Chicken Masala

 5 July - 11 July 2021

Monday: I went over to Megan-Jean's house and helped her clean her couches. Then I got to hold the babies. The time passes so fast when you are holding little sweet angels in your arms! For FHE, we had ward Karaoke in the loft of the church, and I had a blast! I went up for a lot of the songs, but the highlights were when I was spotlighted to come up and sing a duet of "Start of Something New" from High School Musical with the RS President and when I requested to sing "Rewrite the Stars" with two friends. I invited Whitney to come with me, and while we were there, she then invited the whole friend group to come, so quite a few showed up and it kept the energy high. It was fun to be goofy and dance and sing.

Tuesday: I went to the deep water class at the rec center with the old ladies (y'all know it's my favorite, haha) and then filled out an application to be a counsellor for BYU's Young Author's Academy Camp. I will basically be a babysitter for kids aged 13 to 18 and get breakfast and dinner all week. I'm excited because it'll be a lot of fun, and I'll get to meet a famous author or two! I also attended the temple for the first time in 16 months this afternoon! I had a sacred experience before going as I knelt in my room and prayed in gratitude to my Heavenly Father. I enjoyed my time in the temple. That evening, I went to institute. Whitney came late. She grabbed food (it wasn't something I could eat) and we sat outside and talked on the grass. Our friend James saw us and joined us, and we ended up watching A Quiet Place back at his apartment since he had never seen it. It made me ready to watch the second one that just came out.

Wednesday: I bombed my job interview this morning. Well, not really. I just didn't meet the criteria because the lady asked if I was willing to relocate to Massachusetts if I got the job. Yeah... no. Not right now, when I'm going to be doing grad school and am just planning on living at home. I filmed some videos for my YouTube channel that I was super pumped about. They are longer and have a slightly different feel to them than the other videos, more genuine and personal. I'm excited to see if my subscribers like these videos more. I attended a work dinner training meeting. They fed us dinner and we played a game where we had an author taped on the back of our shirt and we had to ask yes/no questions to figure out who it was. Mine was Mark Twain. Yeah, there was no way I was going to guess that without some ingenuity. I guessed letter by letter to get the first name, then after that it was obvious. After that, I had a double date (of sorts). So Whitney wanted a double date to go out with a boy she met on Hinge, and I asked a guy in the ward if he wanted to come to a small game night. He said yes, but then I realized I'd have to tell him it was going to be like a double-date vibe (I just suck out asking guys out, okay?!) so I called him and he was so chill about it. Everyone had a lot of fun!

Thursday: Voice lessons, baby! I am improving! Slowly but surely. I worked on getting my Missionary Approach videos ready to be posted, making cool thumbnail covers for them. I went shopping, and then in the evening, I went to Brittany's house to watch a movie with her and give her a massage. We watched The Tomorrow War, which was okay. She enjoyed it! It was good to watch it with her.

Friday: I was actually a bit nervous to go to my temple shift, but it was good! The ladies that work there are SO stinkin' nice. They have such bright spirits and I was uplifted just being in their company and feeling all the love and excitement going around from being back together in the temple. That evening, I went with friends to go paddle boarding at Tibble Fork Reservoir. I also got to canoe.

Saturday: I learned how to make Chicken Masala from Kethura! She is from India and had all the legit spices. Her family makes them (sun dries the plants and crushes it into powder) and sends them to her. Wow, it sure does make it extra spicy, but it was super good! In the evening, I went ice skating. It's been forever since I've gone! I've been so busy going to the rec center, but I need to start skating more often. And wear body armor so I'm not afraid to try tricks ;).

Sunday: Church was good. I wore a new dress my mom sent me. She said that she didn't like how it looked on her, so she sent it to me. I got so many compliments! SO many. I hosted Reconnect at the church. That evening, the Witt family invited the ward over for homemade ice-cream and games at their house, so I went. It was a blast! Especially playing telestrations. Then I went home and stopped by Whitney's house to catch the tail end of Come, Follow Me. Whitney LOVED my dress, said it was her favorite dress on me. Christina (voice lessons teacher) made GF/DF brownies and gave me some. Then I attended ward prayer. It was fun! I played ping pong while waiting for it to start, and I got called adorable by a guy (one of my goofy/squeaky reactions to hitting a ball) which made me feel good (because it was a guy I like, not one who creeps me out) and we played "Do you love your neighbor?" After, Michael came over to make me dinner (from the ward service activity two weeks back), which I helped with. We were going to earlier, but then we would have missed going to the Witts, and we couldn't reschedule because I'll be gone all evenings this week at the Author's Camp. So we finished cooking around 10:10pm and ate. It was fun and yummy!

Love,

Emily Burnham