Knights in Shining Armor

I found him.  My knight in shining armor.  He's tall and handsome, and gallantly rode into my life on a white horse.  

Actually...he just stood there... next to a brown horse.  And the horse was stuffed.  And I'm not even sure the knight was actually handsome, since I couldn't see his face...

But he really DID have shining armor! :)

Haha.  Anyway, on to the rest of the post:

So sometimes I feel super motivated to do blog posts.  It's like, "Oh, I saw something cool---I should post about that!"  Or even, "I don't want to write in my journal, so I'll just type a quick blog post instead!" (the second one actually causes most of these posts haha) but the last few days I have felt very little motivation to post.  So sorry about the lack of posts, but here's some stuff I've done the last few days (mostly on Friday). (pictures in no particular order)

We went to an awesome museum (that's where I saw the aforementioned knight).  A guy named Ricardo Brennand made a ton of money, collected lots of artifacts (especially armor/weapons, etc), and then turned his house/mini-castle into a museum.  Yeah, that's a really short summary of a really cool story...but I think the most impressive thing about his life is really that last phrase; he turned everything into a museum.  I don't know about the rest of you people who will end up reading this, but if I had a ton of money, I can think of about a million things I would do with it before creating a museum.  I like to think that I would not use it all on myself (travel being the main temptation...), but even if I thought of a way to benefit others, I'm not sure I would do something SO big.  This museum is huge.  It is one of the largest collections of armor in the world.  And people will be able to come see it for years!  It's not just "come visit, help a few people, then go home and pretend it never happened."

Ok, that feels really rambly.  Point is, I really admire that he chose to create a museum.

 It's probably hard to see the detail in this, but it's a super-intricately carved ivory tusk.  SO COOL!

 They had a whole room full of knives and swords, they are super cool.  This one seems sort of less-functional as an actual weapon/tool, but it's super cool.  That's a row of little animals...

 Dinner!  Yeah, I know you've been wondering what I've been eating, right?  So here's a lovely picture of the sausage and chicken we had for dinner the other night.  Since I served myself, I wasn't quite brave enough to take any sausage...but I diligently ate the chicken!  But the tofu we had was AMAZING!  My roommate doesn't like the tofu (or the soy-milk-grape-juice stuff we drink), but eats all the meat, so together I think we make a pretty good team. :)

Again, sorry if you can't see this (no flash allowed in the old churches).  

There are two ladies in this picture:  one is praying, one is texting.  It was really crazy to see these two ladies so close to each other, and realize how representative it was of the whole world, and even our own lives (or at least mine).  It's so easy to go to church, but sometimes it's hard to stay focused on the reason I'm actually there.

Sure makes you think.

 These last two pictures (above and below) are more from of one of the old churches we went to.  The coolest thing to me as I sat inside the church, was looking at how beautiful it was.  Lots of people have nice things in life; beautiful houses, fancy cars, swimming pools, etc.  Those things are nice, but not ultimately important.  But these churches?  They symbolize so much more than social status or wealth.  As I sat in this church, it hit me how grateful I am for all the people throughout history who have sacrificed time, money, and even lives for the sake of religion.  Especially in LDS history, but even in others, I think it is important to recognize how much effort they put into making their churches beautiful.  Because churches are built for God, and that is something worth sacrificing for.  And I am so grateful they were willing to make those sacrifices.

Isn't it beautiful?

Life really is good.