autumn...changes...life

Bubble bursting! Wave crashing! Can you do it???

Unfortunately there comes when we have to stop being a solid body of water and rise above or normal and become more than just a flat being. We have to round ourselves out. Rise above the great normal body of water become 10 feet tall and become a wave that raises so steadily, strong, a little uneasy, yet brave taking a stance of faith. We have to fight against this invisible force of gravity and defy the actual thing holding us down. Waves are a beautiful part of nature and they contain such a story. To me I feel like they are a story of my life. As I gain the courage to come out of all my little bubbles that create my own little body of ocean. There are times when I have been pushed like the earth surface pushes the ocean to cause a tsunami. Sometimes my waves are great like a tsunami and sometimes they are small. Recently I have decided that there will always be moments in life where we will be pushed. Pushed in ways that terrify us make us feel like we are thousands of feet in the air hanging from a telephone pole in our lil undies. Life is not easy but it is a growing experience.

We had a lesson in institute that makes sense. We believe if we do this one thing get over this one trial get around this big corner in our life that things will be easier. Guess what ladies and gentlemen life does not look like this L______________. Sorry that would be way to easy life looks like this O. There are problems after problems. Trials after Trials and bubble bursting experiences one after another. Recently I decided to take a leap of faith to say some stuff that had been on my mind. I thought it would make everything better make everything easier and just make me happier. Oh sweet apple pie was I wrong. I was brave and took a step that I would have never have took without a lot of thought and repetitive speech writing. haha alright not all the way. I think when you take steps like this you have to realize you are not the only one in this equation 1+1 does not equal 1 hahaha nope it equals 2. There are things you think you are just doing for 2 ppl but really you are doing it for yourself whether you know it or not. This probably was one of the biggest learning experiences I have had in a long time. I learned that I can do things and be confident and sometimes confidence is hard for me. It is way too hard. I have the confidence of the lion from the wizard of oz. Anyways confidence is something you earn by experience the more you use it the more you have it. Money may not grow on trees but confidence can grow from within you the more you water it and use it. I also learned sometimes things are not meant to work sometimes we believe that we are the rulers of our lives. Dang bang boom... this is the shots of reality I heard when my sweet moment of confidence and self assurance failed on me.  Sometimes your life plan is not God's plan for you. I just need to remember his plan is the better plan even if I can't see it now; I know it will be great. :) This is hard for me to remember especially now when I are in the hardest time of my life, growing up learning the steps of life and taking paths untaken. Anyway, taking this leap of faith made me realize that I am capable of doing things that make me feel venerable. It is ok to feel that way. It is a great learning feeling. I realized that when you take a step like this there is no turning back and when you take this step and spill your guts it is ok. 30 Years down the road people are usually going to forget what you told them. And a few years down the road if things don't work the way that you wanted know that maybe it wasn't meant to be and at least now I don't have to wonder what if. I hate when i wonder what if? What if I had just spilled my guts instead of staying silent. My new philosophy, you have nothing to lose. You are strong, brave, kind, and every step you take to becoming venerable and submerging yourself in sharing your feelings help you become a better version of you. I figure if someone doesn't like me for the way I am there is no reason to be spending my time with them or wasting energy on them. At least I said what needed to be said. I know don't wonder what if. I believe I have received my answer. I am growing to be ok with that answer. Somewhere out there is someone who wants me for me. I will not change me to please others. I love me for me.  I just have to be patient. Oh how hard it is to settle myself to patients. Life is good. Gods plan for me is great. In time I will be a better version of me and I will love and respect myself. I have already grown tremendously in these last few weeks. Remember God is great! Trust him. Plant a seed of faith and things will be great!!! In him I trust.

Departure or not.....

Departure or not…. L

So today was our last day with the family. Last night Momma Cruz made dinner for everyone in the family. So we had Domingo his 4 kids and wife, Romos and his 2 kids and wife, Martita and her husband and Audrey, Viola and Andres and Mama Cruz. Domingo and his family weren’t there because Domingo and Papa had to go play in the band for the church. So we all ate a big lunch with Domingo his family and Papa. Let’s just say we ate a lot of food yesterday. We took family pictures with the family then we went inside and I gave them my camera so they could take their own pictures. They were so excited to have a camera. Then Martita left she told us goodbye and she started crying and you all know how I am once someone starts crying so do I, I am so weak. It is sad. It was in that moment of time I realized that it is a possibility that I could never see this family ever again. I have not thought about it really. It hit me like a fast ball to my stomach. It is amazing to me that we can meet people in our lives and get to know them be like them and never have contact with them the rest of our lives. We are so lucky that we can have the opportunity to meet people that have positive affects in our lives. But when the time comes to say goodbye it can be one of the hardest things we will have to do. I am so sad about leaving this family. They have been so good to us. They have shown me how to love strangers as family and even though we have barriers we can learn to communicate if we are open to trying new things. I will never forget this wonderful family. Leaving them probably was one of the hardest things I have done in a really long time. I am still tearing up about leaving them. There are things I have learned that I don’t know how to describe to other people. This morning Mama Cruz made us banana pancakes my favorite. They were sooooo good it was a great goodbye gift. When all my stuff was packed up and my room was empty I started crying again. Then Mama Cruz and Viola really got me. They are the ones I have spent a lot of my time with and have done so much for us selflessly. Sometimes we do things for others we may think it is selfless but we all have another underlying layer or selfishness. Here I saw true selflessness. I have learned I need to do a lot more selfless things, truly selfless things. I am so sad to leave here. I really am. I know coming here was hard for me but leaving is definitely harder.

