Ready & Waiting

I went snowboarding for the first time last weekend- that was an experience. I actually had a lot of fun, though I didn't decide that until after. I fell at the very beginning and bruised my tail bone. It honestly hurt so bad. Still does. Then I was terrified because it hurt even worse every time I fell after that. I would get going and do really good, but I was going too fast and it freaked me out and since I didn't know how to slow down, I would fall to stop myself. I was getting frustrated and every time I fell on my butt, I would sit there for a good 20 minutes before I could convince myself that walking down would take too long. I felt so bad for Lindsay because she refused to leave me so she would just have to wait. Then, finally another friend with us came and taught me how to go down toe-side. This was SO much better because I was able to slow myself down that way. Plus when I fell, I fell forward, not on my butt. I was done after that. I really really wanted to go down again but I knew I would regret it later. It honestly hurt to sit down, which made the bus ride home really fun. I'm still glad I went and want to go again next season. Maybe by then my butt won't hurt anymore :)

My friend Hillary moved to Utah this weekend. We had our last girls night on Wednesday because her going away party was Thursday. I don't know where the idea came from, but we decided to make shirts. We bought men's v-necks at Walmart and went to work.
Hillary designed the GNO, which stands for Girl's Night Out. I just had to clarify because we were asked if it meant gyno. NO! We had to laugh at that, but seriously, who would wear a shirt that says gyno?! The bottom right says CESH which stands for our names: Cassie, Emily, Shannon & Hillary.The bottom says "they have more fun than we do" which is our little saying. It actually came about on our last girl's night when we were taking the pictures with the panty hose on our faces. We were talking about putting them on facebook and Hillary said "we should, so people will see them and think 'they have more fun than we do!'" It was funny and we say it all the time now. As for the top- they all have different meanings. Mine says "Jeremy" in Russian. I sent him a picture and he said I wrote it right. Whoo! Ha :) Shannon's says "Pooter" and I'm not really sure what the purpose behind that was. Emily's says "Woot Woot" and that is some joke between her and her boyfriend. Hillary's says "bologna." The story behind that- she met this Hawaiian boy and his name is Malosi. One of her friends was talking to her about it and said "what's his name? bologna?" or something to that effect. So, I guess it wasn't ALL girl's night. But what else were we supposed to talk about? ;)


As for this kid:He is doing really good. He FINALLY got transferred and is much happier. He was in Ryazan for the first 6 months being in Russia and had a slacker of a companion. Combine that with having no meetings and 10 active members in a city of 600,000 people and you have a really hard mission. Not that now it is so much easier, but he likes the area he is in now much better. The city is called Nignie Novgorod and he says its much cleaner than Ryazan. Plus he and his companion get along really well. Actually, his current companion was his brother's best friend from the MTC. So that is kind of cool. They've had a few meetings that he is really excited about. Hopefully something will come from one of them. There is a really good chance he will go his whole mission without ever having a baptism. His companion who has been out for I think 19 months hasn't had one. It wasn't looking good in his old area but maybe now...? We'll see. Either way, I'm glad he is doing better. You can tell he is so much happier in his emails. He has been out for 9 months now. Crazy!! And p.s.- he was really proud of that jacket. I don't really know why, he is just a dork sometimes. :)