It's November! October is over! With that being said, I can say that I'm trying really hard to be better, have a better attitude, and to serve more. I received a priesthood blessing a week and a half ago, and am feeling better. I'm so grateful for the blessings that come through prayer, and the priesthood. I'm thankful for the righteous priesthood holders in my life that can give me blessings when I'm in need.

Interested in what priesthood blessings are? Watch this example.

I am very grateful for the many opportunities that I've been given, and the people that I've met. To think of the changes, opportunities, and things I've learned over the last year and a half, I'm amazed!

TMJ stinks! There are two things that cause it to flair. One of them is if I eat something I shouldn't, like toffee (learned that since Halloween) or chew gum. The second is stress. I can't believe how dumb it is! It's amazing for me to see how people affect me, how I LET people affect me.  From someone not treating me the way they usually do or getting hit by a ton of strange comments on event pages or timing of responses to texts, etc...  My face hurts!  I sit here, holding my face, needing my neck rubbed, telling myself that I'm so dumb for letting myself get all tight like that.  So, I know what I need to work on, I just need to know tricks for getting myself out of the stress... haha!

It's almost election day.  I'm glad it's going to be here, and be done (hopefully), because I'm so sick to death of all of the commercials and all of the signs all over the place.  I'm scared for the outcome of the election.  I see people's posts on Facebook, and I get nervous!  I've seen the events of fasting and prayer in behalf of the election.  Events like that, or reading the Book of Mormon in said amount of time, I don't rsvp to, because I think that those things are very personal.  However, seeing the negative comments on such events, makes me sad.  People say that Heavenly Father wouldn't take part in politics, and that praying for such is wrong.  I disagree whole heartedly!  Heavenly Father will answer a prayer to help me find my keys, and that is such a miniscule thing in whole realm of existence, what makes anyone think he won't answer prayers in behalf of a nation.  Reading the Bible or the Book of Mormon, you can see the Lord's hand in ALL civilizations.  He didn't just send us here, to be on our own, although a lot of people think that, he sent us here to learn and grow and overcome trials and temptations.  He sent us with help, and that's for all of us individually and as a whole.

Okay, I'm off my soap box now!  Hope everyone is doing well!

Summer!

It's been a while, again!  Since my last post lots has gone on!  My computer died at Daughters of Faith, so that's one of the reasons I haven't blogged.  (This loaner computer stinks, and sometimes doesn't read the keystroke, but sometimes doubles the keystroke, so I'll try to make sure I spell check, but forgive me if there are mistakes.)

So, I'm going to write by month what has gone on...

June

Months ago I emailed Jenny Oaks Baker to see if she could do a fireside for the midsingles.  I never heard from her, so I didn't think anything of it.  For whatever reason, I've branched out and am able to ask people I don't know to do devotionals; I still feel funny asking people I know to do things.  So, on May 30, I got an email back from her saying she'd be able to do it either on June 24 or on August 26.  I already had one scheduled for August, so we went with June.  She was really concerned that she was spreading herself too thin, and not enough people would attend.  Here's a link to her "Amazing Grace" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uQIPFc-8jw.  Listen through her talk, you'll love the music, and her message on faith is fantastic!

She called me two days later and said that she couldn't do it that day anymore, because her accompanist wasn't going to be in town until July.  Before I could even think, out of my mouth popped, "Well, I can do it!  I am a piano teacher."  Her first question was, "You're a piano teacher, but can you actually play anything or are you one of THOSE teachers?"  I told her I could pretty much play anything, and she said, "Okay, I'll send you some music soon," and that was that.  After getting off the phone, I was like, "What the heck did I just say?"

I know that I've worked really hard, nearly my entire life, to play the piano.  I had a fantastic teacher that taught me so much, and loved me, and that made me all the better.  However, I have to acknowledge that my sight reading abilities are a true gift from Heavenly Father.  Had I not practiced all that I have, I wouldn't have known of that gift, and I am so grateful for it!

She sent me most of the music, and it was a challenge!  I practiced and practiced and practiced.  My mom at one point said, "You know there is such thing as practicing TOO much."  I practiced at home, I practiced at the church, etc. and then went to Daughters of Faith four days before.

DOF is a camp just for laurels (young women 16-18 years old).  It's an amazing two days of total devotion to feeling the Spirit and learning the gospel.  Not unlike years passed, it was amazing!  I didn't get to participate in a lot of the things, because I had to put together the slideshow, and that took FOREVER! Then we had this really neat activity that talked about the journey of the golden plates from Nephi to Moroni to Joseph Smith and then to us.  It was amazing!  Then I showed this short message  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHY-Y9yraR8.  It's so touching!  Elder Holland is amazing!  Then, I unplugged the projector from my computer, and my computer fried!  So horrendous!  So, the next day, I had to spend the whole day doing another slideshow on someone else's computer.  I only broke down twice about this, so I think I was alright!  Cute Cassie kept checking on me!  She was great!

