Living the Wild Life

Prepare yourselves. I'm about to post some wild pictures of:

• a potholder
• a puzzle
• a binder
• a baptism 

Haha. As you can tell by what I take pictures of, I am a pretty cool cat. Let me tell you why:

This weekend (after some deep-fried foods, Keith Urban, and watching bull riding at the Houston Rodeo....there, covered that in a parentheses) at our ward chili cook-off I won 2nd place for the apple crisp I made and I won this awesome prize to always remember our awesome Texas ward. The activity also included cornbread and chili cooking contests, line dancing, jalapeno and pie eating contests, and everyone dressed in their Texas getup. Seriously the greatest ward with the greatest missionaries.....who were the ones to judge my dessert 2nd best.

 I finally finished this beautifully difficult puzzle! And by finally I mean...after less than two weeks of working on it almost entirely alone. I definitely devoted too many hours a day to working on this because I definitely think I have an addiction to a puzzle once I start it. Or just a phobia of getting to the end and missing a piece. Now to roll it up on my "puzzle mat" or glue it with my "puzzle glue." I really like puzzles....

 So I committed myself to my first "project-per-week-until-we-move-so-I-feel-fulfilled-with-how-I-spend-my-free-time" project this past week, and that was to put together an "important documents binder" of all mine and James' most powerful paperwork. See how fat it is? If I took a picture of the inside then you'd know our SS#s and bank accounts, so no, you can just behold its lovely green shell and delight in the fatness of its alphabetized and tabular innards.

In case you're curious or decide to make one yourself to clear out the drawers, shoe boxes, and bins of must-save paperwork I used the following tabs:

1. Bank
2. Car
3. Housing
4. Identification
5. Medical
6. Receipts
7. School
8. Taxes
9. Work
10. Misc.

This coming week my projects will involve developing a few talents that I don't currently have, namely, being "pinterest crafty" in making a spring wreath and learning to sew...something easy of course...like a RICE BAG for starters. I admire those who create lovely things that beautify their homes, but it seems I'm very cheap when it comes to some things and I'm also very overwhelmed walking into a place like Hobby Lobby because I want to try everything and don't know where to start and then I don't want to spend the money so I leave empty-handed. But not this week! Also, James bought me a sewing machine for Christmas and I was so thrilled about it but I haven't even used it yet. Again, because when I walk into a place like JoAnns I feel overwhelmed. And again I say, not this week!

As a more meaty appendage to this flimsy post about recent "stuffs", James and I really did have a memorable experience this past Saturday.

We were able to participate in the baptismal service of our ward's newest convert, Haribel! It was so exciting to us personally because Haribel has been taught by several sets of sister missionaries over the past 10 months since we've lived here and we've been involved throughout the process. I was honored to give a talk at the baptism and Haribel asked James to perform the baptismal ordinance. Both made us feel like missionaries again. :) The next day James got to stand in the circle as Haribel was confirmed. We caught Haribel paying his tithing only moments after he was baptized and the ward just seemed to envelope him in love yesterday at church. And James gave him a tie, which I thought was sweet. :)  We want to be better member missionaries and even though we helped some with Haribel, there's so much more we could have done and can do. We love our missionaries and are so grateful for how the gospel blesses both our lives and others'!

I totally meant to get that person's hand and camera in my picture.