SHRIMANTA
By
Josh
Brownell
Table of contents
Introduction 5-6
Serious Memories 7-14
Life in Oregon 15-23
Preschool Memories 24-30
Move to New Mexico 31-34
Elementary School Me6mories 35-57
Life In Arizona 58-78
Middle School Memories 79-96
Summer Trips 97-113
My Growth with God 114-128
High School Life 129-144
Fun Times At the Cabin 145-157
Favorite Movies & Shows 158-160
Fun Times with Relatives 161-163
Future Goals & Dreams 164-167
Acknowledgements & Thank-You’s 168 170
Introduction
In this book I will discuss many of the historic points of my life. I will share many of the high points and low points during this time. Also, I will share many fun memories from times that spent with my family and many of their relatives. Also, I will talk about my school life and the many teachers and other Adults that were huge influence’s throughout that period of my life. `Finally I will talk about the many successful moments that I experienced and anything else I might have forgotten mention here.
Serious Moments
I started out as a little boy. I was born in Calcutu India. My mother didn’t care for me at all so to start it off I was dropped on the doorstep of a local orphanage. Then, I stayed there for just a short time. It wasn’t long before I was adopted into the US by some amazing couple whose names were Ken & Robin Brownell. I was shortly diagnosed with heart problems after I moved to Oregon. Next, I was introduced to all of my immediate extended family. Then my parents
took me a local doctor in Portland and I had my first X-Rays and the doctor immediately suggested that I start surgery. So the surgery started in October of 1989 and lasted until just after October of 90. My parents told me that I was in the hospital for an entire year due to many complications such as a staff infection and there was more to follow. My parents and all of the relatives had a big birthday party to celebrate the success of the heart surgeries. First, of all I’m so thankful for the decision that my parents made. I would of never been able to experience loving care. I grew up in a large family. I’m the second oldest grandchild on my dad’s side of the family out of 19. I also was the first grandchild on my mom’s side of the family of 13 grandkids. My brother and I were the only grandson’s on my mother’s side of the family until October 10, 2010 when her brother and his wife gave birth to little Bradly boy and that is a mild stone for Larry and Penny Reiter. I know that if it was not for the grace of God I would not have lived through that horrible time of my life. The doctors in Portland Oregon were always very helpful to all of my procedures. So, I think I will always just have to look back on God when I’m in a sticky situation. I know that my body wouldn’t have been repaired if it wasn’t for the work of our great Lord. This means that He is my rock through every problem that I might be an excuse for me not to be successful in the many years to come. I also want to thank my parents for everything they had to give up for me to get my heart transplant. I am blessed to be the oldest child of seven kids. I’ve had the amazing privilege to share many great memories with all of the other kids in the family. We all experienced some very hard times as well. One is that I experienced a severe bike accident while living in Rio Rancho NM; and due to that accident I don’t have my four front teeth. So these are some of the more serious moments that have occurred throughout thef first few years of my life.
Life in Oregon
That was where I lived for the first five years of my life. It was so fun to always see my grandparents on my mom’s side of the family cause we would constantly make many visits for the first year after I was released from the hospital. We soon moved to a three bedroom fixer upper house just outside of Portland Oregon. So, my dad said that it would be no problem for all of us as a family to fix up that house because of his prior construction experiences that he did with his dad and his brother. I remember it also being really cool to have my mom’s cousin and here only son live with us for at least 4-6 years prior to here getting married over Mcminvile Oregon in the summer of 1997. I remember having many great times with my grandparents on my dad’s side of the family. They are so nice. One is that they always took time to help me with hard things that I would want to learn how to do myself. When I was three years old I learned how to read and write. So, my brother and I meat some really great friends from our local eye doctor. We had a lot of fun times while playing at their house. I even enjoyed going to Sunday school at church every week cause it was amazing to here new features about Jesus. Next, it was fun to always go to the park with my cousins. I would enjoy playing with my cousins at their house, because there was this huge basement where we play video games, just mess around, and have awesome slumber parties on the weekend occasionally. Also, there would be times when they would come visit us at our house too. We all enjoyed being together every time we could even though between all of us relatives on my dad’s side of the family were at least a one hour drive apart from another if not longer depending on what part of Oregon they lived in.
There are many features that I remember from the many visits that I enjoyed having with my dad’s parents and many of his other relatives in Corvallis Oregon. One is that will never forget the many amazing morning meals that he would always make wich would include his famous hot cakes and super duper eggs. I also won’t forget the famous mail box that was always full of goodies for all of us grandkids every time we went to visit them. Next, we all would take turns driving the lawn tractor around the yard. When we were younger we just barely run over the lawn. Then once we got a little older we would actually be able to cut all the grass. So by the time you would drive all the way around the loop it would probably be a quarter of a mile almost. Him and I would play basket ball games occasionally. I also enjoyed going to their Church where he served as the associate pastor while I was a child even though he was a senior pastor before I was born for some time. I do miss the beauty of green trees; but I really don’t miss having constant rainstorm after another. So these are the many fun times that I experienced while living in Oregon.
