Jesus Christ

I really do have a desire to start writing again. Today, I will just say one brief, but important thing. I know that Jesus Christ is my Savior and that He lives! I just loved Church today. I was fighting tears all day as I just kept feeling how much I know Heavenly Father loves me and that Jesus Christ understands all of the pain and trials that I am watching so many of my good friends, family, and others going through right now. He understands because He has experienced it all. The atonement is an amazing gift that He has given. I just feel really blessed today and grateful to Heavenly Father for all of my wonderful friends and family. I hope you--whoever might actually read this--know how much He loves you too. Counting blessings ...

Gum

Do you ever feel like your a piece of gum? You are the gum that someone chews for awhile, spits out, and saves to be used in between meals. Then, they stick you back in for awhile until it is time for another meal and you are either saved for later or disposed of. One way or another, you will be disposed of at some point, so you just have to get used to the idea of being chewed up until every last bit of flavor and elasticity has been extracted out of you and you will be disposed of and then probably stepped on by someone else who really doesn't want me stuck to their shoe. Yes, that's the way I feel today. That is a little depressing, nevertheless, the way I feel and I needed to write it down somewhere.
My next post won't be so depressing; I promise. I'm in the writing mood these days, so I have a feeling I'm actually going to jump back on here and start writing about my life that really isn't so depressing, but rather, it is quite wonderful. I'm in the place where I need to be and where I've been prepared to be for a really long time. So stay tuned if you are actually paying attention to the fact that I'm writing something again after a year-and-a-half.

What is a Mormon?

Florists vs. Forests

Not the flowers from the story below, but flowers I received from one group of students on International Women's Day, March 8th, which is the closest thing to Mother's Day here. (This is what their bouquets are like ... a bit fru-fru with all kinds of extra stuff besides the flowers. I'm so not a fru-fru person, but I love flowers! I received a bunch more red roses that day! :))

So Rocky insisted that a funny I made today become a Blog moment, but really it is for Shawna! So here it is ...
It may not seem so funny to anyone who wasn't there, but Shawna said it was one of the funniest things ever (or something like that) and couldn't stop laughing. So after church today, we were just talking about Sean's experience of trying to get Shawna flowers for Mother's Day in Baku and the biggest, most beautiful bouquet he could find late last night was a few Gerber daisies that were sadly bending over at the head like his own head as I picture it with the description of the story. Anyway, during this conversation, Rocky said he has a "24-hour florist" nearby his house, but what I heard was a "24-hour forest" and I was a little confused for a number of reasons. One, because there is certainly not a forest near his house in the middle of the city. The closest thing to a forest is the little park outside next to his building. Second, why would a forest be a "24-hour" forest? Since when do other forests close? Okay, so I tend to have blonde moments sometimes if I don't think about my quick reactions like that one, especially since, if I had taken like two seconds, I would have realized the obvious fact that the context was about flowers!!! But no! I blurted out the question! Well, hopefully, that will make someone laugh.

Pics Finally ...

I took this picture back in February, but I have wanted to add it to my Blog forever. This is near my house and to the left is a major road that I like to play Frogger on once-in-awhile. It came to me one day that pedestrians in Baku are little frogs that just hope to cross these roads without getting hit when there are no rules or if there are no one follows them, because I can't ever figure out what the rules are. So basically you take you are risking your life anytime you step onto a street, because you never know what is going to happen. The sign depicts an accurate picture. All pedestrian crossing signs in Baku are of people sprinting like World-record-holding sprinters because you sprint across and take your chances as a frog dodging in and out of cars. More to come on driving (something I don't do) and moving about in Baku, which is the craziness I call my daily life even if I live next door to work.
Oh and I'll have to find a good description of the lady unveiling herself in the statue in the background.



My apartment building is the tall one on the left. I am about half-way up in the middle apartment, but I don't think you can see mine from this picture. The building that had the fire was the tall one to the right. The shorter apartments are basically what the rest of the apartment buildings look like in my neighborhood. And the pictures stapled on the plywood at the bottom of the picture are surrounding a giant hole that was another apartment building when I got here. That hole is being worked on 24/7 and I can hear the heavy equipment pretty much all the time. It will be apartments for some fancy people associated with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs directly behind me.