (because we put to many rubber bands on it and broke it, and the repairs didn't hold well.) :) Mr. Schmidtke took he furthest of the three launches.  It was a ton of fun to build and test and was amazing to see what we could do with it!    

One day I will have to show you the monster truck that we made in another one of Schmidtke's classes. :)hehe!

 Thanks for reading!

Architecture!!!! My Favorite!

In the past post I mentioned that I may major in Architecture, So I thought I would show you some of what I have done in my Architecture drafting and design class in High School.

 Meet my house!!!  My group and I were three people in a class of 6 students in a level two architecture class.  In the two second level classes there were I think 12 students total.

 Each group of students designed a house following certain guidelines.  We then built every component of the house on the AutoCADD program first, then used those designs as models for our 3D model.  The entire designing and building process took the entire school year.  With many mistakes, corrections, frustrations, changes, and perfections.

 From the pictures the house looks like one 'big' house, but it is actually three separate parts so that you can see the inside as well.  The siding and roofing also only covers the front and one side of the house so you can look into the house as well.





Look its a covered porch!

 After all of the designing, we built each wall starting with the first floor.  Then we built the floor of the first floor, following all building requirements and standards.  After connecting all the walls to the floor and making a ton of corrections and adjustments, that made the house a little less up to code, we had the first floor.

The first floor contains a kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, closet, and living room.  It is pretty open, but in the picture by where the roof part is the bedroom, the bathroom is right next to it.  The kitchen is in the back corner opposite of the stairs.  Out of your view is a spot for a sliding door into he back yard, (its near the stairs).

Every window, door, doorway, hallway, bathroom and stair is scaled to the normal measurements that a house has.

All together the house is a over 2,000 square feet.

Next we built the second floor.   This floor contains a master bedroom, bathroom, walk in closet, bedroom, bathroom, and linen closet.  Its pretty intense! We wanted our house to have character so my teammates Karol and Kat and I choose a T floor plan for the top of the house.







We built the stairs next!  Our teacher said ours were the best looking stairs he has ever seen from students.

 Next we built the basement.  It is made out of foam board, spray painted grey to look like a basement.  And of course we had to build another set of stairs.  Our teacher Mr. Schmidtke also told us that this was the best basement that he had ever seen.

Just a sidenote: Mr. Schmitdke is one of the best teachers that I have ever had.  I took one or more of his Engineering or Architecture classes each year of high school!  He owns and runs an alpaca farm, fixes up Jeeps, and designed the new front landscape for our school to beautify it.

 After all of that building we built the roof rafters and all, and completed the roofing and then the siding.  We worked on this project up to the very last day we could!  It turned out amazing.

Our group got the furthest on our house out of all the groups, had the coolest design (In our opinion), and did the highest quality work.  Mr. Schmidke was so impressed with our work and said the it was the best house that he had ever seen.  Since he liked is so much we decided to leave it for him to use as an example for years to come!

Some of the other completed houses
from students in our  level, my buddies
Vivian's and Jen's is the house to the
right and  another group's in my class is
 the one on the left.

This is Vivian and Kathryn. They have taken all of Mr. Schmidtke's classes with me.  They are Awesome!  Kat was my partner on my house and catapult, Vivian was my partners in past years, but wasn't in my class this year.  I have to find a picture of my other partner Karol for you, but yea these are some pretty awesome people!