Mawaddge is what bwiings uss togetthaa todaay.

A ton of crazy things are happening and Im starting to feel other than I actually am. 2 nights ago, 2 of my best friends got engaged! I couldn't be more happy for them.

Im going to start with Emily. Emily is engaged to Jeremiah Denton. They knew each other for a whole 3 weeks before they got engaged! That my friends, is true love. When you know, you know. I met Emily my freshman year during volleyball tryouts. She noticed that I was wearing an EFY bracelet and thats where it all started. We had seminary together and some classes throughout high school together too. Ms. Greenfields class was probably the most memorable one and if you know Ms. Greenfield, then you know why. I am so excited for Emily and Jeremiah. They look great together and are perfect for each other. They are a great example of what a truly happy, and in love couple should be like.

Now for Marie. Marie is engaged to Steven Llewellyn who has been in my stake for as long as I can remember. It kinda makes me think...am I going to marry someone that I already know too? Someone that has been in my ward or stake for all these years and it just hasn't clicked yet? Oh the possibilities. Its hard to believe she's getting married but I am truly excited for her and Steven. They are an amazing couple and work really well with each other. Im looking forward to what comes next. Now for some more pictures...

Words cannot explain how excited I am for all of them. They have come so far and this is a really exciting time for them and I get to be a part of both of them. Emily is getting married in the Mesa temple and Marie is getting married in the Bountiful temple. Im so excited to be a bridesmaid for the both of them. I hope that one day I can be where they are now, engaged to the most amazing man for them. It gets me thinking...am I going to be engaged within 3 weeks of dating someone? or am I going to marry someone I've grown up with? My thoughts are all over the place. I know Im most likely not going to be getting married any time soon. Im not exactly ready and I don't really want to yet either. The dating scene for me hasn't been that great, ever. Im hoping that it picks up sometime in the near future. I could use a boost of self-confidence in that area. I am very confident in who I am, and I know that everything in my life is happening for a reason, so I try not to get down on myself when I see all these people dating and getting engaged when Im just not. One day it will be my turn and I definitely look forward to that day. In the mean time, Im just going to live my happy single life just the way I want to until the time is right for me to find my man.

Last day of work.

So last thursday was my last day of work and its tradition in the food and beverage department that when its someones last day, they get soaked with water in some way shape or form. A week before my last day, two guys quit and all they got was sprayed but a hose. But no, my last day was taken to the extreme. I got thrown into the lagoon. So nasty. My uniform still reeks of that dirty water even after washing it. Anyway, I was not expecting that at all but it makes a fun memory! I had the time of my life working at the Polynesian Cultural Center. It was amazing and I will never forget it. Here are some pictures throughout my time there. They're in a super random order...sorry.

Last day with as many people I could find. (Left to right: Tiare, Liz, Roger, Larissa, Caesar, Me, Anthea, Lana)

Before.

After.

My girls behind the scene.

Cesar. Love this kid.

Karla! My favorite Chilean friend.

Most of the gateway workers.

Cesar again.

Clocking in/out.

I have the coolest roommate.

So yesterday I was just sitting on my computer and my roommate was walking out. She said "Here Zoe, I made this for you!" She taught herself how to make these heart things out of one dollar bills on youtube and just gave it to me! She's so sweet. You should all be jealous.

VOSAC visits me!

Yesterday was my first day back to school in a week because thursday and friday we had no school and I only have class on tuesday and thursday. I woke up and was of course late to Music 101. Happens like every day. Never again will I take a 7:30 class. SO I went to the last like 40 minutes of class and then went to political science which was right after. My professor is having a baby so we had another political science teacher in there. It was pretty much pointless to stay because I had turned my assignment in and we didn't really have to know anything she wassaying. I get a text from Emily Dahl that the Shadow Mountain choir was pulling up on campus. So I left class and met them in the front of the school! It was so fun to see them! Talk about reunion! Emily, Shane, Karleigh, David, Eric, Jake, Jason and a few others that I knew! They went on a tour around campus and I just followed them because I left class and had nothing else to do! They sang a couple songs and I listened. After their tour, they went to Hukilau beach! You better believe I went with them! It was a ton of fun to see everyone. Wejust swam most of the time but Jake, Shane and I went and walked along the beach and talked and stuff. It was good catch up time haha. Never in a million year did I ever think I would see these people in Hawaii. Its crazy to see where life has taken me, but I couldn't be any happier. Oh, and apparently I have changed races?

