Seminary Class

As I've mentioned before, I've been asked to teach the english-speaking high school students seminary before school every day. Basically it's a 50 minute class where, this year, we will delve into the New Testament. I LOVE the New Testament and all that it teaches us. The life of Christ is an exciting thing to study and I don't think it will be too hard for these teenagers to understand and apply to their lives.

Yesterday I held an open house in my home to get to know the students a little better, allow them (and their parents) to see our classroom space, to define our daily expectations, and give a brief overview of our goals for this year.

I have been a nervous wreck about teaching this class. I want more than anything to be able to let these kids know that they are children of our Heavenly Father and that the answers to life's questions can be found in the teachings of our prophets and in the scriptures. I want them to make it through high school with a sense of self and an ability to withstand the enormous temptations that they face every single day.

While at the parent orientations, the PTA people shared with us the 'real deal' about teenagers around campus. Apparently they work hard and take school very seriously, but some of them like to play hard as well. Parties every weekend are normal. Parties also tend to start around 9-10pm. The PTA recommends that 9th-10th graders have a midnight curfew and 11th-12th graders a 1am-2am curfew. WHAT?!?!?!?!

These seminary kids have more than just the day-to-day stuff, they also have the added peer-pressure that comes with being a teen in this country. Where the 'norm' is unacceptable for most of their parents. They are trying to fit in and be a part while still standing up for what is right and obeying their parent's rules (which will seem very constrictive in comparison down here).

I love these kids. I hope that through this process they can learn to love who they are and what they stand for and not resent the guidelines and boundaries set for them.

Indulge me for just a minute, I have to tell you all about them:

Andrew, the seasoned student. Such a sweet, kind, patient spirit. He is the perfect person to have leading and guiding this group of young, 1st year seminary students. He's had Bro. Fagrell leading and guiding him for the past two years at his old school and he understands and has caught the spirit of seminary. He's also a valuable asset to me. He will tell me his real thoughts and give me kind, but effective feedback as we go along. I will rely on his expertise to help me in this process.

Alex is my quiet listener. He will open up once he's confident and comfortable with his surroundings but he must first observe and assess. He's just like his dad in that respect. He is a deep thinker and very obedient. I fully expect Alex to complete his daily assignments and have invaluable insights into the material.

Sam. Sweet Sam. There is something about this kid that touches my soul. He has a spunky spirit and very dedicated personality. He speaks his mind and will ponder what is said and truly take it to heart. I see Sam honestly applying these newly discovered principals in his life and striving to follow Christ's example. I also fully expect him to share his experiences with us. He will be an awesome asset to our class.

My saving grace, Ellie. Thank goodness for Ellie. As much as I love my boys - and I truly and genuinely love my boys - this class would not be the same without Ellie. We need a woman's touch in our class. Girls have a God-given gift that allows them to see things with a nurturing perspective. Boys can sometimes be all facts and numbers, while a girl will sometimes have the ability to see the softer, motherly view. We will NEED that! Ellie isn't shy. She speaks with authority and grace. I expect to have her leading the student's in their discovery of the scriptures. I see her not only learning but teaching all of us. I am grateful that she is willing to drive 30 minutes so very early in the morning to join us.

Granted 1/2 of the class is made up of my kids, but I tell you - I love these kids already! Our fist class is tomorrow and I can't wait to get started. I can't wait to learn with these teens and to learn from them.

Tomorrow the alarm will be set for 5:15am - It's seminary time!

Drugs & School

You know that pile of papers that comes home at the start of every school year? That has to be filled out in pen and signed by parents and students. There are technology and behavior agreements, medical forms and so on.

Well at our new school, we filled out most of these forms during pre-enrollment. The number of pages we signed makes that stack at the public school in Arizona look meager at best. Yesterday there were a couple of minimal forms left to fill out and send back in.

The one that worried me just a little was the medical form. Essentially I signed paperwork allowing the nurses to administer medication to my kids that I have never heard of. In the US you sign for ibuprofen and that is your only option. Here they have things for stomach ache, cramps, diarrhea, etc. etc. All of the medication listed is foreign to me. They could be giving me the technical term for street crack, and I wouldn't know it. {Surely not, right? Right?}

They will send home a note indicating that my child has received such and such if it were to happen. Maybe that will help me understand what medication I can use here. We're still using the stash we brought from home.

Here's to hoping that those nurses know what they're doing. . .

He loved it!

After the drama via text messaging and again in person, he finally got in the water and all his fears melted away. Breaststroke and freestyle down today, backstroke and butterfly tomorrow. Results will come via email sometime this weekend.

They expected 80 swimmers to come out and they had 120. Competition is stiff, but Alex was hanging in there with competitive times. It will be fun to see if he places well enough to make a team. If not, soccer starts next week.

