Happy Gratitude Day! (or, There's a lot to be thankful for - like flowers!)

Hello all!

I’m starting my second week at school and honestly, I totally love it. The second graders are awesome, their teacher that I’m assisting is awesome, and overall the general ambiance of the school is, well, awesome! So to celebrate this awesomeness, the Bellflower community had a special day yesterday!

Okay, it’s not actually for that, but we did have a special celebration yesterday because it was Gratitude Day! What is Gratitude Day, you may ask? Well, it is the day of gratitude for the Mother General (super Sister in-charge) and the Institute (the congregation basically), which also includes all the people you live with (like the sisters and volunteers (such as me!)). That means that everyone does special things to show how thankful they are for all the people who share their community and the ways in which they contribute.

Our community expressed a particular thankfulness for Sr. Sandra, the community animator (which is kind of like a hype-person, except for religion). She’s going to be leaving to head to the Provincial House in San Antonio this summer, so Gratitude Day also functioned as a Thank You day for her work in Bellflower.

To celebrate, we went to the Flower Fields! As such, we got some amazing pictures!

PARTY TIME

A flock of majestic white sisters come to see flowers

But first lunch!

AREN'T FLOWERS JUST SO COOL?

THEY ARE THE COOLEST THING!

Also, nuns in a wagon ^_^

The fields were at 80% bloom according to the people who work there

And sometimes flowers don't end up in...exactly the right area

But it's like a rainbow of flowers!

The one with the face is Sr. Jaden *cackles evilly* 

Orchids! In the greenhouse!

Thought you ought to know.

There was also this maze of Sweet Peas!

Which reached majestically towards to the sun!

SUCCESS!!

AND THEN THERE WAS corn

Che begli fiori!

In the evening, we had a program of performances by the sisters and candidates (plus me)! Lily and I did a dance number to Singin’ in the Rain (remixed) that Lily provided the vast majority of the choreography to, and everyone seemed to really enjoy it! There was also piano playing, poetry reading, and a song for the Sisters.

Beethoven, courtesy of Marie Fe (so good though)

Stand up comedy, courtesy of Boram

Dance number, featuring Lily and myself *takes a bow*

And the grand finale!!

After the performance, we had a thanksgiving moment for Sr. Sandra, each of us giving our ‘hands’ to her to show our gratitude for all the beautiful things her hands have done over her six years in Bellflower. It was a beautiful moment to share with the community, even though I’ve only been here for two weeks! We even wrote little notes to each member of the community to thank them as well!

The guest of honor!

And our giving hands

To finish off the night, we watched the movie Hidden Figures, which was so good! I strongly recommend it to anyone who hasn’t already seen it.

The science fair is this week at school, so I’m sure I’ll be plenty busy, but I’ll let you know how it goes next time.

Until then!