When I got home, I got to practicing, and Jenny and I set up a time to practice on Saturday at 11:30.  She was busy teaching at a Suzuki camp, and we had a half hour to practice seven songs!  In my mind, I kept thinking about musicians and artists and what kind of people they are, but then I was thinking who she was a daughter of, and I figured I'd get a mix of the two.  Well, let's just say, it was a terrifying next 32 hours!  We didn't ever get to go through a whole song without stopping for some interruption, and we didn't play through the last song, which I had just gotten all of it that day.  We set up a run through time for Sunday, and that was that.  Sunday came, and it was one of the busiest days of my life!  Thank heavens for those girls and guys that came to help set up, and all the people that brought refreshments.  Jenny had emailed me in the morning asking for someone to tend her kids during the devotional, and to bump our time up by about 15 minutes.  My cute cousin, Ashley, babysat the kids, and I was ready to practice when she wanted.  She called a minute before it was time, and said she was going to be late, and that we wouldn't have time to practice.  She thought we'd be fine, though.  This was pretty stressful to me, but showed she had confidence in me, so that helped me out.

Her message was about having faith.  It was interesting, because as she ws sharing certain scriptures, my mom was giving me the look of "you should be listening, this will help you out."  She knew how scared I was!  She talked about how watching one of her friends having a baby and getting married and having an awesome job made her think, "Hey, I'm following the commandments, why aren't these things happening for me?"  Let's just say it hit really close to home!  I only had a couple mistakes, one that was quite big, and she gave me a look, but other than that, I felt really good about it.  I gave the guy conducting the program, and didn't have me on it, because I didn't want it to be about me.  I was accompanying, and that was it.  In her introduction, she announced, "Pyper Nicholes and I are going to perform for you tonight."  It was really amazing!  I had some great support there, Mom, Grandma JaNae, Bart, Jen, Linds, her roommate, Ashley, and Amy and her parents.  It was amazing!  At the end, I was so touched, because not only was there a huge line to meet her, there was  a line to talk to me.

If you're still reading... we're to July!!!

Well, sort of... On June 30, one of my most favorite people threw me a birthday party!  It was so much fun!  Amy was still in town, and I was thrilled she was here!  Her dad brought his karaoke stuff, and we ate, played games, visited, and sang karaoke.  It was a great night!  There was a funny mix of people, from work, my neighborhood, my family and my midsingles.  It was fantastic!

I turned 32 on July 4th.  It was a great day!  It's so weird to think my dad was my age when he passed away.  On july 11th, I was exactly the same age, and it may sound morbid, but that day has been in my mind for a very long time.  I was thinking that there was something wrong with me, in thinking that if I made it past July 11th, I'd be fine.  Reading that right now, makes me feel like the biggest dork!  However, a few days ago, Collin had a scare that ended up being that he was dehydrated, but he immediately said to mom that he knew she was worried, because he was 29, and dad was 29 when his heart stuff started.  My heart broke for him that he was scared about it, but I know that I am not alone in my weird concerns.

July was filled with lots of busy-ness, lots of family, lots of friends, and pretty much a great time!  I have one huge complaint, and that is with PC Laptops!  They claim to have great service, and great products.  They do have great warranties.  However, there service stinks!  I bought my laptop in November from them, and have never been as satisfied as I was with my hp laptop, but I've been fine with it.  When it died at DOF, I took it in, and they told me it would be 4-6 days, 9 days later, I called, after I had called since day number 5, and they said it was just sitting there waiting for me.  I was thrilled to have it back.  I got it home, and there was no sound, so I took it back in on Monday, and they had it for a few days, then said I could have it back again, so I could show the slideshow at the DOF fireside, but needed to have it back on Monday, and they'd give me a loaner computer, and it worked only with external speakers.  I was sick that Monday, so I took it in on Tuesday.  I stood there for 25 minutes, because the guy that usually helps me was helping someone else, and no one wanted to help me.  I finally asked them to at least start the paperwork, and so the guy took my laptop, but didn't give me the loaner one.  Then, Sterling, the guy that is working on my computer finally came over and told me the loaner wasn't going to be there for a couple days, and he'd call me.  He never did!  I kept calling, and they never said it was there.  The next Friday, so a week later, my computer died, again!  So, I took it in, and Sterling acted put out that I was in a hurry to leave, because he had stuff to do, but I had not ever been told the loaner was there, so I didn't know we were doing a data transfer.  When I was leaving, I said, "Now you're really going to call me when my computer is ready, right?"  He said of course he would.  I responded with, "Well, you keep saying that, but not once have you or anyone else here ever called me to tell me anything or return any of my phone calls."  He apologized, and said he'd call me in 10 days when it was ready.  Well as of today, it has been 14 days, and still no phone call!!!  The final diagnosis for the computer was a fried hard drive, partially fried motherboard, and fried internal speakers.  They had said they hadn't seen anything like it before.

We had girls camp the last week of July, and it was a great experience for the girls!  I wish I was of more use up there.  They didn't really have our presidency do anything, other than one activity on the last day.

We had a three hour block, where each ward and our presidency had a tent, and we'd do 20 minute rotations, working on a value in Personal Progress (https://www.lds.org/young-women/personal-progress?lang=eng).  Our presidency had the value of Virtue.  There aren't a lot of things you can do in 20 minutes for Virtue, but we had a great time!  Cyd had found an activity that young women had a glow in the dark bow on their backs, and they had to run through the dark, through some obstacles, keeping the bow (which represented their virtue) and make it to the end, where there was a picture of the temple.

