Thailand Trip: Day 1-4

Well, all I can say is this trip is turning out to be more than I ever could have expected! I am having THE time of my life and trying to soak it up as much as I can.

Today we went to the school we will be working in and met with the beautiful children we will be working with. So great! I was pretty emotional today, as I always am on these trips. It is such an opportunity to travel the world and to be able to help! I am lucky to be here and to witness the things that I am.

Well, just as a recap, here are a few pictures. The internet is extremely slow here and so I don't know if I will get to post as many as I thought, but here is one of us getting ready to fly out:

Here is us girls after we landed in Tai Pae. This is our tour guide "James Bond" who seriously was THE funniest man in the world! We love him so much and his talking on the microphone on our tour bus for 12 hours straight....no joke. He knows ALOT about Taiwan....too much.

This is what it looked like in Tai Pae! We were literally in a cloud, pouring rain. We were soaked!! And it felt good.

This was another part of the tour to the ocean! It was beautiful, 

and everyone wanted pictures with the  Americans...hahah.

This is after we landed in Phuket after 2 LONG days of travel.

Miracle number one: every single one of our bags made it.

Crazy I know...that never happens with that many people.

Today was our first day at the school, like I said. 

We enjoyed some entertainment from the kids below, 

and mostly just got to play and have a good time.

It is eight billion, thousand, million degrees hot with 100 percent humidity.

You can't even imagine the heat here.

You sweat more than I can explain!

In most of these pictures you can just see all the sweat and wetness.

Anyway, I ADORE these kids. 

I feel like our spirits must have known each other before this life.

I always feel like that when I get to serve these children,

you can't express how much love you feel for them.

Also, on every humanitarian trip I have ever been on, there is always one special

bestest friend that you always meet.

Asia (Az-ee-a) has to be her I think! I adore her.

You always find them right off the bat!

And here is our group at this beautiful school!

And 2 cute other little girls. 

See the sweat!? Bah, so hot.

But so great!

Alright, time for a nap!

I'm loving it! 

More later :)

We made it...kind of.

I am sitting here in the Tai Pae airport waiting to board our FINAL flight to Phuket Thailand after a ridiculously long day... actually days. After 2 flights, one which was a 14 hour pretty miserable and hysterical flight, we made it to our cute tour guide James (as he called himself, Bond). He took us on a TWELVE hour tour all around Taiwan. It was great, and I have not laughed as hard as we all did today in a very long time. We saw a lot of great things and met a lot of great people. Now, we are exhausted and have one more 4 and a half hour flight to our final destination. We trekked high and low for a Burger King here in the airport, but to no avail. We ate some crazy food today and all we wanted was something American, and succumbed to buying a ten dollar burger that tasted like meat loaf. 

Hahaha, how I love traveling more than anything. More later!

Tomorrow....

I will be on a flight here:

I am SOOOO excited. 

All of us on the team have worked SO hard to get us to this point.

The work is not over, but it is going to be great!

Too bad this is what I look like right now:

I am sicker than a dog.

26 hour flight is not going to be fun feeling like judd.

Keep checking back! 

I will be blogging about all of my crazy experiences there for the next month!

See ya later :)

Tales of dementia....

Tonight I worked in the Memory Support Unit (AKA lock-down for Alzheimer's, wanderers, and dementia patients) at my fave old folks home.

IT WAS INSANE.

I am not kidding when I say I am completely exhausted. 

Let me just tell you how it went with all the humor infused.

Imagine this: Me VS 6 Patients:

Patient 1. Only there for a few days, was into EVERYTHING- would go into everyone else's room, flushed things down the toilet, trying to escape, asked me every 3 minutes on the dot when his wife was coming, shut off the computer a million times, got into the soap, spilled all of his food, almost pulled off the blinds.....made me pull out my own hair.

Patient 2. He passed away during my shift. Literally-not kidding. He went fast, and that was a relief since he was in pain, but I was administering Morphine/Haldol every hour....that gets really hard to do when he is unresponsive and I am dealing with patient number one. I had to try and find to destroy the meds, wait for the mortuary, do post- mortem care, and call the family to tell them....rough. Way rough. Nothing like a death to make you contemplate life.

Patient 3. Used to be a big time gambler....and still thinks she is. You know those holes that are in the door frames where the door locks? Ya, she thinks that is a penny slot. You find pretty funny things in there from her shoving them in there. She also is looking for "tazies" she tells me. I don't know what tazies are, but she is bringing me some. Also she wouldn't eat.

Patient 4: Did great. Easiest one. Watched TV my shift. Praise everything good in this world.

Patient 5: Talked to an imaginary boy all day. Also, anytime I would be talking to anyone else she would answer all the questions and be part of every conversation. Pretty comical. Wouldn't stay in her bed or her chair and had about 1600 close calls for a fall. She was funny, and I love her....but hard. She also wouldn't eat, and she kept trying to find a vacuum. Definitely cleaned her whole life and worked hard because she was trying to clean everything.

