Unexpected Enlightenments

I have come to the conclusion that I will never be one of those people that are able to keep up a really good blog, just like I am not able to keep up a journal. However, I will keep on writing even if it may be once every 4 months!
I am enjoying my last Sabbath in Spain right now. Our sliding glass door is open and a slight breeze is wafting through. The sky is clouded over, but believe me that is a good thing because it means the temperature is just perfect!
My experience here has thought me so many things! I’ll start with the obvious, learning Spanish. I have gone from understanding Si to understanding and writing simple sentences. I have went from as my roommate says a fetus to a 5 week old baby!
My time here has also showed me a different side of myself and as I would love to tell you that this was a pleasant surprise it was quite the contrary. Being here has brought out my melancholy side to the fullest! I have been able to see that some of the things I cling to for fulfillment while they are not bad, in the light of eternity they do not matter. I am beginning to see that I have no idea how to relax and as my next statement may seem weird I have come to the conclusion that it is quite fitting. I need to learn how to not be so efficient. I need to be able to relax and take things as they come. However, I have a good idea that though I have enlightened with these revelations it will take me a great deal of time to truly incorporate them.
I love how every experience opens your eyes just a little more…. I am curious what my next enlightenment will be :)

Lol I Can't Keep Up!

Friday night finally!!! Well I am finally caught up on sleep. Well, sorta I am still really tired a lot of the time, but that is probably because of how tiring it is to learn a new language. Overall this experience is amazing and I feel so blessed to be able to be here. We get to go to the beach about 2 to 3 times a week which is gorgeous! The weather is amazing! This week we went on a tour of an ancient roman castle that dates back to 215 BC. It was so cool to look at rocks that had been cut and placed where they were thousands of years ago!
We visited the market which had everything from electronics to food. It was funny because I think where ever you go even if it isn't a third world country the markets always smell the same.. a hint of sewer :P. Maybe that isn't true, but so far that is what I have found.
The one challenging thing I am dealing with right now is school. In the beginning I was in group A (the beginning class) because I have never taken Spanish in my life! This made sense. However, so many of the people in our class wanted to switch to group B that the director just switched us all to group B. Lol, ya so now I am in intermediate Spanish writing 80 word compositions and I don't even know how to say my alphabet! I kept talking to one of the monitors, but they didn't seem to take me seriously when I told them I really didn't understand. Finally, today I asked to talk to the director which wasn't there, but finally the tutor seemed to take me seriously and said we would figure things out. I explained to him that if I didn't have a basis to build on I couldn't apply what I was learning in the intermediate class. I am going to be talking to the director on Monday, so hopefully it goes well.
The students here are a lot of fun. There is always a sense of adventure in the air which I love! Everyone here has to have a bit of adventure or else they wouldn't be here. One thing that did surprise me is that I am one of the older ones here! A lot of the students are 18 and 20. So yes I am not really that much older but still I wasn't expecting to be at the top of the scale.
Although, the whole classes thing sometimes gets me down I keep trying to tell myself to make the most of my experience because hey I'm in Spain! I am having an adventure of a life time that most people never get to experience! I love having this feeling of freedom, adventure and endless possibilities. I love the quote from... well I don't remember but it says, "Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all!" The possibilities are limitless and I love that!!!

The Summer Adventure Begins!

Grrrr, ok we will try this again. I just erased my whole blog! Anyways I will catch you up on my adventures this far. So far I spent about 2 days in DC with my friend Sanchez. We were student missionaries together in Saipan and shared a classroom. We did some sightseeing and just relaxing. It was really a great time!

