LSAT SCORE! Michael got a .....

Good news! Michael received his LSAT score and I am so proud of him. He got a 160 which is tens points above the national average and in the 81 percentile!!! He is so amazing! He is still working on his personal statement but after that we begin applying. Considering it is such a relief to be done for me, I can only imagine how great it must feel for Michael! To our friends and family: Thanks for all of your support at this time! We appreciated it!

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving!

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving! "Oh Canada, Our home and native land." While I lived in Toronto, I was able to celebrate two Canadian Thanksgivings and while celebrating today with my husband, it brought a flood of missionary memories. I miss living in the big city, seeing the sites but most of all I miss the people I met and taught about Jesus Christ. For those of you how don't know and just might be reading my blog, I served an eighteen month volunteer mission to Toronto. While serving the people I gained a stronger testimony of Jesus Christ as my Savior and of the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ through a modern day Prophet. If you would like to know more about what I taught as a missionary, just checkout the churches websites or feel free to ask me some questions
www.mormon.org
www.lds.org
Anyways, Michael and I celebrated by having a Thanksgiving feast with a oven-baked turkey, mashed potatoes, veggies and cider. Then our weekly Family Home Evening Lesson (Each Monday night, Michael and I try to spend time together doing a church activity or lesson)was on appreciating our blessing. I am so blessed!
Here is a little history of Canadian Thanksgiving since I am often asked how the holiday was established.
The history of Thanksgiving in Canada goes back to an explorer, Martin Frobisher, who had been trying to find a northern passage to the Orient. In the year 1578, he held a formal ceremony, in what is now the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, to give thanks for surviving the long journey. The feast was one of the first Thanksgiving celebrations in North America, although celebrating the harvest and giving thanks for a successful bounty of crops had been a long-standing tradition throughout North America by various First Nations and Native American groups. First Nations and Native Americans throughout the Americas, including the Pueblo, Cherokee, Cree and many others organized harvest festivals, ceremonial dances, and other celebrations of thanks for centuries before the arrival of Europeans in North America [7]. Frobisher was later knighted and had an inlet of the Atlantic Ocean in northern Canada named after him — Frobisher Bay.
So Happy Thanksgiving to my friends in the cold white north!

LSAT-Michael

This is Michael. Carissa says that I should contribute something to our blog every once in a while. Well last Saturday I took the LSAT, the real one this time. I've been taking previous tests for practice for about the past 18 months now so it was a relief to get the actual test over with. The test itself took about three and a half hours but I got to the testing center at 8 AM and waited for a little bit. Then I decided to go in and somebody met me at the door and said that they had moved the location of the test (they just moved it from the BYU Law School to the Wilk, right across the street, but it was still stressful to be told that you were in the wrong place for one of the most important academic tests you're ever going to take). So then me and a half dozen other people had to run across the street and get to the right room. The proctors were supposed to start giving out instructions for the test right at 8:30 but since they had to move the location some people were late so they didn't start until about 9. Then about two minutes into the instructions a guy on the front row raised his hand and told the proctor something and she disappeared for about fifteen to twenty minutes to make a phone call while everybody waited. She came back with my teacher from the LSAT prep class and they took the student out in the hall for a little bit then they all came back in and started again like nothing had happened. Some people are very, very serious about the LSAT. There is a professor at the BYU law school who tells his class how he had to train himself to use adult diapers for the LSAT so he wouldn't have to take a bathroom break. Luckily, I didn't have any psychos like that anywhere near me. There are five sections to the real LSAT and a writing section. One of the normal sections is experimental, it doesn't count for your score but it is just so the people who make the test can evaluate test problems for future reference. But you have no idea what section is going to be experimental until you are at least halfway through the test. But the experimental section has always been one of the first three that you take. My first section was games, which I do best at. Games are logical problems that have interconnected rules. Each games section has four separate games of about five to eight problems each. I did pretty good on those I think. Then the next section I took was logical reasoning, which is 22-27 short problems you have to answer logically, pretty self-explanatory. Then I took a reading comprehension section, which has been my hardest section on the LSAT. I used to think I was really good at reading comprehension just based on previous standardized tests like the ACT and stuff but the LSAT was extremely hard. After I took the third section we had a break so I wasn't sure which one of the three was the experimental. I was hoping it would be the games just because I am the best at those. After the break we went back in to take the last two sections and the writing sample. My fourth section was games again! I was so happy. After that I took the last logical reasoning section and then the writing sample. I feel like I did the best I could but I won't know what score I get until a few more weeks. Thanks for all the prayers in my behalf. It is a big relief to have it done. Saturday night we went out to eat at Macaroni Grill to celebrate.
Yesterday we went with Ben and Nicole to the BYU homecoming game against New Mexico. We had front row seats! BYU won 21-3. Go Cougs!

Michael took the LSAT

Today is the big day. Michael is taking the LSAT, which is the test students take to be admitted into Law School. He has been taking a prep class for 18 months and has improved significantly. I can't even tell you how many tests he has taken to prepare for the real test. I am really proud of how dedicated he has been to his studies. I know that this day has been weighing on the back of his mind for a long time so it will be nice to get it over with.Even if Michael does struggle and doesn't do as well as he would like, he is taking it advanced enough that there will be enough time for him to take it again. But I believe in him! He'll do great. Yesterday he opened his good luck package from his parents which has medicine bottles and fake prescriptions in it like, "Take bottle to help you de-stress" and it contained M&Ms. Last night, I cooked him meatloaf, as he requested and gave him a nice long relaxing massage. This morning I surprised him with some good ole southern cookin'- biscuits and gravy (He ate the meal on our You are Special Today Plate). When he comes home, he has a congratulations package waiting for him from my mom and dad. So he is being well taken care of. Please wish him luck and say a little prayer for him! We get the results in a few weeks.