invaders...yikes!

Well I'm back in beautiful Provo, we traveled up on Saturday and it was a beautiful drive. It has been good to be back here and I've just been getting some things done here and there that I have been putting off for four months because I was too busy. My 18 yr old brother Ben has joined us up here for a couple...well an undetermined amount of time I guess you could say, so we have been playing too. Yesterday we went up to Temple Square to see the lights, today we went and bunilt a snowman. I think that was the first time that I have actually done that on my own, out of my own volition that is. It was quite enjoyable. And I must admit, it was a pretty good looking snowman. I've been working and am finishing up my hours as a late night chatter. Provo is pretty much empty. There were four of us, plus Ben, on church on Sunday that belong in the ward. We joked that night as we had dinner together that we were at a ward party with 100% attendance. wahaha, we're so funny. Being that nobody is around, it makes for a beautifully quiet household, but at the same time, at night, when you go to go to sleep, it is a little bit eery. That first Saturday night I was quite scared, I kept hearing footsteps. I was relieved the next day to see one of the girls who lives upstairs at church. Sunday night started off great, until about 8:30 Monday morning when I awoke to men's voices in my apartment, and then my door began to open. Good thing was that it was just the maintenance men putting our furniture up so that the carpet cleaners could do their duty(relatively speaking, I guess it depends on what you define a clean carpet as...). However Monday night was way a lot more scary. I wasn't feeling great and so I went to bed about 9:30. I slept quite restlessly because I couldn't breathe and at about 11pm my bedroom door swang...swung...well it opened. I could hear, again, men's voices. I sat up quite hurriedly to see a girl I've never seen before standing in the door. She was just about as surprised to see me as I was her. It was one of our new Brazilian roommates who was just dropping her stuff off before she left out of town again for a couple days. Needless to say, I looked quite attractive, my hair was everywhere, I'd been sweating, my make-up down my face. Yes attractive is the right word. Anyway, I'm curious to know who will drop in tonight...I guess we'll see. It's good to be back here though :)

Running with Dogs

So, one thing that I was very excited about with coming home for Christmas was that it was going to be warm, and I could run outside without losing a lung or two. Of course I didn't go running on Sunday, but yesterday, after washing our car that looked like it'd been through quite a battle(even though it was cleaned right before our trip south), I enlisted my twelve year old brother Mike to come for a jog with me. He suggested that we take our dogs with us. We've had this one dog, Patch, for years and years, I knew that that wasn't going to be hard at all to go with Patch. However, our other dog Muffy, or Muff, she's a beast. I'm not even sure what kind of dog she is. My family got her when I was on the mission, but she's big...I think a husky and german shepherd or something like that. So off we went. I decided that the lower altitude also brings with it a greater pull of gravity, that or I have gained weight in the last couple days because it was sure hard to get those legs a moving. I pretty much looked ridiculous. That's all there was to it. Here was the dog pulling me, more like dragging me down the street. After about a mile of being dragged...drug...whatever...down the street I finally got the dog to go a little more my pace. I decided that I probably won't ever run with dogs again...but running in Mesa is a pretty happy thing. Something that you can't really enjoy in Provo is being able to see forever because of the mountains. I love being able to see all of the sky and the sunrise this morning was gorgeous and then some. Oh happy happy Mesa.

