I'm alive!!

Hey family!

I live! Today is our first Pday and we just barely set up our email (nataliedance@myldsmail.net). The clock is ticking down now and it makes me have anxiety...haha.

I don't even know where to start. Yes mom, the missionaries are right when they say the first week at the MTC feels like a month. But it's an awesome month. I seriously love it here. Even though it's crazy scheduled and busy and draining, I love it. I LOVE mi companera, Hermana Brewer. She's from Springville and has a lot of the same interests as me. We get along really well and love each other and work really well together.

My roommates are awesome too. They're all so sweet and strong and unique. A couple days ago I wrote 3 or 4 pages about how awesome they each are in my journal and I could probably spend an hour telling you about them. We've had a lot of sicknesses and health issues in our room this week, but we're helping each other get through it. Thursday I got really sick and threw up all morning until we went to the doctor and they gave me a shot to help me not get sick and make me sleepy. So I missed almost the whole first day because I was sleeping in the sick bay. It was gone by the morning though and I've been blessed to be healthy since then. It was actually kind of a blessing because now everything seems even more awesome because hey, at least I'm not throwing up :)

When I first got here I was in a trio with Hermana Brewer y Hermana Caldwell, but then Hermana Okura moved up from a Beginning Spanish district so she and Hermana Caldwell are now companions. My district is big (4 sisters and 7 elders) but we're getting to know one another better now. Our teachers are awesome (Hermana Cochraine is from the US and Hermano Hidalgo is from Mexico) and I learn so much from them. I love it. I'm so excited to learn. Spanish is coming back pretty fast so I'm not too worried about it yet. It's nice because since we're in Intermediate Spanish we get to go pretty deeply into the doctrine instead of only focusing on language. Right now we only study Spanish about 30-40% of our class time. We sing, pray, and practice contacting in Spanish, but our class is still in Spanglish.

The days are suuuuper long but packed with goodness. Sundays and Pdays go by really fast though. Sundays are amazing because we pretty much have church and then a whole day of MDT (Missionary Directed Time) where we get to study whatever we want. And we get to go on a temple walk with our district.

Pdays aren't as cool because it's just laundry, cleaning, and writing letters, but we do get to go to the temple so that's cool. I took some pictures for the first time today but I forgot to put them on the computer before the timer started counting down so I think I'll just attach them next week.

Oh yeah, thanks mom for writing me from Dear Elder. It was my first letter and it made me happy :) Yes, we've been able to go outside for gym time. No one wanted to play sand volleyball with us and they don't allow the sisters to play soccer in the same game as the elders because we're delicate flowers and get injured too easily or something so we just ran and worked out on our own.

Ok, something I learned this week. So I spoke about recognizing and understanding the spirit before I left, and in our first district meeting we talked about the spirit. Elder Whiting, our district leader talked about how there are two ways for us to lose the spirit:
1. we sin, and we have to repent before we can feel it again.
2. it has gone to a higher level, and it wants us to follow it. We have to learn something new and work on a higher level to feel it again. I don't know, I just thought that was really awesome because it went right along with what I spoke about.

Hmm....what else to write about. I don't even know where to start explaining everything that's been going on. It's weird thinking that real life is still going on outside of this place. It really is a bubble. A bubble of goodness.

Oh yeah, I saw cousin James!! I was going to write him a note before he left today but again, we're not supposed to write on any days besides Pday. I'll write him a real letter so he can get it in Washington though.

Alright, I'm about out of time. Sorry this is so all over the place, no time to edit. I love you!! Have a great day!

Love,
Hermana Dance

1 Nephi 17:3

Tick....tick....tick....

I leave on my mission to Panama tomorrow!!! So I thought I should update this one last time to put my addresses up and introduce you to my sister.

This is my sister:

She is cool and will copy my e-mails in here while I'm gone on my mission for anyone who wants to read them. Her name is Cassie, she is a grade school counselor and lives in Sugar House.

Ok, on to the addresses for my mission.

