I taught the Relief Society lesson on Sunday. It was so fun! I had been thinking about gratitude, being November and all, and then I had a few amazing things happen. Through facebook I found two of my favorite Central American companions from the mission. A ton of excitement on all sides. My trainer is from Honduras, she now lives in Ontario, Canada. My other favorite Guatamalan companion is living in Provo! Another family I loved and had lost contact with is now living in Las Vegas!! All found through facebook. With all of those miracles, I decided to talk about my mission for Relief Society.

I dug out my missionary photos, journals, letters, baggy and started down memory lane. E had his patience tested with all of my, "Did I tell you about...?" I laughed and cried and remembered so many great times! For the RS class I passed pictures around of buying water and hauling water, tin roofed housed with cardboard walls, beautiful scenery and a side of beef hanging in a carniceria (meat shop). It was fun to see the responses of the sisters learning about how people live in a third world country. It also works nicely into my ever present secret agenda of trying to help people understand illegal immigrants and why they are here. We are so blessed to have running water, a sewer system, mostly honest policemen... You know. God bless the USA and sanitation.

Today was a great day as well. Being able to cast my vote always makes me a little giddy, especially so today. E got to vote for the first time and I dare say he loved it as much as I do. I always have to control my conspiracy theories, however. It is hard to believe that your vote is really being recorded. I just pray for the best. I got there a couple of minutes before the polls opened and saw the confusion of the poll volunteers. Yikes. The bonus was I got to hear someone actually say, "Hear ye, hear ye, the polls are now open." It is probably written into law that they must say that. Who knew?

Working at the school is emotionally exhausting! These kids have so much trauma in their lives I don't know how they get any school work into their days. I have heard kids talking about being raised by Grandma, fighting with Dad for child support, one parent had an affair so time for divorce, Dad moved back to Roy... hadn't seen him for a year, girls fighting amongst themselves for three days straight. I helped break up a girl fight in the hall today. Weird. I so don't like the pain, why would you ever want to fight? I also have a girl that smells like marijuana every time she comes to class. Another boy is a known gang member. Once a dad called his daughter during my class to tell her that they were getting divorced. She just burst into tears. Hello, who does that? So, like I said, not a lot of keyboarding taking place. Just pray for me to make it to January 12th!

My monsters are super cute. B started Jr. Jazz and it was a roaring good time watching his tall gangly form run/bounce up and down the court. He did make a basket, surprise, surprise! We were as proud as punch. S is more beautiful each day. R and L are definitely twins. They already have inside jokes I guess, they can just crack each other up when nothing at all seems to be funny. I do miss them. Sigh....