Christin Has Left the Country....

All right. I'm finally doing it. You finally get to hear all the details of my 2 weeks out of the country. Adjectives to describe it? Beautiful, exhausting, scary, amazing, incredible, interesting, fascinating- definitely a little of each. And sometimes a lot of each. Here we go:
I left my house- p.s. I think a flea just crawled out of my Guatemala journal- at 3:15 in the morning. Jonmark was right on time to pick me up, which was important and much appreciated because I was truly freaking out over getting those bags on the plane. The way I was packed, it would have cost $800 to get all the boxes on board. (And you know if I'm going that early- my flight was at 5- I'm nervous. I never go that early.)
But the guys at curbside saved me. They upgraded me to first class for $130 for one leg of my flight, which meant I got 3 free checked bags. Then they taped two boxes together and counted them as one, even though it was oversized then. AND....they had me move all my liquids out of my smaller suitcase so I could carry it on. AND...ignored the fact that it then weighed 67 pounds. (Huge air mattress counted for about 15 pounds). They were completely and utterly amazing and saved me (well, the SHe expedition) $500. When I had to admit that I had counted the bags wrong and I actually said "I was wrong! I'm sorry!," they both pulled out their cell phones and pretended to call their wives because they said they had never heard a women in their entire lives admit that she was wrong. It was so funny.

My curbside guys

Security was another adventure. In the process of moving my liquids over into my other bag, I left my mace in my carry-on. In case you were wondering, trying to bring mace on a plane makes you NO FRIENDS with the TSA. I was there forever(!) as they patted me down, swabbed every single item in my suitcase, and pretty thoroughly overreacted. And then threw my $9 brand-new mace away. Now I was at the mercy of every bad guy in Central America. Thanks a lot!!
The ride to Houston was actually kind of exciting. I sat between a general contractor for PRADA stores from Guatemala (who lived in Cali) and a young kid who repaired elevators. At one point, the flight attendants asked for any health professionals to come to the back of the plane. I'd never been asked that before, but it definitely applied to me, so I went to the back. A guy was having a bad asthma attack. They already had him on oxygen, and he had his own inhaler, so I couldn't do much. I did tell him to take a few more puffs of it. There was another girl there who I think was a nurse who seemed to kind of want to be in charge, so I let her. He ended up being ok, but the paramedics met us at the airport when we landed. It was kind of cool, and I think my seat mates were actually more excited about it than I was. I think they just liked to be in the loop. :-)
After that craziness, I got to enjoy my little first class trip to Guatemala. (Since I hadn't slept at all, I slept most of the way there.) This was my yummy meal. I was a little leery of ordering shrimp on and airplane, but it turned out to be an excellent choice. And that cheesy tomato on the side was DIVINE.

 I was a little nervous to haul all those boxes through customs (the boxes were really my sole source of nervousness for this trip. And parasites. Of course.), but I shouldn't have been. Even though some members of our group had every single thing gone through, they cut open only one of my boxes, filled out a tax exemption form, and let me through. It took me about 20 minutes before I saw someone from our group. I had been all prepared to take the shuttle alone, but luckily I didn't have to. It was funny, I knew a little bit of Spanish before I left, but never used it. Being here definitely forced me to learn how to piece all my words together!! Otherwise, people would have had NO IDEA what I was saying, and somehow I hadn't really counted on that. Anyways, our hotel was beautiful. It's the Hotel Barcelo and looked, well, like this:

 It felt very much like we were still in the U.S. As soon as our stuff was settled, I changed to go to the temple, which was only about 15 minutes away. Initially, like 12 of us were going to go, but it turned out that I was the only one who really wanted to do a session. So a group of us got a couple taxis, and they stayed and took pictures while I went in. I told them I would get a taxi on my own to get back, which made me a little nervous, but the guy at the desk said he would help me. Turns out, I didn't end up needing to call a taxi at all. I ran into a missionary couple (who I had met at the airport) that were in the same session, and they offered to let me ride back in their taxi. So sweet! The session was nice; it was definitely laid back, and unfortunately I may have nodded off a bit, but it was a good way to start my trip. I felt so tall!! All the women were about a head shorter than me. They even gave me a dress that was too short- I didn't know that was possible!! I also tried to do the session in Spanish, which made me realize I don't know nearly as much Spanish as I thought, but they had a little "cheat sheet," so I read off of that, and they said I did great. Whew!

Yes, that's a Shell station in front. 

That night we had a meeting where I learned a couple of the guys who were on our expedition actually created the whole organization, which was kind of amazing to me. Dinner was delicious chicken and veggies and virgin bahama mamas. I didn't drink the water because I was paranoid, but I found out later it would have been fine. And I will tell you now, I did not appreciate the fact that while I was there I was taking my last hot shower for 13 days. Pretty sure I would have stayed in much longer.
And I slept amazing that night. But you already knew that.