first week or so at Port

Hey! sooo its been about 5 days since I got here and it has been a whirlwind of emotions just flying all over the place. You first feel excitement for being back and seeing old friends again then just as quickly you remember everyone you left behind and the life that you have traded for a whole new one. Then with those two polar opposite feelings comes a million other feelings that sometimes I don't even know how to describe. I am just hoping I get all my weird feeling thing out of the way before new students come. My weirdness is going to freak them out anyway..can you imagine how scared they would be with my emotional wreck added on top of my weirdness?? Ya, I don't even want to :P.

These past few days, Emily, Sophie, and I have been taking classes on Prayer with Tom our director. They were the best classes ever! They were exactly what I needed. What I think made them so special was the time that we would take just to pray about the new students, returning students, staff, and for each other. Prayer really just united Sophie, Em, and I in a way that I can't put into words. It gave us a renewed hope and vision for this coming semester and a view into what God wants to do with us. The topic of prayer couldn't have come in a better time for Em and Soph as these past few days have been hard for them. It really showed us that all we can do is pray and believe that God has everything under control and will accomplish His will in our life.

Coolest thing ever last night Em, Soph, and I took out a bunch of blankets and went outside to lay out and look at the stars/moon which where usually covered up by clouds. But we had a blast just snuggling under our blankets (because it is freezing outside!) and talking, crying, praying, and playing games. God is so good!! He brought two beautiful girls in my life who I can connect with on a much deeper level than just superficial friendship, we can connect on a spiritual intimate level. Portantorchas is seriously my home away from home, a pesar (can't think of that word in english sorry jeje) of all the hard goodbyes. I Love you girls!! (I love everyone from my Port family!)

Back in good 'ol Tikolandia (Costa Rica)

Hey everyone! So Monday was an extremely long and tiring day. I didn't finish packing until 2 am and had to leave my house at 3 am. My journey consisted of flying from Guadalajara, MX to Houston, TX to New York to Costa Rica... it was about 18 hours or so sitting in a plane! I arrived in Costa Rica at 10 pm and stayed up talking with my tiko friends till 4 am . Lets just say i have had some extremely tiring days.

I have mixed feelings with being back here at Port. I am excited on one had because I love being around these people, my friends practically family. But at the same time it is very sad to leave my family and not have direct access to mexican tacos and tortas ahogadas (drowning sandwhiches). I will be living in the casita, which is a house that up to 10 girls stay in with 3 bathrooms. I am very excited! jejeje.. Right now there are 5 students here who are taking part in planning different activities for this coming semester. I am extremely excited to get started and am anxiously waiting for all of the great thing God has in store for us this year at Portantorchas!!

Prayer

This has to be a quick blog since i leave for Costa Rica in around 5 hours. I would just like to ask for your prayers for my family. As transition, changing, growing up is proving itself to be harder than ever expected.

Transparancy

"Be transparant!" "Be yourself, don't be afraid to be who you are infront of people." Those are just a few of the thousands of one liners my mom would put out there every chance she had. I would always just nod and smile and think, "I am being myself, how can I be anyone else?" But you know what? I was wrong. I was so wrong! I had a very eye-opening experience this past week or so and it was much needed. I had a very frank, heart to heart with my parents and for some reason everytime we have one of these very serious, heart revealing talks, my parents and I, what they say never leave me and impact me so much that I am finally able to realize how much of a sinner I am and how inadequate I am. I cannot fix myself by myself. Only God can change me, fix me, mold me.

The main thing that I learned (and the only thing that I don't have too much of a problem with telling everyone about by internet) is that it is pivital for me to be transparent. How? By being so sure of who I am in Christ and my identity that I have in Him, that I don't mind what other people think of me but that all I care about is what God thinks of me. So many people feel that they need to be someone else for people to like them, because if they should dare to show people who they trully are then they will be rejected. Some, like myself, were/are willing to deal with the fact of being "fake-or someone they are not" then with being rejected. I would constantly adapt to my environment (like a cameleon). I would scout out the people I would be hanging around and get a grasp of who they are and what kind of people they would normally hang out with, then I would become that person. I would become the person that they would like and have fun with and hang out with. I was so scared of being unliked, rejected, and hated that I wasn't true to myself.

It took a stern talking to from my dad, seeing the depth of his dissapointment in his eyes, and hearing the sound of his heart breaking that made me realize one very important thing. If a person does not like me for who I am, then they are not worth it! After so long of being a modern day, human cameleon I didn't know exactly who I was or the real value I do have. This has been a constant struggle in my life, starting around the summer of my 10th grade year but really all my life, the struggle of realizing the value I have in Christ and not settling for anything less than what I am trully worth. My dad has me reading the book "Stomping out the darkness" by Neil T. Anderson and Dave Park. In the book I read a quote by Josh McDowell and have dubbed it the quote of the day.

quote of the day: by Josh McDowell, "If you ever put a price tag on yourself, it would have to read 'Jesus'. His death on the cross was the payment for our sins. You are 'worth Jesus' to God because that is what He paid for you."

