Personal Progress ONLINE!!!!! :)

I am so excited!!!!
The new interactive personal progress website has finally started!
This is a very user friendly website and very fun to work with. Thank goodness there are techy people in the church headquarters who realize how helpful this is now going to be for Young Women leaders.

So the website, if you would like to start working on it or would just like to check it out:
personalprogress.lds.org
In order to begin working with the interactive part, you have to create an LDS username and password.
I am going to be starting my own personal progress again so keep checking the personal progress page for updates on how things are going or if I find any cool new ideas.
Young Women in Excellence in coming up VERY soon. I will be posting exactly what we are going to be doing soon. I am so excited for this year and it feels awesome to be planning something again.

Another fun thing that is available for help with missionary work:
www.mormon.org
As a member of the church you can make a personalized profile where you are able create your own place for your non-member friends and acquaintances to go and see what your religion is all about. If you are a non-member, visit the site, or stay tuned for my personalized page for you to check out.

I hope everyone enjoyed and feels blessed from the wonderful General Conference that we just experienced. I know that I feel more committed to be a better person and do what I can to be a better example and member of this church.

Pictures and updates of what's going on with our lives to follow :)
-Love always
-Ness

Life's Measurable Accomplishments

Tonight we went to my parents home to have a family dinner and family night. We had yummy waffles and sausage and eggs and bacon for dinner and then after. I think having breakfast for dinner is something that I will always remember as a favorite past-time. Hopefully it will be something that I continue to make special with my future family- I think James is still having to get used to that idea though. He is more of a good roast and potatoes for Sunday dinner type man. (I am totally fine with this though, because he makes an awesome roast, if I do say so myself).

After everything was cleaned up we sat around on my parents new couch and just talked. It has been awhile since we have done this because of the crazy lives we lead. It has been especially crazy lately because my parents are re-doing their home. New carpet, new floors, new walls, less walls, new doors, less doors, and more- that's for a different day though. 

James and his amazing techy sense set up my dad's computer to the TV and we were able to watch some different Mormon Messages and talk about how blessed we are to be members of a true church and to be a forever family. 

My dad also talked about some of the training that Elder Christopherson gave when he was here a couple weeks ago. What stuck out the most to me was "Life is not just about activities. Change the "just activities" to Life's Measurable Accomplishments.

we went around the room and said one thing that we could work on individually to make our accomplishments more measurable. It was good to here that we are all working together to be better people. It was good to hear that I have a support system near to me and who love me. 

Goal for the week: to make the things that I do more measurably accomplished. 

hope everyone have an awesome sunday and has a fantastic week. next time: i will fill you in on the great learning adventures of the mertz camping weekend. :)

sincerely, 

-nessa 

Dear friends....

this weekend my dear james and i are going camping with some good friends. we are going b/c of james' birthday. here's the slight problem though.....i don't really know how to camp lol.
any good tips or ideas?! any and all would be extremely helpful <3
-ness

Found this Cd off of the Nie Nie Dialogs and i love it!-- although i have not heard the whole thing yet....a friend of mine gave me a copy of the cd Sum of All Grace years ago and miss mindy has been an inspiration to me ever since! check out her stuff! http://mindygledhill.blogspot.com/
-ness

Julie and Julia- My new favorite

Much to James' dismay, he walked in to our room on Friday night to me watching an chick flick, the sort of movie that he would probably sleep pretty well through. For me though- I was browsing Netflix and found this movie. It looked like a normal love story and I had heard of it before, but hadn't heard anything about it. To my surprise, two minutes into the movie and i was hooked! i was going to really love this movie.

if you have never heard of this movie before, i suggest you go watch it because it is amazing. well let me rephrase that- if you are anything like me, or you like to watch movies that make you want to get up and be something/ do something huge, then you will like this movie. added bonus: if you are a netflix account holder, you can watch this movie on instant play! 

anyway- this movie made me want to be more organized with my life- to have things in order so that i have the ability to just try new things and go on new adventures. 

some things that i would like to start doing:

-train with a group of friends to run a 5K (i am actually going to start this a week from tomorrow if anyone is interested in joining the team to train)

-make some cool Christmas presents for my young women, my young women leader friends, my parents, james' parents, and james' sister. and i mean like actually make something that's really cool and something that they will each love and use. 

-i think i would actually like to start cooking. but not just any cooking, i want to learn how to be a provident living cook. so that would mean that i would make freezer meals so that we have something to just thaw out when we need something quick and easy, i want to learn how to can fruit so i can add to my food storage, i want to be able to save us some money by the way i cook....

-i want to devote more time to being a good young women leader. 

-i want to start and finish my wedding scrap book

so here it goes- yesterday i started with organizing. i made my own little (and i mean really little) lab-or-i-tory for all of my little knicks and knacks. i cleaned out all my closets actually and threw away everything and i am not using and that is not necessary to my everyday living. it feels great! 

next step- finish the 5K training plan and send it out to all friends. i am super excited about that one :) 

til next time!

-ness

Meet the new addition!

So i would like to introduce everyone to the new addition to our family :)

ignore me...look at cute kitty :)

everyone-- this is lucy :) my new pretty kitty! she is a very playful kitty and just ask james- she loves playing at 2 am (hehe...i love that i am a deep sleeper). she was given to us by my aunt and uncle mike and anna to watch while they are staying in a different house for a little while. so i went out and bought a cute pink collar and a tag that says her name all pretty like and a fun carrier case. she goes with me where ever i can take her and i love her :) hopefully we'll be able to keep her for a while!

just for kicks :) here's camri at the pool

Birthday!

my yummy birthday restaurant :)

so i am finally 20!
no longer a teenager...and james did awesome at making this weekend a wonderful birthday weekend. i felt like i had a birth-3-days instead of just a birthday.
friday night he took me a beautiful restaurant called Luna Bella then we went to cold stone for some yummy ice cream (cake batter ice cream with crunch bar and crunched inside to make it really crunchy)
then on saturday james invited over some awesome friends and surprised me with a fun party!
sunday we had a bbq with some really good friends and got to catch up on being young and having fun.
Monday was the big day and pretty much i worked all day and then went to see the awesome movie inception at night.

the very good and cute cake that the office shared with me at work on monday :) thanks ladies!

so stinkin delicious! and so pretty too!

I had a wonderful birthday and i love that i got to spend so much time with my baby james :)