How it became my dream
Once upon a time there was a beautiful girl who lived in
North Hollywood, California. That girl is ME :) I was just 14 years old when I
arrived to the United States of America. I didn’t know English and I didn’t know
exactly what I wanted in life, but I knew that I wanted good things, really
good things in life. When I turned 15 years old, I gained a strong and powerful
testimony of the truthfulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I knew with my
whole heart and soul that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is
really the true church of Jesus Christ and I just couldn’t deny it because it
was something so strong and so powerful and this changed my life forever. At
this point of my life, I knew that I had three main dreams that I wanted to
accomplish.
1. Serve a full-time mission.
2. GO TO BYU and graduate from a career.
3. Get married in the temple with a
worthy priesthood holder; the guy of my dreams!!! :)
Time passed
and finally I was able to serve a mission. One of the best experiences I’ve
ever had in my whole life. I loved every minute of it and this made me a better
person.
Life after the mission
I finished my mission and I had no idea how in the world I
was going to get into BYU now! I took some classes in a community college
before my mission but this wasn’t enough to be able to transfer to BYU. I
decided to take the so difficult famous test…The ACT. Ugh! It was the worst! I
wasn’t in school for a long time and either way that test was so hard for me. I
got a score that I won’t publish here to protect my dignity ha-ha but let’s just
say that it was bad. I was very discouraged! I honestly thought that I wasn’t
smart enough and that I was never going to be able to go to BYU. I cried and I knelt
down in prayer and I asked Heavenly Father to please help me accomplish my
dream because I really wanted it so bad. At this time of my life I was in
California just working and saving money to be able to move to Provo, Utah. I
moved here on my own after 5 months of finishing my mission. I was able to find
an amazing job and be around people who just loved me and inspired me every day
to be a better person.
Pathway Program
I was able to be introduced to a program that honestly gave me
hope for life. It was the Pathway Program through BYU-Idaho. At the beginning I
just did it just so I could do something productive with my life while I figured
out what to do with school exactly. First semester in this program was a bit
hard because I wanted so bad to be able to go school but I just couldn’t go for
many reasons. One of them was that I wasn’t a Utah resident and school was way
too expensive for me. I decided to stay in the Pathway Program and at the
beginning I took it for granted. It seemed too easy and I felt like I was
wasting my time, but something in my heart told me to stay. I finished my
Pathway Program and it wasn’t as easy as I thought at the beginning and thanks
to this, I was able to become an online student at BYU-Idaho. I want to take
some time to say how thankful I am for the Pathway Program. If it wasn’t for
this program, there is no way that I would have been able to succeed in school.
This is why is called Pathway. God really did provide this path in my life so I
could start working towards my educational goals. I love the Pathway Program
and I will forever be grateful for it.
Online Classes
When I started the Online Classes, I thought it was going to
be like when I was in the Pathway Program. The Pathway Program was hard work
especially at the end but nothing compared to having a real college class,
especially when it’s online. I started with three classes and felt pretty
confident about it but really, I didn’t know what I was getting myself into.
The classes were doable but they were hard, well at least for me. In my English
class I had to write three main essays for the whole class. The first essay was
about 10 pages long, I had to pick the subject and have 6 legit resources, plus
doing like 3 or 4 little assignments every day for that same class. You might
say: Well, that’s easy! It wasn’t for me. I know English, but my English wasn’t
that good for an essay like that. I didn’t know what to write about and I just
felt like I didn’t have the vocabulary to write a paper of this kind. On top of
that, I had so much to do at work. Sadly, I had to drop one of my classes and I
felt terrible because either way I felt like I was going slow with three
classes but now that I had to drop one, I felt that I was going slower. I felt
really frustrated and down on myself. If you know me, you know that I worry
about everything so this situation made me pretty anxious and a little
depressed. In addition to this, I was going through a really hard time in my
personal life and I just felt like I couldn’t do it anymore! I seriously
considered dropping school because I couldn’t even sleep. I remember when I had
to turn in the rough draft for my essay, I didn’t have anything and I felt
alone. That day I went to sleep at two in the morning and I turned in my rough
draft with only two pages long but it was honestly a disaster. I woke up at 6
am and I was about to turn on my computer and drop this class but I knew that
doing that was going to make me feel like a loser so I said a prayer and I told
Heavenly Father how I was feeling exactly and I just heard a little voice
inside of me that told me: Don’t do anything right now, just wait and go to
work! And that’s what I did. When I got to work, I told my coworker just
everything that was going on and I was about to start crying when she told me:
Karla! You should have told me this before. I love English and I especially
love writing papers. Don’t worry, I will help you! When she said those words, I
knew that Heavenly Father was watching over me and that He really cared. I
don’t want to make this story longer but this experience helped me a lot. I had
to work really hard on that essay and I had to say bye-bye to my social life for
a while but when I finished that essay, I felt like a champion. I even said, I
don’t care what grade I get, I will still feel good because I didn’t give up J but thankfully, I got an A in that
class and it was one of the best feelings ever.
Time passed and I continued doing my online classes,
struggling here and there but just surviving and trying to get good grades. One
day, I started feeling a little bit sad. I felt stuck and that I was
progressing really slowly. I was sick of the online classes! And I feel bad for
saying this but it was true, they were great but I wanted to go to school, be
around people and learn in a classroom with a teacher not by myself anymore. I
talked to one of my friends and she said: Karla! Why don’t you go to BYU-Idaho?
Go there for a semester, get your classes done and then apply for BYU- Provo.
It sounded really good to me and I just felt like I needed a change and I was
like, you know what? I will apply and see what happens.
