The Fellowship of the Unashamed

I love this poem.

I am a part of the “Fellowship of the Unashamed.” The die has been cast. The decision has been made. I have stepped over the line. I won’t look back, let up, slow down, back away or be still.
My past is redeemed, my present makes sense and my future is secure. I’m finished and done with low living, sight walking, small planning, smooth knees, colorless dreams, tamed visions, mundane talking, cheap giving and dwarfed goals.

I no longer need preeminence, prosperity, position, promotions, plaudits or popularity. I don’t have to be right, first, tops, recognized, praised, regarded or rewarded. I now live by faith, lean on His presence, love with patience, live by prayer and labor with power.

My face is set, my gait is fast, my goal is heaven, my road is narrow, my way is rough, my companions are few, my Guide is reliable and my mission is clear. I cannot be bought, compromised, detoured, lured away, turned back, deluded or delayed. I will not flinch in the face of sacrifice, hesitate in the presence of adversity, negotiate at the table of the enemy, ponder at the pool of popularity or meander in the maze of mediocrity.

I won’t give up, shut up, let up or slow up until I have stayed up, stored up, prayed up, paid up and spoken up for the cause of Christ. I am a disciple of Jesus. I must go till He comes, give till I drop, preach till all know and work till He stops me. And when He comes for His own, He will have no problem recognizing me. My banner is clear: I am a part of the “Fellowship of the Unashamed.”

Books I read from January to May (a little late)

Artemis Fowl and the Atlantis Complex- Eoin Colfer

Old Yeller- Fred Gipson

The Two Gentlemen of Verona- William Shakespeare

Little Britches- Ralph Moody

Alas, Babylon- Pat Frank

The Law- Fredric Bastiat

Caddie Woodlawn- Carol Ryrie Brink

Baby Island- Carol Ryrie Brink

The Giver- Lois Lowry

Gathering Blue- Lois Lowry

The Messenger Lois Lowry

A Little Home of Their Own- Celia Wilkins

Farmer Boy- Laura Ingles Wilder

The Princess Bride- William Goldman

My Side of the Mountain- Jean Craighead George

Here There Be Dragons- James A. Owen

The Docterine and Covenents

Rawr!

The wear and tear of tech week...

The first day of tech week, I looked very happy and bright and excited! (because I was) Also, this was at the beginning of rehearsal, so I wasn't worn out yet. I had not yet learned how difficult it is when you have a lead role....

The third day of tech week (I didn't get a picture of the second) I am looking rather tired, and you can see the remains of makeup on my face.

Forth day... We were experimenting with my hair, and it wasn't working.....

After the first performance!!!! YAY!!! I look tired!!! As you can see, tech week can take a lot out of you, but it is still really really fun!

The Happenings of Late....

Since I haven’t posted many pictures lately, I thought I would post some.... wait I have put a lot of pictures up lately..... but that sounds better than "since I have been posting so many pictures, I thought I would post some more".....so.... never mind, I wanted to put some pictures up to show you my exciting life!!! Hahaha. :)


I started off the year by going to Knott's Berry Farm in January. I went for a class trip, and it was really fun! There were no good pictures of me, (I took most of them) but there was this funny one of my friend Brandon I thought I would post.


Here is one of the roller coasters, call Ghost Rider. It was very bumpy....

I took this picture after youth temple baptisms, and I think it looks neat. It turned out pretty good considering it was taken with a cell phone camera!


In February I got sick and I had to go to the hospital and it was a pain :P I'm glad I'm better now! Oh, and one arm band says "Fall Risk" cause I fainted, but that's a long story.... The other one says "allergies" because I'm allergic to some medicines.

Here is what took up most of my life..... Rehearsals!!! Here is one of the first dress rehearsals, and that is Silvia and I. Fun fun fun!


On the first day of tech week, it hailed really hard, and it looked like snow. Here is Even holdinging a "snowball"

A close up on the hail. It look really cool!


I think this was before a dress rehearsal, or our first performance. We were getting all fancied up. :)

After the play was over and there were no more performances, we went to DISNEYLAND!!! It was really fun! We have year passes, and some of our really good friends also have year passes, so we all went together. This is our picture from Space Mountain. I'm the one in the blue shirt screaming my head off, my friend Kraig is behind me making crazy faces, and my friend Lulu is next to me looking very calm. (Lulu is my sister's best friend, and loves loves loves roller coasters, and I that’s funny because my sister hates hates hates roller coasters.) Anyway, Disneyland was really fun and we went for 13 hours and didn't get home till after midnight. It was awesome. 

Well, that's been my life lately, pretty good, but very busy! Hope you've had a good year so far!

Bake Sale!

This coming Summer, I am going to go on something called Trek. Trek is something the youth group at church does every couple of years, where we drive far away from our homes, dress up like pioneers, and walk. A lot. We walk 3-5 miles a day in full pioneer costume while pulling real sized handcarts with all our stuff in them, and we do this for three days. People generally end up hot, sweaty, exhausted and with lots of blisters. Sounds like fun, doesn’t it? Well, I am sooooooooo excited!!! (not for the blisters,) but for everything else, I am super-duper excited!!! When I was little, I always wanted to be a pioneer, and I loved reading about Laura Ingles Wilder in her books. I also have multiple Pioneer Ancestors with some really neat stories, and I think that will make this Trek extra special. The only other bad thing about Trek is that it costs a lot. Almost 200 dollars per person to go, and that tis a large sum of money. The Young Women had a fundraiser (washing cars) a few weeks ago, but we didn't earn all that much so each girl still had to come up with over half the money by themselves. The tittle of this post is "Bake Sale" so you can probably see where I'm going with this. A few of my really good friends were doing a bake sale to earn money for trek, and they invited me to do it with them. I of course said yes! It was last Saturday, and it was really fun! We made A LOT of cookies, and we made a pretty good amount of money. There were a lot of nice people that gave us tips, and everyone was really nice to us. Afterword’s, we went to one of the girls' house and divided up the money fairly, then we went to someone else’s house and swam in their pool and watched movies, and all together it was a very good day. Here are some pictures from it, there were lots and lots of cookies!!!

The Menu, lot of yummy things!


Yummy-ness

More yummy-ness

Even more yummy-ness!

Claire examining the yummy-ness.

Rachel hiding behind the yummy-ness.

Miriam and I getting ready to sell the yummy-ness to lot of nice people.

Oh, I do have one tip if you ever hold a bake sale- make sure everyone participating eats a good breakfast. For our bake sale, no one ate a good breakfast, so we were all rather hungry, which can be a bad thing if you're trying to sell food to make profit, and the salesmen (er, saleswomen) keep eating the product they are trying to sell. (don't worry, we were completely sanitary, we would just open up one bag at a time when we would get really hungry, finish it off, and pretend we didn't do it. :P

The Two Gentlemen of Verona in Pictures

The End.

Even if you probably didn't understand what we were doing in any of these pictures, hopfuly you enjoyed the pretty costumes and fun facial expressions. I will have more pictures after our next few preformances, and I hope they will be good too. Oh yeah, and in the first few pictures, I am the girl in the green shiny dress, and in the other ones, I am the "boy" wearing the green pants and yellow vest and hat. I loved my costumes!!!

THANK YOU SISTER HARTZELL AND SISTER DAVIES!!!! I LOVE YOU GUYS!!!!!!!