Just so happened my "Cow Class" teacher was in charge of this project, Brother Orchard, (technically my Animal Handling and Behavior class teacher) so I showed him the ideas. Well, first I met with one of the two engineers who was in charge of building and developing these coops, and he was he**bent and determined to not use my idea and he wasn't real good at pretending to honestly humor me by looking at the ideas. So I then showed Brother Orchard who began praising me up and down, saying I was an answer to prayers, I was gonna save lives with this thing, and "If you and me have to go build this thing ourselves, we're gonna do it!" (that's what he said after I told him the engineer's lack of enthusiasm). I went to a meeting with him, the two engineers, Brother and Sister Shaw and some other guy and Farrell and showed them the idea. Farrell always liked it, the one engineer was still against it, the Shaws seemed happy, the other engineer was genuinely interested, Orchard was ecstatic and the other dude was talking of other things but seemed to really like it.
They adopted it and I was adopted into the project. Brother Orchard said he'd get them to get me involved, but they didn't. I ended up going out and looking at it by myself (well, before cow labs different days) and they had made it with wood that was so light it was felt in between what we use and balsa wood! And they left out several important supports and they didn't staple down the wire! They did the whole sandwich thing between wood pieces with screws, and it looked poor! *sigh* Engineers. It also ended up blowing over, and I tried to contact the one engineer and get together with him about it but he never contacted me back and when I tried to express my concerns to Brother Orchard he just smiled and nodded and steered our conversation to the Paraguay trip.
I was invited to go, and Brother Orchard always was calling and checking up on me to see how the process of everything was going and whenever he saw me he always asked, "So are you like, really excited?!" I never could tell him a definite yes, because it never really did hit me. But anyways, so I went to a couple more meetings about it, got shots, a passport, a plane ticket and sent in for my visa the very last week of school cause I was either so busy before or lazy/forgetful on days where I could've done it. And it didn't come in time.
So, with my passport and visa lost in the mail somewhere (I finally called the consulate in Washington D.C. and they said they'd mail it that afternoon, but the return envelope with my name on it that I put in there had a delivery confirmation number that's supposed to get scanned into the usps system when its mailed wasn't even in the system yet, so who knows where it is!) and my ticket non-refundable, reuseable, rechargeable.... no Paraguay.
But no fretting! I don't mind! Seriously, I was stressed out about the trip. Well, not real stressed, just kinda nervous about such a new thing. Luckily, I hadn't packed or anything or gotten stuff purchased for it (except for a very expensive plane ticket...). I fasted and prayed earlier this week about the whole visa thing, hoping for it to come/asking for peace of mind for either scenario: going or not. And when it didn't come, Brother Orchard called me up (He told me to call him anytime I needed anything - not to hesitate! so I had called him to pray for me about the visa thing earlier) and told me he felt good about it, that Satan was not interfering it just wasn't right at this time for me to go. Really, Brother Orchard is so spiritual and it made me feel alot better talking to him about it. In fact, our first few class periods all we talked about were scriptures, the spirit, the Lord and such that I didn't think we'd EVER talk about cows! I thought it was a spiritual enrichment hybrid class that fooled with cows on the side!
Anyhow, no harm done! Paraguay may not get me this time, but ya never know what'll happen in the future. And now, I've got some shots and my passport under my belt in case a mission comes!
