Builders Without Borders

Tijuana, Mexico

The sister with 9 children

Logan and Kyle building

Kyle and I

This is the separate bedroom that we built for the other house







This is the original house, and then we built on to it.

Roofing

Our first Thanksgiving was a very memorable one. Logan and I, along with my brother Kyle, my amazing in-laws, and 80 other people got the great experience of going to Tijuana, Mexico to build homes for families in need. Before going, I really didn't think much of it. I was a little nervous because of the bad reputation Tijuana has. But besides that, I was not thinking of this trip as one that I was going to never forget.

We left American Fork with a big group called Builders Without Borders. We all traveled down together with a lot of humanitarian supplies (school stuff, clothing, shoes, blankets, etc.) along with building supplies. Getting across the border was a HUGE pain. It took us 2 hours, but luckily Logan speaks spanish and was able to translate for us all. We finally got to Tijuana. For only 14 miles outside of San Diego, it was a COMPLETELY different world. The roads were crazy, the houses were not what you called a typical American house. Everything changed. We pulled up to our home for the next week which was an LDS stake center. It was like a beacon of light in this crazy place. I was unsure of what was going to happen that week.

The next day was Sunday. We woke up early so we could get ready for church. We ate, and then went to the Spanish Ward. None of us could understand, but we made it work. Logan sat next to me and kept translating except for the few times when he TOTALLY made up a bunch of crap to what they were saying, and thought I'd believe him. Nice try, buddy. Then, our group sang for the members. Thus far, I had only seen Tijuana at night, and the Stake Center in the daylight. We were to attend another ward for a Bishop that our group was friends with from previous years. This ward building was in another part of Tijuana, so this was my first opportunity to see the poverty first hand. We drove through the city, and it was shocking. Kyle and I hadn't been there before, but the means that these people lived in was very small. They didn't have anything, but yet, they were so happy.

We got to the 2nd ward building and it was very nice. Easily the nicest building in that area of Tijuana. The meeting went great, and we sang the same song again. Don't worry. It was MUCH better the 2nd time around. (I played the piano... woot.) Then, we headed back for the church. That night, there was a fireside.... We weren't quite sure who was going to do the fireside, until some people asked us if Logan and I would do the fireside. YEA! I was not super excited, but Log excepted easily and I just found some song to play on the piano for the musical number, and it all worked out fine. The poor people had to listen to us but hopefully it was alright. haha. The next few days after this were awesome. We met the first family that we were building for. This house was where they had seminary for the highschool students. It was insane how small it was. There would be no room for the students to sit. So we were able to build a house for their family. They were so sweet... the kids names were Mahonri and Sarahi. Cutest ever. We were there for 2 days working freakin hard. I learned so much about framing and building houses... and Roofing and Insulation (which is what Lydia-Log's sis, Me, and my new friend Zach did like the whole time) I have a new found LOVE for insulation (hopefully you can hear the sarcasm in my voice.)

K, anyway, we finished the Seminary house, and we were able to go to another house. This next one was tiny, and the roof wasn't very stable, and there were 9 people living in it. We were able to work on this one by building a separate bedroom off of the original house. The toilet by the way was outside along with the shower with nothing around it. That was my fun job! YES!!!! We got to dig out the poop around the toilet and then we were going to build a room around it. It all turned out great, and helped the families so much... almost as much as it helped me to be there.

This whole experience was life-changing. I saw families that ate our leftover lunches and were SO grateful they had food to eat. I saw RANDOM people coming up to us asking us if we would build them a house because they didn't have one. I saw kids on the streets searching through trash to see if they could use some of it to sell. I saw families who loved eachother. I saw a group of people that came together that had one thing in common that are like family now. I saw lives change. I saw myself change. I found peace by doing this. It was just what I needed.