Those of you who are friends with me on facebook will already know some of this, but i feel like this is a good way to aware everybody and open it up for discussion and questions.

I've been fairly distant from this forum since before my wedding. I realized my life was far out of balance and things were just not going quite right. It was fairly devastating for my relationship and i just started to become a person i didn't like. in the words of layne, aesthetic, but still an asshole.

I'm not going to say i'm cured of all that now, but I AM working on a healthy balance and i feel much more appreciate of life.

Fast forward to about a week and a half ago and i left for a mission trip to the dominican republic. This trip had more of an effect on my life than ANYTHING else previous to this.

I went down there to try to help others, but really, they helped me grow more than i could imagine.

We finished building a school, finished a church, and started another church while we were there.

When we went out into the villages, we played with all of the children, gave them clean water, taught them about hygiene and being healthy, gave them medical care, and i gave them my clothes before i left.


Being around these children changed my entire out look on life. they had NOTHING....NOTHING... at one point three girls were describing to me how they had jobs and were working but were still very hungry because their family did not have enough money for food, they were between the ages of 8-14.

Despite what i saw as very bad circumstances, they were happier than me! wtf?

At one point, the oldest girl who was 14 wanted me to take her back to the states so she could get an education and escape the life she was doomed to. I think she also wanted to "be" with me, but i think that might have gotten mixed up in translation as my spanish is pretty shoddy and they don't know any english.

Most of the kids did not have properly fitting shoes, which they REALLY needed because the streets were covered in broken glasses and the roads were building on very rocky terrain. Many kids didn't have clothes that fit, and some boys didn't wear clothes at all. Many of the children would get minor cuts that would get majorly infected.

I could go on and bore you guys, but I would rather just answer questions you actually care about.

So if you want, go ahead and ask me anything.

I'm still in quite a shock coming back to the states and am a bit depressed and sick about it. I want to still be down there with them to help. It feels really shitty living a life of luxury...


Ask away, and i may add my own updates and pictures if you guys care about those.

And yet people are still crying about their life conditions here in Canada or the US.

Glad that you helped them.

Surely if they have nothing, resources would be better spent on food, shelter and education, than on 2 churches

A church for them is MUCH more than a place to meet just one day of the week. it's a place for the children to go for structure and guidance, it's a great place for the wealthier to meet up to help out those less fortunate, and it serves many other functions.

Interdasting, new perspective is always a good thing glad to see you used those experiences to grow.

so did u not get married? what happened

No need to guilt trip. Luck of the draw. By sheer accident of birth, some people start off better, some people start off worse.

Experiences like that help put life in the first world in perspective. Glad you got to have such an experience. Builds character, imo.

I definitely grew. I recommend it to everyone.



Yes, erica and i got married, wedding was wonderful.



I cant help it at all though.

Thats the shitty thing, because i was born here and not there i have all of this entitlement. Its not just me either, erica is still feeling really funky too.

It was definitely a life changing experience though.

ur mormon?

it's called culture shock. The older you are when you get exposed to extreme poverty for the first time it affects you differently than if you see it earlier in life.

I saw extreme poverty for the first time when I was like 10. I'd be lying if it didn't help shape some of my character. Time, as it were, diminishes the effects of that though. For some, the more you see it, the more indifferent you become to it after you realize that is just the world we live in. The poverty isn't really the shocker as much as some people who live in it, are just do genuinely happy people overflowing with joy

It's always been a nice refreshing escape to realize how happy some of the poorest people on earth are. It keeps things in perspective. They don't get bogged down with menial bullshit that doesn't even matter. And they have thick skin to not despair when things are actually really bad. Their culture doesn't cultivate the same extreme selfishness that ours does. And for most, that selfishness is actually the root of their unhappiness and they don't even know it. And never figure it out.



What you don't realize is for a lot of these very poor people, they would rather have that church and community of people than they would the extra food because it means more to them than life itself. It's the core of their happiness. Well God is, but that church community is the closest thing they feel they'll get to heaven, this side of it.