My Life As Yessica

I thought I would take a little time in the beginning of my blog to explain the title I gave it (credit to my sister for that).  I hope a lot of you didn't get confused and typed in "Jessica" instead of "Yessica."  I looked it up and that would lead you to a blog that is definitely not me!  Let me give you a little history about my name.
Growing up I wasn't a big fan of my name.  It wasn't that I didn't like it; it just so happened that everyone and their mother was named Jessica.  That's probably an exaggeration-a very slight exaggeration.  My mom swears she didn't know any Jessicas when she named me, but somehow I ended up graduating with seven of them.  Seven!  That means that every time I heard my name called, 86% of the time they weren't talking to me.  I remember I would sometimes jokingly tell people to call me Deborah, so that I would at least have a more unique name.

And then I went on a mission trip to the Dominican Republic.  While some of the Dominicans struggled to pronounce our American names, they picked up mine in no time, because Jessica is a Spanish name too.  Sometimes they will pronounce a "j" as a "y," and so from that day forth I was christened "Yessica."  As I fell in love with the country, I fell in love with my "new" name as well.  I will never forget the first time the team pulled into a village and 50 kids surrounded the bus shouting, because they remembered me from the day before, "Yessica!  Yessica Yessica!"  It was the most amazing and humbling experience, and for the first time I was truly grateful for my simple, easy-to-remember name.  It was in that moment that I wanted to be Yessica for the rest of my life. 

So that's the story!  And if you ever really need to get my attention, try calling "Yessica!" and I can guarantee my head will turn immediately. 

The Beginning

This is my first post in my new blog!  I am looking forward to keeping it up to date with stories about my adventures (and misadventures) in the future, especially this summer when I go to Honduras for seven weeks, starting on June 25th.  Be looking for updates the closer I get to my trip!