And thats a wrap...

Update 5/1/11 : Today we had the first stake conference of the Holladay YSA Stake.  I now know that my ward is the Winmill YSA Ward with Dwight Day as the bishop.  Its official!  Let's hope its just as good as the H3O was! :)


Well my friends, the words were spoken and I am officially part of a new ward.  I don't know the name of the ward yet, but I do know I am no longer a member of the Holladay 30th YSA Ward.  In fact, the 30th ward ceased to exist as of 19 hours ago.

Last night, I attended a big YSA Reorganization meeting held at the Conference Center downtown.  Elder M. Russell Ballard presided over the meeting and great words were spoken by leaders of our church.

The reorganization is as follows:
All university wards = disbanded
All YSA wards in conventional stakes = removed
12 New YSA Stakes = created
121 New YSA wards = created

Boundaries for the new wards will overlap with conventional family stakes for ease of transition, but will be part of a greater stake consisting of 10-12 YSA wards each. 

While I'm not yet sure to which ward I belong, I did learn that I will be part of the new Salt Lake Holladay YSA Stake, which will have 11 wards of about 150-200 members each.  This coming Sunday we will meet as a stake.  We will sustain our new stake leaders and will learn of our new ward boundaries and leadership.

The Bretheren shared many good things with us last night.  Elder Balland reminded us of our 9th Article of Faith which says,

We believe all that God has revealed,

all that He does now reveal,

and we believe that He will yet reveal

many great and important things

pertaining to the Kingdom of God.

We are part of that third line... "and we believe that He will yet reveal"...  This change comes not as a 'good idea' someone just had, but as direct revelation given to us through the Lord's prophet, Thomas S. Monson.  We are experiencing a great change that for some will be difficult, for others it couldn't have come soon enough.  I'm somewhere in the middle.  I enjoy meeting new people and making new friends, plus the idea of having a new calling is always good.  But, I made a lot of really good friends in the 30th ward. I hope to keep in touch with many of them.

Elder Ballard left us with a challenge.  Part the of the reasoning behind this change is to help this age group to avoid getting lost.  His challenge to us is to find someone in our boundaries that we can fellowship into/back into the church before the end of the year.  While marrige is an obvious topic of discussion when it comes to my age group, I am extremely impressed by the concern for the spiritual well-being of each indivudual, married or not.

But don't worry.  He did push marriage too. :)

Weekend Projects

Spring must be peeking through the ground because I have the project itch!

I am by no means the crafty project kinda girl.  Instead, I get excited about organizing, cleaning, and de-cluttering.  These are MY kind of projects!

First objective: clear out things I no longer want or use
I consistently clean out my closet of clothes that I can give up.  My sisters love this habit!  But this time it was for 'stuff'.'  I have a whole list of things to sell on KSL.com and anything not sold by the end of next week will go to the D.I.  And already today, two things sold! 

Second objective: organize
I don't function at full capacity when my life is unorganized.  I crave order!  The last two years have been a little hectic in my room as I tackle the space and organize everything piece by piece.  My necklaces have especially been a bother to me lately.  I found a great idea to organize them, but it is just more time and effort than I really want to do.  So here's what I actually did!

Small 3M hooks were an excellent choice!

Third objective: make my home more 'me'
When I first moved into my house, my landlord asked that we not put any curtain rods up that have to be screwed in.  If we wanted to do the pressure kind (like shower rods) then that would be fine.  Minor detail...the blinds take up most the space in the window frame.  Well this week at work, I stumbled upon a fantastic solution!  Large 3M hooks to hold a slim curtain rod.  I cannot even describe the difference this makes in my room!  I feel like the room is finally a bedroom!

3M makes some great decorative hooks that I'm not embarrassed to have visible.  So perfect!

Fourth object: finish cleaning my room, purging/selling my 'stuff', and making my home more 'me'
Oh, and I should probably start planning my Sunday School lesson for this Sunday.  Might be a good idea!


Happy Spring Cleaning to you all!

Change

I'm anticipating a HUGE disruption in my social life. 

For those of you not in Salt Lake City (even more specifically the single's scene in Salt Lake City) you probably have not heard of the change that is coming.  Oh but I have.  In fact, it affects me directly.

There has been talk for the last year or so of disbanding all the university wards and making those members go back to their respective geographical single's ward.  But this is even bigger.  They will be completely upheaving the scene here!  You can read a little more in this article.

So how does this affect me?

I've been attending the Hollday 30th Ward for the past 3+ years.  I love it.  I know everyone.  All my friends are here.  The bishopric is fantastic.  This is where I served as Relief Society President for more than 2 years.  I am very involved in everything.  It feels like my home.  And the icing on the cake here is that the building is down the street from my parents' home so its an easy shot to Sunday dinners, a short walk even.  But I technically don't live in the boundaries anymore and haven't for the majority of my time in the ward. 

Come May something, I will be kindly sent on my way to a new ward.  It will probably end up a good thing and will force me to break out and make new friends again, but things were just getting good again in the H30!  I've made so many more new friends the last couple months and I'm loving it!  I know what is going on in the ward and people know me.  They often come to me to find out what's happening.  They know about my mom's cancer and fasted for her in 2008 when she was rediagnosed.  I know of their trials and we're all there for each other.  We support each other.  We trust each other.  We have become each other's family.

I'm sad to leave this ward soon.  I know the Church only does things that make sense, and after having been in a leadership position for 2 years I can fully appreciate these efforts.  They will make a difference.  I just wish I wasn't affected by it. 

