Retrieving Data- FEB 1, 2012, 8:56pm

 El Salvador

Man, when it comes to blogging, I don't know what it is but it's so hard for me to think and write. But when I journal,  everything comes out so easy. Monday night a few friends and my sister hosted a good bye party for me. I had so much fun! One gift that I received was a journal. The journal was passed around that night and so most of what was written in it was encouragements. It was such a great idea. I was reading it while I was on the air plane. The silly part was, I was sitting between two people and sniffy and trying to hold my tears back but everything came down. Even my boogers.

While rushing to the airport Tuesday morning, I forgot to bring my pillow pet aka my pillow for the trip. So when I was getting ready to board the flight that was headed to El Salvador, I was going to buy one of those neck rest pillows but it was $17.99, it very over priced. So I didn't buy it. When I was boarding the plane, they had PILLOWS. Not just that, I was getting hungry and I didn't eat before hand. The flight supplied FOOD for us. OH MAN! Right after everything I was reading my bible and I read the verse: Matthew 6:25 "do not worry". The Lord had my back.

One of my biggest concerns was the airport. If I was going to make it on time or not, but I did. Most of the time I was early. I was of course nervous. I've never traveled alone nor been out of the country alone. It was a big challenge and I over came it. I'm in El Salvador now. I'm staying with a host family for a few nights until the mission base is ready to have all the missionaries move in. It'll be sometime next week when that all happens. For now, I have my own room. It's pretty nice. OH, and I have a pillow.

The first night was very interesting. I arrived, went to the mission base and met most of the people and then was dropped off at my host family's house. The lady that was hosting me spoke very little english along with me, I spoke very little spanish. The Language barrier made me so upset. I felt bad that I wasn't able to communicate with her. Overall, she was nice and made me feel welcomed and took good care of me. I had a few awkward moments because she was cleaning the house and didn't want any help so I just sat in the living room and read. Around 8-9pm the mother took me and a few friends out to eat across town. We had their famous Pupusa. It's a tortilla on both sides filled with either meat or cheese. I had cheese for now just so my stomach could get used to the food. My translator that evening was very protective about what I could have or not. I feel really safe here.

This morning I went to school and taught English with one of the missionaries. It was a lot of fun. The kids are so touchy. The girls are so darn cute!!! I wanted to grab their cheeks and braid their hair. So adorable. I had a great time this morning. I'm slowly picking up some Spanish, it's gonna be a long process but I can do it. My goal for this month is to at least have a decent conversation with some people or to ask questions other than, "how are you?" "what's your name?".   After that I came back to the office and helped organize the house with the team to have it ready for next week. A cool thing that I got to witness today was; the kids that get sponsored by people. For example, remember when you're at a concert and during the break they talk about kids who don't have enough money to go to school so if you could give $20 dollars a month or so it'll help them get into school. Well I was a witness to that. It's amazing that 99% of the kids that goes to the school that i'm teaching at are sponsored by someone. God is so good!!