ASPEN

Last week I had the incredible opportunity to go to Aspen, Colorado for my internship. We help with the registration and hotel contracting with one of our partners NAFA. They brought me along to run the registration desk and silent auction table and help out with miscellaneous things on site that would come up! Tuesday morning I had to be at the airport at 6 and when I got there my plane was an hour delayed which means it was not going to make it to Denver in time for me to catch my connecting flight to Aspen. After waiting for what seemed like forever to get my flight in Denver changed I was good to go and texted Ann my president and told her I would be on her connecting flight to Aspen with her since I was missing mine. She was excited for this but I was a little nervous just because I knew this week was going to be my week to show her and Cindy what I am made of and probably determines whether I get hired on after the internship. We met up at the gate in Denver grabbed some lunch and then we were off to Aspen. After the short 45-minute flight we arrived and I was stunned by the beauty, mountains, snow, and fall colors! The resort had arranged for a private pick up for Ann and since I was with her I got to join in on that instead of taking the shuttle back with the other guests (which is nice too) they carried and loaded up our luggage, then we got in the black suburban, they gave us waters and we headed to the St. Regis resort! The drive up was beautiful and Kim was giving us information on the town! We arrived and they got our luggage out, I checked in and headed up to my room and then my luggage was brought up by the bellman! I was like oh wow this is fancy! Haha my room was AMAZING and it was just a deluxe room, not even a suite!  I explored it and felt like a little girl in a candy shop I was just eating up all this fanciness and being treated with amazing customer service. I unpacked and then Ann & I went to find Scott, the guy who planned the meeting and who I was going to be working mostly under. He was a very nice guy and had me help stuff the bags for the attendees, then we did a recon of the hotel, and other miscellaneous stuff. Throughout the day I noticed they had cute bellman that kept helping with things and I was trying to figure out how to talk to them, if not today then at least over the next 3 days. After what seemed like a long day we went to dinner at an amazing Italian restaurant with Ann, Scott, Janet and I. They were asking me questions about my life and stuff and it was fun getting to know them better. When I got back to my room I noticed my light was on, and I heard music playing. I had a mini panic attack and a million things were running thorough my mind wondering if there was someone in my room, and who on earth could it be. I got the guts to walk down the hall to where my bed was and realized there was no one there but my bed was folded down for me to sleep in, and then the radio was on to classical music, and there was water on the nightstand, and slippers on the floor for me. I couldn't help but smile now and was just thinking wow this is so opposite of what I am used too, but it is awesome! I then took a shower and put on one of the heavy duty fancy robes they provide and began jumping on the bed and dancing to music and then hung out on the bed and began to look at room service breakfast items to order myself for the morning. First of all everything on there was crazy prices, and even though I was given $75 a day for food there I still didn't want to go too crazy! So I got the oatmeal and Acai Berry smoothie, which were two of the lower end items! I was excited to wake up to having food delivered to my room and didn't fall asleep that easily. I woke up to a phone call from the server saying your food is ready can we bring it to your room? Excitedly I said yes and opened my door and BAM she was there. She asked if I wanted to eat it in bed, and unfortunately I was running late for getting ready and had to turn that down. But it was the best oatmeal I have ever had, and the smoothie was incredible too.                                                                                                      

 Wednesday we had to set up the registration desk, and continue packing bags, set up name badges, check people in, make sure the rooms are set up and ready to go. Most people started showing up around 1:00 and from there I was sitting at the reg desk until they were done with the opening reception at 7. After that we went to the Italian restaurant again because the group we were going with all wanted to try it so Italian it was again! That’s night I was so tired and went to bed after dinner! Thursday was the day that had all the meetings and I was just to sit at the registration desk again and help with questions attendees have and help Scott with random things, and then that was the night of the silent auction for Addi's cure that I oversaw! Cindy, Emily and Ann would rotate sitting with me and talking with me, which was nice. 