Letters can be sent through the pouch service. They need to be post cards or single page letters folded into three panels and taped at the top, so no envelopes. That address for the pouch service is:

Sister Natalie Dance
Panama Panama City Mission
POB 30150
Salt Lake City, UT 84130-0150
USA

Other letters (longer than a single page that you don't send to the POUCH service) can be sent here until OCTOBER 2009:

Sister Natalie Dance

MTC Mailbox #119-1006
Panama Panama City Mission
2005 N 900 E
Provo, UT 84604-1793

After OCTOBER 2009, letters that you don't send in the POUCH can be mailed to:

Sister Natalie Dance
Panama Panama City Mission
Carrasquilla
Apartado Postal 0834-00071
Panama City, Panama

The address for express mail and PACKAGES ONLY is:

Sister Natalie Dance
Panama Panama City Mission
Edificio Hi Tech Plaza Piso 5 Puerto D
Calle 35, Marbella
Ciudad de Panama
Panama

Hope to hear from you! Peace out girl scouts, see you all in 18 months!

This Is My Summer Skin

There hasn't been much time to document the last little while before I head out on my mission to Panama because I've been too busy checking stuff off my list of fun and/or necessary things to do before I leave. Instead, I just took pictures.

This is my family after I gave my "farewell" talk in Midway
They rock.
The end.






These kids came to see me at my farewell. They're the best and I'm going to miss them :)



This is from when Paul and I biked to Utah Lake. It was hazy outside but still most triumphant.



This is at the Mona Ponds. It almost looks like Minnesota here... :)

Crafties

One more thing: check out this sweet home-made journal I discovered today. I think I'll make something like this when I get back :)

An Experiment of Sorts

The first attempt at a non-newswriting extra credit blog post. I've been on a journal writing rampage lately (mostly because there's not much else to do at my parent's mission home in Latvia while I'm visiting) so I'm just going to pull some stuff from recent entries:

Thursday July 2, 2009 (Excerpt)

New topic:
I've been thinking a lot about change recently. About how everything is always changing so fast, or sometimes so slowly that we don't even notice. Like my testimony. It's been slowly growing and growing for two years and I only notice when I stop and take a look back and say "Hey, that used to be me." I think about what I used to do or rationalize, and I can't believe it. It's taken me so long to get where I am, but I hardly noticed along the way.

Maybe that's why people get discouraged in the church and stop trying. They think it's going to be this fast thing, a month tops until they'll be a totally different person, all turned around. Maybe they think it'll even happen in hours or days, I don't know. So they get frustrated and discouraged when temptations are still hard, when they don't have a miraculous conversion experience, whatever. But in reality, slow imperceptible changes are a miracle themselves. God sends his spirit to slowly work a change inside us-it's awesome.

We have to do the work too, of course. We have to tell ourselves: ONLY UP FROM HERE and stick to it. We have to be like the Anti-Lehi-Nephites and say we'd rather die than commit sin. If we falter and mess up after that, it's bad but it's not the end of the world. Thanks to the atonement we can try again.

And that's awesome.

Another new topic: I can do big things.
Sometimes I see the talents of others and I want to be them or be like them, but I'm glad I still know this secret: I can do big things. I just have to remind myself every once in a while. Maybe I'm just idealistic, but I know my potential and it feels BIG. And that feels dang good.

Sunday July 12, 2009

I'm counting down the days until HOME. It's weird that Provo is home now, but it feels good too. Five days. Six if you count the time change I guess. I'm excited to get back but it's a little bittersweet because I don't want to see my mom get sad when I go. She's pretty incredible and I've been so blessed to have such awesome parents. I love them and like them, which is something I didn't say much when I was younger. I always loved them, but there were times when I didn't like them and I was always angry because I was a bratty doof. I'm glad it's not like that anymore.

Home HOME HoMe. Yes, I'm excited.

But kind of apprehensive too. Home means facing the future. Home means I'm a ticking time bomb again with less than three weeks left until I'm never the same again. But then again, I'm always changing slowly anyway, so maybe this is just the accelerated track.

Home means mountains, and hot hot heat, friends, my own pillow, my sweet beach cruiser. It means BYU, and bright stars, and my Seven Peaks running route in the hills. Home also means love. Paul love, roommate love, bff love, family love--all sorts of love up in that place.

BUT after three weeks, I'll have a new home. And that is ok. Minnesota is still my home after two and a half years away, so Provo will still be my home after one and a half years. And so will Panama. I'll have so many homes I won't know what to do!