Next I got on a plane headed for Madrid. After 10 hours and no sleep we finally touched down. I found myself in a different world where not many people understood me. It took me an hour to find the check-in thanks to contradicting information. However, I was reminded on how small the world really is when I was on a shuttle bus and met someone from Kenniwick, Washington who had went to Whitman. Well, after I finally checked in two hours later I was finally on my last fight to Valenica.
When I arrived I got out of the boarding area and expected to find someone waiting for me. Well, I waited for about 30 min, then I decided that I should go exchange some money so I could use a pay phone to call the school. Only problem was there was no money exchange. They only way I could have would have been to use an ATM but I had no credit card. Well a very nice person at one of the desks called the school for me. They told her they had someone on the way. I waited for another half and hour and began to get worried that maybe the person on the line had gotten confused and there really wasn't anyone on their way. Well I finally got pretty scaried, plus because of my lack of sleep I was pretty drained. I put up a few desperate prayers to God and within 5 min a lady came to me and asked if I was Rhonda. Yes, I believe God answers prayers!
I got to the school and we went straight to the cafe where I recognized my friend Laura.
The whole rest of the day I battled with my eyelids to stay open. I don't think I have every been that tired in my life. The meetings kept me awake till 10! I fell into bed exhausted, but glad to be here.
This morning was also another adventure. I had brought my curling iron and decided to curl my hair. What I didn't realize was that because the electricity here is higher my curling iron got alot more hot. Well I first held it in for about 30 sec and as I took it out it smelled horrible. I looked at the curling iron and it had part of my blackened hair on it and at the end of my curl my hair hung singed. Well, then I had the brilliant idea that if I only held the curling iron in my hair for a second it would work. Wrong again it singed all the ends of my hair, but I did not realize this until I started running my hands through my curls and finding little pieces of hair falling off. Well I got a trim that I was not counting on! So far I have given my hair two conditioning treatments and will probably do a couple more and cross my fingers that it will be ok.
For our first Sabbath there was communion which was really special. After church we went and took another nap as we are still not over jet lag and then we went to lunch. After lunch a bunch of us girls went for a walk up the road by the campus. This is a beautiful place. It still almost seems like a dream that I'm here!

What happens after...

Well, this is the first blog I have written after Saipan. It may sound funny, but I think I was some how scared that I would sesecrate this blog by adding any more entries that weren't about Saipan. It has taken me a while, and I am still learning, but I am finally learning how to accept what I have right now at this very moment in time and appreciate it. So often I find myself thinking if only I could go back, or if only i could skip ahead, but that is not what life is about. You many never get tomorrow and you certainly can't go back in time... at least I haven't heard of that invention yet :) On a white board as I walk into my room I have written "make the most of every moment" and around that I have Love. I have found that that is a lot easier said than done. Lol I am probably repeating myself on some of this from previous blogs, and so you can see I am still learning :)
Anyways, I thought it would be good to give you a look at some of the highlights of this past year in Walla Walla. Here are a few :)

This is a parent weekend when my family, Elle and Kevin, and I went to Rooks Park. It was beautiful! The fall leaves were incredible and were a beautiful complement to a perfect day :

Lol, I don't think my brother will ever stop growing!

This is a girls bowling night we decided to dress up for! The comments we got were hilarious! That night was truly priceless!

Hehe, this was a Friday night I had a few friends over for perogies and well... it turned into a game of seeing how many oreos we could fit in each others mouths! Good times :)

This was a weekend at the Schreven's to watch the Olympics! Things turned out how they should be this year... the Canadians won both golds for Hockey :)

So, one night I decided to do something drastic to my hair. Hehe, in two days this was the result.

For spring break, I went with an amazing girl I met this year named Sallee on an adventure :) We first went to Portland and then went up to Seattle where we went sailing on one of her family friend's 68 foot racing yacht. Yes it was epic!

For Kami's birthday we went to her Aunt's place. It was great to relax and celebrate her birthday!

A couple weeks ago I went to Palouse Falls for the first time with Elle and Kevin. Kevin prepared us for the most epic falls ever.... hehe we they weren't incredibly tall, but they were really fun and Elle and I had fun bugging him. It was a really fun Sabbath afternoon!

A couple weeks ago, Melissa and I went to the last symphony for the school year. It was truly worth it! We had fun getting dressed up and felt very cultured :)

This brings me back to this weekend. This weekend Bridget invited me to go camping with a group from the University. We had an amazing adventure! Despite the rain it was super fun! The rocky point on that hill was where we decided to do our Sabbath hike. Lol, it proved to me I am completely out of shape, but we saw and conquered!!!

There are so many more amazing memories I have had this year, but just didn't have a camera. I want to thank all my friends for all the great times this year and the great times to come! Yeah for the adventures of life :)

A Litte Scared

Well at the beginning of the month I was on a countdown. I could not wait till I was back in "civilization." However now that I am on the final stretch I am getting this uneasy churning in my stomach.

I have know for a while that teaching is not the career I am going into. I know that staying on another year would not probably be a good move for me. If my career was teaching I would may think differently. This year has been incredible in so many ways. However, I feel that without the zeal for teaching itself it would be very hard to do another year.