Less than a week

ok, so this is around the time when reality rears its ugly head and hits you square in the face. I am leaving in less than a week! I have less than a week to pack up my room and divide my things up. I have less than a week to prepare all my goodbye gifts and cards. I have less than a week to say goodbye to the people who mean the world to me. I have less than a week to have a much needed heart to heart with my brother and be the big sister I should have been a long time ago. I have less than a week to cuddle up with my mom and savor the moments that I can share my heart with the only person who trully understands. I have less than a week to talk to my dad and get his advice and all of my doubts, concerns, and problems. I have less than a week to chill with my sister and show her that no matter what she is my number one sister and that I love her with all my heart. I have less than a week to accomplish everything I should have been accomplishing throughout my two months of vacation. Why did I not take advantage of my time being back home with my family?

Vacation!!

Hey everyone! We just got back from the beach!! It was one fun week i can tell you all that much! I spent like 6 hours a day playing beach volleyball!! I sure got my excercise in that is for sure... The only bummer was that the last day we were at the beach it was cold and rainy :( ... but that was probably a miracle in disguise so that we wouldn't pass from being just tan to being way burnt. :P

Dia de los Reyes (an excuse to give more gifts)

January 6 is not just an ordinary day here in Mexico. You see, thanks to the Latino blood we find ways to celebrate and have a party. And today is the holiday Day of the Kings. Why do we celebrate this? We are celebrating the time that the wisemen arrived to worship Jesus and gave him gifts. How do we celebrate this? Well, everyone else BUT us give gifts to the kids of the family *((ahem parents!!))* jaja and then everyone (yes even us :P) eat a special sweet bread that has around 5 little plastic baby Jesus' and the idea behind these plastic figurines is that if you get the plastic baby Jesus in your slice of bread you have to buy tamales for Febuary 2nd (another reason to party!). My brother, Adrian, has bad luck and this is his third year that he has received the plastic figurine. All I can say is that he has yet to buy me those tamales... and I am hungry!!! Anyway... I thought I would let you all know a little bit of Latin culture!

Life update

So just for a little update, I arrived back to guadalajara the 28th of November to spend time with my family. It has been quite a relaxing time with my family. I find myself sleeping in till 2 o'clock pm and going to sleep around 2 o'clock am. My mom is not too thrilled with my new sleeping habit (and my "I am catching up from my lack of sleep in college" excuse no longer works) so she is gently starting to break it and lovingly wakes me up at around 9 am to try to get me ready for my college schedule in CR where I have to wake up at 7 every morning!! I have been coming down with the sniffles and a cough. Sunday night I began to loose my voice and yesterday it was pretty much gone. My family, especially my siblings, did not forget to let me know how lovely it was not to hear my voice all the time, in which case I responded with my lovely, crackling voice trying to explain to them that my voice wasn't gone completely because it did manage to leave a crackly, man sounding voice in its wake. jaja.. It has been quite FREEZING here lately!! yes, I know it is probably not as cold as it is in some of those northern states in the USA right about now, but hey for my Latina blood it is freezing! jejeje yesterday my dad commented how he was tired of being cold (and I must add he said that while wearing his leather winter jacket.) He was always confused why he brought his winter jacket with him to Mexico, but he has now uncovered the reason for his madness (so he won't be the first person to freeze to death in MEXICO!!) Needless to say we are all looking forward to our beach vacation!! We leave on Sunday to Puerto Vallarta for some fun in the sun!!

Tired of Feeling... it hurts too much

Have you ever stopped and just thought about everything you have tried so hard to not think about? well, for some strange and non-understandable reason I decided to do just that. I sat down on my bed, took out the calender, and wrote a list of everyone I will have to say goodbye to. And you know what, it sucked! The countdown has now officially begun to when i am off once again to a different country (Costa Rica) and say goodbye to everyone who keeps me together when i just want to fall apart. My family and friends. The people who have seen me in my worst and yet still love me with that one in a million kind of love. Then when I add everything i have to do for college before i leave, then all my financial issues i have to figure out and see if I have enough to buy everything i need to buy, and all my personal life issues with my emotional strain. Lets just say my poor family has seen me "tear up" a few times. I was skyping my really good friend, Gretchen, and in my awesomeness i made up a quote that I am dubbing the quote of the day. (aswell as my facebook status :P)

quote of the day: yea ... thats life .. life is full of wonderful hellos and heart wrenching goodbyes .. but you learn from the experience and then you just have to fall into the arms of God so he can put the pieces of our heart back together

Packing

Today was the day I have so long tried to avoid. Packing day. Now this is not just packing up a suitcase to go to college. No. This is packing up my whole life and putting it all into plastic containers. With every object in my room I had to choose one of four choices: keep it for keepsakes, take a picture of it and give it away, leave it at the house, or take it with me to college. It gets a little draining after a while having to decide in which box to put the things that you are so used to seeing everyday I wake up in my room. Not having what you have always taken for granted for so long is hard. But, it has taught me a valuable lesson. My life is not wrapped up in things, yes they are memories, but they are not my life. My life is wherever my family and friends are. I am not going to have a home for a while, but a home is not wrapped up in physical objects. Home is wherever I make it. Now I do know that it is easier said than done. I do not profess to have everything under control, but I am working on it!