Lucy Comes to Visit!

 14 June - 20 June 2021

What a crazy busy week! Full of more adventures than I've been on in all my time at Utah!

On Monday, I went to a Zumba class in the morning, and in the late afternoon, I was invited over to visit Megan-Jean and her two new babies. I was over there for just over two hours, holding the sweet little babies while MJ got some cleaning and laundry done. I also helped feed one of them. It looked exhausting and helped me to realize just how much mothers have to sacrifice. Their entire world really does go on hold when they have a baby and they have to feed, change, and take care of it all day and night, leaving barely any time for yourself. Right after, I drove over to the Thomas' house for FHE, where we had dinner. I was so hungry and ate so so much! They were so kind to have bought gluten-free buns for me to use for the pulled-pork sandwiches. 

Tuesday, I applied to 15 different jobs on indeed.com. The job I'd been banking on getting due to my connection with Valerie fell through, but I know something else will work out. I talked with Whitney for a bit about the insights I'd had during my personal scripture study. I'd been studying from Elder Bednar's talk, The Character of Christ, and I realized that I let my natural man take over when it comes to dating. The natural man is the cookie monster, who wants "cookie now!" and when things don't go your way, you want others to feel sorry for you. I realized that in dating, I want instant responses from guys, and if things don't work out, I complain to a friend so they will commiserate with me. I need to be more like Jesus Christ when it comes to dating. I then went to a deep water aerobics class in the afternoon, and institute that evening. Right after institute, I went on a date with Mark, the guy from the previous week, to play pickleball. I thought I'd give him another try, but I still did not have fun and I think he could tell.

Wednesday was the day Lucy came! I scheduled a work out class before I'd have to go pick her up, and on my way out the door, I found an envelope with my name on it on my doorstep. I didn't have time to read it because I was rushing to go to class. I opened it in the car to see who it was from and found it was the first clue to a scavenger hunt! After the fitness class, I had to hurry and shower and get ready and pick up Lucy, so it wasn't until after we both got home and ate food that we could go on the scavenger hunt. I'm not gonna lie, I was feeling anxious at first because I thought it came from a guy (like the one I went out with last night and didn't have fun with), but seven clues later (which clues led us all around the south part of campus), we ended up at the duck pond and under a bench was a flower made of paper and pipe cleaner, and a sweet note. They wrote that they admired my example of service and that I had inspired them, so they wanted to do something for me. They hoped I had fun! It was anonymous, but I guess sharing either in church or my CFM friend group helped someone and they wanted to do something nice for me. It was very sweet. Then I took Lucy shopping to get food for the week. That afternoon, we went to Nickle City, and arcade place, and we played tons of games for almost 2 hours. Personally, I had a blast and felt like a little kid again. Afterwards, we walked to Brooker's and got ice cream. Lucy wanted to do something in the evening, so I asked around and found out my friends were going to institute, so we tagged along. It was not as good as my regular institute that I attend, but we had J-Dawgs and chips afterwards. So I didn't have to cook Lucy dinner! Plus, that secret J-Dawg sauce always hits the spot. Yum. 

Thursday: Lucy slept in while I went to yoga. I left early so I could come home and get ready to go to the Salt Flats. It was a two hour drive to get there. It was so pretty! We had a picnic out in the middle of the flats and got pictures. It was super hot and bright (I could barely see with all the light being reflected from the white salt), but we huddled under the shade of my umbrella to eat lunch. The ground was surprisingly hard. And of course we both licked the ground, just to make sure it really was salt... ;). Yup, I can assure you that it was salt! That evening, we went to babysit for the Nixons. Again, Lucy ate dinner there so I didn't have to cook. We got to watch part of a movie on the giant screen in their theatre room. The parents came back an hour later than expected, and me and Lucy were falling asleep on their couch!

Friday: I convinced Lucy to go to the hip hop class at the rec center with me. She hated the class and left halfway through to go walk laps on the upper level. I don't think she was happy she came... but as I was leaving class to go find her, I walked past Stacey from Studio C, who was teaching the class after ours. Then going up the stairs, I passed by Natalie from Studio C. I found and told Lucy, and she got so excited! "We need to go find them!" She said. So we walked around and took awkward stalker-selfies with them in the background (lololol). In the afternoon, we went onto campus to look around the bookstore. Then we did chalk art outside around Heritage Halls. We went to the Creamery for ice cream and then to the MOA to kill time before going to The Wall for half-off fries. They lady at the front desk asked us if we wanted to solve a mystery that they'd put together to find the different forgery paintings. It took us a bit over an hour, but we did it! We got to pick a prize at the end, and we both got invisible ink pens. They also gave us a postcard of Jesus, which we later used to write letters to Sean. Then we went to The Wall, only to find that it was closed until further notice :(. That evening, we drove to Lindon for the Lantern Festival. It wasn't quite what I was expecting. They weren't lanterns that floated, like the ones from Tangled, but rather ones that you just set onto the water. It was windy, bright, and bug-infested. Lucy complained a lot. But finally after 3 hours of sitting and waiting, we were able to light the lanterns and it was so pretty! We made it back to Provo just in time to go get boba before Levi's Boba Bus closed. Lucy loved it! I thought it was pretty good.

On Saturday, we both slept in, even though I meant to get an early start on hiking the hot springs. We were just so exhausted! After a 40 minute drive, we started our hike. It was pretty long, three miles, but we finally made it! The hot spring was SO hot, it felt like our feet were being boiled! So we had to go back down to a cooler spot, and then we sat there for a bit. It felt like we were in a hot tub. Then we hiked the three miles back to the car, and I got a bit burnt on my shoulders. We were so tired after that, so we showered, ate food, and chilled. Then we went out for dinner to Silver Dish (cuz I was craving the Pad Thai Noodles) and then Lucy really wanted ice cream, so we took a quick stop at the Creamery. We then wrote the letters to Sean, and I went around and had everyone sign a giant card for Bishop for Father's Day.

Sunday: Bishop was out of town, which was good because I brought the card to church for anyone to sign that had missed signing it when I'd stopped by the night before (which was quite a ton of people). In Sunday School, we talked a lot about forgiveness, and I felt the Spirit. After church, I got to conduct choir, which was super fun, even though I basically just make a fool out of myself. We went to reconnect at the church. It was a small group that came, but they enjoyed the laughy taffies I brought! Lucy gave me a foot rub in the evening right before we left to go to CFM, which was heavenly. Then we attended CFM scripture study, ward prayer (where we played the game "Sounds" where you close your eyes in the middle, point at someone, ask them to make a sound like an animal, and then try to guess who it is), and then a game night with my friend group. Lucy had a blast at the game night and didn't want to leave! So we stayed past 11pm! 

Much love,

Emily Burnham