The Great White North

So normally people tell me they are going to do things, and more often than not I am left to be disappointed. This is one thing that has always driven me nuts, because I am a big believer in doing what you say you are going to do. Even if is hurts, if you say you are going to do something, you should follow through because someone may be counting on you, or expecting something.

Yesterday, my faith in that was restored. We had talked with one of the pastors from the Canada group about going up there to talk about the mission at their youth fundraiser, and even at the Canadian Seminary. Yesterday, Pastor James called and asked us how our calendar looked for April 13th to 18th. It was open, so he is now getting us tickets to come talk about the mission to the Canadian Lutherans. Super Excited.

One day we are going to the seminary to talk the students, then have a meeting with a group that is coming in May. Another day, we will do touristy stuff and go to the West Edmonton mall, which I guess is bigger than the Mall of America. That would put me at the 2 biggest malls in North America in less than a year. FUN!!. On the Sunday, we will be speaking at 3 services at the church and helping work the Youth Fundraiser for their annual trip here. Can't wait, really excited.

We are slowly coming out of Snowpocalypse. Water emergency and rolling blackouts are over, but there is still a shortage of plumbing parts in town as everyone is trying to fix broken pipes. We got some from Teri who stopped at a store in Roswell to bring them on Saturday when they came for the baptism of Alivia. Good call. Hopes are to have building 5, 13, and the main line where the pressure regulator done today. Check out the picture below of the plumbing aisle at Lowe's on Sunday, 3 days after most of the popular things were sold out. And of course there is a super cute picture of Viviana crashed out on Erin's lap with a sucker in her hand. Have a great week, stay warm through the next chill coming tonight. Lucky for El Paso, this one is going to just miss us to the east.

Unsuccessful

Remember in my last post, I talked about starting to read the 900 page Don Quixote? My goal for the weekend was to finish it, and then be able to put up a blog saying I finished. No such luck. I got sidetracked with other things, but I have finished one third of the novel, so maybe a couple more weeks and I will be done.

Hope everyone is staying warm during this snowpocalypse.

Snowpacalypse as defined in the Urban Dictionary:

A weather condition in which the amount of fallen snow, while not really such a big deal, wreaks havoc on a city, effectively shutting it down and leaving its citizens stunned and unable to see any sign of hope or a return to normalcy. It's perceived much like the aftermath of a nuclear event, but really... it's just freakin' snow!!

Learning New Things

So far this has been a year of learning new things for me. Most of them have been computer related, since I am a digital immigrant. First, Erin taught me how to do all kinds of cool stuff on publisher, so I can make neat things now for school assignments, and my youth classes, and other things. Then, for a school assignment, I had to make some shapes and lines for a genogram project, and of course I did not know how to do that, so I asked the resident digital native (Erin), and 15 minutes later I was making boxes and circles, inserting text boxes, changing the shading and fill of these text boxes, drawing lines, it was sweet. Then, after I got the project back, my professor told me that I had done one of the best genogram projects she had seen in all her years of teaching. YAY!!!!

We are also changing our website to combine our current news site, and regular website into one. This past week there has been a lot of adding pictures and content, so naturally when I needed to figure out how to add a page, or a picture, or a next generation gallery, it was time to learn again. I have a lot of notes, but I am starting to remember things. Hopefully all the English content will be done by early next week, then it needs to be translated into Spanish and we can launch it. Hopefully it will be up SOON!!. I can tell you, it is pretty cool.

I have also learned school stuff. About stressors, and step families, and violence in families. Lots of stuff about family systems. This class ends Monday, and then Tuesday starts the next class called Family Decision.

Since I like to read, and I feel like I have been neglecting The Essential Man's Library, I started to read Don Quixote last night. All 902 pages of very small print of the unedited one. Any guesses on how long that will take me?

Well I am off to work on a web page about the Christmas distribution stuff. Have a fantastic week.

Here's to a New Year

Happy New Year to everyone. Well, 2010 is now in the books, and it had it's high points (Mediterranean Cruise, starting school), and it's low points (recent health issues), but instead of dwelling on the negatives of the past, my resolution is to try and look at the glass being half full this year. This has not always been a quality I possess, and it is in my nature to be pessimistic, probably so I am not disappointed, but working on being more positive can only help right?

To give you a brief look into the health things that came up, I went in for a cough that would not go away, and we found out my blood pressure was high (runs in the family), so we started some medication for that. The doc also ordered some blood work, where we saw my cholesterol was a tad bit high (172, supposed to be 100), started some meds for that, and the clincher was when the doc told me I had type II diabetes. I am only at 8%, and I should be under 7%, so it is not crazy bad, but it is still diabetes. I had to go in for an eye thing to check them for diabetes, and then an abdominal ultra sound for other stuff, and I just feel like I have been to the doctor A LOT the last few weeks. Currently I am having to take diabetes classed, and have two more left, and then maybe no more doc stuff for a few weeks. I hope. Anyway, I would appreciate your prayers that I am able to do the things I need to for my health.

The year ended with some snow while working in Anapra with a group from Mayer MN building three houses, and as I said, I am trying to be more positive about things and not get upset so easy. I think I am doing ok, but it is hard to judge myself. Lot's of things to do in the office and all of our winter friends and their RV's are arriving so we will have a lot of activity and people here at the mission.

School stuff started back up this week, and I am almost done with the third class of my cohort, and have 3 more before summer break. I plan to do some CLEP testing this summer to get some more of the elective and general education credits I need so I can be on target with finishing in December of 2012, wow that is next year, and walk in the graduation ceremony in May of 2013. I really like how this cohort flows, and LOVE the fact I do not have any tests, just a bunch of papers to write, some of which I hope to finish this weekend.

