Apostles, Prophets & Dinner Parties

Yes, I know, it's been 3 weeks since my last blog post. The last 7 weeks have been a very hard period of sicknesses, one after another. I've gone to 3 doctors and taken 5 different medicines (more than I've taken in my whole life!), gotten 3 Priesthood blessings, missed dozens of social activities, etc. etc. Every time I think I'm getting better, I go out and do stuff, then get sicker. Apparently, I don't know how to rest because I have F.O.M.O. (Fear of Missing Out)! It's a bigger problem than I thought because I'm sure I would've healed sooner if I would just slow down long enough for my body to recover.

But lest you think post is a Linda pity party...you are wrong! I'm an optimist by nature (and by faith). The Lord has been really patient with me, granted me many tender mercies, given me opportunities to serve (i.e. blind man), strengthened me to go to work/school, allowed me to deepen relationships, and helped me magnify my faith. I don't know when this trial will be entirely over, but I'm determined to learn all the lessons I'm supposed to and come out a better person.

I haven't been out on the town as usual but I'm grateful I still had opportunities to socialize! I've been really touched by the friends & family who are continually visiting and checking up on me. There's also been this funny pattern of dinner party, church conference, dinner party, church conference...

Dinner Party #1: Mariaby's (roommate) Birthday

We had tacos

She also got engaged that weekend - what a great birthday!

Roommies plus some

Conference #1: General Conference!!!
This is our twice-yearly worldwide Church broadcast from Salt Lake City - 10 hours of glorious prophetic revelation. It is a big deal for Mormons. We get pretty dang excited about it :)

Funny story - On Saturday, I walked to the Church building with a stack of music books, planning to play piano in between sessions. But no one had unlocked the building! People who had come in cars started speeding off and I didn't know what to do because I knew I would miss the beginning of Conference if I walked home. Luckily, Jason, who lives 2 blocks away, came to watch it at the church building too and said we could follow him to watch it at his house. So that's how it ended up with me and 5 guys haha!

It turned out that Tyler has a nice keyboard, so I stayed to play afterwards and watched the afternoon session there too. I got to watch the Sunday morning session at home with my roommates and the afternoon session at the Church building.

My 3 favorite talks/messages were from the members of the First Presidency:

Thomas S. Monson (president) - focus on the blessings instead of dwelling on the negative, be grateful and optimistic
Henry B. Eyring (1st counselor) - when we have faith, we'll have trials of faith, and then even stronger faith if we endure it well
Dieter F. Uchtdorf (2nd counselor) - don't let our external circumstances determine our happiness; choose to be happy now

Read/watch/listen for yourself! :)

Dinner Party #2: Friend Exchange (I just made up that name ha)
My roommates and I invited friends the other roommates didn't know.

"Funny picture"

Played a few games afterwards, including this fun awkward staring game called "Ooga Booga"

Leslie performed some gymnastics for us before she left (we met on our high school gymnastics team but I never did competitive club gymnastics like she did)!

Conference #2: Stake Conference (local version of General Conference)
Got to watch it with my visiting teachees, and Michelle :)

Favorite message: the world is telling us to be complacent being ourselves; God tells us to become more like Christ.

I also happened to cook alot during my "rest" period.
Turkey meatballs in cream of chicken with broccoli & cauliflower

Chicken sausage w/ zucchini & mushrooms

...w/ spaghetti sauce

Hoo Roo Rook w/ mushrooms & green onion

Curry shrimp w/ onions & green peppers

...and started my fall/winter shopping. Purse - check. Boots - check. Cardigans - semicheck. Professional jackets/blazers/sweaters - pending.

I know I need to learn how to slow down but it'll be so great to be well enough to start being physically active again! Meanwhile, I'll get ahead on homework...

Something New, Something Old

This week was full of culturally enriching experiences :)

To follow up with last week's post, I did finally see a doctor and was diagnosed with a sinus infection. She prescribed me antibiotics and said I was free to exercise and dance! Happy Day!

FOOD
New - Met up with a group at Lebanese Taverna for Alma's birthday. I had to look up where Lebanon is; I should brush up on my geography.

Sometimes, I like to be a food critic...

The cuisine is Middle Eastern, so I was really disappointed by my watery mango lassi because the only other one I've had was at an Indian restaurant and it was delectably thick. Melanie let me try her refreshing Pomenade - pomegranate was all over their menu!

Cheesy flatbread (too greasy) and Tabouleh (extremely potent parsley, onions, mint, and lemon juice). They balanced each other out.

Chicken and lamb shawarma with garlic puree and tahini sauce, and bitter tasting pickled onions. The chicken was well-seasoned and moist but the lamb was overcooked (tough and dry). The best thing on the plate was the rice - I don't know what they did to that stuff to make it so tasty!

Verdict: Good cultural experience but I would not go back

Old - Malted milkshake! Mmmm try Good Stuff Eatery's Black & White shake - so thick that it doesn't move when you turn it upside down!

Got our dose of lactose!

DANCE
New - African dance class at Dance Place, specifically from Mali, Senegal, and Guinea (western Africa)! Now this was definitely something new! I also had to look these countries up on the map.