Blur.

This entire week was kind of a all meshed together. I don't know exactly what day I did what but I'm going to do my best! This post is a lot of words and not very many pictures...I apologize in advance!

On wednesday, Erica and I wanted to ride our bikes to Ted's Bakery because she had never been there before and after that we were going to go to sunset beach! Well, plans didn't really go like we thought they would. Its supposed to take around an hour to ride to Ted's Bakery, BUT my bike of course had a flat. At first I thought that I was insanely fat and out of shape because I was not going fast at all and it was hard to pedal but then I found out that the back tire was flat. I was a lot happier...in a way haha. So it turns out that it took us 2 hours just to get to turtle bay which is only half way to Ted's so we stopped there and went to the beach, got in the water, and got smoothies. There was no way we would make it all the way to ted's with my bike and be back on time for the game. Not a chance. After all that, instead of riding our bikes back, we just got on the bus. It took about 10 minutes to get back on the bus. Unbelievable. The bus driver didn't like us. We were apparently too loud even though there were like 3 people on the bus. Oh well. We got back in time for the basketball game. It was the first game of nationals! The school was playing it in the CAC so we went and watched it with a bunch of other students on the big screen. We won! Good day, fun adventures, life is good.

Thursday. Thursday. Ummm, oh! Ok, so thursday during the day was kind of just a get my life in order day. I got a lot done like organizing, planning, cleaning, all that good stuff. Then I went to work. Right after work was the winter ball....haha. This is a funny story. I was on Facebook one day and this tongan guy friend requested me. I had never talked to him but I knew who he was because I've seen him around so I figured there would be nothing wrong with adding him. So I did. The next day, he messages me on the Facebook chat. We just talked for a couple minutes and then he asked me if I had a partner for the winter ball. Right then, I knew exactly where this conversation was going. Yes, he asked me to the ball, and yes, I said sure. A lot of people were surprised that I actually said yes, because I guess most girls would have said no. Thats when I knew I was in for treat. Wednesday, when I was in the bathroom getting ready for work, Ilocked myself out of my room which made me 30 minutes late to work. I went to clock in and guess who was there? He was! Ok, put yourself into the situation. The day before a date with someone that you have never ever talked to in person and you randomly run into them when you're half an hour latefor work and all you wanna do is get there. Yeah, not the ideal situation, but I couldn't just walk right passed him. We had a slightly awkward conversation but we exchanged numbers and it was all good. It was a good thing that I had locked myself out because if I hadn't, then I honestly don't know how this date

thing would have worked. So Thursday night was the ball and I wasn't really sure how it would go. I figured dinner might be a little quiet but the dance would be fun because I would be around other people too. It happened exactly like that. Dinner was a little quiet. I tried to make conversation, but it didn't really work so I ended up talking to the other girl in our group. After dinner was the dance and a bunch of other people showed up. The dance was actually pretty fun. Karla, Shonteri, Taylor and some otherfriends showed up and I stuck around them a lot. Even though this wasn't the ideal date situation, I figure hey, I got asked to come...Im going to have fun no matter the circumstance. SoI did. Im glad that I made the most out of the situation. It ended up being pretty fun since all my friends were there too. Im glad I got to go. It also helped me step out of my comfort zone for a night. So that was thursday. Oh, I think there was a game today too. We were in the final four and won again! Go Seasiders!

