Re-Learning What I Already Knew

I still live in Liberty, Missouri. I have made a life here, and downgraded from a one bedroom apartment to a studio apartment. I even broke up with my previous boyfriend of one year. He was a co-worker from my gas station job. We grew to love each other in a short period of time and soon we shared that one bedroom apartment. I thought he was the one. He actually proposed to me during a rock concert we went to. But he did something that I didn't like and that's when I broke it off. He did love me and was willing to do anything for me. But for everything, something always have to give.

While I was working the 2 jobs at Savers and the gas station, I worked non-stop between 50 -70 hours a week. I couldn't even plan out a full day off from work. When I thought I got a day off from one job, another job calls me up and say "can you work today?" Which I always say yes because I needed the money. Especially during that time, I didn't had a car and I was walking from point A to point B. After awhile, I bought myself a cheap bike from Walmart, a boys' size bike for $50ish. It was rough... esp this is during the winter. I even worked throughout the holidays. I worked during Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. Some of those holidays I even worked both jobs because they needed extra help. So it was a big plus for when I was saving up money for a car.

My boyfriend and I moved in together November/December 2011 in Liberty. Our first date was a month before we moved in together. So it was pretty quickly, especially the place I was staying at was my boyfriend before him, his name was also Matthew. The new Matthew, and me walked to work, he also didn't have a car. His family and him recently moved up here from Mississippi the previous year and the only person who had a car was his dad. My boyfriend was there at the gas station at the time when one day I had a customer walk in and ask if anybody knew who was looking to buy a car. I said, "I do, ME!" Lol... luckily, things turned up, my co-worker/boyfriend helped me out by negotiating with the guy who was selling his mom's car. I was able to buy the car at a reasonable amount of around $2400ish. After 7-8 months of hard work, I bought a black 1997 Honda CRV. During that time, my boyfriend just got a raise, was working graveyard and he then persuaded me to quit one of my 2 jobs. He didn't like to see me over-working myself. So I decided to quit the job at the gas station since that was part time. I needed something more stable so I kept the full time job that I had at Savers. This was around April/May 2012. I felt a lot better not over-working myself out after I quit the gas station job.

Savers was a fast-paced job, I was working in the production room, trying to meet quota, and it was non-stop push on something that was unrealistic numbers. After awhile, they hired 2 new people to do the Bed and Bath department for me. I trained both of them, and I slowly cross-trained myself into doing the Shoes and Clothing department. I was originally trained to do Clothing pricing and Shoes had the same rating system as the Clothing so it was easy to learn. Basically, I incorporated all I know about fashion from Los Angeles to my job at Savers. Bed and Bath department was all me since the grand opening of the store. One day, we were down a couple people at the tables (the beginning part of the production line) and I was asked by a co-worker of mine to work as a hanger, then all of a sudden, I was on the tables since. This was around mid-late summer of 2012. I liked the fact I was doing something else other than Bed and Bath department. One bad thing about it was the repetition. Other than that, it was nice. In the later part of a work day, I would have helped rack off the lines, (meaning clearing the lines of already hanged clothes onto an empty clothing rack) then I would most likely tag the racks (meaning putting price tags on the clothes with my tag gun) then if they need more help I would roll the racks on to the sales floor and put the clothes out. I had fun hanging for Diego, he was a new hire and I think he's gay and fun to be around. He was the sorter on my side of the table, whenever I was low on piles, I would help him sort then when I was good on piles, I would start hanging again. After my first full year there, I was trying to get a raise and/or promotion, but nobody really helped me and I was getting fed up. I was there for almost a year and a half until I found myself another job.