Patient 6: Almost clawed my face off when I asked her if she wanted to color. For the most part she was pretty good, but she wanders everywhere and I couldn't find her sometimes. She repeats herself a lot but  you can get her to cooperate most the time when the Lawrence Welk show is on. 

I about needed to be locked up too after a night like tonight! 

 love them so much, but they can sure be a handful...especially all by yourself!

Please bless that I never live to be that senile. I have this idea that I took care of em, so Heavenly Father will take me before I ever get like that. If he doesn't, will someone please shoot me? 

One last funny story to end the night:

A lady calls me over. I go, and she grabs my wrist...hard.

Lady: Sweetheart, call my family and tell them all these people are crooked.

Me: Crooked?? 

Lady: SHHHH!! Don't speak. Go  in my room, get in my purse, open the latch in the inside, in the pocket in the back part. There is a small piece of paper, grab it and call my family. I must get away from all of these crooked people.

Me: Alright sweetie, I will call.

Lady: HURRY!

Oh poor thing. Sa-scared people are after her.

My bed is calling me.

So is a foot rub.

More later!

Some days I want a child....

My friend just had a BEAUTIFUL baby boy.

 Seriously, I want to munch on his cheeks and it makes me want to have one my own self.
I've never met him, but his picture took my breath away.

Here he is:

Wait til you read his name:

Jack Kealaka'ika'olelo Ho'ikea'ola'i'oala'akea Uale.

I love being Polynesian.

I will have names like that!

Ok..maybe not THAT long.

More later. 

Tick goes the clock!

Time is running out for me and it is starting to make me nervous! The other night I was looking through my mission hand-book and I got my first bout of real butterflies and the nerves.

I really am doing this....really, really.

My eyes get teary every time I think of saying good-bye for a year and a half.

I don't think I will really get homesick...too much work to be done, but I do get sad knowing that everything will be different when I get home.

Don't worry! I know it will all be worth it. I can't wait to be a missionary and to share those things that are so dear to my heart and make my life so complete!

One that is hard is that I feel so pointless right now! Waiting to leave is KILLING me. Literally cutting off my air supply.

My mom tells me to enjoy the boredom, but I usually have a purpose you know? A task list waiting to be checked off...a bazillion errands to run. Papers to write, people to call. But all my friendlies are gone and busy. The task lists have ceased for a time. And yes I am staying "busy" working at YouthLinc and the old folks home...but it sometimes doesn't cut it. I am ready to get this week out of the way because here is my schedule:

June 9th- July 3rd....THAILAND BABY
July 4-July 11th ...Cali with the fam for little Hannah's dance competition/DisneyLand
July 18th.... My farewell/Setting apart
July 21st ....Off to the MTC

So crazy.

More later.

Real Life.

Well, I have been spending my days at a wonderful program call Youthlinc where I have been an intern. They are the ones sending me to Thailand in just a few short weeks :). Anyway! With my time there I have been working with a pretty fah-reaking amazing girl named Elham Nazzal...aka Ellie. She introduced me to the best thing in the whole world, her program "Real Life" which is to help refugee children. Not only do they teach them the every day skills necessary to be introduced into our society, but she also helps the children have a good time by learning things they have never done...like swimming! Today I got to help take all of these beautiful children swimming. My only regret is that I didn't meet them sooner because I fell in love with them today just in time to leave for the mission. They are from countries all over...Somalia, KENYA :), THAILAND :), Cambodia, India...all over. Not exactly sure what a refugee is? Definition HERE.

Anyway, Ellie was telling me how cute it was because a lot of the little girls didn't have swimsuits and it was so funny trying to help the figure out how to even put one on! They didn't realize where the straps went and where each leg went. It took a lot of coaxing too for them coming out of the dressing room to even go swimming in a swim suit. (They left their little bras and underwear on! So funny)

While we swam and played they told me of how hard life was in the refugee camps from where they came from and how wonderful America is."America is so easy!" they said....and it's true in a lot of ways. Broke my heart to think of all they have had to see and  deal with at such a young age. From traveling the world you realize most of the world really lives like that....having to deal with so much terror at such a young age. I am glad they are here now and enjoying themselves, free from those terrible camps.

This is a great program to get involved in. The Catholic Community Services does a lot with refugees if you would like to get involved and find ways of volunteering to help these amazing people transfer into our culture and way of life a little easier.

Here are some cute pictures of the day.
HOWEVER, I have to apologize, they are kind of grainy because I couldn't find the right setting, and well, I am not the most attractive wet...so bare with me here.

The cute Thai/Burmese girls I played with most of the time:

This picture says it all about the boys....hahah they learned how to splash really quick!

They also learned that splashing girls=girls screaming.

The cute group!

I want to munch on their cute faces!

My BFFs:

Love these kind of programs.

Props to Ellie.

More later.