Well we were supposed to leave at 4 or so we thought. Kate checked our flight and she thought it said we were supposed to leave at 4 well lets just say it left when we got to the airport 12:30. So now we have to wait until tomorrow morning at 7:30 to fly out. It is kind of frustrating I thought I would have a day to get ready for school and see my family but, I guess I will have to wait til Monday. L I am sad. But at least we will be going home. Now I am just sitting in the airport since 1:30 this afternoon it is 6:30 now. We don’t have any internet until we get our tickets and we can’t get our tickets until tomorrow morning. It is frustrating but oh well. There is nothing we can do. I guess we should have checked one more time last night. Ahhh. Oh well. I guess I will see you all soon. And if my journey continues passed this don’t worry I will let you all know.

Well my journey has continued. We were sitting in the airport upstairs cafeteria until this man came upstairs and told us we couldn’t stay there for the night that we had to go downstairs to stay for the night. So we are like ok we can go downstairs. Well folks let’s just say downstairs is not just downstairs it is outside the airport then downstairs. I don’t think I have ever been more frightened in my life. Walking outside Guatemala city airport (Guatemala city is not very safe) then walking down a creepy slightly dark set of stairs to the first floor. We walk inside and I feel a little better there are at least some people here. Then a family of other LDS people show up I start to feel a lot more safe. It was a nice peaceful calming experience compared to the stress day I had. So we start to talk to them grab some dinner. Then decided it was safe for some of us to sleep with such a large group so right as we fall asleep and the other family puts down their babies to bed a big ERRRRRREEEEEKKKKKK goes across the floor. Sorry folks we have to mop can you please move to this side of the room. Move again. This was our 3^rd time moving all our luggage. It was ridiculous utterly ridiculous. So we get moved pull together some chairs and make a bed. Lets just say I stayed the night with a bunch of strangers in a dark cold room. Hahaha it was nice to get some sleep since we had been at the airport all day. Ahhh. But we got up at 4 went and got our tickets and checked it. Finally we got on our plane and we are on our way home. Yay!!!

Lots of love,

Desi

Watching the Lorax on the computer just thought I would share this quote with you all. “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. Its not” -Dr. Suess

2 emotional roller coasters. who would have thunk.

Wednesday

Today was a pretty simple day. First of all we started out by going to the dental clinic. From there we went to the school to give fluoride to all the little kids. I am so grateful for America’s school system. We think we have disgusting poor education, but it is nothing compared to the school system here. I mean absolutely nothing. To explain the situation it is like having a cardboard beat up box with holes that smells like rotting cardboard compared to a clean house with fancy furniture. It is pathetic the way the school works here. The kids go to school in a very dirty place every room we went in made me want to gag because they smelt really bad. They seriously smelt like the walls and floors were rotting and they were hot too which made the aroma of the kids bad too. We are blessed to have the schools we do and people that take care of them and actually care about our education. Although we could do better we also can do a lot worse. The education system is terrible if you don’t have money. All the brothers and sisters in this family only went to school til 7^th grade. Since they didn’t have money to send their kids to school in Pana they could not receive higher than a 7^th grade education. This could be one of the reasons the girls here get pregnant earlier because they don’t get a good education and they have nothing else to do. The boys go and find jobs after finishing 7^th grade and the girls usually learn to work from home and do house work and find a spouse. I am so grateful that I had the opportunity to get a good education and had the opportunity to live a life and discover who I am and who I want to be before having a child. The life these boys and girls live. It is sad to me, hence why Kate wants to bring Viola and Andres to the states for school.  Kates aunt and uncle will pay for them to come to the states to learn. Viola is actually 17 and her mom and dad could pay for her to go to school but they don’t want her to be like her sister and meet some guy and get pregnant. It is sad that they have to worry about that when they should be worrying about the education she can have. Thank you mom and dad for making sure that I had a good education and always encouraging me to get good grades and learn as much as possible. I think the whole theme of my experience here is be grateful for what you have because there is always someone better off than you and someone worse off than you. It is the things we have, that we need to be grateful for. These people are content with what they have and as should we. I thank my stars and have been counting my blessings because I am blessed. Oh how I am blessed. I have an amazing family, I mean amazing, good education, equal opportunities, and how lucky I am to have the life I have. The life I live is great and I am rich beyond compare. I may not have money wealth but I am wealthy in ways an outsider could never comprehend. I love all of my precious wealth’s I have, such as family and friends. Thank you all for enriching my life.

