You know you're in Saipan when...

You know you're in Saipan when...

You are thankful for power

You call the air conditioning air con

You have a pet geco that lives in your sink

You miss fall so much you make a construction paper fall tree

Cochroaches are as big as small mice

Everywhere you look you can see a dog

You begin to speak in broken english

You are excited to see the big dipper

You are scaried to get into your car because of the cochroaches

Everyone assumes you are a tourist because you're white

You have to calculate the time difference before you call home

You stop caring what you look like

Everyone is really excited to talk to you when you call them

People think you are 10 years older than you really are

You see a man riding his scooter wearing boxers and a camoflague army jacket.

Staying Positive

I have learned over the past few months that your worst enimy that can pull you down is yourself. The only way to make it through in the mission field is to keep a positive attitude. Although, it is true that there are many things that need to change or that you just do not agree with the most important thing is that you do not dwell on them and complain. If anything, you need to see if there is possibly anyway that you can help change them. There are so many struggles as a student missionary that if you do not keep a postive attitude you will have a horrible time. The way I look at it is that we all chose to leave home and come to the mission field and if I am going to chose to hate every moment of it then the whole thing is a waste of time. Plus, keeping a postive attitude makes you feel so much better and after a while you begin to see things in light of your new attitude. All of a sudden everything around you really doesn't look that bad and you are actually enjoying yourself :).

What doesn't kill you only makes you stronger...

I went into the mission field on the spur of the moment. I felt impressed to be a student missionary on a Tuesday, and was on the plane the next Wednesday. At that point I was too shocked at my decision to really be nervous about anything.
The first trial I was faced with was arriving in my classroom and having only one day to get everything in place for class the next day. However, yet again I was still in shock at what i was attempting to achieve. I was in accomplish the impossible mode. The first few weeks were incredibly stressful, but I had so many things to do I had no time to stop and think about how crazy things were. I just kept pushing through.
I had no idea that the most challenging trials were yet to come and would be silent, surfacing gradually. From the few days of training I recieved for student missions one of the lines that stuck in my head was from one of the principals. He said that Satan will try and discourage you anyway he can. At the time I heard this it made and impression on me. However, I had no idea how much this line play out in my time overseas. Issues have surfaced that I have struggled and still am struggling to conquer. I just have to continually remind myself to lay them at the feet of Jesus. I know this is why He led me out here. Back home I could deal and conquer most of my problems. However, out here in the mission field I am out of my comfort zone and there are very few problems I can conquer on my own strenght. Thus, each day I know to get through it I have to start on my knees.