That night after everything was done Cindy, Ann, this one guy, and myself went to Jimmy’s which we heard was a MUST eat at! Boys were they right because I had an AMAZING meatloaf! That dinner was really awesome because we talked about not necessarily religion, but just about being a good person, how great and real God is, near death experiences, and how its just really important to be an overall good person and make differences in people lives no matter what your status is in life.  Cindy also mentioned she loves how the Mormons really value family and that how Sunday is strictly family day and she said she can learn a lot from that one principle about how important it is to take a day to cancel everything else and spend with family. This dinner talk was SO great for me to hear and see this side of my co-workers and helped me realize that they have such good hearts and that I would really love to work with them after this internship because they respect me and my values and have such huge loving hearts themselves! That night I treated myself to a bubble bath, which was quite heavenly, then hit the sack early. Friday I helped wrap up things and pack up stuff to be shipped back and then grabbed lunch with Ann then had about 3.5 hours to walk around and actually see what Aspen was all about since I had been inside the hotel the past 3 days! (Which is beautiful) So I walked around for 3 hours and took a lot of pictures, and got some cheesy souvenirs, and sat at the base of the mountain and was thinking I am here for FREE and there is not enough snow to snowboard on! This is so sad! Hopefully one day I can come back to snowboard on these amazing mountains. 

I was going to take the shuttle back to the airport at 4:30 but since I was the only person to leave then, I got to ride back in the private suburban one with one of the cute bellman. We talked the whole time and they all thought I was older since I was hanging out with all the older people with NAFA so he was shocked when I found out I was 22, like the rest of them. Haha he was fun to talk too and then he said I needed to come back to snowboard and I said I for sure want too! Soon then I was off to Denver and my flight to PHX was loading as soon as I got there which was so nice not having to wait. I sat by a very nice Christian lady from Canada on the way to Phoenix and we talked thee ENTIRE time about service projects like Belize and ones she helps with in Africa, about my internship and school, and then about families, and she told me she was going to Oahu in January so I wrote down all the restaurants, and beaches, and things to see there and then I gave her some restaurants in Scottsdale to eat at. At the end of our flight she then asked me if she could leave a blessing with me, at first I was taken by surprise and didn't know what that all entailed but I knew it wouldn't be anything bad and said SURE! Haha she bowed her head and pretty much just began praying and she just thanks God for allowing me to sit by her on this flight and blessed me in my future endeavors, and blessed my family that we would be financially stable, and she was just being super descriptive and remembered everything I told her and blessed me to have a fulfilling life. Afterwards I couldn't help but smile and just thanked her for that! She told me she was hoping she would have someone who would talk to her on this plane ride because she hates just sitting in silence (which I feel the same way, because I look at plane rides as the most prime missionary opportunity). So although I don’t think I ever told her I was a member of the church, on the Hawaii must do list I said visit the LDS temple and BYU campus. So maybe she will put it together? Haha if not she was a gem and her love for God strengthened my testimony as well! Overall it was an amazing 4 days in Aspen and I could not believe how good all the food was there!! I was in heaven eating all these amazing meals for free! I could definitely get used to it J 

Saturday we had 3 service projects for our ward! First one was a stake service project at ASU homecoming parade/block party (which was kind of a joke). ASU wanted us there at 8:00am to help with water stations, the kid zone bounce house, and then our main use was to manage the recycle bins and make sure the trash was going to be picked up and if the recycle bins got full to empty them. Well the parade and block party didn't start til 10 I believe so there was not much trash anywhere. Most of the volunteers just went around to the vendor booths and collected freebies and what not. So kind of pointless but we got to wear the “Mormon helping hands” shirts so that gave good publicity to the community about us.  Then we cleaned he church afterwards and then that night we helped with the Foster Kids Dinner again which is where we watch foster kids while their parents have an awards dinner. It was a lot of fun and I had the 3-year-old room, which was hectic but still great!