New Perspectives

Anna and I walk down this looooong driveway to and from the Lord’s house multiple times a day (and the picture only shows about half of it). Today, however, was the first day we noticed these:

You might wonder how I could have missed such beautiful flowers? And they were right along that green fence this whole time? I learned that all I needed was a different perspective. As we walk by them, the flowers face down, and I guess I just never thought twice about them. When I changed my perspective and walked right up to and underneath them, I was able to behold their beauty. Here comes the cheesiness…I think that is why this experience is going to be so wonderful: I will gain a completely new perspective. A new perspective on a different way of living and thinking, on education, on my role as a teacher, on life. It is going to be amazing. Incredible. But, I also know it is not going to be easy. I honestly do love it here, but it is different being so far away from family, friends, BYU, and everything I'm used to. Nothing too hard yet, but it is only the middle of January. One of the girls today talked about how we need to always remember to find joy in the journey, not taking any second for granted. So, that is what I am doing. I am finding joy in the journey, every second I can, even when it’s hard. Plus, I can always just remind myself that getting the new perspective of the flowers wasn’t necessarily all that easy either…

But it was definitely worth it :)

Other highlights of the day:

• Finishing our first two courses of the semester! Literacy? Check! Assessment and Management? Check! Woot woot!
• Taking a relaxing swim after a long, hot walk home with Jess, Christine, and Anna. Oh, and then it got really exciting when Alexis, Kodie, and the neighbor boys joined us. And by exciting I mean that we just got splashed and squirted a whole lot more :)
• Eating lamb and mint burgers for dinner. It is really interesting because in NZ mint is popular for savory things (like our lamb burgers) rather than for dessert like it is in the States. They even have bottles of mint sauce near the bottles of ketchup at the store. It may take some getting used to to have mint as one of the main flavors of dinner, but it really wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be!
• Baking chocolate chip biscuits (cookies) with Anna, Jess, and Christine. It was so cute because Phyllis got out all the ingredients for us and set up the recipe book and everything to make it nice and easy for us.
• Watching my first New Zealand movie! It was one of Phyllis’ suggestions called, “Second Hand Wedding.” Maybe not the greatest movie I’ve ever seen, but it was cute!
• Star gazing on the tramp, and seeing (or at least we think we might have seen) some southern hemisphere constellations. Stars really do fascinate me, and I LOVE star gazing, so hopefully i'll be able to see more on a clearer night. Sheryl even mentioned going to the observatory so we really could see the constellations. yess!