Christmas Suprise!!!

Suprised and/or Confused!? :)

The Story:

Who knew!?

Just a few hours shy of a month since my last post... who would have known how fitting that C.S. Lewis quote would be to the job I just started! Yes, for those of you who don't know, I do have a job now! I am very excited and nervous... and very anxious to understand more about what I am doing, but I know it will come. New jobs are always full of a bit of useful stress (and maybe a little less useful stress).


My title: PSR (Psychosocial Rehabilitation) Specialist
What I do: I work with children/youth that have psychological disorders and try to help them to function well in society. At least that is the digest version. :)


With the economy and hard times people are facing... I am very blessed to even have a job, let alone one a job like this! I am very grateful for this job!


DISCLAIMER: For the protection of my clients I will not be posting more about my job.

The Bigger Picture...

"He wanted to make Saints, gods, things like himself... But if you are a poor creature--poisoned by a wretched upbringing in some house full of vulgar jealousies and senseless quarrels... nagged day in and day out by an inferiority complex that makes you snap at your best friends--do not dispair. He knows all about it. You are one of the poor whom he blessed. He knows what a wretched machine you are trying to drive. Keep on. Do what you can. One day (perhaps in another world, but perhaps far sooner than that) he will fling it on the scrap-heap and give you a new one. And then you may asonish us all--not least yourself; for you have learned your driving in a hard school... "Make no mistake," he says, "If you let me, I will make you perfect. The moment you put yourself in My hands, that is what you are in for. Nothing less, or other, than that. You have free will, and if you choose you can push me away. But if you do not push me away, understand that I am going to see this job through. Whatever suffering it may cost you in your earthly life...whatever it costs Me, I will never rest, nor let you rest until you are literally perfect--until my Father can say without reservation that He is well pleased with you, as He said He was well pleased with me. This I can do and will do. But I will not do anything less.
"And yet--this is the other and equally important side of it--this Helper who will, in the long run, be satisfied with nothing less than absolute perfection, will also be delighted with the first feeble, stumbling effort you make tomorrow to do the simplest duty."
C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, 181-82








I received that C.S. Lewis quote from institute last night. We were studying Jacob and Enos, the very scriptures from which I received my first real testimony of God. I also wanted to share a couple videos.

I have no idea what I will be doing the next few years, or even the next few weeks. But, I DO know that I am not in charge and I'm truly trying my best to do the will of someone who DOES know the future for me! That is my testimony right now and I'm sticking to it with all that I have! :)

My family has grown quite a bit over the years!!!
We're up to 15 adults and 20 grandkids!

Had to share...

So, I turned on the tv to the last 5 minutes of the Bonnie Hunt show. Random, I know. Anyhow, these two boys were talking to here. They are Yale student friends that grew up together and have become famous on youtube... well, at least they're famous enough to get on tv for it. :)

He is a pretty good singer, but mostly it is just cool that he can do it all! I guess his friend is the one making the films or something!? Take a look:

JUST CLICK ON THE PICTURES BELOW TO SEE THE VIDEOS:

Days 1-2:

After doing last minute shopping and repacking my bags, we headed for Rigby! My brother Jason was planning to take us to the airport so he could keep my car until our return. Tiffany and the kids were all ready to come see us off too! :)

Little did I know they were taking us to the worst flight of my life. It was nothing when you compare it with those Travis has been on, but I don't ride rollercoasters for a reason. Butterflies in my stomach... that's the reason!

If all the flights were going to be like that I was done with the trip already! Dad assured me the other flights would have much bigger planes... they did!

We took a flight from Salt Lake to LA (this flight had individual screens behind each chair so that we could listen to music or watch tv, it made the time go pretty quick! It also had GPS so you could watch the plane fly across the states). We had a long layover in LA, so Travis, Lindsey and Max came to see us! We had a late dinner (the restaurant's kitchen was closing when we sat down) and said goodbye before the day was completely over. :)


Our next flight was out of LA at 2am on day 2. That flight had movies playing above. It was pretty nice, but I was tired! The good thing was that I packed my pillow in my backpack and could bring it out during flight, the bad thing was that I can't sleep on planes. We made it to Panama City around 10am.

I was super tired, so we went straight to the hotel and took naps. After that we walked around the city for a bit and then got some dinner. It was a chinese place we ended up walking into. We both ordered small rice plates and shared a chow mein plate. If this was a small... I don't even want to think about how big the large one was! We couldn't even eat a third of it! I just wanted a little something because I was not feeling well at all. I don't think my mountain of rice shrunk at all.

After dinner we walked around for a bit longer, but I started to feel pretty bad, so we went to bed pretty early.

