Frozen Fall Photo's!

Even though it was starting to rain on and off and really windy, we stuck it out through this session! They were all such troopers! This family really could not be any cuter! So happy we could connect at the Little wedding!

He's too cute!

Nauvoo Trip - Part 2

I really loved that it was frequently foggy and rainy. The morning after sleeping on the bus I woke up to lots and lots of fog. It looked so cool to see the trees suddenly come out of the fog through the bus window.

Adam-ondi-Ahman:

As I took this picture someone walked by and said "No time for pictures" Please, there's always times for pictures. 

Carthage Jail:

Carthage jail was one of my favorite places we visited on our trip. We arrived right as the sun was starting to set and the feeling there was just so nice. Joseph Smith was martyred here. He dedicated his life to the Lord. He lived a life of many hardships and trials and put his whole faith in the Lord. 

Nauvoo Trip Part 1

The week I purchased my ticket to go on the BYU-Idaho Nauvoo trip I had been thinking how much I just wanted to get away to someplace beautiful. I did just go to Vegas on another school trip the week before, but I would definitely not call Vegas beautiful. Vegas is more like the place you go to be in the world. Nauvoo is the perfect place to really get away from the world. It was a great trip.

Fall is the perfect time to go over to Nauvoo! It was so beautiful everywhere I looked. The weather was pretty perfect. It was a twenty two hour bus ride there and back. We made a whole lot of stops which was good. 

The photo above was taken at liberty jail. It is amazing what the prophet Joseph Smith sacrificed and the good attitude he had. The Lord is really with us helping us through our trials.

There are so many different kinds of beautiful leaves!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope we can all stop and think about what we're truly grateful for. I know I personally get lost in my own problems and forget to see the good. When I think of being grateful I think of the talk by President Utchdorf called Grateful in Any Circumstance:

"My dear brothers and sisters, the choice is ours. We can choose to limit our gratitude, based on the blessings we feel we lack. Or we can choose to be like Nephi, whose grateful heart never faltered. When his brothers tied him up on the ship—which he had built to take them to the promised land—his ankles and wrists were so sore “they had swollen exceedingly,” and a violent storm threatened to swallow him up in the depths of the sea. “Nevertheless,” Nephi said, “I did look unto my God, and I did praise him all the day long; and I did not murmur against the Lord because of mine afflictions.”

We can choose to be like Job, who seemed to have everything but then lost it all. Yet Job responded by saying, “Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return … : the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.

We can choose to be like the Mormon pioneers, who maintained a spirit of gratitude during their slow and painful trek toward the Great Salt Lake, even singing and dancing and glorying in the goodness of God.⁶ Many of us would have been inclined to withdraw, complain, and agonize about the difficulty of the journey.

We can choose to be like the Prophet Joseph Smith, who, while a prisoner in miserable conditions in Liberty Jail, penned these inspired words: “Dearly beloved brethren, let us cheerfully do all things that lie in our power; and then may we stand still, with the utmost assurance, to see the salvation of God, and for his arm to be revealed.”

We can choose to be grateful, no matter what."

These little detail shots were all taken on my Nauvoo trip. It was amazing to be where many hardships took place. Elder Holland said, "The tests of life are tailored for our own best interests, and all will face the burdens best suited to their own mortal experience. In the end we will realize that God is merciful as well as just and that our challenges will be the one reassured that our challenges will be the ones we needed, and conquering them will bring blessings we could have received in no other way." 

Even though our lives all have trials we can see great blessings through them!

I hope you all have a happy Thanksgiving!!