Catching Up

So I know I haven't posted on here in quite some time. I had finished Ecuador, but thanks to the "encouragement" of my extended family I am at it again. For those of you who don't know, I have been working as the EFY health counselor for the past 2 months. This mostly includes handing out the band-aids and Advil, but the kids often will hit you with something out of the blue. It makes my job quite interesting. The greatest part about it is that I also get to have the spiritual aspect of the efy program and I have teaching opportunities all the time. This year was crazy in many different ways. I was able to work in California for half of the summer. It was great, but at one point the entire city of Goleta was on fire, and yes, that is where we were with 400 youth. We had the wonderful opportunity to have our meetings outside while it was raining ash on us. I have to admit, lights out was very easy that week due to the fact that we had no power. It was probably one of the most depressing things to tell all the efy kids that they would not be having Pizza night because the entire city had no power. Instead we bought out K-mart in the makings for PB&J sandwiches and granola bars!
I also had the amazing opportunity to work a week in Nauvoo! We only had 187 participants and it was an awesome week! We took everyone through the temple to do baptisms and in two days those awesome youth did 13oo names! You really can't compare the experience of having your daily scripture study on the lawn in front of the temple. We were also able to take everyone through Carthage jail. The group that I was with decided to take the time we had in the jail to sing "Praise to the Man." They were a stellar bunch of kids and it was an emotional experience for all of us! I'll put up some pictures as soon as I can, and I promise to try and do better with keeping up.
Unfortunately my Mom is going to have to take over the site because I am leaving on a mission in October! I have the wonderful opportunity to go to Portugal for a year and half and I can not wait!