Day 3 (part 1):

This was our big day in Panama!

We got up and walked to the river. They have awesome walking paths and bridges! It was really fun to have such a nice big area to walk along right across the street from skyscrapers.

We walked towards this shoreline for a while...

Dad was trying to read the sign below this statue:

I took many pictures of interesting buildings for Travis.

When I first saw this one I thought it was

only partially built.

Then I found out it was just a crazy pointed building

This was just another cool looking building

...and then turned back to walk towards a church dad had seen across the horizon the night before. We saw some fun things on our walk along the shore!

In the US we have basketball courts.

In Panama (and Brazil for that matter) they have basketball/soccer courts.

I never once saw anyone playing basketball.

In the evenings all the courts were filled with soccer players!

This was an awesome playground!

Check that out!

Is this a crazy building, or an amazingly tall parking garage!?

Every floor is slanted the opposite direction.

We continued on the path towards the church...

... but after a while we reached the end of the walking path.

This is what we saw at the end of the path

One of these things is not like the other... :)

Apparently it was a vulture's playground

We walked around the fish smells above and soon found ourselves in the old areas of town. There were MANY old churches around!

This is the only one that we actually walked into.

The church had very large doors. There were at least 5 of these!

Here is another church I took pictures of.
Dad wanted to climb the stairs in the tower.

There was an interesting statue across the street from the church.

We thought it was cool the church had this above the door.

Day 3 (part 2):

While we were walking past a large building I could see an orchestra inside, but didn't know if we should be going in, since there were other people sitting outside right by the door. But, when we got a little further away I heard the StarWars theme song playing... we had to go back and see. :)

We went upstairs to view the orchestra from above.

Here's dad looking up at all the balconies.

It was a beautiful building!

This is a view from across the way.

This is the view from ground level and pretty close to the front doors.

We kept walkig and came across an old building. This must have been a very nice place back in the day. I don't remember what it was, but probably someone high up lived here once. :)

This is the view from the other back side of the building.

I loved this view of the skyscapers, because the shoreline would curve in and out. You can see skyscrapers on two different shorelines. Panama is a pretty tall city!

We kept walking along the shoreline, further and further from our hotel area. This is where we stopped and headed more inland to catch a bus.

I love this picture because you can see loads of birds,

the church in the background,

and many homes/buildings all stuck together.

More ruins on our way to catch a bus.

This is a good picture of a typical bus.

Dad said they are retired U.S. school busses.

Here is a view from one of our busses, which was NOT the one above.

You have to be waiting for the busses and jump on.

They don't stop for long and occasionally only slow down.

Jump carefully!

Story time: While on the bus we met a couple of tourists headed to the Panama Canal as well. He was from Spain (I think) and she was from Germany. It was fun to talk to them! They had been traveling for a bit and were about done while we were just starting. They said Panama was their favorite because it was more authentic than the other places they went to (which were many of the Central America countries, I believe). She said some of the others sold their souls to America (which is what everyone calls the US, even though they live in or are visiting South America, I just find that funny).

We walked with them from the bus to the Canal before parting ways.

Here is a picture I took while we were walking.

We made it to the Canal! There is a big building and everyone heads to the 4th floor to watch. I took MANY pictures of the canal, so I picked out the main ones.

Here is a vew of the small building between the two sides of the canal.

You can see the front of the very large cargo ship.

Here is a picture of where the ship is headed. The water in the second one was emptying.

Here's a view of the people watching.

This is looking in the direction the ship came from. It is a very pretty place!

This is looking down at a closer lock so you can see what they are like.

It's entering the second lock!

Close up of the third lock.

The third lock is across the lake from where we were.

There's dad in the middle of everyone trying to watch.
You can get a better picture of how big the ship is.

A tug boat is behing the ship. Look at it compared to ground level.

A sub on the back of the cargo ship.

Now you can compare the cargo ship to ground level.

Here's dad and I watching the ship.

Water level is getting lots higher!

Now look at the tug boat in relation to ground level.

I think it has about hit its peak.

The locks are opening.

Close up of locks opening.

Starting to head out.

There it goes!

Playing around with the camera.

Headed to the lake.

Walking back to the bus stop. I love the train tunnel!

Panama Temple...

After the Canal we got on a bus for a little bit and then had another long walk to the temple and back.

I liked the few pictures I took of the temple, so I am posting them all.

This is my second favorite.

This is my favorite.

This cemetary was right by the temple. Can you see the US flag?

After walking and bus riding, we did some more walking...

After the third one of these... I decided to take a picture. :)

This is where we had some ice cream. It wasn't what I expected, but good.