Preschool Memories
These are some of the funny moments that I remember from preschool. First, I will never forget how loving and caring they were for all of us youngster every day for an entire school year. Next, I always won’t forget how much time they took teaching just the simple lessons in life that we all desperately needed to learn. Also, I won’t ever forget all of the musicals that we did during the Christmas season. I remember making a lot of friends that I didn’t want to part with when it came to the end of that year. The teachers always had different crafts and games planned for every day of the week that were so fun in so many unique ways. It was also fun to go the park and play on the huge playground after school on many occasions. My brother and two sisters would also like having picnics out in the grass at the park there in Portland Oregon. There were a lot of nice kids in the class. I know that my brother, sister, and myself always loved going back day after day. I can’t forget about all the teacher’s assistants who played such an important roll in teaching us every class period.
Now I will mention many of the fun activities and lessons that we participated in during the classes. One is that we spent a lot of time learning how to draw and color our favorite cartoon characters. Also, they would read us many funny short stories. They would ask us questions from the stories to make sure we would be listening the stories instead of thinking about other things such as what me might be doing after class or what might happen after story time that day. Our teacher also spent a lot of valuable time teaching how to learn the alphabet so we could start learning how to at least right out our name and sometimes other short words that we might of known really well. We also were taught how to be kind to the others around us in the class. I know we also enjoyed the many fun times we were able to have out side on the playground. There was always great snacks after our outside playtime provided by either the teachers or a particular kids parents would volunteer to bring something in to share with the rest of the class for each day we had that class. Those are the many fun memories from preschool that I will never forget to come back to throughout the rest of my life.
Move to New Mexico
The transition to New Mexico was kind of hard. First, I was just starting the first grade of elementary school; and I just had this feeling I would not fit in to the school here in Rio Rancho New Mexico. Even though I new we had to move or otherwise my dad would be out of work and that would not be could for middle aged couple with five children at all. I slowly adapted well although I was so upset that I had to leave from all of my friends in Newberg Oregon. It was a long three day trip that I won’t ever forget. It was also very hard to leave my grandparents and all the rest of extended family. I was really comforted by the people from the little Church we went and visited right after we got settle over at the KOA campground to live for the first six months to find out for sure if we are going to be for just a short time or for an extended amount of time. Well God blessed us by keeping us in in New Mexico from December of 1995 until October of 1997. So we loaded up the family and went back to Oregon for just a few months and came back over to New Mexico in March of 1998; and God even worked it out so that no one had bought our past house here in Rio Rancho so we just moved right back into it and lived there until May of 2000
Elementary School
I started going to Enchanted Hills Elementary school in January of 1996 located in Rio Rancho NM. I had many great teachers. I also experienced lots of new skills as the years went by. I will share some good and bad facts about those years of school.
I enjoyed all the features of my first grade class. One is that I loved the teacher, her name was Ms. Campbell and was very nice and sweet. We had a lot of fun during story time. I also learned how to write little words and then even turn the words into sentences. Then, in that class we had homework which includes some spelling and some addition math problems night after night. I made lots of cool friends. I enjoyed going back to class everyday cause I knew that I would be able to spend a lot of time with all the other classmates and friends that made throughout the entire first grade class which consisted of eight different first grade classes. That means that there was at least one hundred first grade boys and girls so I had plenty of opportunity to meat new people. Also, I was able to make lots of friends throughout the year. It was always fun going to the computer lab to work on different group work assignments. I won’t forget all those times I spent working on so many of my skills related to my visual disability. I learned that my disease is Retnites Pigmentosa which is when the retna slowly deseiagrates and most people with this disease usually loose all of their vision by the age of 25. My eyesite is pretty stable as of the age of 21. I finished first grade on May 23, 1996. My grade point average for that year consisted of 4 A’s and 2 B’s. That summer I spent time going places with my family and it was a lot of fun times that I will never be able to forget.
I will now share some of the amazing features of what was like to be in second grade. I started the class on August 15, 1996. I was introduced to a really nice teacher, her name was Mrs. Garden. I enjoyed all the fun field trips that we went on. Also, I loved to be the one to be asked to come up the board and read what the class agenda would be for the day on numerous occasions. There was always home work assignments. They consisted of subtraction and addition math worksheets. There was a spelling list every week that would be given out at the beginning of every week and at the end of every week we would have a test and most of the weeks there would be other assignments during the week to help memorize all of the words real well. I always had a little bit of trouble the little stories that we would read together, mainly it was hard for me to make out answers for the comprehension questions. We did many different class assemblies that deal with many key aspects of features from the school that were really important for us to know. I always had fun at recess too. That year I really found a key friend who I would hang out with numerous times of the year on the weekends or after school and his name was Andrew. It was always fun to go to the after school activities. Those were times when the teachers and the parents of the kids would also meet together and get to know each other more. Finally, I will always, remember all of my classmates and especially my teacher who I still keep in touch even now.
