Week 5 & 6

I've made it to Kansas City!!  Very exciting!!  No more emergency room trips on my end, but I did have to go to the doctor for a long-lasting stomach virus.  It lasted around a week, if not longer....  Yet the doctor kept insisting it would only last 48 hours even though it had already been four days...

Anyways!  So going to Kansas City was amazing!! After a bit of a delay we left, and we made it to St. Louis at 10 or 11 at night.  My best friend, Hannah, met us at the hotel.  We must've looked like in the movies (or a really bad version of it) as we ran and jumped into each other's arms.  My best memory here so far would probably be that.  It was so wonderful and unexpected seeing her.  We had only known for about a day that we would even be seeing each other.  And then the day of, I found out I was staying 10 minutes from where she lives!  Very exciting!! 

The next day we went to St. Louis and got to tour around a bit! That was fun!  I got to get pretty close to the Arch, go into some cool buildings whose names I have forgotten...  I also got to have AMAZING gormet sushi!  And I got a bunch of neat souveniers!

We've done some other really cool things like go to this coin meseum, shopping, and an art mesuem too!

 

With the shopping we did, I did go a little overboard. ;) But it was a lot of fun! I also got to see some cats at PetsMart




As for this WEEK and not this weekEND, work has been interesting.  I work with "Lessons Learned" which is where after a disaster, we receive the reflections and comments on what should change.  The complaints and compliments basically.
So far though, I haven't been able to do much...  I got to staple some papers today....  And I sat in a conference with the LOG Chief (I'm in LOG (Logistics) in FEMA Corps), so that was exciting.  And another big head.  By mistake, I managed to call the conference and everyone tried to figure out where the echo of their voices were coming from while I frantically tried to figure out how to hang up.  Luckily they never realized it came from me.  This happened a couple of hours ago so I'm still pretty emberassed. 
I attended a new church this past Sunday.  A couple of families were pretty nice to me but it isn't like the church in Vicksburg by any means.  Hopefully I'll like it more as I keep attending.
Please keep me in your prayers, I'll try to post again when I can.  

Week 4 & (almost) 5

    So, this has been an interesting week, not my best week, I admit.  The start of this week was with Dr appointments and an ER trip, I'm fine, no worries, but I did get a lovely IV.
    After that was Induction! That was great! There was a misunderstanding so I almost missed out, but I'm very thankful it worked out.

Trying to think now what else has happened...
Oh! Yes! So we got more snow, kinda icy snow.  But it was really pretty!  I brought winter with me here! :D To many's excitement and others' dismay!

We also did an assignment where we went to a part of the town and looked for things that would be beneficiary or contrary.  It was a very pretty area!  It still had flaws, like trees that could collapse, power lines, etc.  Then we went to other areas in town where there was more poverty.  Both the "rich part" of town and the "poverty" parts of town had good and bad.

And below is a picture of the entire Corps.  FEMA and Traditional.  If you look on the right two rows back, the tall guy wearing the red shirt, I'm right behind him to the left! :D Between him and the blond-haired guy.

 

Now on to week 5!  It's only Thursday, but oh well!  So Sunday, the lovely lady who has been driving me to church every week invited me to go to her house to eat tacos and play games with a bunch of college students and youth!  It was amazing to be around a bunch of Christians in a Christian home!  I miss being in a Christian home so much!

This week we have been doing our FEMA training, our specific training.  So for me I'm doing Logistics.  In case I haven't previously explained Logistics:  If there is a disaster I am the first one on site to help set up the shelters, get the resources in, organize all of that.  Which for me is very exciting!!

This weekend I am doing an ISP (basically volunteer work) cleaning in LOUISIANA! Pictures to come!  Besides that we haven't had much go on... Besides having the FEMA Corps from Denver here training with us. :) They're pretty nice!!

More to come soon, hopefully!

MORE PICS!!

Week Two & Three

So, during week two we just did lots of classes.  Sometimes we'd be up at 5:30am and not get fully done with classes, team meetings, and then dinner until 8pm.  Some of our classes would be 9 or 10 hours long!  After that week was over, on Monday, we were to go to Oxford, Mississippi, and do a ropes course.  The ropes course was awesome!! That's my favorite part so far of being here.  I'm scared of heights but I love to face that fear, so I really enjoyed climbing 40 ft poles and then jumping off!  It was a great way to test myself.
    First there was the rock climbing,

I made it about halfway, maybe a little under, but then stopped because I didn't think I could go farther. Later I felt bad, so they let me go again and I made it three quarters or so up! After that it gets pretty tricky, I noticed, from watching others.  I had run out of strength so I knew that time that I did my best.
    After, I climbed this wooden pole, walked across a log, then a wire.

I had to stop on the wire because one, my legs were shaking too bad, and two, I couldn't get the rope above me to move so I was stuck in place.  This one was very scary to me because with this one it required me to look down.
    Next, I climbed up a 40 or so foot pole, stood on it, and jumped off.  That scared me too....

    The flying squirrel was one of my favorites.  Five people are harnessed together, and are connected to someone who stands away from them.  The five people's job is to run away from the separate person, making that person fly high in the air.  Well, apparently the male team leaders and some other guys had waited for a smaller girl to do it, so one minute there are five normal guys and girls, and then the next there's three male team leaders and two tall, fit guys.  Even the instructor commented on how fast and high up I went.

   
    After the "high ropes course" we went to the "lower ropes course".  This one was for team building.  As a team, we went through different games and tasks.  Like all of us standing on a log and having to go around each other without stepping off of the log.  The point of these tasks were for us to work together and overcome the challenges as a group.
    Two of my favorites was the Whale Watch, and when we were blindfolded with one of our team members guiding us without touching us, so only through verbal communication.
    With the whale watch, we stood on a large board that sits on a log, causing it to not want to stay balanced.  Our task was to all get on it one at a time without letting the board touch the ground.  Once we were all on the board and had it balanced after letting it touch the ground about one hundred times, we were told we all needed to go to the ends of the board.  The setting was that we were adrift at sea and we can't let the raft sink, but that rescuers were coming and we had to make room in the center.  Once we did that we were told that the rescuers needed two groups of two to switch places.  We started with the smallest of us and walked across the board as carefully as possible.  After that, we were told that they weren't rescuers coming, but pirates, so we must move to the middle of the "raft" again!  After that we were told that all we could do was join their ranks and that was about it.
    My second favorite, we were told that we were, as pirates, supposed to have one eye, but we had an accident and so half of us were fully blind.  And we also had scurvy so no one could touch us. Blindfolded, my partner talked me through the WOODS!  I did run into a tree a few times sadly, but I had kept my arms in a careful position so I basically maneuvered myself through the thick patches of woods without direction.  My partner did do a great job, though!

    After the ropes course, snow hit pretty hard.  My mom said that they showed it on the news.  That was pretty exciting!! But because of that we had to stay an extra day.  The snow was absolutely beautiful.  I find the way it ways down the snow very beautiful.  When we got back, we had more classes, and hands of peace which is a relationship/team building day of events.

    One interesting part was, eating a sandwich, I managed to pull two ligaments in my mouth, luckily it is better, but that was definitely a whole new level of pain!
 
    I will try to post again next week or the next! :D If you guys actually read all of this then you are really awesome!!