Relief Society Spotlight Survey

Like nine months ago, we asked a girl in our Relief Society to head up a newsletter. She's a clever girl, with a strong voice in her writing, and she does a good job of it. Everyone else in the presidency has been spotlighted. I was thinking (in nothing but earnest), "oh goody, I have been overlooked!" Not so, darn it. I got the survey in my inbox on Tuesday night. I filled it out and sent it back to her, because if I want people to do their callings, I should probably not be the hindrance in that pursuit.

I was not terribly forthcoming with my answers, but two I thought were kind of worth sharing.

01) Where are you from? (Did you grow up here, or in a different state?) I am from here.

   01a) If you're not originally from here, what brought you to our neck of the woods? School? Work? Family?
   01b) If school, what's your major? If work, what's the job? 

02) Siblings? I have one older brother and one half brother who is almost 3. (That's not a typo.)

03) Top five favorite books. (If any.) White Teeth - Zadie Smith, Everything is Illuminated - Jonathan Safran Foer, ANYTHING by Jane Austen, Middlemarch - George Eliot, and Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

 04) Top five favorite movies. (If any.) I studied film at BYU, so to narrow my list down to five is unthinkably difficult. So instead, I will give you five directors whose work I could watch all day long. Rian Johnson, Preston Sturges, Wes Anderson, Sofia Coppola, and Woody Allen (Although with Woody Allen, I hate some and love some, but what I love, I LOVE.)

05) What are your hobbies? (Ex: Hiking? Biking? Music? Sleeping?) I love to refinish furniture, build things and renovate rooms - DIY kinds of stuff - anything where I can wear my pink tool belt. I love to bake. I love to make and listen to music. I love to laugh, laughing is my favorite.

06) Chocolate or Vanilla? Other? I will not choose between chocolate and vanilla, but I will tell you, that I love good chocolate and good vanilla.

07) You run onto a time machine, its power is failing so you can take only one trip anywhere through time and space, there and back. Where/When do you go? Why? I would go to 1:15am on October 26, 1985 -- Twin Pines Mall, where another, potentially more reliable time machine would be waiting.

08) What is your favorite time of year? Every time a new season comes a long, I think THIS IS MY FAVORITE! I suppose I'm a 'love the one your with' kind of girl when it comes to seasons.

09) What are some of your favorite foods? (Mexican? Italian? Indian?) Yes. Throw Thai in there and we've got a list going.

10) If I were to write your biography, the opening sentence would be "She lived, she loved, she _______". made lists.

11) If you were stranded on a desert island and could only have one other person with you AND one item aside from the clothes on your back, what and whom would they be? I am convinced that people enjoy the movies they watch on planes significantly more than they would like them if they had seen them not as a captive audience 30,000 feet in the air, particularly if they are the kind of movie that they wouldn't necessarily watch to begin with. It is with this logic that I submit my answer for this question. While I would love to tell you I am the kind of person who would immediately pick someone like Desmond Tutu to chill with and learn from on an island for who knows how long, I would actually have to pick a smart, funny and cute guy who is way out of my league, hoping that he would be persuaded to love, nay tolerate me because he has no other options. (Maybe the elevation has more to do with it than anything else, may I put in a request for an island with a high elevation, please?) The "what" is a bit more difficult. I was at first thinking an ipod, then a guitar, then soap, but I settled upon good shoes, because once in my life I would like to be wearing the right pair of shoes for something.

12) What gets you through a rough day? A song? Chocolate? Someone making you laugh? Impromptu dance parties, by myself or with others, either way.