These are some of the amazing features and memories I have from my third grade year of school which started on August 16, 1997 and ended on May 23, 1998. I had a really nice teacher whose name was Connie Ortiz. She was so good at teaching. I learned how to read short stories. I also was able to write stories about my feelings. Then she taught us how to find great fiction novels to read during quiet reading time. Also, that year I learned how to do multiplication problems in math class. I even was told by the teacher that I was the first to make out all the multiples for the #’s 1-12. There was always those great field trips too. We went to the zoo to learn lot’s of great historical facts about all of the animals. I know all of us kids looked forward to going for a picnic in the park after the zoo. I won’t ever forget that summer because I had a bike accident on the 4th of July. I was riding my bike to a nearby park with my sisters. So one of my sister’s and I decided to have a race and I ended up winning the race. In the process of winning that race I fell off my bike over the handlebars and due to that I lost my four front teeth and broke the lower jaw bone completely so therefore I spent the rest of that day in the hospital having an operation on my mouth. That was the worst 4th of July holiday I had in my entire life cause I couldn’t do anything but lay in bed and watch movies and TV shows.
These some features I remember from the fourth grade in elementary school. First, so many people made fun of me for how I talked after having that horrible bike accident that made me loose my front teeth. Second, I really enjoyed the many science experiements that I learned from my teacher who was the same teacher that I had in third grade. I learned how to play a lot of cool games during PE from the coach. Also, I had a lot of fun going to music class. It was such fun musical that we had to learn and perform at the end of the school year for our class final. I remember having a lot of good times in my math class because I had that class with my cousin so that made it even more fun to go to class every day of the year. Then there was all those fun times that I had going to the library every day to find books that would deal with animals and cars. I found that it was hard for me to do essay papers for writing assignments from time to time at the point in time of my life.
Here are some of the many features that I remember from the fifth grade. First, I will remember the great teachers that I had their names were Mrs. Accoya, Ms. Cordiva and Miss. Tremboli. It was considered an inclusion class that consisted of 45 students between the two classes. I learned how to do research projects on the computer and it was a lot of fun. Also, I enjoyed having the opportunity to be a mediator during recess with another classmate and it was such an eye opener for me and that was the first step to lme becoming more involved with childcare programs. I enjoyed going on some of the most amazing field trips that year too such as getting to go the natural history museum for the first time and learn so many great artifacts about the history of our state. I will also not forget the most important day of elementary school which was graduation day. This took place on May 19, 2000. It’s such a memory cause it’s a time when the principle, vice principle, and all of your teachers reganize for those five year of really hard work. It was especially meanyful to me because of the fact that I was the first blind student to graduate from that school that year. I think that a lot of people were stunned to see that I was able to complete those five years of school as hard as it was just for a normal student. So for those of you who didn’t know who I was at that point of my life here are many of the important activities and features that I accomplished as student who was legally blind and how I overcame all of that as a site less child.
Life in Arizona
I will start out by sharing what lead us to move to Arizona. Then I will talk about how my family was treated by the people within their community. Also, I will share about some of the many fun times we shared with an amazing church family in Mesa AZ. I will talk about our living situation.
I know that I didn’t want to move to Arizona at first even though I new it was for a good reason. My dad’s work was the main reason why our family moved out to Chandler Arizona on June 3, 2000. I loved spending about eight hours of driving time in the car with my family from the time we left Rio Rancho New Mexico real early in the morning until we arrived in Chandler Arizona. It was so hot that I know for the first few minutes after we got out of the car we just sat on the curve of where we parked our travel trailer to soon find out that we would be living there at least for the next six months if not more. I really loved helping my dad unhook the travel trailer in the over one hundred degree tempature that Saturday afternoon. My brother, sisters and I were really excited when we were told that we could go to the swimming pool for a few hours and it was so refreshing after doing that work with my dad in that soaring heat. So we continued living a 29 foot travel trailer until we soon found one at RV sail that same weekend and the dealer made us a trade in deal. So therefore we went over to the dealer on a Friday afternoon and started transferring all of our personal belongings from the old to the new trailer. Since it was such good trade my dad and I had to follow the dealer from Mesa AZ. to Lordsburg NM to get the official title for the trailer. It was about a six hour drive round trip. Then, later that afternoon of that same day we met my mom and my sister back over at the trailer park we were staying at with that newer RV. Also, during that day my dad and I found out that my mom broke down with the older car that left her with because we needed the newer to pull the RV back from Lordsburg New Mexico.
