Christmas Season

This week December officially started, which means Christmas season is HERE! I've been having a little too much fun decorating around our house haha. It's really awesome to finally have our own place that we can do whatever we want with (following the contract we signed with our managers of course, since we're just renting...) + since Jake doesn't really care about how the decorations look, I get to make all the fun decisions! Yay!

Probably the most exciting part of our week was finally getting our defective counter replaced. When Jake first moved in back in July, we noticed that the counter directly next to our stove was really warped from someone putting a hot pot on it. We've been pestering our managers to get it replaced since then, and they FINALLY had someone come and fix the problem. I was mad at first because I got a call from the managers at 4:30 and was told that they'd been trying to reach Jake all day but he hadn't answered (of course he hadn't answered, it was a Tuesday and normal people work weekdays! Duh!) so they had finally had the brilliant idea to call ME, now that the day was almost over. They told me they needed to come over ASAP to take out the old counter, and I needed to have everything cleared off of the top as well as out of the drawers and shelves underneath. So I hurried to finish making dinner, cleared everything out, and then waited for them to come at 5:30 like we had agreed on. I waited, and waited, and waited. Finally I had to leave to pick Jake up from work, and they still hadn't shown up. When Jake and I got home, STILL no one was there. So Jake went over to talk to the managers and apparently they were having a "staff meeting" and the maintenance guy had to be at that meeting. Long story short, we should have received a call from him telling us that he would be late, but he apparently hadn't thought to do that. The whole incident was ridiculous and made both Jake and I mad, but at least the counter is fixed now, which means we won't have to deal with it again.

This week was a stressful one for me, because finals are getting close. That meant that a lot of projects were due this past week and also this coming week, so I've been up to my ears in research papers and lesson plans. But I'm almost done, so I know I can make it!

Towards the end of the week, I finally caught a cold. Last fall when I was here in Rexburg for my first semester, I caught a cold in October that I had for the ENTIRE rest of the semester. So I'm very proud of myself for making it this far! However, that doesn't mean I'm happy to be sick. Jake and I are praying that I feel 100% soon, but with the stress of finals looming overhead I'm not very optimistic about that.

Also, I thought I'd share something gospel-related I've been doing for the past few months. I've been trying a new way to study the Book of Mormon and I'm really loving it. As I read, I make a list of the characters mentioned and their personality qualities either inferred from their actions, or directly mentioned. It's teaching me so much about the prophets, the people, and even those in the scriptures that were wicked. It's helping my testimony grow a TON! I definitely recommend this method of studying the scriptures!