Reflection Paper

My son was two and I was twenty-seven when I hit a spiritual brick wall. My husband and I were at a party together. I remember looking around and thinking why do I have my son here? I do not want him to grow up to be like these people. I heard God in my spirit say, “you are one of these people.” I really did not know what to do with that thought and it kept invading my mind.

Later that year i got baptized! As time went on i kept going to church but then i started to meet new people in high school and lost track of who i was and what i wanted to be. It was a really rough couple months for me i was really lost. One day i was walking down the street and my neighbor had asked me why i haven't been at church and thats when i realized i needed to go back even though i was afraid . I went back that weekend and felt the happiness that i had been missing. At this time is was around early June and church camp was on the 26th. I knew that camp was full and there would be no way i could go so i began to get sad. I had told my mom why i was upset and she insisted on me just emailing them to ask if there were any spots left, so i did. The very next day my mom got an email say there was one i repeat just one spot left because someone had dropped out. If that wasn't a sign of god i don't know what is. So that year i attend camp and i finally understood what it meant to trust Jesus all the way not just part

I came to Christ at the young age of four. My parents were Christians and were actively involved in the church. Most of my only memories from when I was between the ages of three and ten were going to church, VBS, and house church. I loved going to those events and having fun and learning about Jesus. The things I learned at church and from others had a major impact on my entire childhood and built me into the person I am now. I was as die hard of a Christian as a child could be. I knew Jesus, I loved Him, and all I can remember was wanting to learn more about Him.

It was somewhere near the end of sophomore year and we started to go to church regularly. It was really easy to see how the Holy Spirit was working through me and the people at Christ Lutheran La Mesa. It honestly

My parents decided to visit the church that we were a part of when I was a baby.  The worship was a bit old fashioned, but it was good.  The Wednesday of that week I told my mom that I wanted to go to the churches youth group that met that night.  She let me attend and the pastor's wife introduced me to the youth pastor and his wife, along with some of the youths or students as they call them there.  They welcomed me with open arms and warm hearts.  In that youth group, I not only met my best friends but gave my life to the Lord and got my life back on track.

One Sunday afternoon I was following my cousin behind our local school to watch him fight and I knew it was close to time for church. I almost made it to the fight and mom began to call my name and for a split second I thought about ignoring her this one time; however, the consequences that would follow brought me back to my senses. I missed the big fight but my cousin won!

For my service learning project I worked in Mrs. Evelyn Costa's first grade class at Meadowlane Elementary. Meadowlane is located at 4280 W 8th Avenue in Hialeah, Florida and was constructed in 1957. There are one thousand one hundred and seventy seven students enrolled at Meadowlane Elementary school. Meadowlane has fifty three classrooms and fourteen portables and there are one hundred and seventy nine students per grade level. The school was built on nine acres of land. The student population of meadowlane Elementary is comprised of 97% Hispanic, 2% White, and 1% Asian.

“Writing an essay is not difficult! I am actually great at it.” This is a common statement that I would formally say, and even believe. In the past, I had never felt the need to thoroughly revise my essays before. In all my past essays, I would work intensely on my first draft and then just turn the essay in. I never spent too much time re-evaluating my writing decisions before turning it in. This process had worked well for myself in the past, and as a result, each essay I turned it would be an easy “A”. When I signed up for EN100 I figured that it would be just like the other easy English class that I have taken. I assumed that I would work on an essay, turn it in, and then earn an A on it, but this was not the case. When I signed up for EN100 I figured that I could continue my previous essay writing methods, but that was quickly disproven. When I received my first graded essay, I was unsure why I earned anything but an “A” on it. It soon became clear to me that I was going to be required to change the way I formerly wrote my essays and spend more time with correcting them.

One of the individuals that largely impacted my faith was one of my second and third grade classmates named, Erica Sears. Erica and I were best friends and we talked about everything with each other, one of those topics always being God. Erica was already saved and had dedicate her life to Christ and her hope was that I would one day do the same. I would always respond to her urgings by saying that I will do it one day, but internally I was uncomfortable making that big step of walking to the front of the church, despite having attended that church all of my life and being an active participate within the church. I would leave school every Friday promising that this would be the Sunday and return to school every Monday having to face my best friend, telling her I chickened out. However, she never judged me, she would continuously encourage me and pray for me. Then one Sunday, I raised my had and church and walked to the front of the church to give my life to Christ. I remember it being one of the scariest, yet exciting moments of my life walking down the aisle to the alter. I finally did it! At the age of 8 I officially dedicated my life to Christ and I was

Ever since I started going to school, my parents always expected me to perform at an elevated level. Being the only child, it was difficult for me to fulfill their wishes. As I grew up, it became more challenging as I felt like I was always being compared to my cousins for not performing as well as them.

