May 24, 2007

Today was a very good day for me! I really liked it in fact! I woke up really early and went to this absolutely beautiful overlook of the Lake Atitlan! We are a five minute walk from so many beautiful views of that lake, which is the largest lake in Guatemala, I would say it’s probably a little bit larger than Utah Lake? I’m not sure though, but it’s magnificent, especially surrounded by so many volcanoes.
I came back extremely tired. I tried to work on the reading I wanted to get done for the day but everything seemed to take much longer than normal just because I had woken up so early (I woke up at five). I did get to go to the internet and check out a few things, like the letter that Rachel’s mother wrote me!!!!!! It was such a good letter, she thanked me for the “best thank you note I (Jean) have ever read!” Ha ha! Eat it Pace!! Even so, I was still a little bummed out because my Jazz are down two games to none to the Spurs. So I tried to work all day long but everything just took way too long! Then I was going through my papers and I realized that there were two more books that I forgot to bring with me!! It’s so annoying! This realization lead me to start thinking about the prudence of coming all the way to this country way out of my way to do some type of study I’m not even sure about. “Oh man, maybe I just shouldn’t have come here,” I thought. Similar thoughts ensued such as, “Why couldn’t you just graduate the normal easy way like all the other students? What about all your friends who are making all this money this summer doing who knows what?” I think everything was intensified by how much I miss Rachel. Nevertheless I made myself just continue to work, and stay as focused as I could.
Later in the afternoon my little brothers came home, Omar, and Sergio. I noticed that our mom was hauling these jugs of water from down the street to our house because we ran out of water, so I went to help her out, and Sergio followed. Carrying so much water was really good for me, the exercise refreshed me. Then after that I bought some cookies and I came home and told my lil’ brothers that if they would brush their teeth twice a day and floss every day I would give them a treat (today I gave them cookies, but from now on, it’s sugar free gum). That was really good! They were really excited, except that they still don’t really know what flossing is or how it works, but we’re going to practice everyday. So there you go mom, don’t worry about me flossing, I’m all over it. All of this while probably boring to you made things go a little better and then Miguel came home.
I had been studying my K’iche and I have this system set up where I split up my K’iche study into three segments and he was curious so I explained. He stopped me midway through my explanation to call his older son into the room, then he began the typical dad talk, “you see son, you need to …” Then he said to me, “You’re really smart.” Not wanting to mislead him I was quickly to explain, “No not really, but I’ve learned pretty well how to work hard, and that’s what has helped me the most.” So from here our conversation ended up being a inquiry session on my philosophy in life, which sounded a lot like a missionary discussion. I extemporaneously explained the way I did things, I told him that I still have a long way to go but I try to be humble, pray for God’s help in everything I do, and then work, work, work. It was funny because less than an hour before I pitied what I considered my own sad state was and now here I was an upstart motivational speaker! I don’t think what I said was anything overly profound but while explaining it I started realizing why it was such a good idea to come here. This family has such good children but they are so poor, I think the mother is illiterate, and I know the father didn’t make it past the third grade. This is a good place where I am, and I feel like what I’m doing here really does matter!.