Getting Ready: Nervous and Excited and so many other things.....

In order to get this blog ready for this summer, I should probably fill you in on what is going to be happening this summer. I am going to be going to Visakhapatnam, INDIA!!! It's a bit scary to be honest...but also exciting! This will be my first time leaving the country, in way shape or form that requires a passport and visa and plane tickets and so many other things. Let me tell you now, I AM NOT A FAN OF VISAS!!! I really, really don't like visas, unless I have more time in order to acquire said visa. Otherwise, I never want to do this again. Okay, I take that back, I would love to do this again, I just now know what would be required of me to leave the country...and the timeline required to do these things. Also, I don't like getting immunizations.

So, there's that. Moving on! This past weekend was The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' General Conference. I love General Conference, it's actually one of my favorite times of the year, the first weekend in April and the first weekend in October. It's a time when the leaders of my church, President Thomas S. Monson, the Twelve Apostles, and other leaders in the church speak to the members of this church over a series of topics, from the Atonement of Jesus Christ, to repentance, to relying on Christ, and many other things. It's during these times that I relearn how much I love this gospel! Between now and October, I will again forget how much I love this church, but that is why I love General Conference! It reminds me that there is a lot to learn from this time that we have here on earth and I need to take advantage of it. That's part of the reason why I'm going to India actually. I have to for school, obviously, but this will probably be my one and only time that I'll visit a country on the other side of the world for three months and I want to learn all that I can while I am there.

I actually have a friend there right now. She's on the same program that I am going to be doing, the India Study Abroad program, and she's been keeping a blog about her time while there in India. And that something that I want to do as well. I want to be able to write down as much as I can about my days while I am there as well as record my experiences for others to see and read about while I am gone. So that's part of the reason why I started this new blog, that, and I have a new email address so I figured should have my blog with that email address. Just makes a lot more sense.

That's about all that's going on in my life at the moment. Yes, I know, this post is very jumpy and just all over the place, but it's late at night so I'm blaming sleepiness.

Talk to you soon,
Ashley