A Typical Weekend

For most people a weekend consists of sleeping in, relaxing, maybe doing household chores, spending time with friends/family, shopping and other excursions. My weekends consist of  whole different type of situation: I live with a Jewish family
It all starts on Friday morning.  Since their Sabbath starts on Friday night and goes until Saturday at sundown. My host family cooks and prepares food for Friday night. They have family come over for dinner for Shabbat, their day of rest. When the sun goes down they have dinner and enjoy the company of others. They have a meal and they have Kiddush, which is a blessing recited over wine or grape juice, and challah, a type of bread they eat with each meal. For Shabbat they restrain from electronics, using lights, using the stove/oven, dish washer, washing machine and other electrical everyday objects in the kitchen. They also don't do arts and crafts or write.
Saturday morning they get up and get ready for shul (synagogue or church). I get the opportunity to go to church with them. I really enjoy going as I learn what they learn and do as part of their culture and worship services. I go to the kids service, since I usually spend my time with them. After shul they go home and have another meal. For this meal most of the food is cold or they put it on a blech (its a hot plate). This day they also enjoy the company of friends or family. The kids mostly play games, read, and play with friends.

Shabbat goes until sundown on Saturday night. They precede to say a pray ending the day, which also ends their Shabbat. This ending allows them to go back to everyday activities. 
I really enjoy participating in the activity on the weekend. I get to learn a lot and see the different in the Jewish culture and the Mormon culture.

Also for Shabbat they put their fridge and stove in Shabbat mode. Its a feature on them that allows then not to be used. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabbath_mode

Random adventures!

Recently I haven't done anything fun that I could write about. So I will just update you on the some  little things that have been happening.
1. I tried sushi for the first time. On Valentine's Day I went over to a friend's house and tried sushi. I really don't like. I tried a veggie roll and that was okay, then I tried a fake crab roll, then it came the real thing a tuna roll and I didn't like it. It raw fish. Gross....
2. I tried food at a vegan restaurant, we went after the kids dentist appointment and its the only place they can eat due to eating Kosher. It was really good. I tried these cauliflower popper things. They're these baked cauliflower and they had a great dipping sauce.
3. I went to Pennsylvania for a YSA multi-stake rollerblading activity on February 27. I like that as a church we can get together as YSA from the East coast. It's fun to get to know different people. I like that there are lots of YSA all over the east coast. I tried roller-skates first. I fell down many times before I tried roller-blades. I did much better with those and had a ton of fun.

Adventures In Baltimore

After coming back from my Christmas break I got the opportunity to go out with friends. I got to go to Matthew's Pizza, which is a popular pizza place in Baltimore. I got a crab pizza. Crab pizza is just pizza with crab on it.  and it was amazing. I split half the pizza with a friend.

Our church put on a regional ice skating activity, so I got to go to that. The regional ice skating activity consisted of YSA (young single adults) from the Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania areas. It was fun meeting people. I met this gentleman who knew my brother from his mission. So that was cool; what a small world.
For Martin Luther King Day I got the day off. This gave me the opportunity to go to the Washington DC temple and do baptisms for the dead. The YSA couple missionaries (these are a couple missionary who are called to Maryland YSA area and are over the YSA in the area) invited me and I had a great time. We went with some of the guys from  the Navy academy in the Annapolis YSA ward.

Driving to the temple

Driving to the Temple

                              


For FHE we played pudding Pictionary. It was a fun activity. Pudding Pictionary is where you draw pictures in pudding and the people on your team has to guess what you're drawing.

Vacation to Utah

I was able to go to Utah for Christmas  and New Years. The best part is that I got to spend it with my family. As a family we went to Temple Square, played games and watched movies while a fire was flickering in the background. I got the opportunity to spend time with my friends for New Years Eve. My favorite part of the vacation was going to Café Rio.
For a present to my mom I got her a pedicure. Later in the week my sister and I went to a nail salon and got pedicures together.

Christmas Morning

My Aunt and I

Temple Square

My grandma gave us matching socks for Christmas.

My mom, Sister and Sister-in-law

Funny story: I was going to give my brother a present for Christmas with my face on it

so my brother that it would be funny to give me a mug with the royal family on it.

Christmas lights at our house. And yes we have a cow.

My sister surprised me with Aggie Ice Cream.

Temple Square

Me at Temple Square (thanks to my mom who made the hat.)