This year has taught me so many things. It has made me a stronger individual. I am more confident and also more independent. I have met my breaking points and survived them. Of course all of these things were only possible through leaning on God.

As I begin to look to the future I must admit I am quite scared. I am heading back in to what my mind envisions as a mold. A mold of what my friends, family, and even I realize me have made. I am so uneasy because I know what I have become will not fit the mold. I do not know that I necessary want to change a whole lot, but I know I will need to adjust back. I guess that is what life is all about is adjusting to your changing surroundings.

Here I have been saying how this year has made me grow up so much and deal with things. However, I guess in someways it has helped me avoid and put other things off. I know that when I get back home I will have a lot of decisions to make. This year has given me a break from them, but has not made them disappear. I am really scared of messing up and making the wrong decision.

I just wish I could be the person my kids think I am. They tell me there is no reason for me to go back to school because I know everything. They think I know exactly what to do. Lol if only.

Well I guess each part of life has its challenges. I really liked how one of Jaimie's friends that is visiting her right now put it. She was a student missionary last year. She said that the whole student missionary experience begins in the preparation carries on in getting to your destination, getting used to the place and carrying out the year, and also includes that adjusting back home. I know she is right. I just am a little uncertain.

God has got me through this year and I know He has the perfect plan for me after this year. My mom said she believed this year was preparing me for something else, so I say, "God lead me on! My only prayer is that You stay by my side and give me the strength I need."

Australia!

Well I decided I better write this blog before I forget the little details of our trip to Australia. Our school drama group named REAL (real christian theater) decided to go to Australia this year for our off island tour. We left on May 14 in the afternoon and arrived in Cairns, Australia around midnight.

We stayed at a beautiful hostel. Now I know what your are thinking. How in the world can beautiful and hostel be in the same sentence. However, this hostel really was, they had palm trees and all kinds of other tropical folliage that they had planted around the place. They had a clean medium size pool that even had a little fountain/ waterfall thing that ran into it. The whole set up of the place was very well thought out. Also their personel was very accomidating and helpful. We needed to switch rooms in the middle of our stay and they ended up switching us from one room into two new ones for no extra charge. Also when I had trouble with my scuba plans the girl was right on the ball and got me with another company and had a taxi waiting for me to take me away!

On Friday we had our first school presentation. The school in Cairns is quite small with about 50 kids from grades k-6. However, they also have a very nice and spatious campus. They have a computer for every student! After our performance we headed to the zoo where we had fun feeding kangaroos, watching crocodiles devour meat, and holding Koalas! That night we were graciously feed at the beach by one of the church families and then we went and did one last performance at a nearby town.

Sabbath was actually our busiest day with 3 performance. However, it was great to mingle a bit with the Cairns youth group. We were invited to perform one of our skits on a local radio station, so about 7 of our group when to the station and answered a few questions and did the skit.

Sunday I ended up taking off to do scuba. After my original dive company that I had booked online did not pick me up (they went to the wrong hotel) as I mentioned before the front desk lady ended up getting me with another company. I raced to the dock and got there with only a little bit of time to spare. I ended up doing two dives. The coral was amazing, I touched a turtle and a 4 foot long fish, saw a sting ray, and some huge sea slugs. It was a great experience!

Monday Jaime, Michi (a SDA student) and I ended up heading up to a cultural village where we did a bit of shopping. We met a two older ladies that we helped to find their way up and down from Kuranda ( the cultural village). The funny thing was that when I got to talking to one of them I found out that one of her relatives lived about an hour from where my family do and she had just been up there last summer! That night it was back to the airport where we caught our midnight flight and go back into Saipan at 8:00 the next morning where I ran to class and taught for the day and then went home and crashed :)

It was an incredible trip and I would love to go back again and spend more time exploring! Australia is WONDERFUL!!!!

My Kids...

Well as the last days draw closer. I find myself becoming more and more aware of my attachment to my kids. I thought it would be fun to give you a sneak peak into our classroom...

This is our art class when we decided to make calashes. (don't know how to spell that)

Enjoying the simple things in life :)

Our coloring wall for March...

These are our reporters on the scene of a volcano that just errupted!!!

Enjoying the amazing animals at the Saipan Zoo!

My little family :) I love them!