Blessings, Magic, Opportunity and Love. What more could a girl ask for? :)

So, let's all just ignore the fact that I haven't kept up with my blog and focus on the present and catching up! Haha. So basically, I just want to start off with just expressing how blessed and grateful I am to be here. A lot of my friends/roommates have not had the experience that they were expecting and are not enjoying themselves but I have been SO blessed with the job that I was given. I work at a Coronado Springs Resort with amazing people, a relaxed (yet magical) atmosphere and even super nice, understanding managers! I really do love my job. I would have to say that the best thing about this job is the connections I make with the guests, especially the kids that come to stay at the hotel. Im going to share just a tiny bit of magic that I get to experience here :)

So the other day, I was at work and these two girls came in, their names were Eden and Matea. They were ten and twelve and they were from Canada! They were really shy but super sweet. Anyway, we have this thing at Disney where you can trade pins. We, at the hotel gift shop have a pin book that you can look through to trade pins. So, as Eden was looking through the pin book, as she turned the page, Matea and I would sing a note like....aaaaaaahh ( if you can imagine ) anyway, we just so happened to make harmony a couple times so we decided to make a band! The name of our band we decided was going to be called "M.E.E (standing for Matea, Elisheva and Eden!) And, in doing so, we also came up with a handshake. Basically, they got my address and we will be writing letters to each other. :) 

This is just a TINY bit of the magical moments that I get to participate in and it absolutely makes this job so wonderful and so unique and times like that make me realize how lucky and blessed I am.

In other news...I got a season pass to Seaworld, went to this incredible interactive theme park called wonderworks, attended Night of Joy at Magic Kingdom, played in several parks multiple times, and on top of all that, made even more friends, and have been living a dream! Time is seriously flying by! I have already been here for four months!!! Only 3.5 to go :( 

On top of everything mentioned above, my testimony is growing every day. There are so many incredible opportunities here to share this amazing Gospel and the happiness that it gives me with other people and see the difference in their lives when they choose to learn about it. I have the opportunity to go out teaching with the sister missionary's at least once a week, if not more, I see the Elder's all the time around our apartment complex and it is wonderful! The Gospel of Jesus Christ seriously brings me SO much joy and so many blessings it is indescribable. I also started my mission papers!! And as days go by I get more and more excited! Even though I won't actually be leaving until next August....haha. I can turn them in 3 months before I turn 21. March is the month! 

Anyways, I am now going to post pictures of my adventures and boy have there been a lot so forgive me if it gets to be too many. Haha :)

 This is my amazing friend Eunice!!! She is from Hong Kong so she was only here for three months. We worked together and we were neighbors! On her last night, she made us all breakfast! :)

                I dressed up like Bellatrix Lestrange for the premiere of Harry Potter 7. Yep, I am obsessed. :)

                         Allison, Kelly and I had a duel. In front of the fountain at Downtown Disney.

                     There were some other Harry Potter freaks in the theater with us. Fantastic night! :)

 Above is me, deployed to Animal Kingdom lodge for a week. I met some fantastic people! The guy next to me was even from Turkey. He taught me some phrases too!

                      Below is my stock costume for Coronado Springs! Isnt it lovely? :)

So here at Disney, we have these little vinyl figures called vinylmations. Personally I think they are a tad creepy. However, one day we went to DOwntown Disney to the vinylmation store and we created our own sister mssionary vinylmations! Haha. Below is me, Sister Ali and Sister Braman. Future Sister missionaries!

                Also, Alexa came to visit!!! I had not seen her in 8 years! It was quite the reunion.

 Above is an awesome girl who was baptized about a month ago. Her name is Lili and she is the sweetest, cutest, funniest person ever! She is going back to China though in a week :(

                   These are the incredible sister missionaries, Sister Poulsen and Sister Miller. Love them!

                   This is Ben. No explanation is necessary for him. This picture says it all.

 Bethany, my roommate likes to dress up like an old lady when she cleans her room, so she brought back some old lady clothes. I decided to put them on and this is me hugging Kelly...who is afraid of old people :)

 Lili took Bethany and I to this amazing place called WonderWorks. It was awesome! They had a ropes course, lazer tag, interactive video games/roller coasters and so many other fantastic things. It was way cool.