I will now talk about what it was like to live in that RV with six other children in the Arizona 100 plus degree heat. I remember that it was hard. I know we all enjoyed walking to the grocery store on a daily basis because it was so close and it was impossible to stock up on enough groceries for an entire week. Also, my dad had to ride his bike to work and back every day and the daily tempature was anywhere from 108 to 115 degrees. It was always fun to go do laundry, because every time we went did it we would go to the swimming pool and have to wait for the laundry. So that meant we got to spend at least a good hour or two cooling off in the swimming pool from the heat.
The people in Arizona were always nice to us in so many unique ways. One is that they would help us anything we needed help with. I loved spending time with those who would take us out for dinner on different occasions. Also, when I was not able to find my way around the community many people would notice right away. They would usually ask me where it was I was trying to go or what it might be that I was trying to figure out. I know that most of the time people would be just so kind and give me the proper directions. Also, when I would go to baseball games people would always ask if I needed any help finding my seat and sometimes would say I’m fine and other times I might ask for help it just would depend on big of a crowd there was on the main level of the sports complex. The neighbors were always really nice people too.
Now I will share some of the many amazing times my family shared with those from Mesa Baptist Church in Mesa Arizona. First, our family experienced a worm welcome from the congregation when we walk in the doors on June 6, 2000. It was not long after that Sunday my sister’s and I became very involved with the children’s ministry. We were apart of a musical that summer and it was a lot of fun. Also, it was great way to meet new kids from the Church. It was awesome to see how much Pastor Jim Baugh would take a lot of his time to make sure his family would get to know our family really well as time went on. We were invited to go to their place for thanksgiving in 2000 cuase we just lived in the trailer and didn’t have any family so they wanted to make sure that we did have some type of special time for that holiday that we could remember too. He even invited my grandparents and my Uncle Paul to come too. Jim also would invite me over to hang out with his son whose name was Josh and we would do a number of fun activities just by ourselves. Also, we would do many activity where our families would have a great time sharing of fun, food and fellowship. There would also be times where I would go and help Jim with activities at the Church because he was a guy that would always hold me accountable. We also did many one on one bible studies through many different devontional books.
Now I will share some of the many fun times that I during the time that I was apart of the Youth group there. I enjoyed all of the many teachings from Gary Howell who was so inspirational to me. First he talk about how important it is to have that personal relationship with Jesus. Also, there were some amazing time of worship music by the worship team that he provided every week. I was always encouraged by the different small group leaders that would be there for me whenever I needed help. I won’t ever forget the summer of 2001 when I went to summer camp in Big Bear California. That camp was when I realized that I had slipped away from Christ. I was listening to one of the evening chapel sessions and the topic was how we our to live Christ center life while we are living on earth. The speaker that night had given an invitation to accept Christ for the first time or to make recommitment to Him. So, I heard the Lord pulling on my heart telling me that I need to recommit my life to Jesus which to me meant that I would be more seriously committed to Christ. I have continued to serve the Lord in all the ways that I see fit to my ability. So, then I came back from that camp and just felt on fire to do more of God’s work whatever that might consist. I continued to attend the Church service on Sunday moring and real encourage by the worship team or the Chior that were both directed under the leadership of James Flam. I continued to be encouraged by Jim Baugh and his intentional lessons of how to grow closer to God. I also enjoyed the many Saturday morning men’s fellowship studies. My dad and I also had a lot of great times playing basketball with several of the men on Sunday afternoons for several months. It was also fun to be apart of a Church Softball team. Finally, these are many of the amazing memories that I have from Arizona.
Middle School Memories
I will always remember the many people who were so helpful to me from my that school. The name of the school was Rhode’s Jr. High. Someone who I dearly miss that I won’t ever forget is Mr. Big Ale who was an x military personal; and also known as the number one Security guard. He always watched out for me. He made sure that I wasn’t ever mess around with or heart in any way while I was on the campus every day. Also, I enjoyed all six of my teachers. I will also talk about the many fun activities that I did either during class time or as after school activities. I will share some the fun times I with many friends that I met from different classes.
These are the many features that I will share from my class times. I had six different classes and they were all very unique in so many ways. I loved all of my teachers greatly payed a lot of attention during all of the instructional times. I enjoyed learning so many important math lessons from Mrs. Martin. She was so great with helping with problems that I wasn’t able to understand. Also, I remember the many reading lessons I learned from Miss Bell she understood the fact that it was hard for me to comprehend the questions all the times from a lot of the stories that we would read during class. I learned so many gramer lessons from Mrs. Bobeer. She always had us take time to write so many great papers that deal with what we did over the summer. Also, we would share some of the short writings that we would do that would deal with whatever the topic of the day was such as writing about your favorite book, TV show, sport’s team, or your favorite animal. In science I learned about all the different artifacts about the earth. Also, I learned about space and the other plannet’s such a Mars, Jupiter, Venus, Neptune, and the others that seem to have slipped my mind. I enjoyed the many times I had during those years.