Sometimes being a mom is tough. You have to find that balance between pushing them out of their comfort zone enough to find things they enjoy, and pushing them too hard. I am usually a little more confident in my ability to judge their limits, but with all the new being thrown at them right now, I am not sure where their limits are.

Thank goodness I made the right call today.

Anxiety Rearing It's Ugly Head

School started Monday. Things went pretty smoothly. I was shocked actually at how smoothly they went.

Well it's all caught up with them. Sports placements started. Yesterday was a soccer meeting and Andrew was gung-ho to go. Then he realized that they wanted everyone dressed out. At some point in the day he went from "yeah soccer" to "I am going to throw up". I don't know if it was nerves or actual illness... He talked to the coach who told him to just be there Monday as there weren't cuts and it wouldn't be a huge deal if he had to miss. Thanks coach.

Fast forward to today and Alex has swim time trials. They place kids in groups depending on their times. Alex has not ever swam on a team but he is amazing. He glides through the water like a fish and hardly ever comes up for air. He is a very strong swimmer. He also has flat feet, so although he loves soccer and basketball, they don't love him back. Swimming is just the thing for this kid. He just doesn't like to try new things.

Again we started out the morning, "yeah swimming" and I just get a text "it is a 100% no!" The texting started by telling me about the huge load of homework he'll have tonight. Like 30 minutes of just History Studies. I told him I would love to help. "But it will have to be typed!" "I'll type it for you." You get the idea.

I have to be there as a volunteer for the time trials - so he has to be there anyway. We will just see how this one goes.

Holy Drama...

I keep praying for patience and that my kids will have the courage they need to get themselves out there. I have 2 hours to convince my kid to give it his best shot... Wish me luck.

My first solo store experience

I say I went "solo" to the store, but in reality I brought my boys, but I went without any translator.

I decided to try my luck with the smaller grocery store here and also checked out the stationary store to try to round up a few more school supplies. The stationary store didn't have what we needed but I did get a few things from the grocery.

I was able to get my fresh bread weighed, produce weighed, groceries bagged and paid for all by my non-spanish-speaking self. That is a total of 4 spanish speakers that I had to interact with.

I even drove myself there in my own car - I ROCKED IT!

I'll admit; It feels pretty awesome!

Again with the Easy Stuff that is SO HARD!

Our latest hitches~

#1: SCHOOL SUPPLIES

School supply shopping is always a hassle. My kids hate going and then complain when I bring them home the wrong colored notebook. So I drag them out every year. This year was even worse.

One of Alex's teachers specified that she wanted a 3-ring binder and a lined spiral notebook with 3 holes. No big right? Wrong. There are not 3-ring binders here. Only 2-rings and 99% of them are legal sized. There are also very limited numbers of lined spiral notebooks. I know they have them here, because there was one in the house when we arrived here. But I can't find them. They are all graph paper.

We went to the office supply store and finally ended up at the big Lider (which is essentially a Walmart). We improvised with what we could find. The teacher that requested the 3-ring stuff is new to the school. She may not know that something simple like that is impossible to find. We'll see what she says.

They also don't have folders. You know the good 'ole folded in half folders with pockets on each side. Nope. Nowhere to be found. They instead have these weird packet things.

I pulled these pictures off the internet so you can see. They look kind of like accordion folders:

But they open up to these little packet things:

My kids hate them and say they won't use them. They'd rather put their papers loose in their backpacks. We're going with it for now but we'll probably have dad pick some real stuff up in the US when he's home in September.


#2: DOG FOOD

We can't find dog food for our dog. Oh sure, there is dog food at the grocery stores, several dog food specific stores, vets that sell dog food - but nothing that will work for our dog. [Apparently we smuggled in a large ziplock bag of dog food. We didn't know it was against the rules, but there is a major fine for crossing the border with it... We're rebels like that.]

We have spent tons of money on dog food at this point, as the speciality stuff is much more expensive here. The thing is, our dog has a sensitive tummy. When he eats the wrong thing, he's ... um ... stinky ... So we all want him to have something that agrees with him. Otherwise we're all miserable.

The Pro Plan didn't work, so we've switched to Eukenuba. Not a good option. We woke up this morning with his "disagreeable stomach" displayed all over the only rug in the house... It was disgusting. It's also NOT MY RUG and it's this straw-like berber. I'll spare you the details, just know it was a mess.


Seriously. Every single day it's something!

Like Riding A Bike...

FINALLY~

After much discussion and comparisons we finally decided to purchase a vehicle for me while we are here in Chile. We went back and forth between getting a car and hiring a driver. In the end, the deciding factor was that one of the easiest ways for me to know my children's friends (and to keep tabs on them just a little bit more) is for me to have the ability to drive them to and from their activities. Otherwise, the driver is there for all the initial excitement and not me - that is not something I am willing to miss. So we set out to look for a car.

