Your Story Blog Hop: Your Travels

It's time again to share another story! Here is this week's prompt for the Your Story Blog Hop:  Where have you traveled? Have you been out of the country or is it to different states (if you're from the US)? When? Who did you go with? Do you prefer to use car, boat, or plane? Have you been on all three? 
Let's feed our wanderlust desires this week. Talk about any and every travel experience you've had, whether it's out of state, out of country, or on a boat or through hitchhiking.  ----------------------------------------------------- Four countries and four continents. If you count the U.S, every time that I have traveled to a new country it has always been on a new continent, and since I want to touch all 7 continents one day, I am currently at 4/7!  Philippines

View from our dorms in Baguio, Philippines when I visited for a mission trip

My family is from here, so of course this is the first place I traveled to outside of the U.S. when I was a kid. Because of the super long flights I had to take to get to the Philippines (14-16 hours I believe), I tend to favor long-haul flights over short ones, although everyone else doesn't seem to agree with me.  The Philippines has some beautiful and picturesque views of the mountains and beaches, but go into the cities or even provinces and there is lots of poverty. It is also pretty humid there, and considering that the weather and the city is the first thing you encounter when arriving at the Manila airport, it can turn some people off to the Philippines. Maybe it's because I traveled there a lot growing up, but I still love the Philippines despite that. It makes me feel more connected to my family, and plus, there is tons of cheap and great shopping options there, haha.  Australia
I went to Australia during the time of the 2000 Summer Olympics with my dad and sister, but we didn't actually watch it in person. We went because we actually have family who live in Sydney. I don't actually have any photos available from when we went (they're all printed photos hiding somewhere in my dad's house), but we visited places like the Sydney Opera House and the zoo so we could see the koalas and kangaroos in person.  Peru

Little Davíd had never seen a front camera before!

The 4th Day After Christmas: Top 13 "God Things" of 2013

Whew, day 4 of my countdown to the new year! That means that in 3 days, it will officially be 2014! Are you just as excited as I am?

Among all the clothes, makeup, and food I had this year, my faith had also gone through lots of trials and tribulations, causing for many revelations and lessons learned for me. I've learned the term "God thing" this year when lots of friends of mine would refer to amazing acts of God or crazy situations working out as a "God thing." "It's a God thing." I had some awesome moments with God this year, and I want to share them! It also happens to be Sunday today, haha. 

1. Money. 

I know that it's a cliché thing to say "he's provided for me financially," but it's true! Paying for school has been a huge pain for me (and crap I just remembered I have to financially register for school soon), but I've always been able to somehow come up with the money for it. And I was blessed enough to have two paying jobs for this year. They don't pay as much because they're not paid by the hour, but just having my own income to help with my day to day expenses is really nice. 

2. My relationship with Darell, my boyfriend.  

I'll talk more about this tomorrow when I talk about love lessons I've learned this year, but I firmly believe in the concept of grace and the impact it plays on us. God's grace has truly covered Darell and I because we definitely don't deserve the blessings we have together. Darell has been such a blessing to me, and while God is still working on both of us, he is still definitely using us in each others' lives in crazy ways. 

3. Vanguard's amazing community. 

I'm pretty sure I've talked about my school's community before. I've met some of the sweetest and most people in my life there! Whether I was stressing about school or other personal issues, you can always count on the people to be there for you. Spring semester earlier this year, I found comfort in my floor sisters and a couple upperclassmen girls, including one who just graduated this semester. This past semester, I got to know one of my professors really well, and she was a great source for knowledge and advice on anything if I needed it. 

4. Finding a new church. 

I had left my old home church earlier this year to find one that I could be more actively involved in with school and a few other reasons. Leaving the church was hard because of the relationships I had developed, and having to look at other churches to go to was hard because I seemed to find a hard time finding where I fit. I thought I found my church for a while, but I soon realized how hard it was to get connected to the people of the church and other aspects of it, even though I enjoyed the church. I found the church I'm at through Darell, and it's been such a blessing to be part of the community there. I feel so much like myself and feel like I can be honest about myself without judgement. 

5. Getting the chance to go to Peru!

Okay, so my story with Peru is a little weird. After coming back from a mission trip to the Philippines three summers ago, God had put it on my heart to South or Central America for my next mission trip, I just didn't know when.

When my school announced the mission trip locations for this past summer during fall of 2012, Peru and the Middle East immediately stood out. (There was another Central American country on the list and I'd always had a heart for missionaries in the Middle East.) I got an application to go, but I soon got busy and forgot about the application and the deadline. I'd missed it and was sad but didn't think much of it.

Before the end of that semester last year, a friend had told me that the Global Outreach Department was still looking for people to put on the mission teams. I picked up an application and signed up for an interview time to be placed on a team.

The view of Cusco