Another big long post... Enjoy!

It's time again for one of my updates...

I had a pretty stressful week right before tour. On Monday I had my math final, which I already wrote about. Then I had to do my final project for English. Have I ever expressed how much I HATE group work? Once again I got stuck doing the ENTIRE project myself. This was worth 40% of our grade. So basically, my whole group would be taking English 2010 again this semester if it weren't for me. INGRATOS! So, knowing that none of them would do any work, I volunteered to build our group's website. Well, if that weren't stressful enough, I CRASHED MY COMPUTER!!! (Moral of the story : Don't download free music or software!) So I had to borrow Sammi's laptop in order to do it. I was up until 3:00 AM for three nights in a row. I spent hours and hours on it. BUT the good news is, I got 100% and therefore an 'A' in English. AND, I never have to take another English class for the rest of my life!!! That's the happy ending to this story.

Ok, so also, we went on tour. It was really great, but at times it was super stressful also. I guess the hardest part was this... Mary was really stressed and having a hard time because she had worked so hard on the housing assignments so that everyone would have a chance to room with different people. Then in almost every city we stayed in, the housing coordinator had ALSO put together a list of who would room with who. The problem was, it ended up being the same people EVERY night. She felt really bad about it, and was really bummed out a lot of the time. It was tough, because I would try my best to cheer her up with my dumb jokes, but I couldn't do it. And for me, that was REALLY hard. I just feel like I'm SUPPOSED to be able to make her happy, and a lot of the time, I can. So I just felt like I needed to do something, and yet I felt like there was nothing I could do. It sucked. I hate it when she's unhappy.

We had some really cool experiences on tour. The people who allowed us do stay in their homes were SO awesome. I think the most spiritual experience for me was at Martin's Cove. All day I was just thinking about the pioneers and their struggles and their faith and courage. They truly were remarkable. I'm not gonna lie, I did my fair share of crying. I will always be grateful for the sacrifices they made so that the church could prosper and grow and become what it is today. I feel like this show really helped me connect with them, and at least have a greater appreciation for what they did.

I'm so glad that I could be in Encore. It was tough sometimes, but I wouldn't trade a minute of it. Of course, the main reason I'm so glad I did Encore was because that's how I met my Mary girl, who I love with all my heart. I was hesitant at first when Gwen wanted me to join, but clearly Heavenly Father knew better than I did. It was His plan all along.