T-minus 2 Days.

Well ladies and gents, my computer classes start on Monday and I COULD NOT. BE MORE. EXCITED. The last couple of weeks have been a build up of hard work justing waiting to be put to good use, so Monday can't come soon enough. Classes will go for two weeks Monday-Thursday from 11-12 for the younger kids and then 1-2 for the older kids. As I told you before, the class is already full and there is even a waiting list. Which means, those that don't pass the class or didn't have the chance to take the class will either have the oppurtunity to take the class later this summer or next summer depending on whether or not there is another volunteer who would want to teach the  class again after I leave.

For some reason this picture will not get smaller so you'll just have to deal with this massive picture of me. Lucky you!

For the past couple of weeks there has been a general topic of discussion in the house of 16 gringos. FOOD. Belizian food is delicious at first, okay at second glance, and questionable by the umpteenth time you eat it. I don't think I will ever want to eat meat off the bone ever again in my life. It just grosses me out more and more everytime I see it. Right when we got here I was all about getting burritos, panades, and salbutes at the street shacks but now we are starting to tire of the random bones being found in our food, and the overall unhealthiness of every deep fried meal. So naturally we start talking about all the freaking delicious food we have back in the states. Lets get real people, Americans know how to make good food. Especially desserts. We have been seriously craving some good chocolate. The chocolate here tastes like brown gravel. I'm really hoping that when I get home there will be a plate of my dads homemade chocolate chip cookies waiting for me. (hint hint, Daddio) (: But really.

Top 5 foods I miss the most?

1. A good deli sandwich. Turkey that wont make me sick, mayo that isn't yellow, mustard, pickles, and some white bread that doesn't mold in .5 seconds

2. Mashed potatoes. Mmmm.

3. Good ice cream. The ice cream here is decent, but it is a little too crunchy for my taste. I miss the creaminess of Cold Stones' "Cheesecake Fantasy" (Just thinking about it is making my mouth drool)

4. Good Meat. The meat here is....sketchy. I just want to be able to enjoy a piece of chicken without having the question the cleanliness of it.

5. Otterpops. Yeah, I just said that. Otterpops are the perfect treat for hot summer days and let me tell ya, there are alot of HOT summer days down here in which I dream of eating 10,000 otterpops.

Top 5 foods I WILL miss most?

1. The fruit. They have THEE best fruit here. My favorite is frozen watermelon. Oh wait, maybe cantelope. Or pineapple. Gaahh. There are too many to chose from. I think I just love having fresh fruit available at all times.

2. Juice. I guess it kind of goes with fruit...but really. The juice here is so good! Lime juice? Heavenly.

3. Mama Kay's Stuffed Fry Jackets. They are kind of like scones stuffed with a sort of chicken salad. And they are unreal. I will be definitely getting her recipe for them.

4. Lucy's burritos. Lucy's is the name of a shack that we go to in town. We went there on the first day and have yet to find a better place to buy a burrito. She never lets us down.

5. Chocolate Bananas. Again with the fruit, sorry not sorry. But there is a shack down the street from us that sells chocolate bananas that I have become addicted to. I might be making a few runs to Cold Stone or Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory for choco bananas when I get home.

I know you probably didn't really care about any of that but I just felt like blogging it. So there you go. There was my splurge of thought on food tonight. Have a fantastic day everyone! See you in 25 days!

My Day Has Been Made.

I know I haven't been able to blog in a little while and you're probably wanting to hear about Belize BUT.... I just got to see and hear Nic on a YouTube video and I honestly couldn't be in a better mood. Its kind of a really lame video that the youth in his ward made so you can skip til minute 5:12 and see his handsome face! 

Great, riiiigghhtt?? I seriously just stared at the screen and watched it 3 times over. ha. I'm so pathetic. But not only is it awesome to hear his voice, but his reasoning for going on a mission. He really sounds so grown up and mature. Not that he wasn't before, but he just sounds so happy. Goodness. Can't really get over it.

This is how I feel about it.

In other news...we have a new project going on now. We are helping to beautify a school near by. We are painting all of the desks to cover the graffiti and we are also putting in a ramp for a student who is in a wheelchair so that he can access all the buildings easier. Tuesday and Wednesday we worked on the repainting of the desks and Thursday we will start the ramp. Here are some pictures! 

Naturally, I had to.

After an hour of painting...this is about 1/3 of the chairs we painted.

The Past Week!