I learned that from all of the sessions of learning I was challenged by God in a number of ways. One way was that I would always get distracted from the other classmates; but I understood that was just satan tearing me apart. Also, my brother was a huge distraction for my learning too. I remember that when I would be doing homework assignments he’d just come in and say I want to play outside with you. I noticed that it would be hard for me to say no sometimes. I know that I would be doing the right thing by doing my homework assignments instead of playing so I could get good grades in school. My brother was a lot of work to take care of even from such a young age but that year about two weeks before 9-11-2001 he got so mad at my dad for asking him to mow the lawn so he was so upset that he decided to hang himself while the rest of us were just sitting at the dining room table eating super.
Now I will share some of the amazing memories from my grade eight. It started out just fantastic like the year before. The school was ten month school so that meant it started the last week of July and ended the first week of June. I took music class that year and it was a lot of hard fun work. I was sad when I found out that I was told that we would moving back to Rio Rancho New Mexico from Mesa AZ it was hard at first, but I new that I could understand it in the long run. The bad part about the move for me was that I had honor roll status grades. Then after the move which took place on Verteren’s day of 2003. I remember having to wait about two weeks after the move until I was allowed to continue my eight grade year of school back in Rio Rancho. Once I started school finally just before the thanksgiving holiday weekend I was starting to feel really good. So, you know how when the class term starts with an A that didn’t work out so well for me cause it came to be that I started out all of my class terms with an 80% which is equal to B grade. Then, by the time that semester ended my class grade were all between 76% and 85% which equals between a C+ and a B+. I started up class again in January of 2004. I started out with A+’s. So anyhow I felt like I was a new person in the eight grade that month. Also, that was a great way for me to meet new people slowly. By February 10, 2004 I had some very good connections with others from the different teas of eight grade classes. So, just when I thought that I was doing the best that I could do for class that year I was wrong. I found out that I wasn’t doing so well when I saw that I had all C+’s on my spring break report card. I enjoyed working as a Library assistant. I think that it was the easiest class that I did take that semester. Now when I tried to get a grade check for my dad so I could go on a Church Retreat; I found out that my grade were failing status and that made me pretty upset cause I was really putting all my effort into every class and homework assignments. Those grades really showed me that it wouldn’t even be worth trying to finish out the last month and a half of that school year. Then, I realized that was when I needed to really spend sometime with the Lord and ask Him what I needed to fix so I would go down the same path come that next year of school. Once, I hit the nineth grade I was told that every class I take counts as a highschool credit for graduation requirements. I realized that Jesus was really pulling on my heart during that summer before I started high school because I know that He would’ve wanted me to work to the best of my abilities and redo work when I was told it wasn’t done right. I realized that everytime I did do the wrong parts of the assignments over it would help me keep having good grades verses just doing the assignments once and and giving up on them.
Summer Family Trips
There are many fun summer trips that I remember taking with my family over the last 20 or so years of my life. I remember my trip going to the mountains for a camping trip with my parents and all of my mom’s extended family in her parent’s 37 foot Sunbus. I was just over two when we took that trip so I had just barely learned how to walk on my own. I remember there being a large campfire and roasting hotdogs and hamburgers for super. Also, it was fun go see all that snow up in the mountains too. Also, it was great fun to spend time watching my grandma and my mom make blankets for the next baby that my parents would be adopting. I realize that my uncle and his wife came to visit as well so therefore that made it feel like it was mini family reunion.
Now, I will talk about an amazing trip that our family remembers so well still even to this day. I think that we even drove back but it was only a two day driving trip, because we didn’t feel the urge to take the travel trailer with us on that trip. Also, that made it a more fun trip cause it the first time that as a family we would get to experience how much fun it was to stay at a hotel and eat out at restaurants. I think we arrived on a Saturday and were surprised by the fellowship of all of the relatives on my Dad’s sid of our family. We stayed at his parent’s house and it was so much fun to spend about a weeks worth of time visiting with them. Also, I enjoyed the Sunday dinner that we had with everyone including us and my grandparents, my dad’s brother and his wife and there five kids and my dad’s sister and her family. I think that there was about 25 of us all together just having some really good fellowship in just a small fourteen hundred square feet house. I loved the fun rides we had on his little lawn tractor and we all would help hime cut the grass at the same time. Now, I realized that it was such a good time when we were told we had to leave at the end of the funfiiled week at their house. Finally, we had to say goodbye and I think that was hard for all of us cause w new that we were leaving some amazing grandparents.