The biggest change during this time of my life was when I met an older woman, Mary Murphy, while I was working at Savers. One of the days, I was rolling Bed and Bath on to the floor, she approached me with a Chinese tract. I recognized it to be one of the literature produced by Jehovah's Witnesses. I actually studied the bible with a Jehovah's Witness when I was a teenager for several years. I knew it was the truth but after I moved from Connecticut to California, I continued to study with another sister but never progressed because my ex-husband gave me an ultimatum. I was young so I chose love for him over studying the bible. At this current time of my life, I decided to resume my bible study. It has been 10 years since I stopped my bible study, but I started all over again. There were a couple things that has changed since the first time around. When I first started studying, I was studying the Knowledge book and there were 2 meetings during the week. Now the new study aid was the Bible Teach book and they combined the 2 meetings into 1 meeting during the week. I feel so much better studying the bible again and I really felt the love among the congregations and from Jehovah God. I studied the Bible Teach with Mary Murphy and Fran Bailey, sisters from the North Independence Kingdom Hall. I started studying with them while I was living with Matt early part of 2012 - around February/March. Matt was studying a little bit with me but he didn't like it and was also trying to convince me to not study either like my ex-husband. It took me a while but eventually got his support on my bible study. Mary also helped me to stand my ground on what I know was the right thing to do according to Jehovah's standards. When I started to go to the meetings, I felt the warmth and love all around. I miss the feeling from the meetings back in Connecticut. I was talking to everybody at the meetings, introducing myself to everybody, trying to get to know everybody. I was ecstatic. I got to know some of the older ones, the younger ones, and some of the elders. The only group that I felt was kinda untouchable was the teenagers. I guess me being 29/30 years old, I felt I was far from their teenage angst and couldn't understand them anymore LOL! Studying the Bible Teach was basically catch up for me. I regained my relationship back with Jehovah and I could feel his holy spirit helping me get closer to him and to the spiritual family. I began to make friends with the Liberty, Rockcreek, Independence North congregation and the Chinese group that meets at the same kingdom hall with the Rockcreek and Independence North. Linda Johnson, a sister who started to help Mary study with me, couldn't continue to be there so they had Fran Bailey to be with Mary. Then Linda also had another sister from the Liberty congregation to drive me to the meetings, Fran Hennessy. She happened to live really close to me, so it was convenient for the both of us. We developed a close friendship and then when I finished studying the Bible Teach with Mary and Fran B. I started the second book, the God's Love book with Fran Hennessy. I don't remember when the book transition happened.

Mary did have an affect on me, she was a spiritually mature older sister and helped me on my relationship with Matt. One of the things Matt did that I didn't like, he tends to make decisions for the both of us and change plans on the both of us on spur of the moment. One Saturday night, he did that, we both went bar hopping, and one of the bars we went to, I was alone while he and his dad was drinking and making friends then I told him I wanted to go home, then he said something about "my religion" and I didn't like his tone of voice. I didn't realize the impact of what I did that night, but I kicked Matt out of our apartment and we stopped communication for a whole week. I was considering to get back together with him but his dad threatened me, my job and the religion. My potential father-in-law scared me so much that I was went to my boss and talked about this with her. Esp he said something that he was going to go to my workplace and tell everyone how I was a terrible person and horrible worker. Also he said he will go to world headquarters of Jehovah's Witnesses and blow up the place and get a lawyer and sue the whole organization. This happened around November 2012.  We were officially together for one whole year as of the day I kicked him out of the apartment. He was trying to come up with a one year anniversary thing for the both of us but it didn't really worked out because of his poor planning skills. I was thinking maybe I over-reacted about that Saturday night but because of how his dad over-reacted to our break-up, I didn't bother clearing up our misunderstanding. I ended up living on my own in the one bedroom apartment with just my minimum wage full time job at Savers for a month and a half alone. I was just in a rush to find a lower rent of an apartment, something more affordable with the little pay I did get. Even though we broke up, Matt helped me move into another apartment that I found near the Liberty Square, an apartment in the basement floor of the complex. I moved into the studio apartment January 1st, 2013.

I became an unbaptized publisher around March/April 2013. I was actually excited to go out in field service the first time I went. I still enjoy going out in the field ministry to this day. I still don't know what to say half the time but in due time, I will know more to say at the door when preaching the good news of Jehovah God's heavenly kingdom. Later on in the year, I started to participate in the Theocratic Ministry School as a householder. It was really cool and I was nervous. Most of the times, I was Fran H.'s householder. So I was comfortable with her. After I was done studying the God's Love book with Fran H. I was a little antsy on what was I supposed to do next. I was told to just continue doing my weekly personal bible study, daily bible reading, preparing for the meetings and reading the daily text. That is a lot for me but I am still going at it.

