Maui wowie!

i am loving every minute of this place! it is 10:30 hawaii time at the moment and my first day here has been an absolute blast! yesterday i had quite the adventure with flying all by myself. I will admit i shed a few tears but it was all good, just a new experiance. .. side note, every seen the Lizzie Mcguire Movie? well there is this one scene where Lzzie is saying goodbye to her parents and is just about to go in line to go on her plane to Italy, and then turns back and gives her mom a hug. a very emotional hug, yeah well that was me with my fam and friends:) hahah who knew i would cry! (shocker) By the way, thanks to everyone that came out to say goodbye:) that was really special!
   Flying was actually a lot of fun! it was really cool, but i ended up being on the same plane as Matt Metan! we chatted it up, had some cool walks outside and yeah it was good to do the whole visas thing together. speaking of the visas, man the room where they take you in the customs in Vancouver, man do they ever make it look like a serious/stern place in there. they got the sound proof walls, crying babies, hard chairs to sit in and loonnnnnnnnngggggg waits. plus all the lights are dimmed and everyone looks like they want to cry. me and matt being positive petunias made the best of it and talked and laughed at the atmosphere going on. when i released from the detention center, i had a descion to make. either i go make the phone call my mom wanted me to maker as soon as i landed (which by the way was already an hour and a half overdue) or wait for matt and risk splitting up. i didnt have a phone or any way to get contact! it was right out a movie -haha not really. but it ended up working out. the pay phone was really far away so i literally sprinted away to it so i wouldnt miss him. i did tell the security lady what he looked like but i couldnt trust here and her yellow jacket. matt was another 30 minutes after me which of course ya know made me nervous, i was like hey did you know if he left?" but no one knew so it was kinda frustrating. finally he walks out, sweat is dripping form my face wondering what had they done to this poor lad. but he was totally cool, a lil frantic becawsue his plane was about to take off in ten minutes. sowe said our goodbyes and parted ways! i think he will have a killer time in cali! it was cool to get to know him a bit! ps, in case you ever have to apply for a visa, you don't get anything physical-like document wise hahah i came out after my like hour of me being there after they shut the security door on me i was like wait, wasnt i supposed to get something? well i don't know where it went but it must be on your records or something who knows.
    anyways that seemed like a really long story.. sorry if i took too long to explain something so simple, but if you know me, i LOVE detail!!  the only thing that could have been better was my 4 1/2 hour layover in vancouver, i ddint know a ton of what i could do, but i do love the duty free. my dad taught me to never trust a store they are only trying to make you buy something, like when you go in a store he thinks if they showed people something like poodle skin or something, that becasue it's in fashion that people would buy it! but i think when there is no taxes, well thats another story so i bought myself some lipgloss:) really though with a dead ipod, no cell or laptop who find yourself with a lot more time to pray:)
    when i got on my flight to Maui, it was hilarious. Literally, a hawaiian version of sam germain. SO RANDOM! like actually he was really funny, like glasses and sweepy hair and such man you had to see it. the way he talked too! hahah man oh man, i was upset i didn't pull out my camera but i should've. he was on his honeymoon and he was 46, (sam things are looking good for you if your like him- he had no gray hairs!)
    I had lots of time to myself on the plane, other than talking to my new pal, i had time to doodle. i'm an artist, it what i do. jk but i really enjoyed the wordsearch! of course when you have so much time to yourself, you think about what you forgot and hahah i forgot quite a few things like my sunglasses and a watch. but it's been all good so far. i did however with the help of my flight attendant kathryn i got some scrap peices of paper from the airplane and i wrote my thoughts and prayers and excitment. including a pic of what i thought the house would look like! so i had envisoned this three story white house on a secluded hill with the birds flying over my head and a "notebook porch around it. the hill was kinda like a hills are alive kinda hill.. plus there were volcanos in the back and an ocean in the distance with the boys house on another secluded hill kinda like a castle. it was fun using my various color options in my new case i bought:) loved it!
