These are a few of my favorite things...

Hey guys! I know I haven't done very well with blogging lately, but we have been so busy!! I have lots to catch up on but right now ill just share a "few of my favorite things" that have gone on the last few weeks! ...(I got the idea for this post from one of my friends).

A mission trip to Costa Rica (which I will talk more about later!!). But I will tell you now, God did AMAZING things!

A village on a mountainside.

A classroom that we visited.

the Gringo Market!

A lady accepting Christ after hearing about His great love!

Field trips... On this one we went to NC State to hear about a language program.

Cousin dates to the Tea Room!

A new photo editing app that I got...

(this picture is from a couple Sundays ago when some ladies from my parent's Sunday class and their girls went to an outreach called Covered with Love where we made blankets for moms who lost their children. It was sad but I'm glad we got to help!)

Spanish-English Bibles

Reunions... My best friend came back from West Africa and boy are Parker and I excited!!!

African gifts... Love!

... and last but not least, Bible verses to remind me of God's faithfulness!

Another year under our belt!

A little over a week ago we finished yet another school year! I finished 9th grade, my first year of high school!! We learned a lot, worked hard, did our best (most of the time) and finally finished.  Even though it has been a challenging year, it has been a great one!

Here are some pictures looking over the school year:

Here is our "first" day of school picture. Well, we forgot to take one our very first day so we took one a few days later. (and yes, this is a rough picture but what more can you expect on a bad hair day at 7 in the morning with a brother who loves crazy faces!)

 This is a picture from after our Christmas dance recital.

 These pictures are from our Christmas Chorus concert.

 Here is a picture from one of my younger brothers, Luis's, chorus concert!

Getting awards for dance after our last number

 Getting ready to sing "Jar of Hearts"

 Getting awards for Chorus. Two other students and I got awards for good character!

Taking a final bow after the Showcase

                                   

These last few pictures are from our spring chorus concert/dance recital. Our last song was "You can't stop the beat" from Hairspray. Jazz band, Chorus, and Dance all performed. It was a ton of fun!

After our PE final we were bored and were snapchating people. 

Here is a picture of two of my friends and I after our English final. We were bored, again, and took over 200 crazy photos!

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters...

Colossians 3:23

Catchin' Up

Whew! We've up to A LOT lately so I've got lots of pictures and lots to talk about. I'll start with track-out. A couple of weeks ago my family and I visited Williamsburg, Virginia and then visited my grandma and great-grandma in New Jersey.

Here we are at the hotel pool!

at a tavern in Williamsburg

talking to Patrick Henry and learning a lot!

I wonder what they did now?!?

Oh Luis!

My sweet Oma Oma and I!

 The next week we celebrated Easter with our grandparents!

Easter egg time!

On a hunt for the eggs. . .

for those of you who watch Duck Dynasty ;)

 Here a couple pictures that I took of spring . . . my absolute favorite!!

And last but not least . . . this past weekend my mom and went to see Beth Moore, a motivational Christian speaker, with some other ladies from our church and 8,000 other women! It was absolutely amazing! It was all about secrets. The theme was "Secrets Manifest". She talked about the difference between good secrets, bad secrets, secrets in the Bible and the difference between being authentic, transparent, and intimate. "You don't have to be intimate with your entire social network" was one of her big points when talking about that. It was so cool seeing God move.

Jesus, midnight milkshakes, and more Jesus . . . I mean, what could be better?

 Well, that's all I have for now!

Pinterest Projects and Attempts

 I have always wanted to make cookie bowls. Basically, you take cookie dough and a muffin pan and then you turn the pan upside down. Now, spread the cookie dough on it. Make sure you use A LOT of spray!!! Then you bake it for however long. After it cools for a little you take the cookies off of the pan. Now you have a bowl that you can eat and put ice cream in! Well, that's how it is supposed to turn out . . . I didn't put enough spray, didn't use very good cookie dough, and put too much dough on the pan. As you can see, mine broke when I tried taking them off. We put them on the bottom of ice cream bowls and made yummy ice cream sundaes anyways!

The next day I had a few friends over and we decided to bake something. We looked on Pinterest and one of my friends found a sunflower cake made out of chocolate icing, peeps, and chocolate chips. We made the cake and then spread the icing on. Then, we placed the bunny peeps (the only ones we could find) a long the outside edges. After that, we sprinkled chocolate chips in the inside. Last but not least, we ate it! This project thankfully turned out REALLY GOOD!

Disciple Now 2013

Hey guys! So we just finished Disciple Now! The theme was Exchange. Exchanging our old life, our sinful ways, for a new life in Christ! It was an amazing reminder of the greatness of our God and our complete surrender to Him!
And... we  also got to Skype Abby, my sisterchick in Africa! All of the girls in our group absolutely loved getting to talk to her! Thank-you so much Abby!

Here the lyrics to a song that we sang that is one of my new favorites:

Christ alone, Cornerstone

Weak made strong, in the Savior's love

Through the storm, He is Lord

Lord of all.

Here is a picture of all the youth dancing during the worship services:

It was a great weekend and we are sad it is over, but now, our job is to carry what we learned and the changes that were made into our day-to-day life!

Hey guys!

We are tracked out!! Yay! Spring break is my absolute favorite! This week though, I have drivers ed . . . It's interesting, boring, exciting, and a little frightening all at the same time. Well, in the end it will be worth it. And, this weekend, we have Disciple Now, an in town youth retreat at my church, it is absolutely amazing! I can't wait to see what God has in store! yay! At DNow we are going to have worship services, a food scavenger hunt for our church's food pantry, and we are going to Skype one of the most amazing people ever, Abby! Can't wait! I'll talk more about it afterwards, but in the mean time, have a great week!

"Go making disciples of all nations..." including your own!

"Go, making disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And surely I am with you always, even to the end of the age." Matthew 28:19-20

Often times when we think about telling others about the wonderful news of our sweet Savior, we think about mission trips and oversees. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying this bad. It is amazing! I'm going on a mission trip this summer, one of my very best friends and her family are missionaries overseas, and I want to be a missionary! The problem is though, we don't usually associate our schools, our sports teams, our friends, etc. with the mission field. But this is the greatest and hardest mission field of our lives!

I definitely struggle with this. I get restless and wish I could be doing something greater. I want to go on another mission trip. I want to go overseas. I feel more comfortable sharing Jesus with somebody I don't know. But the greatest thing that I can do is right now, and that is reaching out to the people all around me. I have to remember that the mission field that God has given me right now is my high school, my dance studio, my neighborhood, my church, and even my own home. And it is a big mission field. Everyone has their very own mission field. This means that I am a missionary and so are you!

So don't forget, God tells us to make disciples of all nations... even your own!

Lately we've been...

running 5k's in the snow . . . freezing!

making snowmen

going to National Dance Honors Society inductions

hanging out with family

getting gifts from Africa . . . the best kind! Thanks Abby!

and celebrating birthdays!!