Youth Confrence 2008-Day 2

Day two of youth confrence was spent at the botanical gardens here in San Juan. We had a breakfast buffet and as soon as our first speaker arrived (President Deusnup, the mission president) we gathered together on the grass and listend to his amazing talk. He, of course spoke about going on a mission and the importance of being a missionary. He handed all the youth a Book of Mormon and challenged them to find a friend to give it to.

Here's the first young women to arrive, from left to right: Rosie, Lorraine, Jessica, Yendri, Lorena, Lynette, Ashley, Tamara, and Coral.







After President Deusnup's talk we split the youth up in 4 groups and had them rotate to various workshops where they had interactive speakers. We then had lunch and went up to the sculture garden to play games.

By the time they were done playing games it was time to go home, change, and go to the Carolina building for a dinner and dance. Everyone was so tired by then and the dance only lasted about two hours.








This girl Ashley is a brand new member. Her testimony grew a lot during youth confrence. The boy on her right is Gabriel, he was going inactive and now he wants to go on a mission. The growth that we see in these youth is miraculous.


Matthew was our DJ for the night

KC and Javier. Javier is a non-member, but he has decided to get baptized!



And that was day two.

Youth Confrence 2008-Day 1

Matthew and I have a stake calling in the young men and young women stake presidencies and thus we were partly in charge of Youth Confrence. This was our second one since we've been here and we've gotten nothing but wonderful memories and experiences from them. It's been a great pleasure working with the youth here in Puerto Rico and I'm sad that this was our last youth confrence together.

So the first day was a big day because we only had three days to fit all our activities in. We started at 10:00am and as the youth arrived we had them sign in put a name tag on and decorate their shirts. Our theme this year was "I will keep myself firm in all good things", a shortened version of Mosiah 5:15 "Therefore, I would that ye should be steadfast and immovable, always abounding in good works..." This was printed in Spanish on their shirts.




While we waited for all the youth to arrive and others to finish up their shirts, we played some games.





Soon after the games were over we had lunch and then headed out to our service project. We visited an orphanage that held abused children, from newborns to seven years of age. It was a heartbreaking experience when we entered and found the little babies crying. I noticed a leader from Pontezuela crying I couldn't hold back any longer, the tears just started running down my face. I never understood how parents can do this to their own children. I forcing myself to control my feelings of anger and remembered that we were there for the children; to provide them with love, a fun experience, and laughter. I put a smile on my face and began greeting all the children. They had 19 children at the time. We made a little easter craft and then they decorated their own paper bag to collect easter eggs once they were done.

As they worked on their bags the youth went out and hid all the eggs. It was the most humbling experience to see the smiles on those kids faces. Since they had been abused and held the right to all saftey measures, we were not allowed to take pictures of the children. This was the only picture we were able to take because their faces were not facing the camera. It took a while to get them to look the other way, but we finally got a perfect shot.

When we returned from the service project we watched "The Testaments" on a big screen through the projector. And that was day 1.

El Morro

The second day with Luis and Natalie was Sunday so of course we attended church, but then later in the evening we went down to Old San Juan to walk around El Morro. This was my first time to actually get down and walk around rather than just drive by; I couldn't believe how beautiful it was. The kite flying was awesome and the field of grass in front of El Morro is incredible. I never thought I'd have so much fun walking around El Morro. Right over the fort you have the most beautiful sites of the ocean and the coast lined up with colorful buildings of Old San Juan. I took a bunch of pictures but these are my favorite ones. This whole trip turned out to be a money saver because we were supposed to buy rope for one of the games during Youth Confrence but after seeing so much Kite string on the ground Natalie suggested for us to use that instead of buying rope. It was a brilliant idea. The tough part was trying to untangle it, it kept us busy for a good 5 hours.

El Yunque 2008

Ok I have some serious updating to do. I had visitors and then a Youth Confrence to take care of so I have had zero time to even think about blogging. But I am back and have a lot of updates.

First off, one of Matthew's Buddies (Luis) from his mission came to visit us from Alabama with his wife Natalie. He is Dominican and met Matthew while on his mission. He comes to Puerto Rico on business trips and everytime he's here we are always grateful to see him. This time though he was able to bring Natalie, which I'm glad because I've been wanting to meet and get to know her. Natalie is in school and, like us, they are wating to start their family until after school is done. While they were here we went to El Yunque with them and walked down to La Mina Falls and then all the way up to the peak of the summit. Matthew and I were dying of pain, but we made it and and are proud of it. I already had a ton of pictures from El Yunque from previous visits, but I can never get enough flower shots so here's what I got. Plus my camera died by the time we got down to the waterfall so I couldn't take anymore pictures than these.

New Summer Look

I got my hair cut again. For some reason I can't stand looking the same way for so long. I always crave change every six months or so. Don't know why, I just get tired of things easily. So here it is. I love it, it's so easy to handle and it keeps me cooler now that summer is rolling around.

Payless ShoeSource Rocks

Last week I went shopping with China, a cuban lady that I met at Wendy's house during Thanksgiving. She is super nice and makes the best black beans ever. Anyway she invited me to the mall to have lunch; I didn't expect to buy anything because, like most of us, we're poor college students. I told myself if I buy anything it has to be something I really need. So I remembered I really needed black dress shoes; the ones I have hurt really bad. One of the stores we came apon was Payless ShoeSource and I noticed they were having an easter sale. They had a really good selection of summer shoes, I was debating between two and finally decided to buy these cute little black pumps for only 15 bucks. I had to get them, they are so comfortable too. By the way, the Easter sale is still going on ladies!!!

New Beginnings, Carolina

Since it's the beginning of the year, all the young women in each ward are having their New Beginnings. The purpose of this activity is to introduce Personal Progress to parents and leaders and also to welcome new comers from Primary and recognize those that have graduated or finished a year in their Personal Progress with a beautiful medallion. It's always fun to attend these because the girls come up with the cutest ideas to present the seven values of personal progress. This ward had a skit where they were all pirates looking for a treasure, the treasure was the seven values of the young women, they each then explained what their value represented. They each wore a different color representing a value. It was a lot of fun.

Temporary Parents

Matthew and I were asked to watch 4 kids from a family of our old ward. We were a little hesitant at first because 4 kids are nothing easy, but then we remembered how incredibly good these kids are and accepted the challenge. We had a great time, we pretty much just house sitted because the kids did everything on their own and I mean EVERYTHING! They got themselves up at 5:00am for school, made themselves breakfast!, made their own lunch!, and read scriptures with us. The only thing I had to do was walk them to the bus stop and back and make them dinner, it was amazing. The rest of the time spent with them was fun and games. This gave Matthew and I a little taste of what it's like to have 4 kids because that's the number we were planning on having, but let me tell you, if my kids are as good as these, I can have 10...or maybe not, but still, how nice is that? Never have I seen better kids. What a blessing.

It's a Girl

My older sister Alma is having her second baby, which is the second grandchild as well. She and her husband were the first to do everything in the family even though she's not the oldest sibling (first to get married, first to have kids, first to graduate). Anyway yesterday she called and announced that she's having another girl. This is great because Victoria wants a little sister to play with...or fight with, who knows. Congratulations Almita!