I am one of 8 kids and I just love my family. Together we work hard, we play hard and we love the hardest. While my oldest brothers were in high school my dad started an exterior house painting business so that we kids could have a job that would help us get through school but more importantly, teach us the importance of “hard work”. All of us kids have grown up working hard together and while spending endless hours in the summer heat together we have done our fair share of “playing hard”. Our lunch breaks are filled with crazy games, so many laughs, and memories I will never forget. Through that job and so much more I have learned to love my family “hard.” I have impacted my siblings lives and made a difference in my personal family through my drive to work hard and become better and diligence to the things that are important to me, but I hope that my impacted on family’s life compares at least a little bit of how much they have impacted my life. They have become my biggest joy which has led me to the career choice I have chosen. I plan to pursue the field of Marriage and Family Counseling. I have chosen this because there is a great need for family unity and love. Everything starts with the family; what a child’s family childhood background is like, will likely determine what type of person that kid becomes. Not in all cases is that true, but most, but that in itself is a problem; most parents love their kids but as they grow up they do not know the best ways to raise them and counsel them so instead they go absent. They do not work on building a relationship with them, so the kids are left to fend for themselves and figure things out on their own without the guidance of parents, and oftentimes the kids and teens make decisions that are not best for them. I believe that if society had stronger family support than adults, young adults especially teens and kids would be much happier, more confident, and ready to take on life with love and support. I want to be able to help families become better connected and more supported. I also want to be able to raise a loving and happy home so that is another reason I have chosen to pursue this field. I want to be the mother that my kids can look to for guidance and support and a wife that can be a source of encouragement and love to my future husband. I figured this field would help me learn these skills most effectively, and be something that I am passionate about.

I am one of 8 kids and I just love my family. Together we work hard, we play hard and we love the hardest. While my oldest brothers were in high school my dad started an exterior house painting business so that we kids could have a job that would help us get through school but more importantly, teach us the importance of “hard work”. All of us kids have grown up working hard together and while spending endless hours in the summer heat together we have done our fair share of “playing hard”. Our lunch breaks are filled with crazy games, so many laughs, and memories I will never forget. Through that job and so much more I have learned to love my family “hard.” They have become my biggest joy which has led me to the career choice I have chosen. I plan to pursue the field of Marriage and Family Counseling. I have chosen this because there is a great need for family unity and love. Everything starts with the family; what a child’s family childhood background is like, will likely determine what type of person that kid becomes. Not in all cases is that true, but most, but that in itself is a problem; most parents love their kids but as they grow up they do not know the best ways to raise them and counsel them so instead they go absent. They do not work on building a relationship with them, so the kids are left to fend for themselves and figure things out on their own without the guidance of parents, and oftentimes the kids and teens make decisions that are not best for them. I believe that if society had stronger family support than adults, young adults especially teens and kids would be much happier, more confident, and ready to take on life with love and support. I want to be able to help families become better connected and more supported. I also want to be able to raise a loving and happy home so that is another reason I have chosen to pursue this field. I want to be the mother that my kids can look to for guidance and support and a wife that can be a source of encouragement and love to my future husband. I figured this field would help me learn these skills most effectively, and be something that I am passionate about.

I have always dreamed of being able to go to a foreign country and do some humanitarian work to improve the lives of the less fortunate. I was finally able to accomplish that goal last August. For the past several years I have worked long hours in the summer heat to save up and pay for this experience. I finally saved $4,000 to go to Malawi Africa and help build a bakery in a refugee camp to provide jobs for the refugees there. There are 60,000 refugees stuck in this camp and due to the government not allowing them to leave, so jobs there are very limited. Building the bakery there will provide many jobs for them. The experience of getting to know their stories and the backgrounds of the people there has changed me in ways I can not describe. The people there are some of the happiest people I have ever seen even though they live in such poverty and desperation. They taught me that joy has little to do with our circumstances and so much more to do with our attitude. They had such a positive attitude all the time, they would dance and sing with us and express so much love for us, each other, and God. They taught me more about love in those three weeks than I had learned in my whole life. I now look at my circumstances in more of a positive light and spread positivity to those around me. If they can be happy and kind even though they struggle so much then I can too. I also learned to work hard and serve hard. We dug a huge pit, mixed cement, and laid bricks all by hand because they lacked the machinery. I loved the opportunity to work with the people there and serve them. While being there I gained a lot of empathy for heartbroken and struggling people and because of that, I am motivated to love and serve more. Many people here in my community need support and love just like them, so I strive to give a helping hand here just as I did in Malawi. I do not have to go to a foreign country to make a difference. I will apply that experience to my field of study by having more sympathy with my clients. I plan to be a marriage and family counselor, and while talking with the refugees and hearing their stories I learned what true heartache is and recognized that everyone is fighting internal battles. So I will listen and try to help ease the battles that my clients face and make their lives a little bit easier like I did in Malawi.