just pictures!!

This one is with Nelson at the sweet 15, we were so bored so we started taking pictures
My mami looked so beautiful so Kim, I and Mami started taking pictures.
Kim and my Mom...they are beautiful!!!!
And of course me again.. just bored out of my mind. Well this one was when i was getting ready to go Latin Dancing!! oh boy I did have so much fun!!!!!!!!

It's been 3 weeks that i've been back in Jersey now and I've been loving being home with my family. Before coming here, I was kind of nervous because I didn't know how things were going to turn out with my family, especially because I haven't been around them for a long time. A very big surprised I had when my brother Wesley, my Mom, and my little sister Kimberly welcomed me in a very warmth way. Things are different at home now, and I really enjoy being here, is not as hard as how I thought it would be. Since I got here we went to the Lake, NYC, and SHOPPING! I also found a lot of my friends who I knew back in Guatemala and we went out to a club (Latin club) and it was awesome! It was good to go dancing, reminded me how Latina I am :). Also I was supposed to find a job, but I got very comfortable spending time with my siblings and mom, so I am not working at the moment, plus I will be going back to Idaho in September.

Winter and Spring Semester

There were many things that happened this Spring Semester. I always heard people talk about how there is a bigger opposition when you try to do what is right. I have to say that now I do understand very well what they meant.
Since I came back from my mission in Arizona, life was very complicated and I was trying to adjust to my new way of life. Little by little I was able to learn and to apply everything that I had learn in the mission field but during winter semester of 2009 things started to change (for the better) I was able to room with 3 amazing people who thought me how to have fun, to work hard and to live the gospel of Jesus Christ. Becca, she is a returned missionary, she was/is a crazy girl that spoke her mind (all the time) but with such a strong testimony of God and I just admired her for how good she is and how she always had fun. Cassie, she was one of my mission companions, she had a big change since we were companions and when I used to go to her Sunday School clall, I was so inspired by all the knoledge that she had but mostly how she really applied what she was teaching. Karisa, she is the daughter of the owners of the house in which i live. She is always so sweet and she humbles me when I am very frustrated and mad and do and say things that i really don't mean to, but she makes me open my eyes and see how things really are. Now by living with them, my life started to change and I made the goal to be like them. to follow their example because I saw the light that they have and I wanted that. So Winter Semester was a preparation for what was to come the following semester.
Spring semester came. All of my roomates moved away, Becky got married. Cassie graduated and moved back to Logan. Karisa is getting ready to go on her mission so she moved back to her parents house, but we kept haging out almost every single day. I was the only one out of the 4 of us who stayed in the house. But I was blessed by having another amazing roomate. Meghan. She is only 19 years old, but I think she's more mature than me, I really love her and I am so sure that we were meant to be roomates (the only two roomates). After striving to become who I always wanted to become, thigns started to get more complicated. I committed myself to go to the temple every Saturday, and I did achieve it. There were some weeks that I went more than Once. I was called to teach Sunday School. It was a bit strech for me because as all of you know my English still not the best, but all the brothers and sisters who attended my class were able to understand me. (which was a really good thing ) I tried to be mroe sincere in my prayers and read my scriptures more often. I was able to accomplish most of all of those things, but adversity was not happy that I felt so good with myself and with others. I started to have some personal issues that really desconcentrated me from my classes and almost at the end of the semester in the week where things were at the top of all my problems, I sprained my ankle. I wasn't able to walk because the pain was so severe. I was so frustrated because I couldn't do anything by myself. I remember going to bed and Meghan helping me get adjusted in bed and I couldn't stop my tears from rolling down my cheeks and just thinking how fortunate I was by having Meghan helping me out. Karisa and Meghan showed me how they really cared about me because they were there to help me. I had a lot of friends helping me and this experience was a huge eye opening for me because I realized that I had more, and true friends than what I thought. I guess until something really happenes to us is when we see all the blessings that we have.
For me, my friends are the ones who have always helped me keep going in life. Sometimes I feel bad because I am not greatful for them and maybe I don't show the gratitude I feel to have them.
The Spring semester is over now and I was able to survie. I feel happy and I know taht all the trials that we have are for our own good, eventhough when we are in the storm we think we'll never get out of it, but God always send angels to help us out, and he never leave us alone. He showed it to me, because I felt his love through my angels which are my friends.

