From Guam to Vietnam

WOW. I can’t believe the week is coming to an end. We’ll be in Vietnam tomorrow, and then Monday is our first day we receive patients!!

            So I got to go the bridge yesterday!  One of the guys let me “steer the ship” which meant I pretty much got to touch the wheel as it stayed straight. But it was cool.

            Last night was the coolest night I’ve had on the ship.  We went out to watch the sunset and then stayed out till it got dark. As we headed from the starboard side (right) we walked to the stern (the back) and BAM the full moon was shining brightly, lighting up the sky and the ship. The stars were still bright and we just laid on our backs and talked.

            So this is fun- we changed our course to avoid a storm so instead of passing OVER the phillipines, we are going THROUGH it! Today is the first time I got to see the islands of the Phillipines. We passed a volcano too! It feels unreal that I’m actually sailing on a ship through the Phillipines.  Oh, we’re also in the same time zone as INDIA.  That’s fun.  Oh by the way, its starting to get pretty hot and sticky.  Ourside its pretty humid. Bring it, I can take it.

            Well, yesterday I found my bed gone when I returned to berthing once again. I guess I didn’t make it up to NAVY standards-again. So I had to walk across the ship, go down 3 flights and find my bedding and sheets, and random junk all in a garbage bag.  Man, I thought I was clean until being here.

            I’m also making friends with the aussies.  They’re pretty cool. They came on to help with construction in Vietnam. We even got to be filmed for a second with them to show people back home what they’re doing. So I’m going to be in a movie shown to Australian army people.  Awesome. I got a picture with them too, the Canadians, and people from the airforce, army and navy.  What a group.  I love how diverse the crew is here. We have people from all over, uniting on this happy ship.

I gotta go. I'm gonna go have a VIP tour of the engine room.  i'll update this as soon as the internet lets me!

GUAM! then to Nam

Ok, Guam was about 5 hundred times cooler than my wildest dreams.  When you think guam, just think one notch poorer than Hawaii and about 2 notches more beautiful. Guam is incredible.  I wish I had more time to talk about everything we did but I gotta be fast and keep it quick.


SO i'll just talk about the highlights even though thurs-Sun was a blur of amazingness.  On saturday we- Me, Georgia, Amy, Lizzie, and Kent rented a car and took off for a beach we had planned. But along the way we passed gorgeous beach after gorgeous beach and then saw something so cool we all yelled "PULL OVER" and in one instant we were all in agreement and running out of the car in our bathing suits.  We came across this little salt water pool where it was surrounded by OLD stones that had been laid who knows how long ago. the ocean waves constantly poured into it and there were fish swimming around and a reef nearby to explore. But what caught our attention was that A: it was super secluded and hardly anyone was there and B: only locals were swimming there and they were jumping off a 10 foot platform into the "pool".  We had to do it too. so we did. And I need to move on but let it be known that that was one of the coolest places to ever find on mistake.


Then we found another secluded lesser known beach with electric blue water and varying colors of teal. Only locals were there again so we knew we found a good place. Brad, A member of the LDS charities group met up with us, found a coconut,  busted it open after working with it and then we all sipped coconut milk and ate the meat. Pretty good. I still have some stuck in my teeth. Just kidding i got it out.  


We also found one of the most incredible places i've ever been. Its called "Spanish Steps". Its a cove that you have to hike down to.  To get there you use ropes because the rocks are so steep. It leads you into a palm tree, fern, butterfly, hermit crab, leafy, humid jungle and you walk for about 15 mins and BOOM it opens up into a cove where the water comes right up to the jungle and you go in and snorkel. We found a bright blue starfish! i can't even describe the feeling of awe you get when you first get site of the stunning cliffs and the eroded rocks that contrast with the crystal clear and teal water. And to share it with fun people just upped the fun.  Brad busted open another coconut for the occasion and we ate it. oh, we went in the water in our clothes because you couldn't just look at that sight and then go  "cool" and walk away. NO. it must be experienced by all senses. I had to go in.  anyway, Guam is pretty under-rated. Loved little guam.


Oh by the way, We went to church today with this awesome little welcoming branch.  I sat down in a pew and saw a woman who looked so familiar. Then she saw me and we realized we know eachother. It was shelly, my old YW leader when i was 12 and she babysat me when I was 1. I didn't even know she was IN guam. what the heck!? what a coincidence! 


Oh there's so much more to say but i'll keep it at that. we have about 800 people on the ship now and we're on our way to Vietnam tomorrow.  We picked up some aussies so i'm pretty excited to go talk to them...


thats it for now!