                                                     I even lay on a bed of nails!!!

             One bad thing about living in Florida are the bugs. This GIGANTIC cockroach was in our house :/

                                               Sea World pictures!

 Above are the Elders and all of the roommates! And my friend Lance and Kelly's boyfriend Michael. These elders are amazing. Truly amazing.

                    Lance, myself, Lilo, Lindsay and Ben at Typhoon Lagoon Waterpark!

                         Tayva, myself, Claire and Sheila at Blizzard Beach Water Park!

 This is Alex, another amazingly wonderful convert of a couple of weeks. We are going to hopefully be going to Puerto Rico! :)

 Above is Sarah and I! (This is my other costume for when I am on the floor. I love Sarah! She is wonderful :)

                   Eunice and I up above, Winnie and I down below. I finally met him!! :)

                                            Tigger!!!

 These are the lovely ladies I worked with until Camille (from France) and Eunice ( from Hong Kong) left to go home :(

                                             We went to the beach as well!

                                           My life is amazing!!! :)

Deployment, Birthday and Festivities!

Well, I have been so busy lately that I have not really had the time to catch up with my blog! My bad...
So....that being said, loads of exciting things have happened! :) I am going to try going in order.
First off, I have been making lots of new, wonderful friends and meeting tons of new people! Its a bit hard to keep track honestly...haha but it is great!
Ok...well I went to Epcot last month with my roommates Amber and Bethany and one of my neighbor's (from Scotland!) Rachel. It was lovely! We got there kind of late so we rode a couple of rides and then decided to eat at a German buffet (which cost waaaaaaay too much) but...it was worth it! Great food and beautiful German Waiters :) After dinner, the park was closed but we decided to wander around the countries anyway. It was awesome because the park was absolutely, completely deserted! We had loads of fun. Here are some pictures.

       Yes. I tried everything there was to try. Including Schnitzel with noodles! Just like Maria Von-Trap!

               We shared a table with this adorable little family. I couldnt finish my drink...so they finished it :)

 Ok....so this janitor was just about the most awkward person ever. And when I say that...I mean it. He was               super awkward and we found it hilarious! So we decided to get a picture with him! :)

                    This beautiful man is Hanz. He was our waiter. We all gave him a big tip. Haha :)

                  This was Bob! He was a kindly old gentlemen we met on our travels through the countries.

                   This is bethany, showing me how to whiz on a fire hydrant in England :)

                                                           Bethy and I...in Paris :)

Basically, that trip was awesome! I have gone back a couple times since but that was definitely the most memorable so far. So...the next big event that happened was Princess Auditions! All of the roommates coincidentally had off the day of, so we decided to go! Basically, we waited in line, met some people, sang disney songs, signed in, stood in a room, got looked at for 30 seconds, then sent away. They know what they are looking for and none of us were it :(  Haha but its ok! It was a fun experience. 

                                          This is all of us in our Princess best. :)

After we all got rejected, we went to the beach to celebrate! We all got ridiculously burnt but it was so much fun and definitely worth it. The water here (we went to Cocoa Beach) is INCREDIBLE. It is super warm, the sand is perfect and aside from being the most popular place for sharks to be with the most recorded deaths, it is an amazing beach! Here are some pictures from the Beach :)

                                          Roomies at the beach!

                                          Kelly and I learned how to surf! Together. Holler! :)

                                          looooove these girls :)

Allright...lets see what was next in line...well. Besides work, I had my birthday!!! It was good :) It started off with sleeping in. Then, I went to a retirement party at the place where I work (an old lady was retiring and there was free food haha) I came home, went shopping with my neighbor/coworker/good friend at the outlets, came home and went to dinner! It was good. We went to Downtown Disney, bought Harry Potter tickets and finished off with sushi at a restaurant. When I came home, my neighbors brought me a cake!!! It was super nice of them. I would just like to say thank you so much to everyone who contributed with my birthday, it was great :) Aaaaaaand...now im 20! Wierd.