A Sandwich and Smarties

Who knew that three years after an event, my choice to do the right thing would pay off like it did today. Certainly I did not. But it did. Today was rather a crazy day, I didn't feel excellent this morning, so I sat on my bed and did chats from home instead of going into work. I started at ten, chatted until one, but then I had a project to do, so I stayed in the same spot for another two and a half hours. So after being stationary upon my bed, cuddled against the wall like I normally do for five and a half hours, I headed up to campus to print my paper and copy something that I needed to turn in with it. I decided today a new pet peeve I have. I went through the library looking for a computer that I could use for a mere three minutes. Alas, there were none. And yet I saw person after person wasting time, one person was basically asleep listening to music on the computer that I could be using to print my paper on. A few were playing random dumb internet games. Or scanning good ol' facebook. It was dumb. So after a half hour of looking for a computer, I found one. So I printed it. Then I walked over to use the copier, and it was dumb too. This was when my pay back happened. I was headed north in the library toward the no-shhh zone looking for anotehr copier when someone came running up behind me yelling(in an appropriate library sort of way) "hey!". I turned around to find a guy and a girl both holding a plastic grocery bag. Our conversation went something like this: Girl: (with the words coming ou between breaths, they had run to catch up to me...that or she was really out of shape, but I don't think that was the case...) "hey did you used to work at the MTC???" Me: "Um...yes, well I still do, but yes..." Girl: "Yeah! You used to swipe my card!" Me: "Uh, yeah yeah that was me, I would have done that."(all the while the guy is standing smiling on, and I'm thinking "why on earth does this girl remember me like this") Girl: "Yeah! My companion and I used to always forget our cards and you would make us go back to get them. At the end of our stay at the MTC we took a picture with you! What's your name?" "Melanie...Melanie Merrill" "okay! Great, now I can put it in my scrapbook with your picture"....("I'm in your scrapbook?!?")I chatted with them some more, but they were handing out pb&j's to people and smarties and wishing them luck on their finals. While many were getting them, I surely wouldn't have ever seen the two if it hadn't been for me sticking to those rules at the MTC many years ago so that this girl would remember me and come running after me...how odd...so I went to find another copier, it was broken. So I found another one. It had a line. The girls at the front of the line surely didn't know what they were doing. They took ages. Then the next guy was kind of confused too, so I helped him, sort of :). And then I made my copies. Then the staplers were all broken...Needless to say, I got my final turned in just fine. Quite a crazy experience though there in that library. You can never know what'll happen in the HBLL....

For the Beauty...

Tonight it was incredible. We went as a ward up to Spring Haven, it was a lot of fun and I enjoyed talking to a few people that I never really have before. Two of my favorite parts of the escapade up the canyon were going on a night walk by myself, and then driving down the canyon talking about Christmas memories with the girls in my car. They are all really neat girls in the ward and it was fun getting to know them better and hear about the traditions that they have with their families. One of my favorite things is actually talking to people about their lives and learning about where they came from and why they are the way that they are. It never ceases to amaze me the neat stories and memories that everyone has. They are always so interesting to me. So that was fun hearing about their memories and traditions. As for my night walk. It was kind of cold outside, so it was a brief night walk, but it was a good one. I walked out in front of the lodge/cabin/monstrosity of a building, by the pond that had swans in it. They were very graceful and beautiful. I thought that sure that was freezing for them in there, but I suppose they didn't mind it. I love nature at night. Is that a weird statement? I love the quiet peace, looking up at the cold sky and the moon shining through the clouds. I love the way that the moon lights up the snow covered mountains and the way the trees look. It was just beautiful. And the goodness of my Father filled my heart with His love.
Today I was walking to work and it started to snow. It reminded me of tracting in the snow. It was pretty fun, I miss that. The falling of snow has the same effect as the nighttime, that quiet peace. Just my companion and I walking down the road knocking door after door of empty vacation homes :) and then every five or so we'd have the opportunity to bear testimony of the restored gospel and feel the Spirit with that person, and all the empty houses were worth it.
So there are some of my thoughts today. It was a happy beautiful day.

a strange thing...

So this morning when I woke up...I felt like dressing up...as in I had a strange yearning come from somewhere inside to wear clothes that weren't just my jeans and a t-shirt. The weirder thing than actually feeling that way is that I acted on those feelings. When I got ready this morning, I put on some slacks and a nice red long sleeve shirt...that wasn't even button up, that wasn't from the mission. And some dress shoes, and I even went into public that way. This is truly a miracle season, things are just happening everywhere. Oh my life.

Post #3

Today was pretty much a good day, so I thought I'd write about it. It was fun because I got to spend a couple hours with an old old friend. I didn't know that I'd get to spend that much time with her, but I did, so that was happy. We just chatted it up for a bit, and then we went to the grocery store. That was a really wonderful thing because I pretty much was out of all food altogether. That makes it difficult to eat, so we went to the store. I actually got to save 75 cents on my milk, and that was happy too :) So then afterward, we went to Wendy's to grab so grub. We had ordered the food and were pulling up to the window and I was in the process of handing my card to the cashier when instead I hit the top of my window, and the card flew out of my hand down onto the parking lot. Oh dear. So I was pretty close to the building, but I took of my seat belt and cracked my door open to see if I could see it, nope, the cashier woman was laughing at me, so then I kind of stood up but got stuck in an awkward position of having my head out the window and I couldn't open the door any more, it was pretty funny, so I had to rewind my actions, and then open the door as much as I could, get out of the car, close the door and then pick up my card and give it to the cashier woman. We were laughing pretty hard. It was a good game.
That's pretty much it, I mean, there were other parts to my day, and I found them fun and interesting and great, but I don't know that I'll put them here now :) So that's it for now, over and out.