Day 13: The Goodbye's Begin

Sunday Sunday Sunday!

Have we every talked about how much I LOVE Sunday? If not, call me. We should.

Last night before I left the shelter I asked Charlotte the new shelter manager if I could take the morning off and go to church. She gave me a resounding yes! So I talked with some people at the staff shelter and arranged to take a car the church the next morning! Hurray! This morning I was able to sleep for an hour after everyone left, I took a long hot shower, and then got ready to leave. I found the closest meeting house and headed out. It was about a 25 minutes drive there and I ended up being a couple minutes late because I had to figure out how to get there.

The church was really cool! It is pretty old school, but very beautiful! I loved being able to attend sacrament meeting and to feel the spirit and sing Christmas Hymns! I love Christmas hymns and this was the first church meeting I have attended this year where they were sung. Of course I didn't sing them very well because of my cold, but I still sang much to the dismay of the guy sitting next to me who gave me his hymn book.

The ward is really small and probably had less than 50 people in the meeting today. Everyone was so nice and I met a lot of them after sacrament meeting. There was one lady who played the organ today and I was really impressed that she could play. I made sure to complament her on her skills and we ended up talking for a few minutes which was nice. I met two of the missionaries that were there, Elders, and one of them is from Spanish Fork. I don't remember his name though. After talking with them I decided to ask if they would give me a blessing since I haven't been feeling well. They agreed and we found an empty room and invited another guy to come in with us. Just as they started to give me a blessing it became very clear why the room was empty in the first place. It was right next to the nursery room and when the banging started it didn't stop. . ha ha The blessing went really well though and I definitely appreciated it. After I left church I started to feel a lot better and I could even breathe through my nose by the end of the day!

After sacrament meeting I went back to the staff shelter to eat lunch and then someone gave me a ride to the Nassau shelter. When I arrived I met up with Alisa and we talked about the church service that was at the shelter that morning. I had attended the one that was held last week where they had about 5 ministers come in and they all taught together. It was kind of weird, but I am glad that so many residents were able to attend the meeting that morning.

Most of the afternoon was spent at the registration/information desk and running errands here and there. I saw Christopher a couple of time and he always came up and gave me a huge hug. He forgot my name once, but after I told him he remembered for the rest of the day and would yell it whenever he saw me. His Mom, sisters, and another lady here at the shelter kept referring to me as his girlfriend. We went and ate dinner together again and his Grandma called it "a date with your girlfriend". It was funny and none of it phased him one bit. I found out during dinner that Christopher and his family were actually leaving today. FEMA had reserved a hotel for them, so they were heading out to live there while they waited for further funding on their house. Christopher kept saying that he didn't want to leave because he liked it at the shelter and that he wanted to live there with me. I told him that he needed to go because it would be better there and I was leaving on Wednesday anyway. Just before they left Christopher turned to his Mom and asked if he could come back and visit me tomorrow. She said "maybe". Poor kid, I'm really going to miss him. I did give him my name and phone number on the back of a Mormon.org card and then gave the same information to his sister as well so that we could hopefully keep in touch. He was excited to get it.

The other goodbye occurred when JoAnne left. She had finally gotten things figured out to have a taxi pick up Rocco at the rehab center and then to come to the shelter to pick her up. She waited in the front lobby for a while but the cab never came. Dawn helped her make some calls and then she waited a little bit longer before the cab driver finally called to say that Rocco was picked up and they were on their way. She immediately rushed out to the front lobby and kept asking if we could see the taxi. It was so cute. After about 5 minutes we saw the cab and I pushed her out in her wheel chair. I also gave her my name, phone number, and email address on the back of another Mormon.org card. We got out to the taxi and her luggage was loaded in. While we were in the lobby Dawn and I tried to help her stand up so we could put on her jacket all the way. She kept saying that she couldn't do it, she couldn't stand, let alone walk. When I finally got her out to the taxi and the door was opened up, she hopped up and got in faster than I have ever seen her move! Dawn and I started cracking up because it really showed how excited she was to get out of there and go home with her man. We all gave her a hug, and waived as the Taxi drove away. It was awesome to see her go, but I will definitely miss her. She was such a sweetheart and was always so nice to me.

During dinner, I was sitting with Christopher, Anita, and Samantha (another girl in the shelter) were sitting at a table eating dinner. There is a little boy who is about 2 years old named Seth. He is nice, but he sure knows how to push buttons and work the system to get what he wants. I'm not exactly sure what happened but he was being a jerk to another kid and so Christopher's Grandma (who is really good friends with Seth's Mom) came and picked up Seth who immediately went limp, through himself on the floor and began to cry. I guess that another lady though that she had thrown him so she started yelling and chewing out the Grandma. It all escalated really fast. I turned around to see what was going on and realized that nobody else was doing anything, they just sat and stared. So I got up and got in between them and started to separate them. The Grandma, who was fairly clam, walked away pretty easily but the other lady really wanted to get her point across and kept yelling. Thankfully between myself and the other security officers that showed up we were able to diffuse the situation quickly. The lady who was yelling was unfortunately asked to leave because she made an open threat. She left out the doors really quickly and didn't even take her stuff, so we are expecting her to come back to pick it up. 

After dinner things were pretty busy. I ran around doing different jobs like getting a special needs cot, coffee, and water bottles. I also was a messenger from registration to the command center and the dorm table in communicating information about who was doing what and where. I was able to leave on time tonight, so I didn't get left at the shelter. I called the travel phone number and scheduled my flight home. I am leaving Wednesday morning and should arrive in SLC at about 4:17pm.

When I headed back to the shelter I texted the Americorps girls who are now referred to as the "A Team" and heard about what they are up to. They are supposed to be cleaning cots but I don't think they have cleaned even once since they have been there. I guess there have been a lot of miscommunications between the management there and Head Quarters. All of the girls are itching  to do any work and have been pushing to be able to come back to Chaminade (the staff shelter) before they fly out on Wednesday. Unfortunately I will be leaving a couple of hours before they do, even though my flight is going out of JFK and is routed through Phoenix.

Alisa really wanted to go out and doing something and she invited me to go with her and Anita to a Hookah Bar. A Hookah is an activity that came from India. It is a weird contraption that allows you to smoke Tobacco that has been filtered/diluted through water. I passed since that is like, you know, against the word of wisdom, but I did offer to drive them there. We headed out and it only took about 10 minutes to get there. Then I headed back and spent about 1/2 an hour talking to my Mom and another hour working on catching up on blog posts. Then I received a call from Anita asking me to come pick her up. I headed out and was able to find the place again without using the GPS on my phone. When I arrived Anita came out fairly quickly and sat in the front seat of the car. I asked her what happened to Alisa and she said that she was coming. Anita seemed kind of upset or out of it, so I probed her with questions about how it all went and what she thought. She eventually said that she felt kind of light headed from all the smoke and a little nauseous. She then opened up the door and....

 Please stop reading if you have a sensitive stomach.

Threw up in the gutter. Then she closed the door, sat back in the car and said "I feel much better now". At that moment Alisa came out and opened the door for the back seat and began getting in when Anita opened the door again and threw up again. It was pretty gross.After she finished the second time I pulled some tissues out of my pocket. I was really glad that I grabbed extras before I left the chapter. We waited in the car for a few minutes and then took off slowly and with the front two windows rolled down a couple inches. We thankfully made it back to the staff shelter without any further incidents.

I went to bed super late because I waited up to pick up Anita and Alisa, but I was able to get to bed pretty quickly once we got back. It was overall a really good day and I am so grateful for the experiences that I am having and the wonderful people that I have been able to meet. I am super blessed!