It was on a cold day in January, 2015 when I thought my whole world was going to be flipped upside down. We were living at my grandmother’s house at the time, and in the back of my mind I knew that we were going to move into our own house because that was the plan ever since we sold our old house. With this in mind, I still remember how I felt when my parents came home one night and said, “Our offer on a house was accepted and that we were moving at the end of summer.” I visited this house with them before, but we visited many houses over the past couple years so it sort of came as shock that everything was official. Living at my grandmother’s house was not ideal and it was no walk in the park so I was happy that I was going to have a place my family could call our own again. Although I was excited, I was also nervous and scared because the house is located 45 minutes away from where we currently live. That meant I was going to leave my friends and family and basically everything I’ve ever known.

First I would like to mention that I enjoyed reading this Chapter as it hit home for me because the teachers from Loyola Marymount University believe in building family and community strengths and I fit that mold. Even though demonstrating passion and empathy is mostly frowned upon by many in our institutions due to concentrating on teaching to the test. If you provide your students with a safe learning environment, my experiences have shown that they are more apt to flourish. As a result, I provide this type of atmosphere in my classroom. For example, one of the teachers interviewed, Leticia Ornelas, had “Lotion Day” Nieto (2013). I have shared my lotion with students as well. Some of them fall under the English as a Second Language (ESL) programs. And like she mentions, it provides them with a safe, caring, and passionate learning environment because you build that rapport. Building teacher to student relationships is essential to student outcomes.

“Through salvation our past has been forgiven, our present is given meaning, and our future is secured” -Rick Warren. Sunday, November 30, 2014 around 12:40 was a very special day for me. Life-changing you could say. This was a breaking of a new day to me. A fresh start and a very new beginning. This is a day that I never will forget. The day when my heart was spiritually opened and an opened invitation was held out to a certain someone. The day I was baptized in Jesus name. Baptism is a sacred event for Christians. It is considered an ordinance of Jesus Christ. It is a concept of being submerged under water to be considered ‘’saved’’. Being saved in other words is saved means that you are accepting Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. He is now the center of your life. It means giving up yourself and doing the work of Christ. It means turning from anything that is against the will of the highest. The day I gave my life to Christ was very special to me because I learned a lot that day. I learned who I was, who I was in Christ, and what life after this meant for me.

When I decided to register for this class I chose it because out of my options the only one that seemed interesting was women’s studies. I did not think it would have an impact on me or my way of thinking. Looking back, I have learned so much that I will take with me in life and not just use in the classroom. Through the semester, we have talked about many aspects in this course that have made me relate and connect to past experiences in my life. This class has helped me to make changes in my thought process and I am glad that I have had the chance to learn everything that I have. It has been very beneficial to learn about the social constructs that I always saw in my life. I have connected many aspects of this class to my life in various ways and situations.

There I was, standing in the grounds of my school, bound by judgemental onlooking eyes, which studied me for a sign of vulnerability; begging for me to collapse into my self-fabricated darkness. Like a cowardly criminal, I slumped, trembling uncontrollably in the middle of the secluded balcony, where I implored myself to “stop” as I yet again had a crippling anxiety attack which incarcerated my whole body, though this time because my counsellor had called my parents regarding my suicidal ideation. It was punishing enough to wake up in the mornings, though faced with the constant internalization of emotions tore strips off my self-esteem. Tears filled my eyes like an overflowing river and cascaded down my face, though freezing in the silence. Proceeding to tell myself repetitively to “stop it”, as I refused to accept that mental illness was the corruptive reality of my life, I cowered as the flashbacks uncontrollably replayed in my mind. I recollected the words that any mother would dread to divulge to their child; that “sometimes I think that it would be better that you were gone, because then, you wouldn’t have to feel this pain”, contradicting this by expressing to me that “I know it’s selfish, but you can’t leave me”.