Week in the Life

So what do you do all day? That’s a great question. And I ask myself the same thing sometimes. Where did the time go? How could I have been here for 6 months already? It’s already Friday!? It’s only Monday? Although each day is different, we have a pretty regular weekly schedule. So if you’re interested in how I spend my time each day, here’s a peek. 

7 AM          Spiritual Event 

• Mondays: Laudes (morning prayer) with missionaries
• Tuesdays: Laudes with the whole Finca
• Wednesday: Communion Service lead by Franciscan Sisters
• Thursday: Laudes with the whole Finca
• Friday: Communion Service lead by Franciscan Sisters

* Followed by breakfast of eggs, bananas, corn flakes, oatmeal, or leftovers.

Our new Saint Therese mural in the Santa Teresita chapel inside of our house. It was painted by Britney and three kids. 

8:30 AM     Tutoring begins. First I spend one hour with a 4-year-old Kindergartener. We play games, do puzzles, color, count, and read stories. It’s fun seeing her progress of counting to 10, learning colors, and recognizing letters. 

Practicing our fine motor skills by putting breads on pipe cleaners. 

Next I take her sister, a six-year-old First Grader. Because school is happening distantly, classroom teachers create weekly packets for students to complete. I spend my hour with the 1st grader completing the different exercises in her packet along with doing other activities like playing with play-doh, matching upper and lower case letters, practicing handwriting, and number identification. We always end the day by reading a picture book together.

Using this colorful paper egg activity to practice upper and lowercase letter recognition. 

My third and final student for the morning is a 10-year old in 4th grade. We also work on the different exercises in her packet focusing on the four subjects of math, Spanish, social studies, and science. This particular girl is also one of my special ed students, so we combine other activities into her class time which is usually around 2 hours daily. We practice reading and identifying high-frequency words and spelling words that have the same beginning sound. We practice counting by 2s and drawing out multiplication problems. She loves to listen to audio books, so every so often we finish the class by listening to a book on my computer. 

Practicing spelling words beginning with "m"

1 PM          Lunch! Missionaries take turns making all of our meals. We share lunch together as a missionary community every day. For Lent our community decided to fast by eating rice and beans for one meal a day which usually ends up being lunch. Other typical lunch meals include corn or flour tortillas, salsa, plantains, and other fruits or veggies. This is great quality-time as a missionary community sitting around sharing a meal together and talking about our mornings. 

2 PM          My afternoons vary depending on the day. 

• Mondays I take a 5th grade for special education to give him extra help with his reading and spelling. 
• Tuesdays I work with a 4th grader on his math foundation skills. Immediately following I sort the vegetables for each house along with my PAVI helper which currently is a 14-year-old boy who loves doing heavy lifting and being useful.  
• Wednesdays I go to the neighboring town of Mohaguay with three other missionaries. We meet at the church along with women from the community for our weekly women’s group. At our gatherings we usually read the daily gospel, reflect upon it, and just share life with each other. 
• Thursdays I take my 5th grader again to work on his Spanish literary skills and we do an hour-long tutoring session. 
• Fridays are free! I take a breather from the long week and start rolling into the weekend. 

Practicing creating and spelling rhymes. 

5 PM          Along with our morning spiritual events we also have an evening spiritual event where the whole Finca community gathers together. 

• Mondays we don’t have a spiritual event but missionaries play soccer with the older kids or go to the park with the younger kiddos.
• Tuesdays we pray the Sorrowful mysteries of the Rosary. During Lent we have been meditating upon the 7 Sorrow of Mary and praying the 7 Sorrows Rosary.
• Wednesday the kids have Tema. Kind of like CCD classes. I lead a group of three 10-year-olds along with one of the religious sisters that live at the Finca. 
• Thursdays we have a community-wide holy hour in front of the Blessed Sacrament. 

6:45 PM     Supper Time! (otherwise referred to as dinner by all the other missionaries) We come back together as a missionary community at night to enjoy another meal together. Again we take turns making the meal and either one person or a team are in charge of making the meal. We receive meat three times a week so on Tuesday and Sunday we enjoy chicken and on Fridays not during Lent we have some type of beef. We also recently purchased a huge fishing net and the head of security has been helping teach the kids how to fish using it. So sometimes our protein for the week comes in the form of fish and most recently it’s been very fresh, coming out of the ocean just hours before I eat it. The fish is usually pan-fried whole minus the head so you have to remove all of the bones. It’s not as good as the 4th of July fish fry, but still very tasty. 

7:30 PM     Each evening has it’s special event either during supper or afterwards.

• Monday nights are community nights. We spend an hour together playing a card game or board game, having a bonfire, or doing a craft. 
• Every other Tuesdays we have a community meeting. It begins by sharing important information and having discussions and is followed by puntos de luz (points of light) which are compliments or words of affirmation given to missionaries. Lastly we share funny moments that have happened in the last two weeks and take a vote on which was the funniest. 
• Wednesdays we share our meal with the director, Maria. This meal is sure to be full of laughter and Spanish.
• Thursdays nights are Tia Video nights where missionaries give the Tias a night off and we watch the kids from 6:30-9:30ish. We rotate covering the different houses and the nights are always full of energy; you never know what lies in store! The oldest girls usually like having a chill night of crafts, coloring, and friendship bracelets. The oldest boys love chess. I’ve spent hours making tortillas with the younger boys ending with a mega-tortilla that could feed three people. With the youngest girls and the 2-year-old it’s about wrestling everybody into pajamas with brushed teeth and lights out (don’t forget the bedtime story!) shortly after supper. Thursday nights can be long, but they’re also great opportunities to spend quality time with the kids and create fun memories. 
• Friday nights missionaries watch a movie. We are currently on a Sherlock Holmes kick which gets my heart pumping right before I hit the hay. On Saturdays we do community cooking where everybody works together to make a meal. Outdoor oven-baked pizza is a common choice and a fan favorite are nachos made from fried plantains, with beans, meat saved from the day before, shredded cheese, and diced veggies. On Sundays missionaries have a holy hour spent in adoration following the supper. 

8:20 PM          Monday through Thursday we pray a short prayer together. Sometimes it’s Compline (Night Prayer) other times it’s a chaplet of Divine Mercy or a decade of the rosary. It’s just a small way to end our day together in prayer.

ASAP          Sleep! By this time this girl is tired. I consistently go to bed around 8:30 which may seem ridiculously early but after a long day in the heat my body is begging to lay down for a solid 9 hours. I slip under my sheets and listen to the waves as I quickly fall fast asleep. Then I wake up the next day ready to do it all over again!

We have a busy, full life here, but I’m enjoying it. Each day brings its own joys and struggles and you take ‘em one at a time. Even though the day is filled with structured times for different events, so often the highlights of the day are the in-between things. Hanging out in a hammock listening to a podcast, eating half-gallon ice cream with missionaries during a math meeting, or playing a game of chess spontaneously with a teenager. My days are full and I wouldn’t want it any other way.