Application process
I started my application to go to BYU-Idaho on campus. That
was kind of like a given since I already was a BYU-Idaho student but I was in
the Online Program. While I was filling out my application I had this thought:
Why don’t you apply for BYU-Provo as well? What’s the worst thing that can
happen? If they say no! Just go to BYU-Idaho for a semester and then apply
again. So I decided to apply for BYU-Provo also. I did the best I could on my
application, I made sure that everything looked good and finally I was done
with my application. The deadline was October 1st and I finished my
application at the beginning of September. When I applied, I just said: Okay,
Heavenly Father, I’ve done everything I know, I leave this in your hands! And I
just moved on.
A week or two after I finished my application, I met a guy
who later became a friend that I will thank and appreciate forever. His name is
Roger and he told me that he worked in the Admissions Office at BYU. I said: No
way! I want to go to BYU so bad! He told me that he could take me on a tour and
help me schedule an appointment with one of the representatives from BYU so
they could check my application. I was in awe when he told me that. I obviously
accepted to do everything he suggested. He took me on a tour and this tour just
confirmed to me that I wanted to go to BYU because it really is such a great
school. I was also able to meet with the representative he told me about. This
representative was super nice and super helpful. He looked at my application
and suggested some things to add to it. I did it right away and I was also able
to explain to him why I wanted to go to BYU and just everything I have done to
be able to go. He just looked at me and said: Karla! I can’t promise you that
you will get into BYU but I can tell you that this information is going to help
a lot J I was obviously so happy to hear
that. As I finished my meeting with him, I went home and said another prayer. I
told Heavenly Father: Okay, my Dear God, thanks for putting these people in my
life and now I have really just done everything I know, everything I could,
it’s in your hands!
That awesome e-mail
I had to wait a while to be able to
hear back from BYU to find out if I got in or not. I remember even calling them
and they just told me to be patient. October 14th, 2016 my friend
Chelsea invited me to BYU Football game. While I was at the game my phone
vibrated, I looked at it and it was an e-mail from BYU and it just said: A
decision has been made! I started freaking out! I opened the e-mail but it took
a while to load since the signal wasn’t very good at the stadium. While it was
loading, I just kind of prepared myself for anything. I told myself: I will be
okay if I don’t get in. If I don’t get in, I can always try again. But deep
inside my heart, I knew I was going to be really sad if I didn’t get in so I
was just trying to prepare myself in case I didn’t get the answer that I wanted.
Finally, the email loaded and I opened it and I couldn’t believe what I was
reading.
There’s
really no need to explain how happy I felt when I saw this. My dream came true
and I just couldn’t believe it and I was the happiest! This was just almost as
good as the feeling you get when you find out that you are your crush’s crush :) ha-ha that’s how happy I felt!
But now what?
Well, after I found out that I was finally a BYU student. I
started working really hard to save money. I had some money saved but although
BYU is not as expensive in comparison to other schools, it is still pretty
pricey! I started feeling a little worried because I thought I wasn’t going to
have time to save the money that I needed to be able to go to BYU but the Lord
always provides a way when He knows you really are trying and now I’m
thankfully all prepared to go to BYU. I am very excited but I’m also very
nervous. BYU is a really great school and it is also very hard and as excited
as I am right now, I will probably feel a little or a lot frustrated when I’m
taking classes there. But I know whenever I feel that way, I will look back at
the moment I found out that I got in and just everything Heavenly Father did
for me so I could accomplish my goal and I will appreciate that I’m in BYU and
if the Lord helped me get in, He will also help me graduate as long as I do my
part.
Whenever I feel sad or discouraged, I always remember that
moment at the BYU stadium when I opened that email and found out that I was a
BYU Student. This helps me remember that God knows me, loves me and is aware of
me. And I also remember that dreams come true, you just need to believe, do
your part and trust in Heavenly Father with your whole heart.
I think back of my life when I was 14 years old. This teenage
girl who just arrived from Mexico, who didn’t even know how to speak English,
who wanted good things but didn’t really know exactly what she wanted. When I
was a little girl, I never thought I was going to be able to come to the United
States, that I was going to learn English and that I was going to be introduced
to the best thing that has ever happen to me; the gospel of Jesus Christ. I’m
not perfect and there is so much I have to improve in my life, but how grateful
I am that I have the gospel in my life and that this gospel guided me and
continues guiding to make good decisions in life and help me become a better
daughter of God.
Why did I write this?
If you are wondering why I decided to write this, I will tell
you why. The first reason is because I love to write. It is one of my favorite
things to do in the world. I actually write poems myself J Second reason, is because this is something
important to me and a big accomplishment in my life and especially because of
the way my life is. I had many obstacles and I won’t go into details here but I
will list some of these obstacles.
1. Time
2. Money
3. Immigration Status
4. Language barrier
5. Not enough academic education
And many more things, and I’m not trying to play the victim here,
we all have a hard life. I mean life isn’t easy for anyone. We all have our
struggles and difficulties but this was my struggle but I had a dream and this
motivated me to never give up!
This post is really to tell everyone
to never give up on your dreams! If you want something with all of your heart,
go for it! If it’s something righteous and good and will make you a better
person, God will help you. God loves us, He really does and I don’t think we
will ever be able to comprehend His love for us but just know that YOU are
loved so much by the most amazing being in the universe. Choose the right and
He will guide your life!
I love you all. If you took the time
to read all of this, I know it’s a lot…Thank you! I just wanted to share a
small part of my life with you all and hopefully it can help anyone who has a
dream big or small, it doesn’t matter. My message to you all today is: DREAMS
COME TRUE!! :)
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