The Last Minute Rush

Well this is crunch time! We only have 4 days till the Christmas Program and everyone is feeling it. There are still still costumes to make, props to get, and a backdrop to make that refuses to cooperate! On top of this there is always the obligations of a usual week tacked on with report cards. The great thing is that everyone is looking forward to friday at noon. At that magical moment time switches from work to vaction :). My mom always says that this time is actually her favorite because it is so fun to look forward to things. Once they finally arrive they go so fast! I know this will be the case when I go home, but I still want it to go fast :). Well staff worship is right now so I better run :)

Come Already!

Have you ever noticed that the more you look forward to something, the slower time goes? Oh my goodness!
Well I am incredibly excited to go home and even though I only have 10 days left it seems like that day will never come lol. I have an incredible amount of things to do and I am not exactly sure where to start. Isn't that always the case :)?
Life seems to get busier every moment. Right now I have an obligation each night until Sunday and believe me I am sure I will beable to find something else for Sunday!
The funny thing is that it depends what part of the day it is if the day is going slow or fast. If you ask me at 7:30 am the day is crawling, but by 2:00 the day is almost done!
My wish is that when I return home, time crawls and it actually feels like a have a really long break! I know, but isn't that a nice thought?
The main thing is to enjoy each moment... at least that is what I have told myself, but I really want to see my family and friends!!!! :) I can't wait!

Sick But Still Thankful

Well all my kids are reading to each other right now for reading class so I thought I would take this opportunity to write a short blog :).
Last week I was able to go to Japan for Thanksgiving Break. Tokyo is one of the most beautiful cities! It is incredibly clean and there are hundreds of small parks with incredible temples and shrines. It was especially pretty cause it was fall! For the 3 days that we were their we walked it seemed like hundreds of miles lol and took the city metro everywhere.
My favorite part of the trip was when we finally connected with our SDA family. Saturday night we were able to get together with the young adults and we all went out for supper. It was an incredible feeling to be sitting around a table with people you had just met a few hours ago and already feel such a strong bond! It is a memory I am not soon to forget!
The first day of the trip it rained all day and our feet got soaked and stayed like for about 12 hours which lead to me eventually losing my voice the day we left. Monday, Dec. 1 we started school again. It was great to see my kids again, the only thing that was different was that instead of having my usual powerful voice, I had to whisper cause I had absolutely no voice! My kids were incredible however, and the classroom stayed really quite for most of the day to compensate for me.
Being away for my kids, even though it was only for a few days I realized how much these kids mean to me! I didn't think I was going to have trouble at the end of the year going home, but now I am realizing that it is going to be a bit harder than I thought to leave these kids. Each one of them is so special and means so much to me! I love my class.

Jeffery :)

Well this will be short and sweet, but I had to write it down so I didn't forget it!
I love kids randomness! We just got in from P.E. One of my little boys while we were playing a glorified version of tag kept dancing around yelling, "put your hands up in the air, put your hands up in the air!" One of my other students found a part of a coconut and named it Jeffery and would have held on to it all of P.E. unless I had told them to get rid of it. Yes I am so cruel :) On the way back from P.E. one of my other boys saw the coconut, waved, and exclaimed, "Bye bye Jeffery, we will always love you." Ya you've gotta love kids!

You will never leave my heart

I am in science class right now. All my kids look so diligent. That will change in a couple minutes I am sure :). However, as I look out at the faces of my students I realize each and everyone of them have made a lasting impression on me. Despite the times i want to pull out my hair they all are so sweet in their own little ways. These kids have made me laugh, cry and scream (inside my head). I want to be able to watch these kids grow and see what kinds of adults they will become. Teaching is such an awesome responsibility. For one year I am able to spend more time with these kids then their parents are able to! The funny thing is that I wanted to come here to not grow up as fast; however, I have pretty much sped ahead to parenthood :P

Ready or Not!

I look at the clock. It anounces to me that I only have 15 min. till all my little kids come in. Over the past 3 months I have learned a very valuable lesson. It doesnt matter how I am feeling, whether I am singing a happy tune at my desk, or whether I am sitting on the floor behind my desk crying. At eight o'clock my kids will be coming into the classroom and I will have to teach. I come to recognize that life goes on and does not depend at all on how you feel. Your responsibilities still remain.
I have learned that the only cure is to suck it up and put a smile on. It is all about the choice to keep sticking it out. No matter how hard it is to pick myself off the ground, I have never regreted it. Plus I have a great coach from up above that is always cheering me on.

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.