A full weekend

I’m really starting to fall in love with this island. I have a feeling that these next seven months are going to fly by. It is so beautiful here, and there is so much to experience. I am so glad that I am here, and feel so blessed that God picked me. Grades and school can definitely get stressful and some days I don’t know how I’ll make it to the end of the day. This past week or so I have felt like Satan has been really trying to bring me down. At first I felt so small and frustrated and even hurt, but now I’m realizing that that is the opposite of how I should be feeling.  Instead of becoming discouraged and upset I should be excited. I should be excited because that means that I’m doing something right. That means that something amazing is happening through me and the devil desperately wants it to stop. So I am trying to persevere through the days and hours exhaustion has its grip on me, and an invisible weight clouds my mind and heart. I’ve realized that I need to look to God for restoration and hope instead of myself, a movie, or even a friend. This weekend I was reminded of how great God truly is, and how unfathomable His greatness is, even in comparison to the devil and his attempts to distract me, to hurt me, and to bring down my spirits. For God takes distraction and turns it into incredible focus, He takes hurt and turns it into joy, into hope, into love. And takes broken spirits and builds them up with amazing faith and perseverance.

This island is beyond beautiful, and to think that this is just a fraction of the vast world He has created (that I had never seen before just three months ago) is crazy. Sabbath afternoon we climbed the one rock on the island. It is the highest point, and I had SO much fun climbing it. At first it was more of a steep hike, and then you get to a part where you have to climb up holding onto a rope otherwise you’d fall. The last part is literally straight up and you aren’t attached to anything, just free climbing. Needless to say I was loving life, and scambered up as quickly as I possibly could. Once at the top, I sat on the rock looking out across the island and at the vast sea. In that moment the realization of how small I am, and how big God is captivated my heart and thoughts. It is something that I cannot come close to completely understanding. I hope that through my life’s experiences I will continue to grasp a greater understanding of that concept.

As far as the rest of my weekend has gone, it has been quite full. Friday as soon as I was out of class I ran back to my apartment and changed as quickly as I could. Two of the other girls and I went out with our scuba instructor for our first dive. We actually did three. Haha one more day out and I’m certified! It is so easy to get certified here J I’m not going to lie though, it was a little bit more scary than I thought it would be. I just feel like I didn’t have very much control which I think is the scary thing. Haha I just felt so awkward, I was like I want to move this way, but I’m floating this way or turning in the complete wrong direction. I went down to thirty feet though! And next dive is sixty feet! So that will be crazy. I’m excited slash nervous. Our instructor is good though, he was my buddy J I definitely would not want to go without him!

Then Friday night we came back to the school for a bonfire vespers. We taught the kids how to make smores and they were really excited J one of the girls had me help her make like five. I was like ahh a little girl after my own heart. J Then after the climb on Sabbath all of the SM’s went to this restaurant where there was a hula show outside. A few of the students were in it, and it was so cute! Us sm girls have decided that we want to take hula lessons J it was really cool! Then we walked to another place and had dinner which was very fun. After that all the Sm’s decided we wanted to play tag outside haha which turned into darebase (greatest game of all time) this was followed by rain which led to a HEATED game of mofia (oh dear. Oh dear. I won’t get into that one). Finally a group of us played games at our apartment (its like one in the morning by now) followed by football in my apartment (surprised we didn’t break anything) and then a movie (which I did NOT make it through haha). Then this morning shaun came over to our apartment to see if we wanted to go to lunch and Amy and I were asleep, we were like huh? You mean breakfast? And then we realized it was past noon. I haven’t even slept like past nine since I’ve been here! so that was nice J as for now, I probably should stop blogging since I need to enter in all of my grade reports. UGH. Hope everyone is doing well. Miss you guys!