Steel beach! and its my Birthday...life is great

Ok, I'm not on my computer so I can't upload pictures yet, but they are on the way! SO MUCH HAS HAPPENED AND I HAVEN'T BEEN ABLE TO BLOG ABOUT IT. man. So i'll just shorten everything.

so, the Navy has kept us BUSY. I have swept and mopped and scrubbed and washed floors, counters, stairwells and walls. Enough said.  Luckily the group I work with is AWESOME. they are hilarious so we get the work done and then go play.

So something really cool happened the other day.  Since we're heading west from Hawaii to guam, we passed the international dateline! What does that mean? Well we headed into a new day so we went to bed on thursday night and woke up to Saturday morning! How cool is that? I skipped a day in my life!

Yesterday was really fun. The navy let us all wear civilian clothes for the first time, as opposed to my normal "uniform" of khaki's and my blue polo. Thats not all, they had a party up on the flight deck ( the highest deck on the ship where helicopters land) called a "steel beach" party! So i finally got to wear glorious SHORTS which i've been wanting to wear this whole month. There were nice chairs out, great food, and a live band. And the band came in  by helicopter to play. Just kidding, but they were really good! They also had squirt guns so me and Amy (my new buddy) started a water war. I ended up soaked from head to toe because everyone decided to gang up on me.

I forgot to mention- in Hawaii we picked up 5 more people to add to the group and they are some of the coolest people i've ever met. 4 of them are 23, 27, 27, and 30 years old. Its so nice to have a younger crowd to hang out with. I needed it, even though my week with the older ladies was wonderful.

So today is my Birthday! Thanks mom for sending the flashing tiara, it got a little attention.  Everyone sang to me at  breakfast so that made the day special :) I still had to sweep anyway, the tiara didn't get me out of it as hoped.

Oh yeah- since we're underway for our 10 day sail between hawaii and guam, excersize classes have begun! we have spinning classes, P90X (holy crap my legs are still burning) and yoga. I've tried them all.
Life is funny on this ship. There are so many things that i've gotten used to that are so weird in the outside world.  We sort all our trash into: food, paper, plastic, and metal. People are called "Agent 1" and we have to walk up 6 flights of stairs everymorning to get breakfast.  I wish I could remember all the smaller fun details of the days so far but thats all i can do off the top of my head and i'm in a hurry to get off! Sorry about the lack of pictures again, i'll get on it as fast as possible!

My first week and Oahu!

Hi Everybody! We still don't have internet working on the ship yet so I'll try to update as often as possible!

WOW i don't even know where to start... ok well we got our bunking on day one. I'll try to put up pictures as soon as possible.  They stack 3 high and since i'm young and agile, I get the top. So I get to climb up and down everyday.  So far, so good. No bodily harm has happened yet. BUT when I lay on my stomach, my book touches the ceiling, so its a close fit.  I definitely bump my head before and after getting into and out of bed. I don't expect that to change any time soon. but i'm comfortable and happy!

Speaking of happy- everyone on the ship is so friendly! No matter what station and rank the military people are, everyone is so respectful and kind. I am so impressed with the "comradery" i killed the spelling i'm sure.In the real world, I try to smile and acknowledge the people i pass. what happens? IGNORED. Here...everyone holds doors for eachother, smiles and says hi. Let me just live here. i love it. 

So our group of LDS charity people consists of all Nurses, PA's and other medical professions. So far we have about 15 people and by the time we get to normal size we''ll have about 30 at a time. Why was I allowed to come? i have no idea. Lucky is an understatement. I am surrounded by incredible people and am learning so much already and getting a new appreciation for nursing that I didn't have before.  I'll be able to follow/shadow them in different divisions so that's pretty exciting. One of the ladies in our group I've met so far has had one of the coolest lives I've ever heard of. I'll have to tell you some of her stories sometime later. too many, too cool to do it justice on this blog. 

So here's the daily schedule :
5:45 wake up
6:30 Breakfast
7:30 Muster= meet in groups and talk about plans for the day
11:00- LUNCH
4:30- DINNER
anytime after: frolick/exploration time
10:00- Lights out

So the food here is great. Thats really actually bad news for me. I have to use a lot of self control to not eat carrot cake 3 times a day. Don't worry guys, I'm using the gyms. I won't be coming back the size of navy man.

OK BIG NEWSSSSSSS! I finally discovered what I'll be doing for the next 4 months- i'll be working in the pediatrics department as a CNA! YES! I might be able to go out to orphanages but thats in the works. 

Hawaii- was an adventure but I don't want this blog to be pages long. Suffice it to say, I explored Waikiki which was wonderful.

So I'm making friends on the boat.  The Navy guys are really nice, and I met one of the people who works in the Bridge- aka steering place of the ship. He let me and Shari (the Team Lead of LDS charities) have a tour. tomorrow, I get to go STEER the boat. that pretty much means looking at a computer, but hey I'LL the captain for about 2 seconds. pretty exciting.

I miss you all and hope summer is going well!  I can't wait to hear how you all are doing.