Since it was daylight, and we were outside, we had to alter the plan.  We played flag football.  We had three girls with gold flags in their pocket, race to get up the hill to the picture of the temple, while Mom, Cyd and I tried to steal their "virtue."  It was really fun!  Then I had the girls take a piece of unwrapped candy, which looked like it was going to be sweet, but really was a warhead, and talked about how Satan impersonates the Spirit and ways to develop strengths that will help you discern where the impressions are coming from.  Cyd gave them Treasures that were chocolate with caramel or peanut butter in it, and talked about how our virtue is our treasure.  Mom went through their Virtue  project #3 that has them read Alma 5 (https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/alma/5?lang=eng#)  It was such a great experience!  It was really fun for them to get to know us on a different level, than just sitting in the meetings with them.

Let's just say this summer has been great, and it's not over yet!  I've been learning lots and enjoying lots of things and people!

My conference is over and now my young women leadership meeting is over, so now I can think again.  I have to say that my brain struggled changing from being MidSingles oriented to being Young Women oriented.  I actually was wondering what in the world was wrong with me, and kept praying for direction on what I should do for the leadership meeting, and it didn't come until yesterday.  I guess that's the way it works.  I procrastinate, but eventually it works out.

I don't remember what I posted prior to the conference, about the conference, so I hope I don't bore you with stuff I've already said.

There were moments in the planning of the conference that I questioned what I was doing and why; whether I was being directed in the right direction or if it was just me.  You all know those doubts that creep up.  It was so inspiring and amazing to see how everything pulled together, and be able to see that we really were being guided in what we had planned. 

The friday night activity was going to be night games, but the weather didn't cooperate, it was way too cold.  We ended up doing games inside, though, and it was way fun!  Not all people participated, but it was fun for the ones that did. 

Saturday was full of workshops, service projects, games, a keynote speaker in the morning, food, a Greg Simpson Band concert and a dance with karaoke, video games and a photobooth.  It was awesome!  Elder Fluhman of the Seventy was our keynote speaker.  When I had told Cyd about him, she said that I needed to have his wife speak, as well, because she is a great lady.  I didn't know about doing that, since I hadn't had any contact with him, but I thought it was a great idea.  Well, that morning he walked in, was introduced to me, and said, "Now, Pyper, my wife is here, and I think you need to have her share something."  It was so cool!  She said she'd be fine just listening, but ended up sharing some stuff.  It was great!

The workshops that I got to attend were amazing, and exactly what I felt they should be, when I asked these people to do it.  My stake is great!  I may have mentioned this before, and maybe I'm biased, but we had Louise Sill and Pres. Downs come and present, and I heard comments all day about how their messages had inspired people.  My favorite quote from Louise was that the scriptures always say, "And it came to pass..." they don't say, "And it came to stay..."  It's so true!  All of our trials and struggles come, but they pass, unless we dwell on them.  Then, they won't pass as quickly as they may have.  Our lunch was provided by a guy in our stake, and then the deejay was from our stake.  I sure hope that the stake isn't tired of helping me out, because I already have people in mind for the next time :)

On Sunday night, S. Michael Wilcox did our fireside.  It was amazing!  I have always loved the story of Jesus walking on the water, and coming to save the apostles in the fourth watch of the night.  (http://www.lds.org/scriptures/nt/mark/6?lang=eng).  That's how He is, He could save us at the beginning of our trials, but he doesn't.  He comes in when we feel we can no longer handle it.  Bro. Wilcox said we have a fourth watch God, and we're a first watch kind of people.  It's so true!  At the beginning of the fireside, we had the choir sing Precious Savior, Dear Redeemer, arranged to the melody of Homeward Bound.  I have always loved Homeward Bound, however, I have not loved the hymn book arrangement of Precious Savior, Dear Redeemer.  Oh, my word, it was beautiful!  The choir number was a stress for us for quite sometime, but then it just worked out, and I'm so thankful for those that were able to pull it together.  Bro. Wilcox said that there are many songs that remind him of his wife, but there are three specific songs that make him feel her, everytime he hears one of them; and it just so happened that that was one of the songs.  People were close to the spirit when they picked that out.

On friday night, I was so tired, I was laughing uncontrollably.  It was so funny!  I don't think many of the midsingles, if any, have ever seen me like that.  Then, on Sunday during the closing song at the fireside, I just started bawling.  It was so funny, too!  I felt this huge weight lift off of my shoulders, that I hadn't even realized I was feeling. 

There were so many great experiences, even down to having lost my keys, and had many people looking for them.  Then, someone suggested we pray, and within 8 seconds (and I'm not even exaggerating) my keys were found, right where we'd already looked for them.  The turn out wasn't as huge as I was hoping for, hopefully, it will be better next time.  I do know without any doubt that all of those things were meant for someone, if not more than one, and that makes it all worth it!  I'm so grateful for all of the people that helped with everything.  I can't even put into words how grateful I am.  It was such a neat experience, and very educational.