Friday was a good day. Me, Erica, Sean, Nate, Cooper, and Cameron all went to play sand volleyball at turtle bay! We went all the time last semester and hadn't played in a while. It was

a super sunny, beautiful day. We played for a few hours and swam in the water after. Its moments like these when I think about how truly blessed I am. I've made some amazing friends here that I will share memories with forever. After that I went to work. I love work. The people are the best and so much fun. I think this day we had a training right after because I guess our restaurant is too dirty? We had a training on how to organize in the back and front and how to clean certain things. The ironic part about this was that while our supervisor was talking to us about it, one of my co-workers Caesar screams RAT! There was a giant black rat running around on the shelf. All the girls started flipping out while two of the guys tried to catch it. I don't know if we ever got it out or not to be honest haha. I just thought it was funny that we were

talking about how our restaurant is too dirty and we find a huge rat running around. After work I went to a small dance thing that was at pcc for anyone that wanted to go. There weren't very many people there but I knew most of the people so it was kinda fun. I went with Erica and Jaymee. We stayed for a couple hours and then they left. I stayed longer and hung around Karla, Yuna and Brandon. We just sat around and

talked but I figured it was better than sitting in my room doing nothing which is probably what would have happened. The whole party/dance thing ended at like 12:30 and as we were walking out everyone starting singing happy birthday to me! It was nice haha. I think Yuna had planned it. She's so adorable.

Saturday was my birthday!! To start it off, I woke up at like 6:45 to watch the national championship basketball game! Most. Intenese. Game. Ever. We were playing Bellarmine, which is somewhere in Kentucky. We had an amazing first half, but then our players started getting way too many fouls. Erica and I were like jumping up and down the entire game. Probably the most emotional thing ever. It was fun though. We ended up losing by 3 points. It was so sad. HOWEVER, we had an amazing season. Our team wasn't even nationally ranked and to end the season getting second in nationals....? I'd say thats pretty good. Im very proud of our team. I guess you could say we were the under dogs. No one expected us to even be part of the sweet sixteen, or the elite 8, but you better believe we were! After the game, Jaymee, Erica and I got ready to go into town. We had a lot of plans for the day but knew they probably wouldn't all get done. We wanted to hike diamond head, go to waikiki beach, and shop at the 3 story forever 21. When we got there, we realized that we didn't even know where diamond head was so we're going to do that sometime next week. We ended up just shopping. We went to Ross for a bit and then it took us a while to figure out how to get to forever 21. We stopped at Sam's Club to pick up pictures for Jaymee and ate all the free samples. By the way, popcorn chips....zoo delicious. And then stopped at the frozen yogurt place because it just sounded reaaallly good. So pretty much, the summary of our day was walking around town goofing off and shopping! It was fun and relaxed. I didn't really want to do anything extravagant for my birthday so it was perfect! And we all got some super cute new clothes! Jaymee has all the pictures from this day. Ill get them as soon as I can!

Sunday was church. We all wore our new outfits. Man did we look good! haha. At lunch we all got in trouble because we were "out of standards." The lady came up to me and was like "Umm...your whole knee is showing. Thats not appropriate. Don't come to dinner with that on." I just started laughing in my head. My skirt was plenty long. Honor code is ridiculous here. Gahh. The lady must have been in a bad mood or something. She literally talked to like every girl that was eating lunch that day. Something was wrong with everyones outfits. Even though I could, Im not going to rant about how annoying honor code is here. All I'm going to say is that they are going way overboard with it all. Sunday night all the basketball boys came from from nationals in boston! They were supposed to get here when the fireside started but they came an hour later like right after the fireside got out so pretty much everyone and there mothers were outside when the basketball team got back. I think the team really liked all the support. They came back with really good attitudes about the final game and the season in general. It was really good to see.

Holy?

