five

Wait a minute....five? How do you go from ninety-one to five in a matter of ten days? You change what it is you´re counting. In five days, my mom, dad, brother Ryan, and boyfriend Peter will be here to visit me! I´m very excited and really looking forward to their time here.

Last Friday I went to the National Zoo in San Salvador with the Kindergartners, 1st Graders, and Prepa students. It was a lot of fun. There were monkeys and snakes, tigers and an elephant. The place was small, but not too shabby. There was a big pond in the middle of the zoo with a walk-way going through it, and on either side of the walk-way there were little islands with monkeys and other animals on them. We saw a huge iguana swim from one island to another. They also had a cool suspended bridge that went across a river, and on the other side of the river was the aviary. However, none of the birds were actually flying free as in other aviaries I´ve seen. But they did have ostriches and owls. I learned from Maestra Sandra that in her home country in South America, there are ostriches in the wild. The aviary was also interesting because it had many "handicapped" ramps that were fun to run around on, but I would hate to be a handicapped person there--the ramps were very steep. They were steep enough that on the way down, it was easier to run than to walk. It took a bit of work to go up the ramps as well. I imagined myself pushing a wheel-chair up the ramp, and in my mind, my feet slipped out from under me and the wheel-chair began to roll backwards, down the ramp. It wasn´t pretty. But all-in-all, it was a good trip. I only wished that the teacher had taken a little bit more time at each exhibit. We raced through that zoo like there was no tomorrow. If I stopped to take a picture, the group was gone and I had to run to catch up. I´ll post those pictures soon.

This past week has been Week of Prayer. The Student Missionaries planned it, and I think that it turned out very nicely. Our theme was "What God is to me." Each night there was a short song service, a special music, a drama that fit in with the sermon topic, and then a short sermon (15 minutes at the very most, but usually somewhere around 10) speaking about how God is our Shepherd, Leader, Protector, Friend, Savior, or other things. I spoke about Jesus being our Best Friend and participated in a number of the dramas. It was a lot of fun to finally do some more acting. I didn´t realize how much I´d missed it. My talk went pretty well too. It was amazing to see how God provided--I had been stressed about my talk because I hadn´t written it until the Monday before-hand, and then I still had to translate it and read over it a bunch before Wednesday night. I was worried about translating it because I knew it would take me a lot of time--time I didn´t have. But then I was talking to Elisabeth about it and I asked her to read over my speech (the English version). To my surprise, she said she would translate it as well. I was so relieved. A few other things happened as well that gave me extra time I didn´t think I had in order to prepare for my speech or for special musics or dramas that I was involved in. When the time came for my speech, I wasn´t very nervous, but I was a little bit worried about the prayers--I hadn´t thought out what I was going to say in Spanish as I prayed before and after my speech. I had a rough idea of what I wanted to pray, but I hadn´t yet nailed down all of the words. However, I think the Lord was with me. My opening prayer went well, and the words came out smoothly. The speech went well, and I rarely stumbled over the words. But then, as soon as I was done, it was as if the gift of speech had left me. I couldn´t remember the word "Oremos," meaning, "Let´s pray," and because I didn´t know what to do or what to say, I instinctively looked at my watch. It was exactly time to stop. I somehow came up with the proper word and stumbled through my final prayer.