Friday.

(: I got a letter today :)

Elder Vaughn is doing sooo good. It is crazy to see how quickly his testimony is growing. He LOVES being a missionary and he and his companion are having a lot of success. This past Saturday they just had two more baptisms!!

The experiences that he tells me about through his letters teach me so much.

...Taking time to pray and listen to the promptings of the spirit can work wonders...Being bold and bearing your testimony when you don't know what else to say can make the biggest difference...Finding humor in the small things can make a bad day turn around for the better...You never know how much of an impact a simple smile can have on someone...

I love it. I love letters. I love Friday's. I love p-day's. I love e-mail's. I love missionaries...one in particular :)

thank goodness

What a day. It started out great. I love going to institute on campus. I can't think of a better way to start off the day. Work was good. Class was even great...I made a 100 on my first quiz in Earth Science :). My home teachers gave an amazing spiritual thought. Dinner was delicious (thanks to me and Carly...but mostly Carly). The movie that we watched was really funny. Good day, right?

Right, it was a great day. But I think I've gotten into a bad habit. After I am done with everything for the day I come to my room and sit on my bed and just think. Instead of thinking about all of the great things about my day I think about the things that maybe weren't so great. Like tonight for instance, (I'm going to warn you that this might not make any sense) I have been sitting here thinking about something that is going on my life right now and it FRUSTRATING! On top of that, I think about how I can never keep my room clean, I never get enough sleep, I never finish my homework on time, I don't read enough, I don't write in my journal enough....there are so many things that I don't do as well as I should and it frustrates me.

Thank goodness for the sister missionaries (and all missionaries for that matter :) They were here for dinner the other night and they shared the scripture Mosiah 4:27

"And see that all things are done in wisdom and order; for it is not requisite that a man should run faster than he has strength. And again, it is expedient that he should be diligent, that thereby he might win the prize; therefore, all things must be done in order."

When the sisters shared that scripture they had us commit to making a list of our priorities in life. So I did. Surprisingly, all of the things that have made me so frustrated lately, aren't on that list. I know that I need to improve on those things...I have a lot of things to improve on, but instead of worrying about little things that don't make much difference one way or the other I'm going to start concentrating on my list of important things :)

And I'm definitely not going to run faster than I have strength...I don't think that's possible anyways. :)

Beautiful Day...

It is such a beautiful day. Sixty degrees, very windy, and the sun is shining bright.

On days like this, it's easy to get out of bed...it's nice to walk around campus and feel the warm sun...it's awesome to be able to ride down the road with the windows down and the music up loud. I love days like this :)

Life is good.

I have an amazing family.

I find humor in very, very simple things (for example the sonic commercials).

I have a pretty amazing future ahead of me.

I laugh a lot.

I know the truth.

I don't have classes on Friday's.

In my personal opinion, I have the best boyfriend in the world...aww :)

I have clothes to wear, food to eat and a house to live in.

I get pretty great e-mails every Monday and letters every Friday.

I know people that give the best hugs in the world.

and many more...

Crazy little thing called LOVE.

One week and one day ago my family received a precious little miracle by the name of Caiden Brian Starnes. While my family was busy at the hospital, I stayed home for a little while with my brothers and we worked on cleaning up the house a little bit. I was about to walk out the door to head back to the hospital and my little brother, Dylan told me to wait a second because he wanted to write Haley a note. The note took all of about 15 seconds for him to write, but the two sentences that he wrote meant so much.

Dear Haley,

I just wanted to tell you that I love you. I know sometimes it seems like I don't, but I really do...I love Caiden too."

Love, Dylan

This little gesture of love meant so much to me and it taught me a lot about the love of a family. Love should be spoken and expressed often and I'm so glad that in my family, it is.

good attitude

School starts today!

That was my attempt at having a good attitude about it. I think it's pretty obvious to people that know me that school is not my favorite thing...not even close. It was so hard to leave home after a long Christmas break of spending time with my family and not having to worry about anything but them. A couple days ago we got a sweet new addition to our family so that made it even harder to leave. Bless my heart :) But on the bright side, when I'm in school the time seems to go by faster and for me that's a good thing for the time being. So I suppose that I'll just suck it up for now and push through. But I do miss home, my family, baby Caiden and no school work. But from here on out I'm going to work on having a good attitude about school, or I will at least start wanting to have a good attitude about school.

...baby steps.

update!

We got a package from Willie yesterday and it had his memory card in it with some great pictures! Transfers are this week so he is pretty anxious to find out if he will be moving to a different area. He is still doing great and loves being a missionary. :)

In the MTC the sisters in his district drew him as a superhero.

This was in the first package that I sent him

This is kind of funny. Willie spent the last couple of months before he left home trying to grow his hair out because people kept telling him that he needed a part. Then, the day he got to the MTC they cut his hair (really short) and then used a shop vac on his head...he thought that was so weird.

He misses home :(

But loves where he's going :)

I'm not sure who the two other guys are...but I just love this picture.

Finally in San Diego

Willie and his trainer, Elder McCormick

First visit to the San Diego temple...this is one of my favorite pictures.

:)