A couple of days ago I had the opportunity to go to Octavia Waight which is an old folks home here in San Ignacio. Most of the people have disabilities so they need a lot of help there. We do things like helping them complete their daily exercises, feeding them, playing games, or just sitting and talking with them. It was actually very emotionally draining. It was a good experience for one day but I honestly don't know if I could do it again. It's just so sad to see the people like that. One man is blind, a lady only has one leg, most of them are in wheelchairs, some of them have already lost their minds, etc. And then there was Claire. She was a Swiss woman, still not sure why she is in a rest home in Belize, and she is the sweetest thing. She made us sing "The Lord Is My Light" probably about 20 times for her...in spanish. Funny, because she doesn't speak spanish. But she loved it. Then as we were leaving she turned to one of the girls and said, "I just....I just love you. Please stick with me." I literally started tearing up. It was a really tender moment for all of us. Some of the other women there weren't as sweet and would say things like, "I want my food now, B****." hahahaha Pretty funny.
Also, we just got a bunch of new people in the house! Now we have 17 girls living in one house and its just fantastic! (Sometimes....) haha Actually it really hasn't been as bad as it could be with a house full of girls. I love all the new girls they are super nice and excited to be here!
This Saturday is the Benefit Dinner for Mary Open Doors (the home for battered women) and I have the opportunity to sing with 3 other girls at it. Woot Woot! We are singing songs like "Lean On Me" and "You and I" by Ingrid. I'm really excited because I've never really performed singing before. It should be interesting!
Oh. Scary story time. So I don't know if I have mentioned it on this blog yet but we have been robbed a few times at our house. They haven't gotten in the house because the house is really well locked up but if we leave our clothes out to dry or our shoes outside because they are dirty they get stolen. And yesterday we had a little run in with a man who most likely is the one who is taking our stuff. He was sitting outside our house yesterday morning, sharpening his machete and wearing a HELP International shirt--which happens to be mine. One of the girls went and talked to him and he said he "found" them "over there" and pointed to our house. He was completely high when they talked to him so we aren't sure how much of that is true. Then last night we saw him walk past again and he had my shirt draped over his shoulders. We had the police come over and now they are looking for him. We aren't sure if we really want the police to get involved though because he might retaliate if he finds out we're trying to catch him. So we'll see what happens. I have complete faith that our house is safe as long as we are smart about keeping it locked at all times.
We also had the awesome opportunity to go kayaking this past saturday! It was so pretty and relaxing and HARD. haha But really it was so much fun!
Welp, thats all for now folks!

Kristy and I with the kids! 

Petronila and Alexis 

Not sure what this was but it was awesome! 

Kayaking! 

Faith Nazarene School

Sorry I haven't blogged a lot lately. There just isn't a whole lot to blog about. We have been  working a lot at the Faith Nazarene School helping the kids prepare for final exams. Exams started on Monday and we have been helping the teachers grade the tests as well. It is so sad to see how many kids are failing the tests. Today I graded a classes science test and the highest grade was a 70% with the lowest being an 8%. Most of the kids got around a 50%. These kids are 13-14 years old spelling "because" like "bicuz". One of the kids in the 4th grade class I've been helping out a lot in wrote this sentence on his test for Scripture Class. "David cild Goliath wit a sigshat." After grading all these tests, I am so excited that Jasmyn decided to put on the reading camp this summer. These kids seriously need the help. The teachers here are trying as hard as they can but the kids just don't seem to care. And even if they do care, they aren't getting the one-on-one attention that they need. Hopefully with doing this reading camp we will be able to help the kids get the basics of reading and writing so that they will have this skill for the rest of their lives.
We (Tori and I) just finished the curriculum for our computer classes. We also had to make a test for this kids so that they can really determine whether they are ready to use the computers on their own. I can't wait for classes to actually start up so all this work can finally pay off!

Until next time..Peace!

BOOM BABY!

Today we went to Guatemala to visit the Mayan ruins of Tikal. One word: AMAZING. The pictures that I took don't even do it justice. The buildings are huge and the views are incredible. The hike up the ruins are quite treacherous (especially after a week of doing Insanity every night) but TOTALLY worth it. It was also a great way to celebrate Nic officially being gone for A YEAR!! Can you believe it?! I sure can't! Just 365 more days until I see his handsome face again! I'm so proud of him and everything he has done and will do in the next year! Here's to one year down and one to go! BOOM BABY!

