Giving Thanks

This last week was quite enjoyable for me. Although I was unable to go home for Thanksgiving, I was invited by my good friend Steve to spend Thanksgiving with him and his family. The food was delicious and I had a good time! It was also extremely nice having most of the whole week off from school. I had a lot of time this past week to relax and have fun. Since this past week was Thanksgiving, I spent a lot of time thinking about the things I am grateful for. I thought I might express here on my blog the things I am truly grateful for. There is so much for me to be grateful for because I have been given so much! First I want to express my gratitude for my Savior Jesus Christ and all that he has done and does for me daily. I know that without his atonement, I would be unable to attain happiness in this life or the next. I am also deeply grateful for the restored gospel I have I my life. I know that by living by the teachings of Church of Jesus Christ, we can truly be happy in this life and have the possibility of living with our families for eternity if we’re faithful. I am grateful I had the opportunity to share the gospel with the people of Russia. I am also thankful for a wonderful family. It keeps getting bigger and bigger each year. They’re all just wonderful and very supportive towards me! It is hard not being able to see them all the time, but hopefully one day I’ll finish school and be able to move back to California. I also feel extremely blessed to have such wonderful friends. I am grateful to live in such a wonderful country. I believe that it is truly the blessed land. Although things are difficult at times, we must remember that the trials we go through are necessary for us to grow. There are so many other things I am grateful for…. I could probably write pages and pages of things I am grateful for. I just want to remind you all how blessed we truly are and to not forget it. Hope you all have a great week!

Creatine

Many of you know that I've been working out pretty seriously for about a year now. Ever since I started paying for my own gym membership, I've wanted to take advantage of it and get my money's worth from it. I started taking a creatine supplement a few months after I started working out at 24 Hour Fitness. Since I've been researching a lot about creatine for my English term paper, I thought I might share a little bit with you about what I've been learning. Before starting my research about creatine, I did not know much about how it works. All I knew about creatine was that it helped you build muscle faster. I found a great Web site that explained in detail how exactly creatine works. I learned that our muscles require energy (ATP) for movement. Stored in our muscles is a supply of this ATP. Our bodies also have its own supply of creatine. ATP releases a phosphate group in order to liberate this energy. When this energy is used, it changes from ATP to ADP. Our body needs to convert this ADP back to ATP to continue muscle contraction (called ATP synthesis). This is where creatine comes into play. While we are still exercising, creatine donates its own phosphate group to ADP in order to change it back into ATP, thus giving our muscles more energy. By taking a creatine supplement, it will give our muscles more creatine in storage and our ATP supply will last longer before our muscles become exhausted. This means that we will be able to work our muscles for a longer period and thus increase our strength. Well, I hope that this information was interesting to you as it was to me and hopefully you might have been able to learn something from it. If you’re interested to know more in depth about creatine and what effects it might have on our bodies, let me know and I’ll let send you a copy of my term paper.

What is your favorite holiday?

I’m curious to know what your favorite holiday is! Let me know by posting a comment. As the 2008 holiday season approaches, I have become quite excited for Christmas to get here. Christmas has been my favorite holiday ever since I can remember. The reasons for it being my favorite holiday have changed, but still today it is my favorite holiday. Christmas used to be my favorite holiday for the same reason it was most children’s favorite holiday; I received lots of presents as a kid. I would always look forward to getting cool toys from Santa. I used to not be able to sleep on Christmas Eve night because I would be so excited for the presents. I still do enjoy receiving presents, but now I enjoy giving presents a lot more. The spirit of Christmas is giving, not receiving. On my mission, I always looked forward to Christmas because that meant that I would be able to talk to my family at home. It’s hard being away from your family for two years and not being able to even talk to them on the phone. It was always such a wonderful gift for me on Christmas to be able to talk to my family and find out how they all are doing. This year, Christmas will be a different experience for me than I’ve had before. I’ve pretty much been away from my family for an entire year. I have been able to talk to my family over the phone (unlike my mission) but I haven’t been able to see them much. This year I’m so excited for Christmas because I get to go home and spend the holiday season with my family. I’m looking forward to seeing all of my nieces and nephews. A lot of them will have grown a lot since the last time I saw them. Playing with all of my nieces and nephews will be a great Christmas treat for me! Over the years I have learned that Christmas is all about giving and spending time with your family. I love Christmas and can’t wait till it’s here!

Voting Day

Today is Election Day in America and I couldn't write in my blog without talking about it. News anchors are talking about the elections on several different television stations. Just recently they announced that Barack Hussein Obama was elected as the 44th president of the United States of America. I feel extremely disappointed and upset at the results of the election for president. I even feel a little sick to my stomach. Obama stands for several things that I do not agree with. Some of his policies that I don’t like include raising the taxes of the rich in order to give more money to the poor, pulling our troops out of Iraq before their job is done, meeting and negotiating with terrorist leaders, and creating a government run socialized health care program. I do not agree with all of the policies of McCain, but he is a lot closer to my views. I was upset when McCain beat out Romney in the primary election because I felt Romney was the best candidate. I vowed that I would not vote for McCain during the General Election. Once it got closer to the General Election, I realized that it would be better to vote for McCain than not to vote at all and get stuck with Obama. When it came to voting, I held my breath and cast my vote for John McCain. Although I knew that McCain had a very slim chance of winning the election, I still had hope that he might by some miracle pull it off. I just hope and pray that Obama will not do any serious damage to our country now that he will be President. Another important part of the voting today was proposition 8 in California. I talked about this proposition in an earlier blog and about how important it was that it passed. As of right now, the proposition is in the lead to pass. I will be happy with the voting today as long as proposition passes. We will see in the next few hours….