There is another fantastic trip that our family took after we moved to Arizona. We went to Oregon again but that time around we took a plain instead of driving. The trip lasted just over two weeks. We spent the first week with my dad’s brother and his family. We had a lot of fun adventures, because our family and his family have kids that are either the same age or just real close in age. One day we went berry picking and got lots of blueberries and merian berries. Another day some of went to this little lake. My uncle has a small paddle boat so I asked him if he would teach me to use the paddles and he said yes and it was a fantastic experience. Also, we went and visited my mom’s brother and his family. We spent maybe just over a week. I loved going on rides on their four wheelers. I also, enjoyed the great bond fire conversations. I thought it was funny when my aunt started telling us some funny stories about her family. Also, here little kids have some of the funniest smiles. I loved their pretty little outfits that they were wearing.
I also remember having so much fun going to Church camp summer after summer with Tiereny and Scott and their youth group. Roel and I always had fun talking about a few sertant people that were just so rude to us both. It always contain of about a week. Normaly we would pack up everything and leave on a Sunday cause they were the ones in charge of registration so that meant that everything had to be set up by sometime early on Monday before all the other Church’s arrived. There was usually about two to three hundred students and then about two to five leaders from each church. The camp would officially start that Monday night with introductions from either Scott or another director from another Church. There was always good food that was prepared by some people that Tierney knew from when she went to camp as a teen. Then on Tuesday we would eat breakfast. Next we would have morning bible study. It would consist of many break out sessions. Since Roel and I didn’t do much of the activities in between we would might go to the later one even if it wasn’t maybe our age group cause it was hard for us get up super early. I think it was around 12:00 noon when we have lunch. Then there would be different fun games and activities that involved competition and excitement. I think it was from 4:00pm in the afternoon until about 5:30 there would be just an open break time where the students and leaders could do whatever activites that were provided. I think that most times my cousin and I would just go have a rest time. Then, dinner would consist from 5:30 until 6:00 for Jr. High and for highschool it would start at 6:00 and go until 6:30; most of the time for every meal we would go smack dab in the middle of the two time frames cause it took us more time to eat and so that all the leaders we make sure to give updates either Scott or Teriney reguarding their students. Finally, that was how every other day of the rest of the week took place through Friday morning.
My Church Life
I’ve gone to Church all my life ever since I was able to do so. I always liked going to Church. I did realize why it was so important to go to church so often until I was five years old. That was also when I understood what it meant to have Jesus Chirst in my heart. I was sitting at my house one night and saw my Dad doing a Bible study with several people within the congregation at our house. So, once everyone left I asked my Dad how do you accept Christ to come into your heart. Then, he told be that it’s done by praying the prayer of salvation which means that you are asking Him to come into your heart and cleanup all the wrong of your soul. Also, I was given a Bible from my Sunday school teacher from the Church that I was attending in Oregon. So, after that night I felt that I had a better understanding of Jesus. Next, my family moved to New Mexico and started attending a small Baptist Church in Rio Rancho, the name of the Church was Charity Baptist Church. That Church was the one where I first heard of AWANA and loved going week after week. There was these books that you would have go through which included memorizing bible verses and reading bible stories. Also, that was the Church that made public statement of faith through the waters of baptism in the spring of 1997 so that was where I spent the first few years of Christian my Christian life.
Next, my family made the move to a Church in Arizona cause of dad’s work situation. The name of that Church was Mesa Baptist Church. It was one of the better Churches that I attended. I know that myself and all of my family was greatly encouraged by the Pastor who was James Baugh. He was a real encouragement to all of us. He was inspirational by sharing his time and love towards me when he saw me trying to go through tuff situations. He might talk to me and ask how I was able to handle some of those situations so well. Also, there was an amazing youth Pastor by the name of Gary Howell. He was someone who really helped me discover Christ in so many ways that I had never done before. One, is that he was able to show me how important it is to be able to show trust towards your friends at your school. Also, I was able to go to a camp in Big Bear California. That was an amazing experience for me in so many ways. I recommitted my life to Christ after learning how important it was to have a good walk in the Lord. Also, I learned how important it was to have good character building skills. I was also introduced on how important a quiet time is and the fact that it should be a priority for every christian to have sometime during your day on a daily basis. Also, I committed to doing that too. So, I have been making sure that I find that important time of my day since my seven grade year of school until this day still. I even plan to become better in the future. There was also a challenge to memorize key scriptures from the Bible and I accepted the challenge. So, even to this day I’m still doing that even though I find it hard to remember.
Now, just after the first quarter of my eight grade year school my family ended up moving back to Rio Rancho New Mexico. So, that meant that we had the opportunity to go back to Charity Baptist Church to test all those skills I learned from Mesa Baptist Church. So, I was sad even though that was best for our family because of my dad’s change of work.