Food For Thought.



Most of you reading this blog will be able to relate farely well to this post.
Have you ever REALLY stopped to think about how blessed you are to see a temple everyday of your life? I sure hadn't until today. I mean, I've always known I'm lucky to have one so close but now that the oppurtunity to go to the temple is completely taken away it really starts to mean something to you. The closest temple to me here in Belize is the Guatemala City Temple. It's an 18 hour drive. Yes, I just said an 18 HOUR DRIVE. And it is extrememly dangerous. The church down here goes twice a year but they have to be accompanied by police all the way there and then the police watch their bus for them the whole time while they are in the temple so that they don't get robbed.
Today at church it really hit me how lucky I am to be able to see and attend the beautiful Timpanogos temple as much and as often as my heart so desires. But do I take advantage of that blessing? Rarely. In sacrament meeting one of the ladies was baring her testimony and mentioned how she had never before seen a temple but that she  was excited to go. I can't even tell you how badly that hurt my heart to hear. NEVER have seen a temple before? I don't know what I would do.
I have 7 temples, 7TEMPLES within an hour of my house and one of them I can see out my bedroom window. What a blessing. You can bet that when I get home I will be taking many more temple trips.

The Church Is True.

Slow But Busy.

Helllooo everybody! This week was a slower one but not because we aren't working hard. We have been planning a lot of projects this week so it takes a lot of time sitting on the computer researching. We are planning 3 big events.
1. Benefit Dinner: When we got here in Belize we found an organization called Mary Open Doors. They deal with helping battered women and one of the girls was very interested in getting involved with that. Problem is, this organization gets a lot of volunteers but not enough money to do any major projects with their volunteers. Because of this, each volunteer that wants to help out at MOD has to pay a fee of $150. We asked them how they used to raise money for the organization and they said they had an annual benefit dinner that one of the resorts here would supply the location and food for free. They haven't been doing this for the past few years because there are only a few ladies running MOD and they are too busy to plan it. We decided that instead of volunteering at the shelter, we would put on the benefit for them and they agreed. So this week (and the past few weeks) Heather, the HELP volunteer in charge of this project has been working very hard to find a resort, people to attend, etc. Planning is coming along great and the benefit is expected to be on June 23.
2. Reading Classes: Like I said in previous posts, we have been going to a Faith Nazarene school here and helping the children do their in-class assignments. By helping them do their work we found that they have a very low reading comprehension level. One of the girls here, Jasmyn, was interested in starting a reading camp for the kids at the school this summer. So her and Jezzel (another volunteer) have been planning and talking to the teachers this week about what kind of curriculum they should teach the kids.
3. Computer Classes: I already explained the purpose of the computer classes in another post but I have been working on that one with Tori this week. We have a meeting with the manager of the George Price Center on Tuesday so I will let you know how that goes.

So that we wouldn't go stir crazy sitting on our computers all day, most of us did half day at the Faith Nazarene school most of the week. I really do love going there. I have been to the same class everyday and I'm really starting to get to know the kids and really love them. Its so fun to go there and be attacked by hugs the second you walk in the door and then be able to help them further their education as well. Its a friendship that I will remember forever.

Also, IT POURS RAIN HERE. We are just getting into the rainy season and its pure craziness.  Funny part is that I've asked people if the storms get worse and they all respond with "YES!" Like I'm some idiot gringa who doesn't know anything. (Which I am) So I'm excited to experience some real storms compared to dry Utah weather. The crazy thing is that right after the storm it goes right back to being sunny 90 degree weather. I have quite enjoyed dancing in the rain. Yesterday we were sitting at the house and it just started to down pour and we looked out the window to find a man with his little cart selling fruit all tipped over and his umbrella was all bent and no one was helping him. One of the girls went darting for the door and the rest of us followed. The second we walked out the door we were drenched. It was fun to be in such heavy rain and also have the chance to do our HELP duty and do some humanitarian work. Followed by dancing in the rain, of course! (:

Now for the part you've all been waiting for!
PICTURES.

oh yeah, and the electricity went out for a few minutes. But don't fret, Papa Searle made sure I was prepared with a headlamp! 

Adan. And Jason making ears behind me haha

Antwin. What a stud!

Cute girls!

Dancing in the rain! Yay for granola shoes! 

What the garden project looks like currently! 

After being outside for about 15 minutes. Seriously should have taken my shampoo out there!