building muscles?

So these last few months have been some of the best, the hardest, the times where I am gripping so tight cause I just want to get through this, the times where I have never had a greater man in my life, everything has just been an absolute whirlwind, I'm not gonna lie, sometimes real life is harder than the mission, and I just don't know! Well last night me and my roomies were super excited to go to family home evening. Why you ask? Well cause our family is absolutly the best family I have ever been in, in my life! Everyone has their own quarks and we love each and everyone of them. Well, Jacob, one of our brothers shared an absolutly amazing lesson, I was seriously near tears he talked about how his family had a garden and somehow they were growing a raspberry bush and his mom would trim it down a whole heap, and how it would make it grow stronger when you would cut it down. Well, then he shared another story about how he felt cut down but how it helped him to grow stronger. He then shared part of Elder Eyring's talk from General conference,

It is like building muscle strength. You must break down your muscles to build them up. You push muscles to the point of exhaustion. Then they repair themselves, and they develop greater strength. Increased spiritual strength is a gift from God which He can give when we push in His service to our limits. Through the power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ, our natures can be changed. Then our power to carry burdens can be increased more than enough to compensate for the increased service we will be asked to give.
That helps me understand when I see someone else who makes it look easy. I know that they have either passed hard tests or that the tests lie ahead. So rather than envying them, I stand ready to help when the going gets harder for them, because it surely will.

Wow, that really struck me, it was really what I needed. This time is just another trying time for me another time for me to grow. Everytime I go through trials I try to think of it that way but sometimes you just need someone else to tell you.

Mason Jars?

So wedding plans have been an ongoing battle, not so much with Derek, the only thing he has really had an opinion is about the budget, and that we dont't go over it. He also said that he wasn't wearing a pink tie, but guess what, he is. But he was the one who found the amazing pink and green tie. But the true battle has been with my sister, for the most part if I want somehting she'll make it happen. But the biggest uphill battle of my life is mason jars, kinda random I know. But I don't know why, but I really want mason jars, I wanted to originally use them as cups, but then I continued the idea, I want to use them as centerpieces, I really wanted to have mason jars with candles in them on the table having the illusion of fireflies, but guess what you can't have candles in the stake center, go figure. So I have resorted to mason jars with flowers, and then at the entry way mason jars hanging with candles in them. So what do you think? Steph says it sounds like I want to go canning afterward. But I am going for the a country time lemonade comercial.

Wedding dress

These are just a few of the dresses that I got to try on...

But this is the one we bought,

there was just something about it,

I new it was mine. The scary part is

that I didn't even get to try it on...