Sometimes I have to remind myself that change is good.

It stretches us and makes us grow so we can reach our full potential.

I've always felt like I'm exploding with potential. Not in an obnoxious, overly-confident self-absorbed way (I hope), but more in an I-want-to-learn-everything and an I-can-do-anything-if-I-work-hard way. So I guess now is my time to tap into that potential, even if it's in ways I never expected. And even though this is going to be hard and long and different from anything I've ever done or imagined doing, it will be good. I want this.

I want to be in a place where I feel like I'm doing right things, and God is proud of me. And it's not like I haven't been doing right things, but there's always more.

I know this is the direction I'm supposed to be going.

Provo Night Life and Third Place Culture

The typical work night for Vanessa Oler, 21, an Asian studies major from Houston, begins around 2:00 p.m. and ends close to 3:00 a.m.

As a member of Provo-based Electric Dance Party (EDP), a group of friends and DJs who host dance parties throughout Utah Valley, Oler spends many of her nights planning and coordinating their events.

"I think if you’d asked me [about Provo’s night life] last semester I would've said non-existent,” Oler said. “But a couple places have opened up recently.”

Gone are the days of midnight munchies runs to Wendy's, Del Taco, or Sconecutter. Provo’s budding late-night scene now offers several options for college night owls.

One such late-night location is Downtown Provo’s Pennyroyal Café at 155 N. University Ave. Free Wi-Fi, great food, a comfortable atmosphere and late hours (open every night, except Sundays, until 2 a.m.) make Pennyroyal Café an ideal EDP command center. Oler joked that she thinks the café should put up a plaque reserving a space for the EDP members.

“We have our own table there that we always work at,” Oler said. “One time we came in and some people were sitting there so we just stood around until they left.”

Pennyroyal has a charming old-building feel, smell and look. The walls are crumbling yellow, red and brown bricks with faded blue fleur-de-lis designs painted sporadically throughout. Copper tiles line the chandeliered ceiling and a large mosaic of a sprouting tree made entirely of pennies covers one-third of the south wall. None of the furniture matches, but somehow each dining set fits together to form an elegant patchwork of tables and chairs.

With a piano, an all-you-can-eat cereal bar, and an old-school Nintendo gaming system, it’s no wonder Pennyroyal is on its way to becoming Provo’s newest hang-out. According to Nathan Robbins, one of Pennyroyal’s owners, the café tries to appeal to everyone’s needs.

“There’s no niche, no tiny section of the population we wanted to appeal to,” Robbins said. “Anyone can identify with a place like us.”

Robbins said he and Annali Kingston, the café’s second owner and primary chef, leased the property without knowing what they wanted to do with it.

“I always had an idea for a collaborative space for people to come together with whatever they wanted to do,” Robbins said. “From the beginning it’s always been very community oriented; I really wanted to contribute something to Provo.”

Pennyroyal contributes to the community by participating in Downtown Provo’s monthly Gallery Stroll art show, hosting community events, and raising awareness for local art, music, and charity functions. For example, this April Pennyroyal donated gift certificates for charity events such as the Grassroots Soccer Tournament held to raise funds for HIV-prevention education in Africa.

Aside from Pennyroyal Café, several other late-night places have opened in Provo in the last year. The hip burger joint Sammy’s Café, located at 27 N. 100 W., offers an alternative to the mellow coffee shop atmosphere of Pennyroyal.

With a modernized 50s-malt-shop feel, Sammy’s beckons Utah Valley’s young people. Large blue swirls creep around the front and sides of the white building, placing it in stark contrast with the drab brick structure next door. Inside, bright intricately painted wooden letters on a silver and blue mural backdrop form the name of the establishment.

Hand-crafted scripture cases hang in the upper left corner with a “For Sale” sign placed in front and Polaroids signed by recent customers coat the entire north wall.

In the same swirling blue theme as the outside design, a space above the door reads “Everything is made with love.”

One of Sammy’s main selling points is the pie shake. According to Sam Schultz, the owner of Sammy’s Café, the idea for pie shakes — milkshakes with actual slices of pie blended in — came from the banana crème pie shake at Sonic. Schultz said he was frustrated because Sonic never included real pie in the shake.

But Sammy’s has other appeals as well.