Life in Liberty, Missouri

Me - August 2011

2011
After living with my family in Kansas City for 5 months, it was really getting on my nerves.  I was always wrong with my cousin,  no matter what I do, she even got a job and tried to get me to work with her but I knew if I were to work with her,  my life would be more of a living hell 24/7, not just at home. One of the many thing other than looking for a job online, I was also looking for dates/ guys on dating sites and such. One of the sites, I went on Plenty of Fish, and I actually got some dates through that. I actually hooked up with someone there and we were together for 1 month and he helped me a lot for a short amount of time we were together.  He helped me get a job, which was more than my cousin has helped me. Out of all the places I applied to, I got my first 2 jobs in Liberty, Missouri working in a gas station next to walmart and a new thrift store called savers.  All because of my first boyfriend.  Of course, it was short lived, he broke up with me, and then I used him as an excuse to move out of my family's house, it was bad manners to do so but I didn't care at the time. I knew that if I continued to live there with my new income in my family's house, I would have given them all my paycheck and I would just get trapped in a situation all over again, and I wasnt gonna get sucked back into it.  So my new friend, let me live with him for a couple of months till I got back onto my feet. I was working non-stop, even working on holidays, walking to and back home from work,  sometimes I would be lucky for my friend to drive me there or back.

My Uncle & Aunt with their grandchildren

Savers
When I first started working at Savers,  I was really excited. It was a new store of a franchise and they kept on saying that they do promotions,  benefits,  helping the environment,  and all that.  I was working there full time,  making friends all over the place.... after awhile, things settled down. In the beginning, my position was to be a women's clothing pricer, but I wasnt fast enough so they transfered me to do bed n bath department-  sorting,  folding,  tagging, pricing n rolling my own stuff. I had 1 other person in my department and her name was Ashley,  she seemed to be cool. But later on,  she had some personal family drama that led her to miss so many days and her not being at work really affected me and for the both of us,  to not make our quota. By this time, working at savers was not fun anymore. I was really stressed out for not making quota because the second person wasn't there half the time. It was pissing me off... but nonetheless,  I had fun especially when we dressed up, there was a big thing of costumes all the time.... I started to hang out with my coworkers like  Tim, Sherry and Buffy. Tim was a musician and music producer and worked as a recycler full time on the production team. He was always nice to me by helping me out recycling my linens without me calling out. Sherry is a Baptist,  started off in shoes department then transfered into the bed n bath department to help me out. Buffy was a cashier in the beginning, then she became a roller for clothing, then switched to do jewelry department. 

Savers Logo/Poster/Brand at Grand Opening 

My Horrendous Work Station 

Some of us during one of the costume days 

Gas Station

Basically started both jobs the same time. Because savers was a full time job,  I asked if I could get my part time job at the gas station to coincide with the savers job. My boss at the gas station was really nice about it. I was really grateful that the gas station was just down the street from Savers so after working Savers, I can walk up to the other job and I would bring my backpack so I can change from one work shirt to the other work shirt, both red. Of all the colors, I always hated the color red but it just happens to be that way. When I got hired at the gas station, there were also 2 other new people, Corey and Jennifer. I had fun there,  it was more laid back than Savers. Whenever I worked with Jennifer, we would gossip about our coworkers and customers all the time. There were even a couple of guys that we worked with that we had semi- crushes on. I liked this guy name Matt and she liked another guy .... who was already taken... lol... Matt, the guy that i liked, was 1 year younger than me. It was so wierd, liking someone who was younger,  I was always into guys who are 13 years older than me haha... after our first date, we seem to be hitting it off pretty well.

Gas Prices were actually reasonable... 

Work at the Gas Station was chill but nice to work at compared to Savers 

Corey!!... 

Denny, the Night guy