Pedicure with my mom and sister

My favorite Café Rio pork Salad.

My sister in law curled my hair and I loved it :)

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Thanksgiving In Virginia

For Thanksgiving weekend I wasn't able to go back to my family in Utah. I had to opportunity to go to my cousin's house in Virginia. It was so much fun. I left Thursday morning and had a blast driving through many new places.  I've never seen all the pretty sights, although I kept my eyes on the road. The drive was very green and pretty. I saw lots of pretty trees. Thursday I had Thanksgiving dinner with my cousin and her family. We sat down and ate dinner and talked. We went to the park and played. It was a nice day outside. It was 66 degrees, and was amazing.

                                    swings                                            playing with dolls
Friday we went bowling and my cousins once removed (my cousins kids) wanted to play. Afterwards my cousin showed me some makeup form the Mac make up store (nothing to do with apples) and more about how to wear makeup. We went to the Mac store and I got new makeup. Its a store that has lots of makeup and she showed me the good stuff.

bowling

My first Mac store visit

Saturday they do free activity at Home Depot so we went to that. The kids built money boxes.

 Sunday I went to church with them. The church they go to is by the Potomac River, that was really cool. After church I drove back to reality, oh wait I mean my job.

I had fun playing around with different hairstyles with an app on my phone.

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Week of Fun

 There has been so much happening recently that I knew I need to get back to sharing all my experiences with those who follow me

On Wednesday it was my birthday. The family made me a homemade pumpkin pie. I got a cute card from the kids. That evening Miriam, the mother,  took me out to dinner with her sister. We went to a Tavern place I cant remember the name. It was amazing and I loved the food. I got prime rib and I got a virgin drink; it was just a lemonade. I was able try cream of crab soup and it was amazing. I loved it. I liked it since I've never tried it before.

(who are these people & where are you at?)

Funny face

My birthday dinner

My virgin drink (

Friday I got the opportunity to go to the aquarium with a friend (name friend, guy? girl?). It was so much fun. We saw all kind of fish and sea animals.  The National Aquarium houses several exhibits including the Upland Tropical Rain Forest, a multiple-story Atlantic Coral Reef, an open ocean shark tank, and Australia: Wild Extremes, which won the "Best Exhibit" award from the Association of Zoos and Aquariums in 2008. The aquarium also has a 4D Immersion Theater. The aquarium opened a marine mammal pavilion in 1990 and currently holds eight Atlantic bottle nose dolphins. There was different floor levels with animals on each. 
Level 1: Blacktip Reef

It contains 65–70 species, mostly fish (including blacktip reef sharks). One of the largest animals in the exhibit is Calypso, a 500-pound green sea turtle.
Level 2: Maryland: Mountains to the Sea

This level features animals that are native to Maryland.

Level 3: Surviving Through Adaptation On this level the fish possess adaptations that are needed to survive in their various environments. For example, the electric eel has the rare ability to shock its prey with electricity.

Level 4: Sea Cliffs, Kelp Forest, Pacific Coral Reef, Amazon River Forest
The displays include several aquatic habitats, including a sea cliffs exhibit, which houses several species of seabirds; a Pacific coral reef exhibit; a kelp forest exhibit; and an Amazon River forest exhibit, in which animals can be seen down in the water and up in the overlying foliage.
Level 5: Upland Tropical Rain Forest, Hidden Life

The Amazon rain forest comes to life with this level. It includes two elevated platforms for bird-watching and a cave of various glass enclosed displays of reptiles, amphibians, and terrestrial arthropods.

Shark Alley: Atlantic Predators

Dolphin Discovery

This exhibit houses the aquarium's eight Atlantic bottle-nose dolphins.

Jellies Invasion: Oceans Out of Balance
This temporary exhibit in the Pier 4 Pavilion building showcases nine different species of jellyfish.

On Saturday was my ward's Thanksgiving auction. I got to have a traditional Thanksgiving meal. We had a regular thanksgiving food. The people in the ward are super nice and will donate their time and efforts towards things. We did an auction for the House of Ruth and that was fun. The House of Ruth Maryland is one of the nation's leading intimate partner violence centers, helping thousands of battered women and their children find the safety and security that so many of us take for granted.

Sunday was amazing I got a prayer answered that I've been needed answered for a while.  I had an amazing spiritual experience on Sunday. The lesson that was given was an answer to my prayers