Then I went back to school in Rio Rancho. The district was so big they had a school that was called the Mid-High. I met some really nice friends right away and they happened to be members of a bible club. They invited me to come check it out and I did. I liked it so much that I started attending every week on Thursday afternoons. Those same people invited me to come to their youth group cause at that current time Charity didn’t have successful youth group for highschool aged kids. So, I went and met the staff and fell in love with their group right away. The youth pastor at that time was Patrick Jansen and he was just a fantastic guy to be around and the same with his wife Heather. So, I started attending their and soon before I new it I even became an active member of their Church which is Faith Evangelical Free Church. I even fell in love with the Pastor whose is Tom Lambelet. So, I have been attending since January of 2004. I still am going and staying very active in numerous ways through many different people from the many different minastries from the Church.
High School Life
I started out with first year of high school as a student who had struggled all of his eight grade year. The same factors continued on throughout my freshman year of high school. I did good in math. I was allowed to get some good afterschool tutoring. Also, I did good in the two different elective classes that I took. My Science class was fantastic, because I had an amazing teacher whose name was Mr. Pink. He was the best ninth grade science teacher that I had. He was always making sure that I would understand all of the class assignments. He would also make sure that I didn’t have any assignments that were not finished due to misunderstanding. I remember also, having many difficulties in my ninth grade English class. One is that I had trouble with comprehending the many different novels that we had to read in class. Also, I found out that it was hard for me to do some of the essay papers that had to done from the books that we would read in class. Next, I had trouble working on group projects too because it was harder for me to focus on the assignment.
Now, I will talk about some of the experiences that I had during my sophomore year of high school. First, I had some interesting teachers that really help and encouraged me with the assignments in the class. Also, I was given a lot of help from my parents with the homework assignments. Also that year I went from an all larger class setting to mostly small group classes. The elective courses were still much larger classes. I think that was a good decision because I started to do better on my reading comprehension. Also, I improved almost one hundred percent on my essay question and answer writing skills. I also, took a small group Geometry class and I was able to understand all the aspects of the course, because that year I had a personal tutor. This person would make sure that I would understand every part of that course. Finally, I took choir that year and really enjoyed the class. One, reason is there was a lot of neat kids in the class that really liked me would make sure that I really liked the class. Also, I really got to know the teacher well in so many ways that first year so I said no matter what I would take the class every semester until I graduated from high school.
Here, are some of the memories that I have from my Junior year of high school. One, I took choir again and learned more great amazing songs. That was also, the year that I really put my heart to that course. There was this competition called solo and ensemble. The song that I sang for this competition was Amazing Grace the original version. The reason I did so well was, because I had some amazing help from Tish and Kyle Peterson to prepare for that completion. Due to their tremendous help I was able to score a one which meant that I did amazing on that piece of music and all of the judges really gave me good notes; so that played a factor of me getting that score. Also, I was able to sing for the Church later that same year. Miss. Gypson offered to play that song so I could sing that meaningful song in front of the entire Church. I remember having a full year of core math which counted as two math credits, so I would only need one math credit my senior year of high school. The teachers were a real good help to me and made sure that I did all the work proper. I also, did a lot of group projects in that class. I remember having an amazing partner who was Josh Peltier. He was one year ahead of me. This meant he was perfect to help me when there would be partner assignments.
Finally, I will share many of the amazing features that took place during my senior year of high school. Also, I’ll highlight some key people who played important roles to make sure I graduated as a normal student even though I had many road blocks to achieve. First, I’ll explain my English class from senior year. The teacher’s name was Lara Jeffery’s. She always made sure that I had all of the papers I needed enlarged with plenty of advanced notices. Also, she made sure that I understood all the writing assignments and make sure that I completed them correctly. I also, needed one more math credit so I decided to take accounting class. I did pretty good in that class with many modifications. I took art with Mr. K and he was an older many from Guatemola. He was so nice and caring. He made sure that all of the assignments I would understand before the deadlines would approach. I will never forget Fran Black who was the vision specialist for Rio Rancho public schools. There are just so many wonderful amazing features about her that made me complete my education with a positive attitude. Also, I want to thank Tom Lambelet for helping me with my senior thesis paper. It was a paper that took the approach of writing about Sucessful Coaches so I thougt that Tom would be a good mentor for that paper because he knows a lot about the many different coaches present and past coaches.
