Dear Reader,

In life, it is vastly important that one should take on challenges head on, coping with the difficulty, and learning how to allow these experiences to mold and shape personality and character.

It was a regular, sunny summer afternoon at home and boredom had its grip on my 15-year-old self. That was until the day when my mom mentioned something that caught my interest. She asked, "Would you be interested in going on a service trip to Costa Rica with Max in a year or so?” “Yeah, that sounds great!” I exclaimed, not knowing anything about the trip or what it would entail.

I’m the opposite of what you would call an “outgoing” person so immediately saying yes to this proposition was out of the ordinary. Growing up, dinner was stretched to its limits waiting for me to eat my vegetables and I refused to differ from the daily norm that even in my later years I had gotten all too used to. This included ordering the same food from the same restaurants, a daily schedule of procrastination, a lack of adventure, and a repetitive schedule that showed branching out was the last priority for me.

I said yes to this trip because I had gone to Costa Rica once before on a mission trip and because my cousin Max was traveling with me. Max and I have been great friends since the beginning and share a variety of common ground from our age to our shared love of awfully under-budgeted Netflix movies like Sharknado and Zombeaver.

One year later, I sat in an airport terminal playing Pokémon Go while waiting for my cousin and two other mysterious people who would be traveling with us. The entire time, I had no idea about the kind of disillusioning experience awaiting me at my destination.

I flew with three other kids my age and we arrived in a smaller, confined airport that was filled with signs about Zika Virus in every corner. After meeting our guide for the trip outside the airport we embarked on a bumpy and beautiful journey to our new home in the rural area of the country.
Everyone in the group was aware of the fact that we would all be staying alone and separate with individual native families that spoke no English, but it wasn't until we neared the minuscule town of El Paraiso that we realized how crazy that actually was. Everyone was laughing about it and admitting they were nervous so I went along with it, acting like I was a little nervous for this encounter. So I masked the true feeling of terror about my unknown future with nervous smiles and attempts at humor.

I was the last to get dropped off and by then had built up an amount of tension that I had never known before. My brain strained to recall all of the words and phrases that had been taught to me in the Spanish classes I had taken at school and flipped through the pages of my English-Spanish dictionary to get my first words together. Anxious Questions floated around in my head: what would they look like, would I have a room, do they have any children?

The bus stopped. The house was small with a concrete foundation and red coloring. The roof overhung the entrance and created a small space to sit on the red-painted concrete. There were small windows in the front with one on each side of the door and I was surprised to see a satellite dish on top sticking out so obviously among the rest.

This is where I met my temporal parents, their son Brignol, and daughters Ruth and Sofia. The initial moments in this house were filled with nervous dialogue, sweat, and a whole lot of language barrier. I tried my best to keep up with their talk and once and awhile felt proud of myself for effectively communicating something, but for the most part, it was a difficult obstacle.

My hours I spent with the family took up about half of my full day and for the first couple of days, I did anything to avoid prolonged stay around the house that might mean more difficult face to face confrontations with Spanish.

It was this attitude that was characteristic of my old habits that I had gathered over my previous years and was making me try to avoid difficulty for the sake of living easy. In order for this trip to truly impact me, however, I would need to face my fear of sometimes not understanding a word I was told.

After about three days of trying my best to stay out of the house and doing other activities with the children in the village, we had a specially designated time for a couple of hours that our guide had asked us to purely use for bonding with our families. I thought about the confusion, discomfort, and stress that I was sure were likely to ensue.

But after that afternoon I learned a lot about myself and I realized some important concepts. Sure, there were plenty of moments where the language difference caused moments of confusion and discomfort for me, but I realized that it was better to take the time to enjoy this experience. I mean when would be the next time that I was staying alone with a completely foreign family.

I learned that after an experience like that you feel better and more adventurous, more willing to do something new and try new things. I had a ton of fun that afternoon even when I went into it expecting the worst. I bonded with my family and accepted the fact that there was an invisible barrier between us. I was forced out of my comfort zone by this event, but it made me realize that facing difficulty head on in life is crucial to personal development and helping shape a successful, fun-loving person.

When it was finally time to leave my family, I walked outside into the narrow yard and saw my parents and the smallest daughter Sofia standing shyly beside them. She was a little above 2 feet tall and is by far the cutest human being I have ever seen on this planet. My mom was crying and I knew it was because she had loved the time she had been able to take care of me no matter the effort or time it took. The dad was smiling and I knew this was because he had enjoyed the time he spent with me. I had been so nervous when I had first shaken his large, hair-covered hands but I had grown to love our conversations together and love his crazy sense of humor. Walking out of that yard early in morning, I could smell the strong diesel of the bus in front of me and I was moved by the family I had loved that was standing just in front of it.

I stepped on that bus a different person than when I had stepped off only a week before. These moments shared with the family were an important part in creating the person I am today because they opened me up to a new kind of view on life. I realized then that there is no point in being stubborn and trying to prevent change or trying new things because you are missing out on potential life-changing experiences. It is important to go at challenges head on and put yourself in difficult situations because they develop you into a better more adventurous person. And I believe that is the best way to live your life.