“It’s got a cool vibe,” Schultz said. “People feel comfortable here. It's a middle point."

Tessa Nokleby, 21, a UVU student from Seattle and a patron of Sammy’s Café agrees.

“Sammy’s is super hip. It definitely attracts a younger crowd,” Nokleby said.

For a more downtown atmosphere, head to Spark Restaurant and Lounge. The dim lighting takes some adjustment, but the friendly staff is quick to greet patrons and make them feel at home.

Spark seems to draw a swanky late-night crowd. Martini glasses filled with exotic-looking drinks swirl and clink as young people lounge around wooden tables and drape themselves across plush arm-chairs and benches. A four-person jazz band plays in the corner as part of Spark’s Live Jazz Tuesdays.

Located at 87 N University Ave., Spark offers lunch, dinner, late-night drinks and snacks and a buzzing social scene. However, Spark is a completely non-alcoholic establishment.

While Spark is a community meeting place and a late-night hot spot, many customers said it is not their favorite hang-out.

Jay Tibbitts, 21, a jazz studies major from Mission Viejo, Calif., regularly plays in a jazz band at Spark and said he thinks most people would not come to Spark without an event or a band drawing them in.

“People can't just go there every night for fun,” Tibbitts said. “It's doing it well — I really like what [they] did and I like the idea, but I think [they] need to lower [their] prices.”

In urban sociologist Ray Oldenburg’s book, “The Great Good Place,” community gathering spots such as Pennyroyal Café, Sammy’s and Spark perform a vital function for society. Oldenburg coined the term “third place” to define establishments such as coffee shops, cafes, barbershops, and main streets where people come together regularly for socialization and support.

According to Oler, the third place trend is spreading, especially the late-night scene.

“I think Provo’s trying to create a third place culture,” Oler said.

The phrase “third place” is derived from considering home the first place and work the second place. According to Oldenburg, third places are usually locally-owned, small independent establishments and provide the setting for grassroots politics, community movements and neighborhood support systems.

So what is in store for these third places and hang-outs in the future? Robbins said he and Kingston expect business to thrive in the summer once people are freer to take advantage of the late-night hours. As soon as they overcome some building code issues, Pennyroyal also plans to host large community events and parties.

Sammy’s also plans to host events including live bands and dance parties. In addition, they recently extended their hours and added items to the menu to include breakfast.

According to the restaurant website, Spark will continue live music on Friday nights and plans to host the occasional exclusive club-style dance party.

And as for the EDP crew?

Oler said she does not see things slowing down soon. According to EDP’s website, the group will continue hosting events and plans to release a video podcast over the summer. In the meantime, they may just get that plaque at Pennyroyal Café.

Spark Lounge: Too Exclusive?

Martini glasses filled with exotic-looking drinks swirl and clink as young people lounge around wooden tables and drape themselves across plush arm-chairs and benches. Music thuds across the make-shift dance floor. The dim lighting and contemporary décor contribute to the atmosphere, and one can’t help but feeling that something magical could happen this night.

No, this is not a scene out of MTV’s reality drama The Hills. It is Spark Restaurant and Lounge, the newest addition to Provo’s growing night scene. Located at 86 N. University Ave., Spark offers lunch, dinner, late-night drinks and snacks and a buzzing social scene. But don’t worry Cougars; Spark is a completely non-alcoholic establishment.

The sleek downtown feel of Spark minus the alcohol is refreshing after months of winter lockdown in Provo’s lifeless night scene.

On event nights such as last weekend’s Mardi Gras Masquerade, Spark rolls out the red carpet. Complete with velvet ropes, a long line, and a guest list pulled from Facebook, Spark becomes an exclusive club.

Besides paying the $10-$15 cover charge (depending on whether one was on the Facebook list or not), guests were required to wear formal attire and a Mardi Gras mask. If you did not have a mask, you were forced to buy one at the door or you would not be admitted. It seemed as though the “bouncers” took pride in turning customers away and letting those admitted know they barely scraped in, as if Spark were doing them an enormous favor by accepting their business.

While I applaud Spark’s business model and marketing scheme, I think it is a little extreme. It is as if they are trying to convince people their business is cool by turning customers away. Although it was fun to get out for the weekend and see what Spark is all about, I doubt I’ll be going back.