Seeing the Good!

Something i found online that i really liked!

Some things i have learned from Harry Potter:

· Harry Potter taught me that some things are worth dying for.

· Ron Weasley taught me that believing in yourself is a hundred times more powerful than luck.

· Hermione Granger taught me that an education is a girl’s best asset, even if it doesn’t make you many friends.

· Severus Snape taught me to never, ever, ever judge someone.

· Rubeus Hagrid taught me that anything can be cute with the right perspective.

· Ginny Weasley taught me that bold is beautiful.

· Lily Potter taught me that a mother’s love is the strongest force on earth.

· Remus Lupin taught me that fear is the only thing I should be afraid of.

· Dolores Umbridge taught me that education with a political agenda is a terrible, terrible thing.

· Sirius Black taught me that the ones we love never truly leave us.

· Albus Dumbledore taught me that good people are not always good.

· Draco Malfoy taught me that bad people are not always bad.

· Neville Longbottom taught me that courage is standing up for what’s right, even when you’re scared out of your mind.

· Luna Lovegood taught me that weird is wonderful.

· Dobby taught me that freedom is a gift.

· Lucius Malfoy taught me that no amount of money, pomp, or circumstance will buy you true friends.

· Fred & George Weasley taught me that sometimes all you need is a good laugh.

· The Dursleys taught me that a world without imagination is a dull and dreary place.

· Arthur Weasley taught me that an good sense of curiosity and a bit of obsession can be healthy.

· Fleur Delacour taught me that true love is not based on appearance.

· Molly Weasley taught me that a happy family is not measured in gold.

· Bellatrix Lestrange taught me that hatred and prejudice rot your mind and can turn even the most beautiful person into a monster.

· Kreacher taught me that if you want to get to know a man, look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.

· Cho Chang taught me that rebound relationships almost never work.

· Nymphadora Tonks taught me to love myself, no matter what I look like.

· Percy Weasley taught me that, in the end, no career is worth sacrificing your family.

· Sybill Trelawney taught me that you cannot change the past, only the future.

· Lavender Brown taught me that physical relationships only last for so long.

· Peter Pettigrew taught me that rats do not make good friends.

· Nicholas Flamel taught me that to the well-prepared mind, death is but the next great adventure.

· Minerva McGonagall taught me that a good cause is worth fighting for at any age.

· Hedwig taught me that the love we have for our pets is very real.

· Lord Voldemort taught me that a life without love is barely living.

J. K. Rowling taught me that the stories we love will always be with us.

Point being,  try every day to look for the positives in other people. Don’t focus on the negatives. Focus on positives of other peopleand what you learn from them and this will directly reflect on the way you look at your own self.
Any info on who wrote the Harry Potter stuff  please comment so I can give due credit.

Treking

Pioneer teens sang as the walked and walked and walked... and you get the idea.

So i don't know what kind of crazy NUT thought of the idea of getting a bunch of the youth together and putting them in the middle of nowhere and have them dress as pioneers, to carry  what? a 1000 pound wagon for almost 30 miles in which alot of it was uphill! Not only that, we couldn't take toothpaste OR DEODORANT! You can only just imagine how we all must have smelt, pulling that wagon up hills sweating our butts off  with no showers, and sleeping next a campfire, right? NO!! We stunk worse then your dirty pair of never been washed for 3 months gym socks at least out in the open it wasn't that bad, but then getting us all cramped up on a bus having to sit next to each other having to smell each others stink! It really makes me more grateful for showers, deodorant and toothpaste. I'm pretty sure the person who ran this event must have got a lot of threats through out the 3 days we were there ha ha but in the end I'm sure everyone thought it was an amazing experience, i sure did.


This is me standing awkwardly by the door dressed as a pioneer

                  We got put into a small group which were to be our family,

(This was my wonderful family, i so love these people they are just so great!)
On the first day we got together and got to know each other then made our wagon which only had 2 wheels and we had to pull it, we stuck all of the belongings we were allowed to bring which were pretty much only a sleeping bag, our pioneer clothes, and a tin cup which we carried around with us. Then we began our long journey to Zion, we hiked well into the night, several times we thought we had reached our camping spot but only got a "Surprise, you silly youth! We aren't at the camp site yet! Why would you think that?! We still have  40 more miles to go! SUCKAH!" OK well they didn't say that but I'm sure they were thinking it and it wasn't 40 miles but sure as heck felt like it!
And just when we all thought we couldn't go any farther because we were starving and our feet ached and we were freezing, we saw light up ahead , several people thought it was our campsite so they started running up that hill and after their hard work only got yelled at by Indians, HA! I was truly amazed at how people could still be happy and joke around even though we were all dead tired, ready to collapse and freezing our butts off. I was surprised no one took one of the Rhinos the leaders were driving around in and told THEM to get out and walk to rest of the way while they drove to the campsite, It was super neat to see everyone was a good sport and push to the very end. When we FINALLY got to a stop we set up camp and ate or more like drank broth which i heard was good but didn't get any because i had already fallen asleep.  The nights up there were FREEZING cold! I don't know how the pioneers did it during the winter! In the morning we ate oatmeal, which i have to say was THE tastiest oatmeal i have ever eaten! Then we set out again we only hiked about 6 1/2miles that day, the first day we had hiked 13 1/2 miles, and  for 2 miles of that the men went off to "war" leaving the young women to pull the handcarts up a huge hill, the boys sat up on a ridge and watched us as we set out to finish that hill without them. It was one of the hardest thing i had ever done! That hill just kept on going, right when we thought it was done, BAM! there was more, I knew that the guys must be laughing at us as we struggled.and right when i thought we weren't going to be able to do it and praying to God to please helps us, God sends us our little "angels" (our Big brothers) Oh how i love my Big Brother, as soon as they came everything was so much easier, Thank You Angels!  That night we had the brilliant idea of heating up rocks and putting them in our sleeping bags to keep our feet warm.  The next day we had gotten to hear about what the young men thought about watching us struggle up that hill in their testimony meetings. Honestly i was surprised that any of them cared, i was expecting them to laugh at us or just fall asleep while they could but all of them said they wished they could have jumped down and take that weight off of our shoulders, or at least shout words of encouragement to us even thought they were not allowed too. Its nice  to know there are still nice young gentlemen
The last day we were lucky and only hiked 2 1/2 miles! The greatest feeling ever was as soon as we walked into "Zion" and were done! To know we had finished this, even though it was the longest and hardest thing we had ever done! I had goose bumps going up my arm and had to keep myself from crying, we got to rest and eat some REAL food at last! Then we got on the bus where i thought i was going to barf from the stench! The bus ride home was fun though, all of us in the back partied,sang songs, quoted movies and cheered as people went back to use the bathroom! haha we were trying to make it as awkward for them i guess, but it was fun! I had a great time and i think everybody else did too, definetly not something we are going to forget! Defintly something that shows all teens could get a long and have geniune care for each other all our facades were down, I believe we showed our geniune selves during a hard, but extremly fun time. We all pulled together and it was Super AMAZING!!!!  Those nuts that put this together did a great job.
And now our parents aren't the only ones that can say "we had to walk up hill both ways, barefoot in the snow" HA! We can say that, plus carried a 1000 lb handcart.