"Not" a love story

It is almost a year that when I came back from my mission in Arizona. I remember that I went to the temple right after coming home to New Jersey. That day I met this family who were from India. I was so excited to see a family coming all the way from India just to become an eternal family. I was very impress and I felt that I needed to go and talk to them, so I did. We introduced each other and we even exchanged information. The family consisted in Mom, Dad, one son (who is the oldest) and two daughters. They went back to India but the oldest son whose name is Veeran and I stayed in touch. We started to email each other once in a while until one day he commented that he would come back to New York, and that he was coming here to find a good “mormon” wife. I wished him good luck and told him that there were many good girls in New York for him. He wrote back to me and he told me the same things about coming to New York and his desires to find a wife here, but this time he said that he wanted me for a wife, so he proposed to me through email. I can’t deny that I was shocked for what I had just read and at first I thought it was a joke, but when the days passed by he kept writing me and I saw that this was real, he really wanted me as his wife. I wrote him back and expressed my feelings toward him. For many years I have had the rule of not having any long distance nor cyber relationships. That’s just not me even though I play around about it sometimes but nothing serious. In the mean while I have had some crushes, but nothing more than crushes because it never goes anywhere. Anyway, this “friendship” became a big stress for me. I received phone calls from him, at 6 am (as some of you know, I am not a morning person). It got irritated sometimes an very frustrating for me because I told him many times that I can not marry him because I don’t even know him, I just met him ONCE. How am I suppose to marry someone that I don’t know and whose culture is completely different than mine? I don’t have anything against marrying anyone from a different culture but sometimes you just can’t help looking at the different views we have a. out everything. So until this point he has been calling me almost every single day at the same time 8 times a day and I just do not answer the phone because he just does not understand that I don’t want anything with him. I really do not want to hurt him and I really do not know what to do or what to say to him so he can move on with his life instead of perusing something impossible. This may sound rude and the truth is that it has cross my mind about giving it a chance, because I would love to have the chance of being loved and love someone back, but my heart does not think the same when it comes to this particular person because all the situation makes him look as a possessive person instead of someone who want to share love and happiness. I guess I would have to find a way of not hurting him, but convince him to move on with his life.

My Story

I was born in a very small town called El Rodeo, in one of the most beautiful countries of the world, Guatemala. I was raised by my grandparents, Carlos and Otilia. Because of financial circumstances, my mother had to leave the town, so when I was exactly one year old she moved firs to Mexico and then to California. At first we lived in a small house but after some years, we were able to build a new house, so now we had more room for all the kids. In my house, there were 17 grand kids and my two grandparents. Yeah I know! So many kids but if was so fun to be with them. I was the youngest girl out of all of them so they really took good care of me.
I can say that I was very spoil while I was in Guatemala. My family really loved me and my cousins were always looking up for me. There were so many adventures and experiences that I lived while I was there. Sometimes I start thinking about how much I miss being backed there because of the crazy things that I used to do. So while growing up I didn’t have many girl friends. For some reason they just did not like me. I had more boy friends than anybody else in town. I guess that was one of the reasons why the girls didn’t like me.
When I was in school I participated in so many things, so people really knew who I was. I once was the Queen of INEBOA. INEBOA was the school that I used to go to before I moved to the USA. Because I was the Queen of INEBOA, I had to participate in the beauty pageant for my town. So I decided that I would do it. Oh what an experienced it was to be part of the Beauty Pageant of my town. I did not win the crown but I did win so many friendships and more experiences. In January 2002 I received a letter from my mother with a plane ticket inside. I was shocked because I did not see myself coming to the United States.
At first I was upset that my mother didn’t consult with me about moving to a different country, but the days passed by so I had to accept that I had to leave everything behind and start a new life. In February 27 I flew into the Newark airport. Finally I was in the great United States, but it was not as how I expected to be. I needed to start learning English, and start going to school again with people that I did not know and who were from different countries that I didn’t even heard about it.
Learning English was a challenge which is something that I am still trying to improve (as you can tell), but that was not the only challenge that I had, now I had to start making new friends and start really practicing what I had learned in the past from my grandmother and the church. So I did, I decided that I did believe what they had taught me and I decided to keep going to church which now is a big part of my life.
So now there are so many things that I have achieve and I know that if I would of not making the decision of using that plane ticket and come to this country, my status/situation would have been completely different from what it is right now. So I am grateful for what I did in the past and what I have become because of it.

This is part of who I am

Who I am is because of what I believe. Since I was a little girl, my grandmother used to take me to church. At first I did not like going to church, I thought it was the most boring thing to do. Little by little I was able to understand and to see the importance of going to church and how beneficial it was all the things that I was learning. At home, my grand mother taught me to be an honest person, a person with values but most important, a charitable person. She taught me how to behave in front of other people, but also how to behave when no one else was around me. She taught me almost everything that I know, and I can say that I am the person who I am now because of her. She was and still is the biggest influence in my own life, and because of her I want to be better every single day. Another thing that influenced me was church. I learned spiritual things for example believing that there is a God, that Jesus Christ is real and that he really died for me.
What I know is that this life can be hard some times, but as long as I trust in God, and put my faith in him that he can help me, I know that he will be able to help me through those times. Having faith in Christ has helped me to view things in a positive way, even when I don’t think it is possible. Also my dilemma is that you need to Work Hard and HAVE FUN! I believe that if you are not having fun, then you are not enjoying life. We have such a great opportunity to live and experience so many good things and we need to take advantage of it. Life is beautiful and we are here to be happy and to enjoy the beauty of this earth. How grateful I am for having my own agency, because if I am not happy it is because I choose not to. Isn’t life this so simple? I think we make it so complicated.
Now I know that there is a plan prepared for all of us and that all we have to do is “be human”. Now be a human? Yeah I did not know what that meant until I actually studied it and what is a human being anyway? Well we know that definition for a human is that humans are not perfect. Now I am not perfect but I can always try my best. How do I try my best? I do it by putting in practice what I have learned and always believing in God and of course trying to be happy.