Institute Ball

Friday night (June 27th) me, Marvin, Mariam, Daniel and Rebecca jumped in the van and I drove :) two hours to Bern, Switzerland for an Institute Ball!! It was super fun!!! I hadn't realized it was a ball until the afternoon of when Marvin called me... so I ended up borrowing Madison's kindergarden teacher's black more dressy dress. We were spending the afternoon with her and her baby in St. Gallen. It ended up turning out really nicely! I wore the borrowed dress, the borrowed jewlery from Emily, and my shoes :). It was really a fun night. We had dinner after a short sacrament meeting style spiritual thought, outside in the shadow of the temple. The church building was right next to the temple. It was such a fantastic experience to eat, and then as the sun was setting you saw the temple lights turn on and it just... glowed. My heart was so warm and full as we walked around and took pictures. I can't wait until the day that I can walk through the doors with my eternal companion... but that's several years down the road :).

After dinner and pictures, we went inside and hung out in the dancing area. Mariam and I had such a fun time together "window shopping" with the single adults. Sad to report (this is for Taylor Schuman :) ) I haven't seen coach boy. Institute is over, they don't have it during the summer, so I'll never see him again. Sigh. Oh well... nor the cute Elder Moore... maybe that's for the best as well... hahha no, it's ok :) "Window Shopping" is more fun ;).

They dance differently here. They couple fast dance!! So literaly, you are dancing with a guy the whole night (unless you're not asked of course lol). It was really crazy!! The first dance I had was with a return missionary who learned english on his mission from his companions (I'm starting to worry about what American missionaries are teaching these foreigners!!! It was crazy!! lol). He tried to teach me the fast dance steps... but he kept counting to 3... and the song was in 4. lol So my body just could NOT do it. haha It was quite embarrassing. PLUS, in slow dancing you start with taking your right foot OUT right? With these steps, the right foot comes IN first and then back, or something... and then something else with the left... it was really a disaster. And he tried to spin me... but apparently when he puts his hand toward me, palm out... I'm supposed to push on it and spin... a certain direction. So, imagine me... completely red from embarrassment that I couldn't dance, and then all of a sudden this guy shoves his hand at me... and I just stood there looking at it.... yeah. It was disasterous. So he's like, "spin! spin! You spin!" So I spinned to my left... "No no! Other way!" OH HEAVENS!! GET ME OFF THE DANCE FLOOR, I'M DONE! lol it was insane!!! Anyway, so that dance ended thankfully and I rushed outside to find Mariam.

Eventually, the two of us made it back inside and had some ice cream and went back in to sit in the dance room and look "available" lol. So we're talking, and this guy comes and sits next to me and starts speaking in German... sheesh... lol so I asked him if he spoke English, and he did. He asked me to dance and I said of course, but apologized right off the bat that I had NO idea what I was doing. haha! So apparently, he didn't either. So it was great, it was a perfect match!! He's fresh off his mission of two weeks and he lives there in Bern. He also learned all of his english on his mission from his companions... yikes! ;) We "danced" two songs together, but it was so cute because I could feel him shaking as he held me. It made me smile... I realized I was probably one of the first girls he's touched since he got home... hahaha lucky me! ;) Apparently, out here, when you're asked to dance you know you have a REALLY good partner if you dance three dances together in a row, two if he's an ok guy, and one if he's... yeah lol my first dance was only one :D guess I was pretty bad lol but this guy and I dance for 2 1/2 songs, and then he asked if I wanted to see Bern... basically we ended up going outside to walk around the temple (it's really the only place to walk around and it was past midnight lol). It was really neat. We talked a lot and it was just totally natural. After our second round Rebecca(girl in my car) begged me to leave, so I went back inside to get my stuff and Mariam... ahhhh!! Wonderful Mariam!! She saw me leave with the guy, and she faithfully waited for me where we had been sitting!! When I came back she had this sparkle in her eye and I knew she was going to quiz me about the guy. Apparently, it's not a normal thing to dance two songs AND go outside and walk around lol so she was dying. I got my stuff and I could tell the guy still wanted to talk, so we exchanged hand numbers (cell phones) so we could contact each other if we were ever in each other's area to hang out. His name is Yan :). It was about 1:15am when we finally left and as soon as Mariam and I got to the car she grabbed me and said in the CUTEST Austrian accent, "TELL. ME. EVERYTHING!" All I could do was scream and giggle :). Yan was super cute and I had a blast just talking to him. It was great. Marvin I don't think was too thrilled.... actually, I pretty positive he wasn't.... oh... he asked me out on a date last week, and at the time when he was asking me, I hadn't realized it was a date and I said I couldn't go... but it was AFTER I got off the phone I went, "OH!! He just asked me out!" lol anyway, so I'm pretty sure he's got a crush on me, but I'm not interested like that... he's a really good friend.

Anyway, so I had Mariam sit in the front so she could talk to me and keep me awake. She's such a cute girl and I'm really going to have a hard time leaving her. She's super great. So we talked about her guy stories, some of mine (the more interesting ones of course lol) and we talked about Yan and what I thought would happen...

Turns out, when we got home at 3:15am (whooo hooo!! my first night past curfew! I'm officially 18!!! hahahaha) I plugged in my phone and Yan had sent me a text message telling me thanks for the dance and that he hoped to see me soon... lol Sweeeet :).

It was a GREAT night and so fun to dress up a bit and dance Switzerland Style!!!! Here's some of the pictures I took... Daniel took better ones with his camera so I'm just waiting for Marvin to email them to me...