Fun Cabin Memories
My Grandparents have been living and renovating this cabin up in the mountains just ouside of Cuba New Mexico. Which Chris and April my Aunt and Uncle on my mom’s side of the family bought after my family had looked at it just over six years ago and I remember the very words my Dad had said was that our family would never live in this tiny little A-Frame. So I was real shocked when it was purchased about a year and a half after my dad made that very comment about the so small place that it was. Our families combinded have been doing the mutch needed renovation plans since about five years ago. The place was barn red on the outside and just had press board for the interior walls. I have the pleasure to help my grandpa, uncle, and dad with many different projects. One is that we installed a few windows and doors. Also, my grandpa added on two bedrooms off the side and a storage room and remodeled the entire kitchen. We put in a lot of wood flooring down. Also, I helped him make door and window frams to accomidate the windows. Also, he put in knew cabinet and drawers in the kitchen. My aunt installed a new sink fossett in less than one hour. He also put in a second refrigerator that I got from guy from the Church. My grandpa also put some cedar siding to cover up that old sealing. They, had to put in a driveway to get their RV in the yard. My grandma decided that she wanted grass so during the spring of 2010 my grandpa and grandma spent so much time and effort to make two nice pieces of beautiful grass. Over the last three years ago he put up pine siding on the exterior of the cabin. Within the last two years my Dad decided to build a log cabin some land that we own that’s about ten minutes away from the other cabin. So, we spent the last two years working on burning all the weeds to make a nice area for a large shop to store about three hundred logs and a ton of lumber for when someday we plan to build a place for our family. My dad, brother, mom, grandfather, myself, and two of my sister have made many trips to the forest to assist with cutting down all of those trees. My dad baught a portable sawmill to cut various amounts of the logs into different size lumber and wall logs for that house. My grandfather and I spent the majority of last summer and this past fall skinning all the logs so the bugs wouldn’t ruin the woood. The bark we skinned off the logs we made into bark mulch to put around all the plants and trees at their cabin. Also, we brought an entire trailer load down to our house in Rio Rancho to make the front yard more festive. Also, to protect the trees and plants from the relly cold weather this past winter. This past summer I spent about an entire month helping in many ways around the cabin with my many talents and abilities that I have. It was fun to have my aunt & uncle with their two youngest children here for the 4th of July holiday and donate some much need time and effort towards the projects at the cabin. I helped prepare meals on numerous occasions. Also, I would put away the dishes from the dishwasher just about everyday. I helped my Aunt go to the store because she needed help finding her ways around town. My uncle and I had some real meaningful conversations. I also, remember that during the winter 2009-2010 there was about five feet of snow at the cabin. I remember that grandma didn’t care for it at all and it was hard for her to get around. Also, I remember having a fun thanksgiving and Christmas up there in 2009. Finally, the cabin is still there as of today and my Dad went up there in late January to make sure that everything was okay. Also, we decided to take some expensive tools from there back to our house. Then, we cleaned out the freezer and refrigerator. We brought back some food and the food that was no good we ended up throwing it away. We locked up the front door. Also, my dad put up entire chain of horse fencing panels to keep everyone out and keep all of the personal belongings secure.
Favorite Movies & TV Shows
My first show is Friend’s. Also, I love to watch the Today show. It’s a show that features many great news features from the past and also the current time of events. I’ve also been watching this amazing show on the TLC network called 19 Kid’s and Counting. This show is a family based show that really shows key values of good family qualities. This family is also a very political family. The family also has very strong views on their religion. I enjoy watching sports shows. My favorite sport is basketball. I love to watch all of the NBA games. My favorite teams are the Pheonix Sun’s, Boston Celtics, Miami Heat, LA Lakers, and many more. I also enjoy watching many college basketball games. Some of my favorite teams are the NM Lobo’s AZ State, and University of Oregon. Aslo, I enjoy watching baseball games. Some of my favorite baseball teams are Arizona D-Backs, St Louis Cardinals, Boston Redsocks, and LosAngeles Angels.
Fun Times with Relatives
These are some of the amazing times that shared with so many different relatives. First, I will talk about my cousins on my dad’s side of the family. Also, I remember playing outside in the rain on many occasions. I will never forget the many times my cousin Roel and I spent together. One is that we have gone to many great sporting events. I won’t forget the times we spent just hanging out in your bedroom listening to the many Isatope games. I always will remember the days of when we just sit in your room and watch many episodes of the Price is Right television show. Also, I can’t forget about Tierney whose always been so cute in her many ways. One, is how she’s just so funny. Also, I remember having many fun sleepover’s at her house. Also, I had so much fun going some of their trips.
Future Goals & Dreams
These are some of the many goals and dreams that I have. The first goal I want to accomplish is moving out of my parents house and becoming more independent. Next, I would love to see myself get married and have a family of my own someday in the future. Also, I would like to find a job that would lead to successful career. I would want to do a lot of volunteer activities. I am so proud of all the blessings that God has given me to live these last twenty years. Finally I would hope to live long and healthy.
These are some of the many people that I would like to thank. I would love to thank my parents for putting up with me for the last twenty years. Also, making all the sacrifices they made to make sure that I would live and not die. I would also have to thank both sets of Grandparents for all the time they spent with me even though I was a very immature kid. I need to thank all my Aunts and Uncles for making sure that I would fit in with all of their kids. I can’t forget all of my school teachers who made it possible for me to graduate in the spring of 2007. Finally, I need to thank all of the people from my church who have so supportive of everything they did for me these last few years.
That is heavy man. Thanks for taking the time to write it out. It is awesome to see where God has lead you.
ReplyDelete