Exciting News!

Hello!

Well, there has been a lot of excitement here recently! Yesterday seemed to be the day that everyone received their mission calls (at least in Broadbent Hall they did). There were several guys over in Broadbent who found out they would be going to places like: Guatemala, Scotland, Canada, and many other countries. We were most excited to hear that Scott got his mission call, and will be going to Milan, Italy! When he opened the letter, he called his parents first, and then called Julie and got to hear about twenty minutes of us screaming in the phone. After he called his other relatives, he came over and there was a lot of jumping up and down and screaming going on. He couldn't stop smiling and he was talking about a mile a minute, I don't think I've ever seen him so excited before. He immediately went to the bookstore and bought an Italian Book of Mormon and started learning random Italian words from people. Of course the first one he learned was the word for 'battle.' Julie just rolled her eyes when he told her and said, "Of course a boy would want to learn that one first."

Anyways, there's been a lot of exciting news. There are several people going to South America, and a few to different parts of Europe. Krista and Julie have been getting texts what seems like daily from guys they knew in high school who have been receiving their mission calls. I think Krista just found out that there are three farewells this coming Sunday for guys from her stake at home.

Well, we're all definitey excited for Scott. How cool is THAT? Italy! Somers is so jealous--if she could go anywhere in the world, it would be Italy. She's always wanted to go there and cook. Scott's definitely going to be eating well on HIS mission! He leaves on January 7th for the MTC, and Julie is wanting to have us all make a road trip down to Albuquerque for his farewell. That would be awesome--the only problem is that we start classes on the 5th, the day after his farewell. And New Mexico is a 10 hour drive from Provo. But hey--if it's possible for us to drive down there and be back for classes, then that would be super cool. Of course, that'd be a LOT of traveling for me, since I'm flying back to Utah on the 3rd. Fly in on the 3rd, drive to New Mexico for 10 hours on the 3rd, and then drive 10 hours back on the 4th. Yuck! It probably won't happen since we're so crammed for time, but it would be cool if we could go to his farewell. Who knows--maybe we'll get to see him before he goes into the MTC, since it's right down the street. :]

Anyways, so that was the awesome news for yesterday. The rest of the day was pretty relaxed--we didn't do too much, other than go to class and do homework. Blech! But we did watch The Prestige last night, which was amazing! I loved it! However, we started the movie at 12:30 because we tend to be stupid when it comes to watching movies. We look at the clock and go, oh it's only midnight, its not that late. Of course, we forget that it'll be 2 by the time the movie FINISHES. So we started the movie really late and then went to bed at about 2:30ish. We're smart. :]

And today we're going to Brother McQuarrie's house to (hopefully) watch When A Stranger Calls. However, there's been some confusion and we might actually be watching Step Up 2... which we've already watched. And it's not a scary movie, which will break our scary movie per night streak. So hopefully we can watch When a Stranger Calls. Brother McQuarrie was so excited when we asked if we could mooch off of his richness and use his big screen TV with surround sound. Apparently he's so excited that students from the ward would actually ask him if they could come over, and so he's like, buying snacks and all this stuff for us, and he and his wife are going to watch the movie with us. We all feel bad that he's spending money on us, but when we told him not to, he jsut waved us off and told us he wanted to. So... I guess we're getting snacks and a movie :]

I haven't had the chance to really talk to the members of our bishopric much, but on the occasions I do, they all seem very friendly and fun. Brother McQuarrie loves to just talk with groups of students about random things. At Thanksgiving Point he even tried to help us force Julie and Krista into the haunted corn maze. :] Brother Steffenson is pretty neat too. He's from LA, and so he loves to talk to us students from California. He brings his daughter to ward prayer every Sunday, and she's so cute! And then Bishop Franco is pretty fun too. His house is HUGE. It's a four car garage (and he has five cars), and the house just goes on forever. When he found out I was from Fremont, he got really excited, because he's from Niles, and so he kept asking me if I knew where this street was, and that street was. I actually know the street where he lived... weird. :] He started his own business in Niles and then moved to Utah and built his ginormous house, since, of course, its cheaper to build a house in Utah.

Anyways, they all seem very neat and we're definitely excited to go to Brother McQuarrie's house tonight. We never really appreciated being in a HOME before until now, when we're stuck in this tiny apartment.

There's only six more weeks of the semester! It's crazy how quickly it's gone by, and I'm excited for this semester to be over so that I can start my new classes. As much as I LOVE my GE classes that bore me half to death, I'm really excited to start some of my editing minor classes. And I'm excited for a break! We looked at our calendar, and we don't EVER have a break, other than the two days for Thanksgiving and the two weeks or so for Christmas. Not even a three day weekend. Lame... Anyways, so I'm definitely excited for Thanksgiving break when I can come home and see everyone!!!

I miss you all!

-Cate