Two years and not a day goes by.

I have this nifty ten year journal that tells me today is the eve of my Two-years-since-arriving-in-Texas (I'm always looking for cause for celebration). I only just figured that out this morning, but It's as if my inner self already knew that because I've been feeling all kinds of nostalgic symptoms this week. I'm telling you, mission references just find their way into my life!

Beaumont, TX found it's way into my casebook. Now, I didn't serve in Beaumont, but I drove through there plenty of times and it was actually the first city I knew about that was in my mission because a pre-mission coworker knew a family that lived there. Naturally, I had to highlight and commemorate the casebook reference in a special way.

We talked about Louisiana & Texas today in Property & my heart swelled with love and a yearning to go back.We talked about oil & gas rights and I could see the refineries in my mind. I remembered driving alongside Exxon Mobile at night in Baytown and how the refineries twinkled like a glistening city (& of course, today just so happened to be the first day I got called on in Property). I don't know if I'd say that I have Texas pride, but I do have a Texas shaped space in my heart.

I miss it.

All of it.

The way the humidity made my skin always feel damp, the way the refineries made the flames atop look like birthday cake candles, the way frogs and other trinkets lined the front lawns of the homes, the way people found a way to include y'all into every sentence, the way the rain poured like the sky could hardly contain it all.

My MTC Branch President also happened to call me during property (impeccable timing!) and asked if I would go over and visit with him. If you remember, this was one of the many great surprises of my mission, to discover that my MTC Branch President was from my hometown, and that his father had baptized my grandmother many years ago.

^^Pres. Tyler & I in the MTC^^

Visiting with him made me feel like I could conquer the world! We sat and chatted in a room that reminded me so much of Hna Hernandez's (Baytown) "Celestial Room" and Hno Pomeroy's living room. Speaking with him made me feel like I was talking to my grandfather and I felt so loved by my Father in Heaven because of it.

^^The best picture I have of Hna's Celestial room.^^

^^A glimpse of Hno. Pomeroy's living room^^

Heavenly Father is so involved in our lives! He is intimately concerned! He plans all these amazing details and works them in to the fabric of our lives. We are all more connected that we could possibly realize. I am sure of it.

Not a day goes by that I don't think about my mission.
I may or may not have texted every single one of my mission friends today because I was feeling so nostalgic about it all and maybe written a letter to a companion.
& I also kind of played my mission CDs.
& I may be listening to Kalai's A Pauper's Hymnal (One of my favorite mission CDs) right now, but you won't ever really know...

little surprises.

A little while ago I went to Salt Lake to take my abuela out on a "date" to get Mexican Paletas. The place I had originally wanted to go to was close so instead I walked down the strip of the Latino Mall in West Valley to get a few paletas from the market. 

Just as I was in line warning my cousins that they were this close to my not buying them an arroz con leche flavored popsicle, I noticed a guy looking my way in the background. I really couldn't tell who it was and I kind of just brushed it off till I noticed he was making his way towards my line.

Imagine my surprise when right before me stood a member from my second area from the mission! Out of all places to run in to someone! (actually, I guess a Mexican Market is a pretty good place to run into a Mexican–but in Utah!? Okay, so maybe Utah is a pretty good place to run into a Mexican Mormon, but still!!!)

I'm a big fan of the unexpected encounters Heavenly Father throws into my life every now and then. They make for such special little surprises and keep me in awe of how much planning goes into the little details of our lives.

Graham canyon.

#2 Eat a box of ice cream from the creamery

Being back at BYU means I can get back down to business
and work my way through my BYU Bucketlist.

& maybe I'm kind of cheating with this one. 

Because, I really can't finish one thing of BYU creamery ice cream by myself

and definitely not in one sitting.

Although, I'm kind of missing the old design of the boxes.

:(

I went to the creamery on 9th Friday night &

didn't realize that I was wearing a Texas shirt.

Well okay I knew I was wearing a Texas shirt,  I just forgot that it was a UT—Texas shirt as in  somehow forgetting that BYU was playing them this weekend. So, I you know just kind of showed up at the creamery in all my Texas glory.

oops!

good thing we won.

Oh & btw Graham Canyon is definitely my favorite flavor of BYU ice cream.

The description reads:

graham cracker flavored ice cream with graham swirl and honeycomb crunch.

delicious. 

also, the creamery has t-shirts for sale 

& I'm kind of tempted to get one...

labor day.

I got sick the first week of law school. Can you believe it!?! I had full on runny nose, body aches, mucus filled coughs—you get the idea. I was so grateful though that I got sick over a three day weekend. I had plenty of time to recuperate and be in sweats all weekend long.

Monday at around 1:30pm I had the impression to text my Tia Maria to ask if I could come over in a couple of weeks to visit. I almost fought the prompting off with the logic that I could just text her closer to the time I wanted to visit. I ended up texting her anyway...& I'm so grateful I did!

My Tia asked if I was in town, and said, "come have carne asada with us!"

Um. You NEVER turn down an invite for carne asada and all the Mexican goodness it entails. Needless to say within the hour I was driving my happy self to visit my family. My Tia jokingly said, "today we celebrate the labor of our people here in the U.S." We may or may not have talked about Cesar Chavez and the plight of the migrant farm workers before dinner.

Also, kind of funny we all had the same idea and went and saw Cantinflas over the weekend. If you haven't seen the film, do yourself a huge favor and go! It was so wonderful, and I'm not just saying that because I'm Mexican.

^^I always feel really at home when I see this sign.^^

^^My Tia gave me my birthday present, a new Mexican blouse and a wooden spoon. Tia said the spoon was so that I could start collecting for my future Mexican kitchen. :) ^^

Starting Again.

Coming back to school felt so different this time around, mostly because I feel different.

 I drove to school this time around whereas all my undergrad years I had strategically packed all of my belongings into Southwests' two baggage limit.My dad and I left home early one morning at around 4:30am, and I'll admit I was feeling a little apprehensive. I can trace the moment I started to get excited about moving back to Provo to when I saw this sign somewhere along 1-15 in Southern Utah.

This is home for the next year. 

It's been surprising how detached I am from main campus.

I don't know how to feel about that exactly?

Hna Duchene (we served together, but never really near each other) & I getting our keys for our carrels. Carrels are assigned study desks, but I really like to think of them of the grown up version of the lockers in High School.

Sometimes, we go to fancy pants events like the Founder's Day dinner at the Grand America Hotel in Salt Lake. Steve Young spoke this year, but the highlight of my night was definitely going up to say "hi" to Elder Dallin H. Oaks and Elder Callister. I was flustered throughout it all, and I couldn't tell you for the life of me what I said. I just hope whatever I said was somewhat coherent.

Everything about law school feels so right, and I am so grateful for the constant feelings of certification that I have had this week that I am exactly where I need to be. This is so very different from undergrad. Our 1L classes are assigned to us (this semester I have Torts, Legal Research & Writing, Property, Contracts, and two electives), much like high school. 

We're all placed into these sections of about 25 people for our Legal Research & Writing (LR&W) class and then we have all our classes with our section. Our professors like to say that our LR&W class is like our homeroom class, and they constantly are telling us that these people will become our best friends for the next three years.With how much time we spend with one  another, that's pretty easy to believe!