Back to "real" Life?

Well, I see it's been a while since there's been a post on here...
The blog was suppose to have been re-continued, but it looks like that didn't happen really. Oh well. In short...I finished my mission, came home, went to scout camp, finished scout camp, and now I'm waiting for school to start in the fall! I'm not sure how much blogging I'll be doing...I've heard various comments that you should only blog if you're married or have kids. I'm not sure if I'm planning on either of those soon, so we'll see what happens.
But for now I'll do a little updating, just in case anyone is wondering.
After I left Hurst, which is where my last emails came from, I went to Denton, Texas, which was absolutely AMAZING.

I loved it there. Lately I've been trying to decide whether I loved Denton or my last area of Temple more...there were so many wonderful and amazing experiences and people in both areas that it's really hard to decide. I was in Denton for almost eight months. Ya. But it was great. Probably my only area that I COULD have lasted that long in.
There were so many great people and experiences that I had in Denton. Some of the ones that I will always remember are Lily, Sergio, Martin and Kalista and their girls, the Strassers, Obispo Mesa, the Coronas, la familia Hernandez and of course the Hargis family...so many people that changed and influenced my life. I will be forever grateful for them, the choices that they made, and for their examples to me. As well as all the missionaries that I was able to work around and learn from. Elder Soto and I saw each other EVERY DAY for 6 months...if you're not friends after that, you're probably enemies. Good thing it turned out to be friends. (I think...jk.) Elder To'a came into the mix only 6 weeks later. We had some good times in the big 'D'.

And how can I forget our week long hospital stay when Sister Quiroz's wisdom teeth got infected...Luckily there are some stellar members in the Denton 6th ward that helped us out...brought us pizza, took me home to shower, coloring books... I love Denton.
In my interview with President Sagers the transfer before I left Denton he asked me how long I'd been there. "About 7 months..." He got a surprised look on his face, then said, "Well, don't be buying any burial plots around here." The next transfer I went "south." To TEMPLE, TEXAS.
Temple was great. Our area was huge. We served in a Spanish Branch, but worked in two different stakes. Twice a week we'd head down to Killeen, about 45 minutes away, and spend the night with the english sisters there so that we could work and not use all of our miles. And it was also fun to have "2" apartments and hang out with the sisters there. We had some good times. And of course we worked HARD. ;)
We met some truly remarkable people there as well. The Lord's hand was evident in everything we did. I know for a fact that the people that were able to join the church while I was in Temple did not do it because of us; we were the tools in the Lord's hands that made it possible for them to receive the fulness of the gospel that we enjoy as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Florentino, Juan, Antonio, Alejandra... they were all prepared before we arrived. I will be forever grateful for the friendships I was able to make while serving there.
One of my favorite things to do was to visit the Arteaga family. Pedro and Edith are amazing. Due to circumstances out of their control, they are not able to be baptized at this time, but they don't let that stop them from being the best "dry members" they can be. They are the first to church every Sunday, the first to offer us assistance, and the first family I ever saw in 18 months to fellowship new members without our asking. The first time we met them, we went over to their house for FHE, expecting to teach them how to hold one. Weren't we surprised when we walked in and saw our recent convert Florentino sitting on their couch. They didn't know him that well, but they had invited him over to participate with us. I almost died when, after we sat down, Pedro welcomed us all to family home evening, asked us to pull out our hymn books and introduced the song and the opening prayer. After that he went on to lead a group discussion of Alma 42, where they were currently reading as a family. Question...how many of you are as shocked as we were? Truly an amazing family. I know someday they'll be able to reach their goal of going to the temple as a family and I hope I'm there when that day comes.

There were so many amazing people in every area I served, it would take hours to write about them all. Probably you can look forward to more posts. I don't really have a life right now, so it's a possibility. :)
Lately I've been asked "what was your favorite thing about your mission?" First of all, this is not a fair or a good question to ask return missionaries. Think about it...how are you going to choose one thing that you liked the most? You can't. It's like asking a parent which child is their favorite. Every parent in the world with the exception of mine would have a hard time answering that. (My parents have an easy time saying "Katie"...) Anyway, I had a lot of favorite things. Most are listed above. If you want more, maybe I'll tell you if you ask nicely.
As far as being home goes, I'm not going to lie...I've found my transition to be rather smooth. I loved my mission and the time that I spent in Texas, but I'm also ok with the fact that it's over now and that I need to move on with my life. I've heard of so many people that come home and have a horrible time not being able to adjust to life for some reason or another. I'm grateful that that hasn't happened to me...I think I owe a small thank you to scout camp for that. Haha. Even though it was a quick turn around (I got home on the 9th of June and went to camp the 10th) I think it was possibly one of the biggest contributing factors to my "post" life adjustment. What better way to ease back into things than spending your summer with a ton of goofy kids outside on the water? Haha. We had some laughs, some jokes, good stories, near death experiences...everything you need to make a summer a good one. It was a little rough seeing my family for less than 24 hours and then only seeing them every few weekends, but all in all, it was a great summer.
So... as I continue on my way to find out what "real" life is...hopefully I'll be able to keep you posted. I think the only person that reads this is Bree anyway, so I hope you'll get a smile or two out of it. Well, that's all for now.
Love. Peace. and Chicken Grease.