Forever Giving Thanks

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Yes I know I'm late, but my computer hasn’t been connecting to the internet.

So life in Spain has been pretty darn awesome and I can’t believe I only have less than three weeks left here. So bittersweet…

Last week was Thanksgiving, as most of you know. Usually during Thanksgiving my family and I head up north to our cabin to spend the weekend together; hunting, cooking, and cutting down our Christmas tree. It’s a tradition that I hold so very near to my heart and one that I cherish dearly. However, this year I spent it away from my family, in a different country, with people I’ve only known for three months. Man oh man was that food delicious though! I do have to say, it was the best Thanksgiving I spent away from my family.

We started the morning off with an American breakfast at school. I got to help fry the bacon on top of the roof. I fried bacon. On a roof. In Sevilla! So happy! I love cooking and miss it a lot! I ate seven pieces of French Toast, scrambled eggs, and three pieces of bacon. Pretty sure I gained a thousand pounds, but it was totally worth it. After breakfast we watched a movie in the school and then returned to our houses for the afternoon where I took a solid two hour nap. Thanksgiving night our school invited us to a restaurant call Las Lapas for an American Thanksgiving dinner; turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green beans, corn, stuffing, dinner rolls, pumpkin pie, and apple pie. I’ve never eaten so much for Thanksgiving in my life! We also exchanged Secret Santa gifts and nice things that we said about each other. It was such a good time and I’m so thankful that the school invited us. SO GOOD! Afterward my friends and I explored Sevilla for a while and then returned home.

Friday we didn’t have school, so I spent my weekend relaxing, working on homework, talking to my family, and walking around Sevilla.

It was hard being away during an American holiday without my family, but the Thanksgiving I had here sure was one for the books.

I’ve found myself enjoying my time here so much more knowing that I only have three weeks left. The sunrises every morning, working out on my rooftop, meals with my host mami, time with my friends, every ice cream eating opportunity, and even my classes.

Last night one of my professors invited us to her house for tea, coffee, and Christmas cookies. She even made us an American coffee cake! I tell ya, the people here are so attentive and hospitable.

I am so thankful for my time here in Spain. It has been something I will never forget. Every experience has been a new one and a great one. My transition into a new country, living with a new family, sharing a bedroom, attending classes all in Spanish, and walking everywhere could not have gone more smoothly.

I will forever give thanks for this opportunity, these people, this country.

I come home in a few short weeks where I will resume my life as a typical American for two weeks and then embark on another journey to Ecuador for two weeks.

Until then, I plan on enjoying my time here in Sevilla, exploring parts of the city I still have not seen, spending time with my friends, studying hard, but mostly enjoying every opportunity God gives to me.

Side notes: The weather here is changing; cold in the mornings and warmish in the afternoon, but it is funny to see everyone, including myself, dressed in winter coats and scarves. The days are shorter, but the sun still shines pretty much every day. I have two projects and four tests to do/study for for the last week of classes. This coming week I only have school on Wednesday and Friday, so hopefully I can get a lot of my studying out of the way then and do a little bit of traveling and exploring Sevilla.

Well, that’s all for now folks, sorry it’s been a while since my last update.

Life is good, God is good, and my family and friends are great.

See you all soon!

Everybody Wants To Love, Everybody Wants To Be Loved

I am now entering my 11th week here in Spain with only 5 more weeks to go :( Seriously, why does time fly by so fast?! I don't like it!

Life update:

The week I had off from school was so very much needed and wonderful. I think I honestly forgot what it felt like to relax and do things without an agenda. Although getting back into school was a bit rough. I had two tests this past week that were supposed to be back to back on the same day, but (thankfully) one of our profs was sick the day before so it was pushed back a day. Thursday was our last Flamenco dance class :( But our "performance" is tomorrow and I'm super stoked! I haven't performed a dance routine since high school and I've missed it!

Friday we left for a school excursion to Granada and visited La Alhambra; an Arabic Palace that is extremely breathtaking. Hiked about a thousand miles uphill to get to a lookout point over the city with an amazing view of La Alhambra, the sunset, Granada, and part of the Sierra Nevada mountains that had snow on its peaks! Ahhh! Snow! The next day we visited the church where Ferdinand and Isabel's bodies are; that was cool and kind of gross all at the same time. Then friends and I went shopping in the stores that are very similar to those in Morocco. Then we went to a grocery store and bought a Granada (which means Pomegranate in English) so we were eating a Pomegranate in the city of Pomegranate; that was pretty awesome. We also didn't have a knife or anything to cut it open with, so I was going to take out my credit card knife that I always have in my wallet, but unfortunately had to leave it in America. So instead I cut it open with an actual credit card. I was fairly proud of this little innovative moment of my life :)

This past week was a very interesting one with the results of the elections. Living in a foreign country, where everyone hates our future president, attending a school where not everyone is a conservative Christian like I am used to is challenging. I'm not even in my own country where it is all going down and I feel the side affects. I know you're all sick of political posts, so I'm not going to tell you which side is right and which side is wrong.


Today my devotions were talking about the cooperation of teams, and man do I know that life well. I played sports starting in Kindergarten all the way through Sophomore year of college, that is fifteen years of my life. I know what it's like to be on a team. Even if you've never played sports you know what it's like to be on a team too; for school projects, relationships, or jobs. We've all been a part of a team at some point in our lives. My devotions pointed out that if we all cooperate then together we are invincible. We are a team, a country, the body of Christ, His children, a family. We are living with each other; in the same house, street, town, city, county, state, country, world. Like it or not people, we're kind of stuck with each other until Jesus comes back. My devotions then went on to say that if one fails, we all fail.

SO TRUE!

I voted. Many people are worried about what will happen. Many people are ecstatic about what the future holds. People, we all live in the same country! We were all created for the same purpose-to serve God and love His people, even when we have different political views. Let's stop rioting and hating on people who are "different" from us. We were all created as children of God, in the image of God. I know we can't all be perfect all the time, actually that can never happen, but we can strive to be our best. I know there is sin in the world, I face it and fight against it every day, I'm not perfect, I have huge struggles, I judge, I lie, I think badly about myself, I don't trust God- I am a sinner. We are all sinners- yet another thing we all have in common. If we dug deep, we would find a lot of similarities. We want what's best for our families and generations to come. We want the hate in this world to stop. We want to change the world and make it a better place, but think that because we are only one voice we won't be heard; What if we added hundreds, thousands, millions of voices, then would we be heard? Maybe why not instead of fighting against each other we join hands and fight against the only thing truly evil in this world? Sin. Maybe I'm too optimistic or too sheltered to think this could actually happen, but if God can change my life and pull me out of the deep dark holes of sin that I have lived in, I know if we allowed Him, He can do that for everyone.

I mean it when I say I love all of you; if you're homosexual, a different skin color, religion, social class than I am, if I've met you one, if we haven't talked in a very long time, I still love you, because you are my family.

I usually share my blogs on Facebook, so in order to be my Facebook friend I had to have met you at least once, that means that at some point in my life you had significance and changed my life, even only for a single moment. I love you all.

Let's do a little more lovin' and a lot less hatin' and see where that gets us.