New Beginnings and Lately

New Beginnings is the YW activity at the beginning of the year when we welcome all of the new YW into the ward.  There is usually a program or something that is really great.  Last year I was in Redlands and the leaders did a skit for us.  This year we had a real live broadway singer come and sing to us!  Her name is Heather Pond.  She was in Les Miserables and the Jersey Boys and has a Tony and Grammy award.  She gave a wonderful talk about her journey in Broadway and sang us two songs.  The whole thing was absolutely amazing.  The spirit was so strong.  She was a wonderful missionary on Broadway.  She said that some people hated her in the beginning just because she was a Mormon and when she left some of them were her best friends.  There were some amazing stories.  One that was really funny, but not really about missionary work, but anyway.  She was really good friends with Nick Jonas!  He was the little kid (probably about my age or a little younger) in Les Miserables.  She was good friends with him and Nick's parents really appreciated her because she was such a good girl and example for their son.  I guess they were really dedicated Christians.  So, that was kind of funny.

But there were some really cool missionary stories.  She said that someone, I don't remember who-it wasn't another singer-it was like a producer or something, anyway, this person would ask Heather every Sunday what she learned in church that day.  And Heather would tell her, like really tell her.  Not just briefly.  When she told her about the atonement her friend was like, "Wow, that sounds kind of depressing." and Heather said, "Actually, it's really amazing and makes me really happy."  She asked Heather what she learned in church every Sunday and now, when she is married and living in Sierra Madre, Heather still gets texts every once in a while saying, "So what did you learn in church today?"  Isn't that amazing?

In Broadway, since they have to perform on holidays, they always celebrate them together.  It was a really big deal.  So, once they were used to her they asked Heather if there were any Mormon holidays they could celebrate.  She's like, "We're Christian.  We celebrate the same holidays that you do.  Just Easter and Christmas."  "But there must be something."  "Well... there's Pioneer Day."  So they celebrated Pioneer Day.  Heather wrote up flyers about the pioneers with pictures of Brigham Young and put them up all over.  There was a potluck and everyone wore bonnets and she even wrote a song for it.  It's on youtube.  We watched it.  It's hilarious.  She's playing the ukelele and everything.  And when you watch it you can just tell that she is really comfortable about who she is and about talking and representing the church.  But don't get the wrong idea about her voice if you watch it.  She has a beautiful voice.  But that song was just silly.  They celebrated Pioneer Day every year after that.  

The whole time she was there she was so real and genuine.  Mom said that you can pick out a singer in the crowd just because they have a certain full of themselves way about them, but Heather didn't.  I loved her.  It was kind of funny.  The girls that are coming in this year asked her, "So, are you like... famous?" And one of them asked her to just touch her necklace for her.  She signed three autographs.  No, I did not ask for one.  :)  The whole night was just a blast.  We had breakfast food for dinner and I even got recognized as a new YW because I just moved in.  We all said that it was weird calling me up because it felt like I had been there for a long time, but they gave me a torch necklace and one of those mini For the Strength of Youth pamphlets.  We're supposed to get those when you go into YWs but I never did, so it made me feel really good.

We had our last day of WISH today.  We actually had our last day of classes last week and there's a picnic next week, but today was our last week at the building.  All day we watched the different drama classes and a Flashmob and Glee club perform.  I was worried we would be bored watching play after play, but it was not boring at all!  It was amazing.  All of them except one were comedies and all of them except one were fairytales.  There were ones that made fun of fairytales and changed them and it was just hilarious.  Anna and Gracie were in different fairytale ones and were awesome.  The last play was done by my age group (I wasn't in it) and was about an hour long.  It was a Murder Mystery Comedy.  It was hilarious.  The star was a girl named Sophia who played the Investigator with a french accent.  So, she introduced herself as "Ze Investuhgatol!" Do you get it?   She had a totally goofy character and she did an awesome, thick, french accent.  I loved it.  I loved them all.  It was laughing all day.  It was great.

So, I've been frustrated with my acne lately.  My cheeks are fine.  My forehead is as bad as it had always been, but I've been getting it on my upper lip lately.  I hate it!  It's so weird.  We bought Crunchy Betty's (we got the Oil Cleansing Method from her blog) e-book all about oily and acne prone skin and I'm reading through it.  I have only been doing the OCM at night and just rinsing it in the morning.  So after reading part of her book I think I'm going to do a honey wash in the morning.  I guess it's supposed to make your skin just glow.  We'll see.  The OCM was supposed to work wonders and nothing has changed for me.  We'll see.

Well, that's it.  As much as I love WISH I am glad it's done.  No more homework and I can crochet!  I haven't been able to for so long because I've had to work on my embroidery, which I have to take a picture of.  I will work on that. :)