Still teaching youth class at San Pablo, and am hoping to get more involvement and attendance up. I really want to get a whole youth group started, but it is slow going. Miguel and I are planning on taking our classes to Incredible Pizza, and maybe this can be a launching point. I am searching for new material for class, and hopefully have found a couple good things I can use for a few weeks at least.

I guess that is enough rambling for now, I am waiting on the leader from Mayer to send me a dvd of pics and I can share some of those in another blog soon. If you want to get an idea of that week, check out Erin's blog.

Happy New Year.

Playing Santa

So I got a phone call one day in the office, and it was a lady who attends Ascension Lutheran Church in far west El Paso. She was calling because her office was in need of more families to sponsor for the Christmas season, and she knew we did some work with lower income families in the Colonias of El Paso County.

Basically, the people of her office would purchase gifts, food, and other items needed by these families if we could give them some information. Erin and I sprung into action and began calling many of the families you have already read about. We started with three families, got their clothing sizes and wish lists, and I sent off that information.

Later in the day, the needs of all three families had been sponsored by the office, and Sandy called me looking for another. I said, sure. We could not get a hold of this family, but we guessed their sizes and needs, and yet another family was sponsored.

Two days later, Sandy calls back and says the response is overwhelming, and did I have another family, it just so happens I did. So now we are up to five families that would be sponsored this year.

This past Wednesday, like five vehicles arrived at the mission full of all the goods. Each family had two large bags of wrapped presents, and one HUGE box of food, that probably weighed 100 pounds. That evening, after and between Doctor appointments, Erin and I delivered two sets of the gifts (Since we were both leaving town on Friday, and wanted to make sure they had it).

Erin put on her Santa hat, and off we went. We decided since each child had like three gifts, we would let them open one now, and save the rest for Christmas. We also let the family open their gifts, if it was space heaters that they had asked for, since it would help warm up the house.

One of the families, only the new boyfriend was home, so we dropped off their stuff, and she called the next morning to thank us. It was for Mayra and the Wild Fire house for those of you who may know that house. (Yes, her kitchen and bath have appliances).

We then went to the Garcia house, and the girls and mom were home.

The next day, after more Dr. appointments, we delivered the rest of the goods. Enjoy the pics and have a very Merry Christmas.

The Garcia girls with their new jackets. (Provided from the mission as part of the Christmas distribution).

Showing off their presents. That box that Nadia (In the middle) is on is the box of food.

Open sesame

Yay, heaters

With Erin and their coats

Hi

Letters to Santa, they loved that him and I were buds

Nadia found roller skates in her package

With some of the food

The gifts in front of the tree at the Morales house

Alejandra shows off her new sweater

Homero Jr. shows off his socks

Still digging

The Morales family (Minus Jesus the oldest son) in front of their tree

The Terrazas family, minus mom Maria with their goodies

Diego opening his gift

Dad Diego Sr. and youngest, whose name I currently forget

Erin with the Saucedos, minus Dad.

Norma and Kaila opening her gift

Number 16

This Thanksgiving, the annual pilgrimage from my home church, Our Father, in Centennial Colorado came loaded up with turkey and all the trimmings for the 16th year. As usual, the group planned to cook and serve meals on both sides of the border. They served here on Thanksgiving day, prepared food for Cristo Rey on Friday, and also served at San Lucas in Anapra on Friday, then served at Santisima Trinidad on Saturday.

Because of all the news about the Juarez, the group elected to avoid the downtown corridor, which meant the market would come to them here at the mission on Thursday and they would have a little extra free time for fun and homework if needed.

They also tackled some of the projects on campus we are working on. They were able to tile another room in the dorms (that reminds me, I need to go fix the door and put the threshold on that room), painted the parking blocks with reflective paint so people (ME) wont trip over them and almost have a bad fall, Painted the outside windows and doors of the kitchen and did a little cement work.

Pretty good for this group, but they seem to have it down to a science.

Enjoy the pics, I'll try and get some more blogs up soon, but I have 283 pages to read for school and 2 projects to work on, so who knows. Blessings on your week.

Natalie and Elise may have been a little tired from the drive.

Cake team.

Rolling silverware

Erin getting her "paint on". The paint crew was SUPER FAST

Chef Zach, who learned an important fact about Joe Sakic at dinner one night.

Jens was loving his apron

The line of people as we got ready to serve on campus

About to enjoy his meal

Serving team

Full house

They also made bags of candy for the kids at the mission sites. We used to pinatas, but that was very dangerous and people were getting hurt, so now each kid gets a bag. They get their hands marked and if they try to wash it off, Mireya would catch them.

One of the service projects for Friday and Saturday: tiling room B in YLM building #12.

Nick using his engineering skills

You have heard of where's Waldo? Well, where's Chris?

The service at San Lucas.

Getting excited for some Turkey

Happy diners

The salsa queen. Terry has become an excellent salsa maker. People don't believe it is homemade.

6 mo. old Luna (Panchis's granddaughter) and Abram (Gaby's boyfriend).

We like cake

Thank you

Passing out the candy through a window to keep it orderly

Serving at Santisima.

Genesis, we built a house for her Grandparents or Uncles or something. She is great.

OOOOH. I am full

The cake serving was getting a little out of control, so I had to step in and create order again. All ran smooth from there.

One of my new buds, he ate A LOT of turkey

Thanks to Erin for the pictures.