 It will be a very bittersweet May.

Phuket, Thailand - Part 2

Elephants

Why would you not want to ride one when in Southeast Asia?  I just can't imagine!  Our first evening in Thailand, Sarah and I booked a great little 4-in-1 Elephant Trekking Tour with the hotel concierge.  Just like the fish spa in Malaysia, riding an elephant was the one thing I just had to do in Thailand. 

So we did.

The first thing I noticed on the tour was how green everything was!  Staying on the beach has its perks with the water and all, but it lacked the same intensity of foliage that we saw in Kuala Lumpur.  Going a little further inland in Thailand, we found it!

First stop on the tour, riding an Asian Elephant through the mountain jungle.  Quiet, peaceful, and oh so bumpy! Note: I was actually trying to hold the camera still

We rode through the jungle and up to some beautiful overlooks.  We could even see the famous Big Buddah.  Thank goodness for awesome zoom on my camera!



We have some awesome looking hair, right? Haha



The most gorgeous overlook!

Big Buddah's head

Big Buddah on top of the mountain.  Do you realize how big it is?

Me with the elephant we rode and the elephant trainer

The second stop of the tour was a baby elephant show.  They did some fun things like paint, play harmonicas, kick soccer balls, and I even got to feed them (unfortunately no pics from that because I was obviously busy feeding...)

Third stop was a rubber demonstration.  Rubber trees grow mostly in Southeast Asia, so companies, like Latex, produce most of their rubber here.  They showed us how they cut the trees and collect the rubber, much like sap.  Then they soak it and press it and stretch it.  Then it is sent to the factory for further processing.

The last stop was a food demonstration.  

We saw many different things.  Coconuts and their many uses: coconut water, shredded coconut, coconut milk, and coconut oil. 

Rice: fields, plowing with water buffaloes (which included a ride), and separating the rice

Curry: how they make it, the ingredients, and a delicious taste of the fresh curry

Our tour guide topped it off with Thai coconut pancakes.  These were delicious!  I've already tried to replicate them back at home.  I'm not sure if it was the recipe, the elevation, or simply the cook, but it'll take a while to really master them.  They were just so good. I still crave them!

Well that concludes Thailand!  There are many more stories, but too much to post to the blog.  Just ask me about it sometime.

xoxo

Rachel

Phuket, Thailand - Part 1

I'm back blogging about another part of my last vacation - Phuket, Thailand.

For those who don't know their Southeast Asia geography (which I assume is most because I didn't either before I went there) Thailand is north of Malaysia, about a one hour flight.  Which means...
Sarah and I took a 3 day trip to the beach!  It was beautiful!

When we first arrived in Phuket, we took our pre-arranged ride (best decision ever) to Patong Bay.  The heat in Phuket was surprisingly worse than in Kuala Lumpur.  I think it may have something to do with the lack of rain for the few days prior to when we arrived.  We almost immediately went to our hotel room and changed into our swimsuits, not to change out of them the rest of our stay in Phuket except to sleep at night.

And so it was.  We were on the beach!

dinner on the beach

Breakfast at the hotel, looking over the beach

Each day we headed to the beach.  They beaches are lined with chairs and the sweet Thai men who manage them.  You pay a few bucks to reserve your chair for the day and the Thai men make sure you are well taken care of... beach towel, moving the umbrella to actually block the sun, opening & closing the umbrella for you... you get the picture.

We bought our spots right in the front, pulled out our books, sunglasses, and sun block and settled in for a beautiful day!

Sarah took her camera out to the water because it was so calm.  This is what she saw looking back.  Me, relaxing with a book!

Walking the Beach

 At night, we liked to walk the beach, listening to the music from all the beach clubs.  Thai women were selling paper lanterns, just like the ones in the movie Tangled.  Our second night in Thailand, Sarah and I gave in and bought our own lanterns.  We sent them floating over Patong Bay with a wish.

this was our daily lunch - tasty spring rolls!

crazy Thai power lines.  This pic doesn't even do it justice!

Everyone jets around on these little motor bikes

Many beautiful sites in Thailand

Thailand trip to be continued...
think elephants  :)

Updating Blogger

I've been really frustrated with Blogger recently.  A couple years ago, I created a Gmail address.  I  occasionally try to update my blog account to my gmail account so I can be logged into both Blogger and Gmail concurrently, but for some strange reason, it has never allowed me to associate my gmail account to my google account that holds Blogger.  Lame, right?

So yesterday I did a little research and figured out how to move the admin of my blog from one google account to another google account.  One user account, here I come!

Only, now I have another problem.  To all my friends who have private blogs, I can no longer view your blog without logging in under the old google account.  If would all be so kind as to re-invite me to your blog with my new email, that would be splendid!  The correct email is now rachel.keddington@gmail.com

Thanks to you all!

xoxo
Rachel

Marshmallow Madness

A couple weeks ago, my friend and I decided to hijack FHE and do something way out of the ordinary.  Hijack may be the wrong word because we totally had permission, but neither one of us is on the committee so it was a little unusual.   Anyway, we played a little game we like to call...

Marshmallow Madness

2 people per team

21 teams

4 bags of mini mallows

2 point & 3 point lines

brackets

trophies

It was awesome!  Watch here to see the fun!

Special thanks to my friend, Robert, who works for KSL.com and likes to make cool videos. :)