     Finally i had arrived. walking alone, i headed for the baggage claim to see what my life had in store for me! i couldnt help but smile, i mean wow this was a pretty big adult thing to do! it was cool walking toward the light... anywho so i am walking and i am approached by two wondereful people named jen and juice:) they were young and two of the leaders that i would meet! they were so kind and welcoming! two girls were on my same plane that i hadnt realied until that moment. people had been arriving since tuesday so we were some of the last to come in. jen and juice (justin) were both young and hip! looking like they lived in maui and such! we grabbed all of our luggage and hopped into some sweet 15 passenger vans, we were pretty hungry so went headed up for a mcds run:) -yep it's big here too! it hit me, man i'm actually living in maui!!!!
     By the time we made it to the base it was pretty late, so we were all pretty tired but there were a few other students that stayed up for us! the night not gunna lie, was pretty challenging. i used my handy dandy headlamp to find my bunk and hopped into bed. but couldnt sleep to well, maybe i was just excited to meet all these people in the morning or what i wasn't too sure! there were a few times were i swear  swatted away some huge bugs the size of my big toe off my face, but it was all good, didnt make a scene. my room is the smallest compared to the others,one has 18 girls and the othere has like 6-8 i think? so i actually got lots of storage room but we are all gunna party in the party room so no one will feel left out.
     this morning was so awesome, pretty much as soon as i woke up some girls asked if i wanted to go to the baby beach. -it's this beach that you can wear two pieces to because the boys arent allowed to go there. so of course i said fo sho! got all dressed and went out the door.
    so they do a little something different here in Maui, they hitchhike everywhere! at first when i was reading the package it sounded like it was optional or at leas something you do not that often. but unless you can either get a ride from the staff, that is a pretty fun and safe option. mom and dad, don't worry it is ACTUALLY safe! haha and we can't go unless there are three girls or at least one guy. we tried it out split up in groups of three or four and the 18 girls that went manged to somehow all find a way there, it was so awesome! lots of canadians representin' and states, there are also new friends i have made with finland people, scotts, phillpines, chinese (theyso cute) and australians! man do i love accents! te beach was so nice t be able to relax and get to know all these girls! surprisingly to myself i have an astonishing memory when it comes to memorizing names here. i am sure i have met 50 people today and have retained at least 70 % it was really warm today too- def won't get unused to that!
       It was a pretty chill day untill the evening with gettting to know everyone by the pool and living room, it's such a cooll house!/ area! i'll tell you more later about the house. so we had to get ready by 4:30 tonight for supper which was a real nice chicken, mashed potatoes and veggies and fruit. did i mention we have fresh orange, lemon and lime trees here in the yard? yeah just sayin ;) it was really cute when some people had never seen cantolope or mashed potatoes or even gravy! i mean i'm not a really big gravy fan but i mean this meal was so common in my culture that it was really interesting to see how others reacted! i'm gonna guess that we are going to have lots of mulitcultural food while i'm here. we also all dressed up for supper which was really cool and fun , haha one funny moment before supper this guy is name is daniel and he is from Norway but he's chinese and he has a norweigan accent :) haha it's prrety cute, we girls call him chuckles. out of the 8 boys that are here he is def the most social one. so i was showing him where i lived on the big map int he open space and i was like hey what are you ging to wear tonight!? are you excited to dress up? is response- uhmm i knida already dressed up.. and he walked away.. haha we are cool though it was funny .. you had to be there i guess lol
   then they took us to a secret location after and surprised with a party! they opened up the doors and screamed at us haha suzy my scottish friend almost had a heart attack. there we all got introduced to everyone on base and to the leaders and to the people doing sempf.  then they called us all up one by one to recieve a lay. it was so special:) i felt special! we all felt special. there was such good dessert! they had those homemade oreos that danos mom make back at home, these ones were so moist. if dano hasn't given you those try, you are truly truly missing out! then we had the most incredible  worship session ever. I believe God is going to sdo some amaing things in my life that i can't wait to see happen! We found out after the celebration that we are going on a hiking trip tomorrow! we don't know how long, but there was a very limited supply list of things that we could bring so i am looking forward to it!
       please pray for me and my team as we go off into this adventure tomorrow morning at 6! ps we are behind Saskatoon time by 4 hours.so i have to got get some sleep but wow bloggin is actually so much fun! haha more will come when i return i apologize if this is incredibly long! i feel soo soo thankful though, god has blessed me with this incredible experiance with such amazing people! i can't wait for the adventure to continue! like wow.. i'm living in MAUI!!! it's unreal! alright well love all ya'll! hoep that gives you a good update! praise god!