Today I did a photoshoot with the same guy that took the pictures with me and some friends at the temple. It was a lot of fun but I realized that I will never be a model haha. I cant work the camera. Its just not really my personality I guess you could say. In a way I guess I'm shy when it comes to this stuff. Maybe it just takes time and practice. I don't know. But thats not what I wanted to write about. I was approached by a guy in the photography club that came to get some practice with professional photographers. He told me his name and that he was from Vietnam. I told him my name was Zoe and he asked if I was from Utah. I laughed because everyone from out of the United States thinks that every white mormon person is from Utah. I told him I was from Arizona and (this is the best part) he said, "Oh. You look holy. So I thought you were from Utah." Is that a compliment? I didn't know how to respond to that. I honestly don't even remember what I said to him. It was the strangest thing anyone has ever said to me.

Time flies.

Its hard for me to believe that I have been living in Hawaii for this whole school year and I only have 3 weeks left. Its even harder for me to believe everything that has happened in this amount of time. I have loved every moment of this journey. As you may or may not know, the beginning wasn't exactly what I expected. Originally, Lindsay had convinced me to come with her just for a semester and then we would both go to Provo together. We both were accepted here and that was the plan. But life doesn't always go as planned. Last summer, when we were getting excited to come here in the Fall, she met Spencer who has changed her life forever, as well as the rest of my families. They got engaged which left me coming to Hawaii alone. I was honestly considering not even coming anymore. Going to a place that I knew absolutely no one wasn't exactly my ideal situation. Little did I know, it came to be the best decision I have ever made. I couldn't be more grateful for the chance that I got to be able to come here for a year. At times I feel ungrateful for leaving. Its hard to explain to people the reason why I am leaving Hawaii because no one can completely comprehend it unless they've been here. It was probably the hardest decision I have ever made to decide to move back to Provo to be with friends in family and I hope that my family and friends will support me in that decision. At times, I keep thinking that I am going to come back. I'll always want to be here, but I think that in the long run, going to BYU provo is better for my future. People always say to follow your heart, not your mind. They seem to be meshing together, which is what has made my decision so hard. I know that I will love it there too, Im just having a hard time saying goodbye to everything that I have come to love here. I'm hoping that I chose the right thing. I have met some of the most amazing people here and I am going to miss them a lot. I feel like I have learned and grown so much in these short 9 months, and I wouldn't have been able to had I not come here alone. I've met people from all over the world, worked at the Polynesian Cultural Center, which was in and of itself one of the most amazing experiences I have ever gotten, and learned of the different cultures of the world, while living on the most beautiful island of Oahu. Its hard to believe that in 3 weeks, I wont have much of this anymore but I know that I am just moving on to more new and exciting things in my life. I found this quote thats very simple, but it has a lot of meaning to me.

"The purpose of life is a life of purpose."

I know that there was a reason why Lindsay met Spencer the time she did, and that I came to Hawaii alone. Even though having her here probably would have made the experience 1000x better, I think that there are a lot of things that I may not have learned because there was someone else here that I could depend on. I definitely learned a lot about independence and surviving on my own. Im 3000 miles away from my home, and I'm in the middle of the ocean. Its hard to sat that I could still be dependent on someone. I know that there was a purpose for me being here. I've learned a lot about myself, patience, how to be more outgoing, independence, the true meaning of friendship, had multiple testimony building experiences, and have had the time of my life in the process.

"Time is what we want most, but...what we use worst."

Its hard for me to think back to the times that I just sat in my dorm room on a rainy day. I feel like I lost so much time when I could have been sitting on the beach just admiring the ocean and everything else here. Time is so precious and my time in Hawaii is coming to a close. I want to be able to make use of every second here. I cant express how grateful I am to have been here. It has been such a blessing in my life. I know that everything that I have experienced and learned here will help me in the future. I have overcome so many fears and gotten over things that probably would have stuck with me had I not moved so far away. This was part of my plan all along and I hope that I'm following the right promptings in going to Provo. Hawaii will always hold a place in my heart. It has made a huge impact on my life and I am excited to see what else is in store for my future.