We started with 20 minutes of warm-up, accompanied by awesome drummers who set the cultural mood. This part was fine and comfortable for me.

Then she started teaching a set of moves for a short routine, and I struggled to keep up with the foreign footwork, rhythms, and especially styling. The moves were loose with huge ranges of motion and extremely high energy.

After that, she divided us into lines, beginners first (definitely me). Notice how extremely awkward I look (and felt!) and how much I stick out as the only Asian and person in shorts and a T-shirt. The only other non-black participants were 2 white girls my age and 2 older ladies, all of whom had obviously been done this before.

This picture of turned in feet pains my soul - it goes against all my years of gymnastics/ballroom/Latin/ballet training. I was embarrassed to be representing BYU with my shirt haha.

The class ended with everyone in a loose circle and people took turns dancing in the middle (like at a hip hop dance, which is an African American genre that draws alot from African dancing). The coolest cultural thing I learned was you show appreciation by touching your hand to your heart, then the ground in front of you.

I also learned some things about myself:

* I prefer structured, more controlled dance styles requiring lots of discipline and technique
* I prefer dances that emphasize elongated body lines and posture
* I prefer dances that require pointed toes, turned out feet, and extended fingers
* I prefer dancing with a male partner because the nuances of connection are exciting to me
* I prefer teachers that give lots of specific instruction, rather than demonstrating it a few times and letting us do whatever

I've tried many different kinds of dances and will continue to explore many more. It's always humbling to get pushed outside of my comfort zone, but I like how it increases my body awareness, appreciation of others' talents (D&C 46:11-12), and empathy for how awkward others feel when then learn dances I'm comfortable with.

More dance adventures to come :)

Old - dance-posing in front of a fountain. This one in Crystal City is big and loud enough to drown out the traffic - a good place to ponder.

Had a way bigger turn-out at The Salsa Room than usual!

It felt soooo good to be back in my comfort zone :)

CHURCH
Old - It also felt so good to go back to Church after being sick
New - Leslie came with me for the first time! (wish we got a picture)

It's great to be regaining my health again :)

Unfulfilled Dance Desires

I was NOT able to experience DC to the fullest this week due to, again, sickness. This is a good time to share my Mom's principle about health...

1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

Our health is like the "1" and the "0's" are all the things we want/need to do in life. As long as we have our health, we can do anything. If we don't have our health, none of the "0's" mean anything.

It's a powerfully true philosophy. I have been sick on and off for the last 3 weeks. I'm grateful my boss has let me work from home but I haven't left the apartment in 4 days and it's driving me batty.

It has been really hard for an active girl like me to be confined to my room in order to rest and recover. I felt semi-well enough on Friday night to go out and try a new dance place, but I didn't even end up dancing! It was a night of unexpected (and unwanted) adventure.

It sounded so great on the website - Latin, country, AND swing dancing all in one place?! I couldn't wait to get my dance fix. Jessie and I got there (it was at a cathedral-esque church) and were greeted by this sign.

I thought "oh, that's nice" and Jessie pointed out that it was a gay sign (hence the rainbow). Ok whatever. We looked around for the entrance, which led to a basement gym. We were over an hour late and there were only 4 guys there. "That's odd," I thought; Jessie wanted to leave because it didn't look that fun or worth the $8 admission. But we waited on the steps outside for Melanie to show up and tell her we weren't going to stay.

While we waited, guy after guy started passing us to go into the dance. "Where are all the girls?!" we wondered. Jessie asked one of them if very many people come to these dances and he said it depends, people don't usually start coming for another 45 minutes. He encouraged us to come in and said he would dance with us. I thought that was a strange comment because with only guys showing up so far, we shouldn't have any trouble getting asked to dance...

After almost an hour, we got tired of waiting and were pretty worried about Melanie not showing up yet. We decided to look in the gym to see if she had gone in without us noticing, and all the guys were dancing with each other. We finally realized this was a full-on gay joint! Soon after, we heard from Melanie, who said she got lost and asked 4 people about the place and they all told her it was a gay spot. Apparently, Dupont Circle is a big gay neighborhood. It's not that we don't like gay people but we all felt uncomfortable staying to dance.

So we said goodbye to that place forever and went to Georgetown to get frozen yogurt at Pinkberry. Sad. I really wanted to dance.

The rest of the weekend was full of studying and sleeping. I am so sick and tired of being sick and tired! I figured if I can't do anything exciting, I should at least eat something exciting. So I made myself an exotic-looking salad of spinach with fresh figs, drizzled with cranberry, walnut, and gorgonzola vinaigrette.

When you're sick and semi-bored, you have alot of time to think. And unfortunately, what kept coming to mind was the devastating thought that I will probably never get to dance on the BYU Ballroom Dance Company again. I was on it for 3.75 years and it all ended too soon. There's really no other ballroom environment like it, where the dance standards are high and high standards of the gospel are maintained in music, choreography, dress, and performances. We prayed before every performance - how amazing is that?! I have yet to find another form of dance or hobby out here to fill that giant gaping void ballroom left in my life...the search must go on

By Saturday night, I was semi-depressed and felt I had eaten pretty healthily, so I treated myself to delivery pizza

Domino's never tasted so good.