I wanted something small. By small I mean teeny-tiny. The lanes here are more narrow, the parking spaces are tight and the other drivers are very pushy. I have driven Greg's truck (provided by the company) and have felt very out-of-control in it. I'm not sure where the end of the truck bed is and no way would I ever park that thing at the mall (remember: the grocery stores are inside the malls here).

So we started looking. Greg mentioned it at work and found out that a friend of his was selling this 2007 Hyndai Getz (I had never heard of one). So we did a little research and thought it would be a good fit for us. For the past week, Greg has been working out the details. First the guy had to get back in town from a trip so that he could bring the car in to work for Greg to see. Greg liked the car, called and talked to me about the details and we made the decision to buy it. We then needed to make sure we had the cash in the right bank account so that we could write the guy a check. That took some finagling.

Greg finally got his permanent RUT number (his identification number here in Chile), so he contacted the bank to submit it a week ago. When he submitted his new number, that changed all the safety features of his account. He needed to go to the bank, set up a new pin number and password and get a new card thing. They have this card with various numbers and letters. When you want to access your bank account, you will be prompted to give them the code listed on one of the lines (for example: A-7). When you enter the correct code from that grid, you will be able to access the account. He needed a new code card thing.

So that took a few days. Finally we have access to the account again and can verify that we have the amount of money in there that we need to purchase the car. Greg talked the guy into replacing the battery as it was the origional, and while they had it in the shop, Greg went ahead and had them change the oil. There was also extensive paperwork and getting it insured, etc. etc.

Finally on Tuesday, (yesterday) he brought the car home.

It is important to understand 2 things:
#1: I've not seen the car before now.
#2: Cars retain their value here, so in a year's time, we should be able to sell it for what we paid, or very close to it.

**NOTE: What you are about to read is ridiculous, but I promised to be completely honest and share my REAL feelings. Nothing sugar-coated here. I apologize to my mother in advance for what you are about to read. She raised me better than this, I promise.

I have to admit to being a complete spoiled brat. I was worried sick about this car. (FYI: I hid these feelings from my husband.) I HATED the idea of going back to a car similar to the one I drove in college. I LOVED my college car - while I was in college, but I'm a grown-up now and obviously a lot more spoiled... I didn't want to be in an old clunker. But I kept putting things back into perspective. We will only be here a short time and I need something small and dependable. I also don't want to buy anything new. A new car is almost certainly a thief magnet and I am completely aware that this car will probably suffer at least one fender-bender (these drivers are unbeliveable). If we bought something at least 3 years old, we avoid a huge tax of some kind. A little cheap car just makes sense. And this Getz was perfect. *I had to keep telling myself that over and over and over*

Anyway, Greg brought the car home yesterday and SURPRISE! I LOVE IT!

It's as cute as can be. Absolutely clean without a scratch or dent. The inside is spotless. It has a hatchback with a tiny little space for groceries and a cover that hides anything back there (a must have in this town). It's sand colored with grey/black fabric interior. Fabric seats are nice in this cold weather! It has an upgraded stereo with CD player which is great because I no hablo espanol bien and listening to the radio gets a little old. No, no GPS, or on steering wheel climate/radio controls. No AIR CONDITIONING - which I am told is not used here very often anyway, but it does have a great working heater and right now, that is very important. Front and rear wipers - also important right now, and power windows/locks. It is small but not too small. My teenagers still fit comfortably in the back.

The one BIG concern about this car was that it is a manual transmission. My dad firmly believed that we needed to learn to drive a stick shift before we got our licenses so that we could "drive any car we sat in". Thank goodness for that little tidbit of wisdom. I haven't driven a manual in years. I will admit to being a little worried about it. We do live on the side of the Andes mountains! These are more than just hills people - they're mountains.

There is one slope in particular on the way to the kids' school that had me shaking in my boots. It peaks at a 4-way intersection. In theory, nobody should be turning in front of you between the hours of 7am-8am, but road rules are truly a suggestion here, so it happens, and you really do have to pause and make sure it's clear before you go. *Another thing to note; where in the US you see only STOP signs at intersections, here they are almost always YEILD signs. You can imagine how that goes...

This morning as I was driving the kids to school, Andrew asked if I was worried about he slope. I started talking smack about how the car companies called me to have them train people how to drive manuals - because of my mad skills. Then as we approached the hill, I noticed the brand-new Mercades SUV behind me and my heart sank. CRAP!!!

I nailed it! Made it up the hill, paused (nobody was coming in either direction - thank goodness) and continued without stalling, or rolling back. I'm awesome like that.

I also felt a million times more comfortable going in and out of traffic in front of the school with this smaller car.

I can't say it enough - IT IS PERFECT! Thank you honey! (Greg made a remark about all he does is buy me new cars - I want to point out that this one isn't new, so it doesn't count!)