Love you,

Desi J

Thursday

Tomorrow is my last day with the family and how sad I am. I just got here it feels like I am truly cheerless to come home. I have made life time friends and family here. I am so sad. I love these people so much. They are so kind to us. Also Mama Cruz and Papa are so accommodating and always make sure we are taken care of. I don’t know how to explain myself my situation my feelings. I feel like I did the first day emotional roller coaster. I want to cry but I don’t. haha. I feel like I am standing in the middle of an empty grassy field my home to the west on the hill and this home on the east on a hill. I am stuck in the middle unable to choose the destination of where I want to be. I sit like a captivated vine behind bars and only allowed to reach so far only allowed to grow one way. In the end I know which way I will choose to go but my memories will always be a part of my growing journey. Although I am emotionally captivated I have been able to be part of an experience that so many will never experience. My experience here has been one of the most bubble bursting, humbling, amazing experiences of my life. Unless you experience something like this for yourself you will never understand. There is something about living with others strangers, learning to communicate without words, learning customs, learning a language, and learning to live a way you have never lived before. I don’t know how to explain it to anyone. But I truly grew as a person down here and I know that this is exactly where I needed to be in this time in my life. I developed as a person in ways I couldn’t at home. In our lives we are blinded by what we have what we do every day. Sometimes it is hard to think that there are other people out there. The world is so big and we are so small but we definitely need to be less selfish in our daily lives. You never really realize how blind you are tell you take the time to step out from behind the black curtain and look beyond what is right in front of you.

Sorry enough deep thinking for today. Today I did a lot more sealants this time I didn’t use the dentist chair we had to use regular chairs no water no air no nothing. Hahaha it was hard. We got 30 kids teeth sealed today. After we finished one of the supervisors came from the University of Dental School here in Guatemala to check up on the Dental students work on the sealants he took 5 random kids, 4 of the students and one of mine. Hahaha I was so nervous. I knew the job I did today wasn’t as good as the other day and he didn’t know that I was helping with the sealants he thought it was only the students doing the sealants. So he starts with the first 4 and he was so angry although I didn’t understand everything, he was talking so fast in Spanish, I could just tell he was angry and the vibe was off in the room. After the 4 he got to my patient. Turns out I had the best sealants he was just upset because I didn’t do one of the permanent teeth that I should have. Hahaha it made my day to know that I did a good job. So all in all it was a good day. Now we are just going to hang out with the family for the rest of the day.

See you all soon. J

My last week L Lunes y Martes,

Hola familia y mi amigas. Puede hablo espanol muy major. No mas voy a America. Usd. Es necessario por tu vamos a Guatemala por que Guatemala es mi nuevo casa. Jaja.

Ok that was a very awful attempt at my mala (bad) espanol. Hello family and friends. I am able to speak Spanish better. I will no longer be coming to America. You all need to come to Guatemala because Guatemala is my new house. Hahaha that is what that said. I am definitely getting better at the Spanish which sucks because I am leaving soon which makes me want to be here longer and learn more. It is amazing what living in a Spanish home and environment and how it can improve your ability to speak another language. I didn’t think I would ever be able to have a conversation when I first arrived here. But today I got done with work early and Jose and I had a conversation for about an hour. Even though I am slow at putting the sentences together and I don’t do it correctly I am getting better and able to communicate. And what a feeling that is! I am getting so sad to leave. L. I am trying to soak up every minute of this experience and I have not been doing my homework very well. Today was a spectacular day though! I got to work with the dentist finally!!!!! We first started by going to homes of different children learning about their brushing habits and the environment they live in. It is so sad to me to see some of these homes there is no privacy in some of them. I am so privileged and every day I have to thank my heavenly father. It is amazing the way these people live but the even more amazing thing to me is these people are happy. They don’t need everything we have to be happy they can live with just the simple necessities. (yes you may break into song here I did too! It’s the bare necessities…..). After seeing some other people’s homes we went to the school to check kid’s teeth to see which students needed sealants. Can I just say thank you mom and dad and grandparents for caring enough to make sure my teeth were taken care of? Seriously I am astonished at these children’s teeth. I have never in my life seen so many cavities. Every kid had rotting decaying teeth. These parents just don’t care and some of the teeth are permanent teeth rotting. It is so sad. I am depressed every time a child here smiles because their teeth are so bad. We got a couple of kids with permanent teeth that were able to be sealed. We went back and the dentist said seal them. She didn’t show me how just let me do it!!! It was so awesome I did about 12 sealants today all by myself! I can tell you now this is my calling. I know for a fact this is what I want to do I didn’t get bored like I do when I work with the doctors. It was so much fun. The dentist said I can come back the rest of this week and work on the sealants some more. I am so freaking excited. Hahahaha.

