Thursday was our big choir dress rehearsal for General Conference. We were all supposed to meet at the institute building at 5:00 all dressed and ready to go. They had six buses there to take us all up to the conference center where we would be practicing. I was really excited to actually practice for the first time in the conference building! My cousin, (who is in the choir with me) and I went to go in one bus when we changed our mind and went for another one. Everyone is smiling and happy and can't wait to get started. We leave and get on the freeway during rush hour traffic.

Awesome. We're off to a great start.

We then get off at the next exit and park into an abandoned gas station where we find out our bus is broken. So we are just chilling in Provo and the bus that is coming to get us is coming from past the point of the mountain.

Even better.

The guys pull out their iphones and get us our pitches with a piano app. One guy said "there's an app for that!" and I giggled just a little bit. Then.....one of the girls suggest we stand up. In the bus. And practice. All I could think of was, are you serious?!? You're kidding right? By this time I was getting a headache and just super annoyed. I just wanted to get up to Salt Lake! I knew I should've brought some music and headphones. I knew I should've gotten on the other bus. Around 45 minutes later our other bus finally makes it!

It's a Catholic bus.

Hahaha! Oh man I laughed really hard when it pulled up. Just made my day! The bus driver was such a cute little old man. So we finally make our way up to Salt Lake and we make it to our rehearsal over an hour late. Rehearsal was pretty long but man it was so cool! We got a lot done and had all of our songs recorded. The spirit was felt. A lot of water was consumed. A lot of pictures were taken. Songs were sung. This is going to be such an amazing experience. I can't wait for General Conference and to be spiritually fed!

Today we all got in order with how we would be sitting at the Conference Center. They had everyone go into the gym and get in order from tallest to shortest. So I meandered over to where I thought I would go. I was checking to see height wise if I was in the right place when an individual let me know that "you actually belong CLEAR up there!"

Why thank you kind individual for putting a lot of emphasis on the word "clear" to make me feel better!

Haha don't worry I have come to terms with my shortness.

We still haven't heard what our finalized songs will be. The church is still working on that. For our sake I really hope one of them is hymn #64 because our conductor has committed us to memorization of that song at our very first rehearsal. He has a pretty good feeling about that one. I hope he is right! After doing a good hour rehearsal on one song, one of our conductors, who is hilarious by the way, just spouted off for the last seven minutes. I can't even remember what he was saying but I haven't laughed that hard in a long time! I felt like I was attending a Brian Regan show.

Hilarious. I love choir teachers with a good sense of humor.

So first let me say that I was mistaken. The choir that I am singing in that will be singing for General Conference will be performing at the afternoon Saturday session. Not Sunday. I don't know why I thought it was Sunday because that is MOTAB's day.

Today was our first rehearsal and I was a tad late. Gasp I know! I am so coming earlier next time. I absolutely loath UVU parking. So they gave us all the rules. You must be LDS. That one made me laugh. Apparently this has happened before...hopefully they became a member! You must not be excommunicated. You must not be a terrorist. I think that one was a joke ish....Everyone of course was wondering what we would be required to wear.

Boys: Missionary hair cut. Side burns must not be longer than the middle of your ear. No facial hair what so ever AND....if you have enough hair to part....part it! (I saw a lot of awesome faces on the boys as he said this.) No dapper dan suits, no pinstripes, and dark ties are a go but no cartoons or writings on the tie.

Girls: Black closed healed shoes. No big heals. Black tights. Black skirt mid calf (pretty sure I don't own one that goes to my calf because it makes me look oober short), no hair in the face, but no ponytail and our hair has to be pushed behind our shoulders and stay there....yeah right. No jewelry except small earrings. Button up blouse, solid color. They will tell us the colors sometime in February.

We went over a bunch of songs that they were going to submit to the church tonight. We are learning six songs and they will all be memorized. Depending on how long the talks go we might sing between four to six of them. It's a lot of stuff but gosh do I consider myself blessed to be able to do this. To share with the world the spirit, and our testimonies through music. I've always prayed that I would have an opportunity where I would be able to share my testimony through that which I love to do, which is sing.

Again what a blessing I have been given.

What a weekend! I know Thursday isn't really part of the weekend but that day was important too. UVU's institute has the opportunity to provide a choir for Aprils Sunday morning session of General Conference! They had auditions Thursday night which went on really late into the night. There were soooo many people there auditioning. They only have room for 365 singers and......

I am one of those 365! I am so excited to be able to take part in this wonderful experience, and to share my love of music with others. So look for me Sunday morning! Friday we had the privilege of being able to hear from L. Tom Perry, also at UVU's institute. What a funny man. His talk was on living a well balanced life. To summarize his talk, he gave us four tips.

1. Realize who we are
2. Value truth, and be truth seekers
3. Be a trusted generation, and live by good standards
4. Seek learning from the scriptures

There was a lot more that he went into but that was the gist. Such an amazing apostle and boy is he tall! Friday was also a fun date snowshoeing and a night of games. Life is amazing right now.

Saturday morning was spend celebrating my dear roommates 20th birthday! Man we are all getting old. We stuffed our faces at Los for lunch and it was amazing. She had to wear a dorky "Happy Birthday" hat too! After that, I journeyed up to Salt Lake to spend the weekend with an old roommate who is pretty much my adopted sister and I consider her family to be my adopted family. I love them all! We were able to catch up, and make wonderful cookies n' cream cupcakes with the most amazing frosting ever. We had a girls night which included the face masks, and a good episode of Saved by the Bell. Next morning, we both got up fairly early and went to Music and the Spoken Word. It was awesome! Lots of good songs were sung. After that I raced home and made it just in time to listen to my cousin speak at his homecoming. If you know our family, you would know that we are all really close. It was so good to see him and other family members, and to hear stories from his mission as well as to see how much his testimony has grown. Like I said....what a weekend.

And can I just say how much I love Monday holidays?!