Prayers for me to recover my health are GREATLY APPRECIATED. Much thanks in advance!

Weekend with the Ward in the Woods

This weekend was the WARD RETREAT! I'd been looking forward to this weekend for months. It was Friday night to Sunday noon at a campground in Maryland. We were greeted by this ridiculous-looking totem pole (I grew up in the land of totem poles)...

Being at camp brought back good memories of going as a 6th grader and being a camp counselor later on. I was also excited to have ample amounts of unrushed time to get to know more people in my ward, especially all the new people.

***Sad news, I lost my camera, along with the video of my medley and half of the pics from the Ward Retreat. Thank goodness for the camera on my phone.

Friday night - we had an "Open Mic Night" (aka talent show) out by the campfire. I looked forward to having the opportunity to perform (D&C 60:2) but was still super nervous. I sang a medley of 1940s love songs and accompanied myself on the piano (in this case, a keyboard): "Sunday Kind of Love", "Put Your Dreams Away", "Time After Time".

It really felt like I was "roughin' it"! I sat on a low log bench, a friend fashioned a music stand out of a hanger (intended for roasting s'mores) and I had to wear a head lamp to see the music haha...but I got through it and was able to enjoy the rest of the weekend without butterflies in my stomach :)

Afterwards, there was a dance party by the campfire til past 2:00am. Karen and I headed back around 1:30am. Our log cabins were super muggy the first night and pretty chilly the second night. I slept on the edge of my bed cuz who knows what kind of bugs live in those walls! I slept in my jeans both nights and didn't shower all weekend ha! My hair felt nasty but I just braided it. It was refreshing to not wear face makeup all weekend.

Morning stretches feel extra good in the refreshing forest air.

Saturday - we started with field games (lost all pics but here's the field!)

I'm on the Activities Committee so I helped with the water balloon toss (which I love). Then there was a torrential downpour, lunch, and people split up for various activities. I ended up going to Frederick, Maryland, a historic Civil War town that is filled with lots of charming little shops, like this old record store

Ray bought and shared this huge turkey leg (bargain $6!) and obviously thoroughly enjoyed it - a very manly "snack" haha

There was a scenic walkway along the canal...

...with a beautiful little fountain, which meant I had to take a dance picture (pilates, to be exact). I have no idea why, but running water makes me want to take dance pictures...if you haven't noticed the theme throughout my blog haha

And then Russell wanted to try :D

Bryce couldn't resist either

Then, of course, Ray and Lauren had to jump in haha

On the way back, we ran into some other people from the ward retreat, who told us about this cute Soda Shop with unique flavors and floats. Ray just had to go back try it out. He got the blueberry soda with vanilla ice cream, and I got black raspberry ice cream. Mmm Mm!

Went back to camp for dinner

After dinner, we gathered for a rousing game of "Battle of the Sexes". It was kind of like Jeopardy, where random guys and girls got called on to compete in different levels in the categories of Music, Fashion, Food, Sports, and Miscellaneous.

For example, guys and girls had to demonstrate their fashion "design" skills by dressing a model with toilet paper and tinfoil. The bishop was the judge and asked each group to explain their outfits and then have the models strut the catwalk. Girls won this round, as well as the whole game haha. Good effort, boys :)

Afterwards, people split up again for various activities. I stayed and watched The Hunger Games because I had never seen it (or read the books) and was too exhausted to do anything else.

The content was obviously extremely disturbing, but my friends said the author meant it to be that way to criticize violence and communism. I really liked one quote - "Hope, it is the only thing stronger than fear" - and how the protagonists proved that love is even stronger than hope. This principle is totally congruent with The Book of Mormon (Moroni 7:40-47). We must have faith and hope, but without charity (the pure love of Christ), we are nothing.

I decided I like the movie after all.

Sunday - we had Sacrament Meeting in the same room. It was a beautiful sunny morning, although I felt weird going to church without showering and wearing a sweatshirt (the only jacket I brought).

Some funny moments:

- The speakers (who did a great job speaking about Jesus Christ) remarked on how awkward it was to give a talk without a podium
- The organist had to use the keyboard and accidentally pressed a button that played a bass boogie beat during the closing hymn and everyone busted out in laughter lol

After church, we all helped clean the camp, packed our lunches (there was SO MUCH extra food), and went home.

I left with a renewed appreciation for air conditioning (heating and cooling), my comfortable apartment, and my membership in the Church. It was fortifying to be surrounded only by those who share the same high standards of living and testimony of Jesus Christ. It was renewing to be away from the noise, profanity, cigarette smoke, blasphemy, immodesty, bickering, evils, and tragedies of the world. I noticed that it was remarkably harder to SIN at camp because the temptations and distractions of the world were significantly lessened. I had no reception on my phone so I was oblivious to Facebook updates, new emails, news and tabloids. Instead, we were surrounded by God's beautiful creations and reminded of the most important things in life. That and the riveting CES Fireside by Apostle Jeffrey R. Holland prepared me to go back to reality with peace and the proper perspective.