Yesterday Monday we worked all day didn’t really like how long the day was and plus we had this little girl that stuck something up her nose and so Craig asked me to hold her head while he was pulling it out of her nose. That was the hardest thing I have done in a long long long time. I am serious. I couldn’t do it. Her head was hot and her nose was bleeding and it stunk so bad. I couldn’t let her head move otherwise she could have got really hurt. I felt so bad. I defiantly will not be able to do something like that again. I will stick to the dentist stuff.

Well that is my last two days in a nutshell.

Lots of love,

Deserai

Eruption!!!! Volcano day!!!

Today we woke up at 6:30 to go to the volcano at 7. We missed the launcha so we had to take another launcha to catch the launcha that we missed. It was kind of funny. I am always late and Mama Cruz was late in getting our lunch and breakfast made. It was good but not enough protein. I really am in bad need of protein and potassium. We got to San Padro and took a tuk tuk up to the hiking grounds I am so glad we did because I never would have made it up to the top of the volcano if we didn’t. hahaha We started off it wasn’t bad but once we got into the forest part it was so hard. Hahaha like I am usually a pretty good hiker but this time I was not my nose is still pretty plugged and not being able to breathe well, didn’t help either. It was one of the hardest yet one of the prettiest hikes I have ever been on. The steps going up were seriously up to my knee if not sometimes higher. It was so bad I haven’t been getting the vitamins I usually get at home both of my knees kept cramping up. It was so bad. I was a walking mess. Although let me tell you I have never felt more accomplished in my life. To get to the top it took about 3 hours and it was the most beautiful sites I have ever seen. I am so amazed by Heavenly Fathers creation of this beautiful earth. I love every moment of it!! We ate lunch on the top of the world. I am seriously amazed everyday by how beautiful it is here. Every day I am more and more amazed. I was still full from breakfast so I had a Peanut butter sandwich with honey. We taught them to do that. It was so perfect. On the way down I didn’t struggle at all we were going so fast and everyone was laughing at me on the way down. I guess I was saying really funny stuff. Hahaha I don’t know. I have just got used to them laughing at me. Hahaha. I kind of feel like I am back home except at home I feel like they are laughing with me more. J who knows? Well all in all today was a great day. Tomorrow we are taking the family to Chichi they have never been.  So Kate is paying for them to go with us. It should be fun. I am excited!!!!!

Lots of love

Deserai

Zip LINEEEEEEE!!!!!!!

Hola mi familia y amigos,

Today was an awesome day we went zip lining in Pana at the Atitlan Nature Reserve. There were two zip lines you could choose from the first was the Cables Xtremos or the Ultra Cable Xtremos. We decided to do the Ultra of course. It was amazing. It was 8 zip lines long and it took over 3 hours to get through the whole course. They said this is the shortest of the 4 ultra extreme zip lines it is only 400 meters long the other ones are over 800 meters long. It was the coolest thing I have done since parasailing in Jamaica. Just saying if you ever have the chance to go zip lining in Guatemala do it!!!!! It was so beautiful they had a nature reserve and they had a mauriposol reserve in the same place so for 40$ you got to zip line and see the entire national reserve park. It was tremendously beautiful you had the lake on one side of you and the Forrest on the other side. I truly loved it. After the zip line we went to the fruit market and the market to get stuff to make French toast for dinner Sunday. Hopefully they like it. One thing I have taken for granted is American super markets oh how dearly I miss them. I can’t wait to go shopping for something and actually finding it. That will be a very exciting day. The family and us talked and laughed all night. They are so awesome. Again I got teased. Kate brought it up this time that Andres and I are in love. Viola says he is scared of me. Hahahaha oh you know I kind of have that affect on ppl. Hahahaha Andres is funny he gives you this look like he is laughing at his head at you but it is his smile but he also does it for his silent laughs so I never know if he is laughing or smiling. So every time I laugh they all laugh Mama Cruz especially and Andres just gives me his smile laugh. I wish I could describe it better but that is the best you are going to get. So you know how yesterday Mama Cruz taught us to weave well she finished today and gave me a beautiful bufanda. I love it, it is so pretty and colorful it is a scarf. Well there was not a whole lot we did today but it probably was my favorite day. Best wishes to you all.

Love desi! J