Anyways...I have also been working. A ton! I just had to say the fun stuff first :) Ok....so I was deployed (yes that is a military term. Haha it means I was sent to another place to work for a bit) to the All Star Resorts here at Disney. It was actually really fun! I met a ton of cool people, both coworkers and guests! I even met a family who decided to adopt me! They were so sweet and they totally want me to visit them in Michigan! I looooooove working here. I just love making all the children feel super special and feel the incredible magic Disney exudes! And Im not exaggerating at all! It is seriously amazing.

I also picked up a shift at Animal Kingdom Lodge. This was my fantastic costume there :)

                               And this is Kelly's costume at Pop Century Resort!

(I will get more pictures of my other costumes soon. This was definitely my favorite so far though)

To top off June, it has been amazing in other ways as well. I have been to 5 baptisms this month! This ward is amazing and I love it! It is so wonderful seeing these people so incredibly happy to have the Gospel in their lives! Hearing their testimonies is also incredible and very faith inspiring. I love how much happiness the Gospel gives me and I am so glad that I have it in my life. :)

So basically...this has been my life for the past month...give or take a couple of things. I will try to keep up more frequently! Peace :)

Work, work, more work and play :)

Allright, well I figured that basically most of my weeks are going to be the same between work and play so I really wont have that many new things to talk about. But I will try my best to give every detail :) So basically...my life is just so wonderful it is like a dream. I absolutely love my job. I really like working with all of the guests and I work with pretty darn cool people. Even my bosses are super nice and very "disney" haha. This past week I had only been working with older people (because that is mostly everyone who works there) but...now there are more college kids working and so far, I have met two of them, RJ and Eunice. Coincidentally, Eunice is my neighbor! She lives literally across the hall. It is awesome! She is from Hong Kong too so she speaks Chinese :) haha anyways...I have met a lot of cool people otherwise as well. I really like the Lake Buena Vista YSA ward that I am in. Everyone is super nice, and very welcoming and it has only been two weeks! So these six months ought to be quite a wonderful experience!

Just to ensure that my life is not all happiness and bubbles...I do want to say that there are some bad parts about working here. Number one is the ridiculous bus system. Buses to where I work take about an hour to get there and 40 minutes to get home. When I have to open in the morning and get there at 7:30am...I have to leave my apartment at 6:30 to get there in time. Also, keep in mind that buses dont run when you would like them to. Yesterday for example, because of the bus, I either had to be at work 45 minutes early, or be 5 minutes late. It was dumb. Also, one of the shifts I had this past week was something. I had to close the shop, so I got off at midnite, after an 8.5 hr shift, got home around 1am, went to sleep at about 1:45 and had to wake up at 6:00 to open the next morning to work another 8.5 hr shift. Needless to say, I was pretty darn exhausted.

Other than that however, everything about Disney so far is awesome in every way shape and form! I still have not been to EPCOT yet so I will probably be doing that this week! I did however go to one of the water parks owned by Disney called Blizzard Beach. It is super cool and I highly recommend it to anyone planning to visit Disney World. It has the tallest waterslide in the US. I didnt go on it. I was much too scared haha. But they have sooooo many water  slides and the theme is like the name. It is literally a "beach" having a "blizzard" There are snowmen and icicles everywhere, not to mention of course hidden mickeys! It was fun. Unfortunately, in the summer it gets super busy because it is so hot and we can only get in for free to the water parks until June 12th :( Then it becomes 50% off.....which is $25 haha......not happening. :) 

I have still not had the chance to get a picture of myself in my costume, I will do that soon and post it because both of my costumes that I wear are just so.....cute! :/ We will be getting a roomie costume picture soon. Speaking of roomies, I really just love them! We get along really well and don't get on each other's nerves too much because we have such varied schedules! It works out well. Kelly, Bethany and I get along really, really well which I am happy about :)  

                                               This is Kelly and her boyfriend Michael :)

         Bethy, Kelly and I had a fun little adventure at Animal Kingdom where we waited in line for Kali River Rapids for 80 minutes because we were so freaking hot! Below is me.....attempting to cool off in a random little fountain. haha

                        Bethy wishes she was Belle. So she bought a little girls Belle dress.

                                             Haunted Mansion at Magic Kingdom!!!

                                                    Bethy and I at Magic Kingdom!

Anyways, I dont have too many pictures to post because I havnt taken a lot but here are some anyway from more of my adventures. Peace! :)