2015 *Never To Late*

Uniform pics (leaving for deployment and receiving care packages from home)

First things first let me give you all an update on my current situation. It is almost mid March and  I have been deployed to Bahrain for 5 months. The experience of being away from my friends and family is very surreal. I hate and love it all at the same time. I do get a lot of free time over here but I miss my daily freedom I am accustomed to in the states. Over here I have a small room, no vehicle, and my weekends are not my own. On a normal week I work Monday through Saturdays with Sundays off, but there’s the occasional week where I have to go in on a Sunday but I don’t mind. Bahrain is a pretty chill Middle Eastern country. The stress level of a deployment that a soldier usually experience is non existent simply based off of my location. I am thankful that God chose to send me here instead of Iraq of Afghanistan. So now friends and family you can rest easy about my well being. I’m not completely safe but the likelihood or something bad happening to me over here is not very high.

There’s really not much to do over here ( so why not win as many races as possible )

I would like to thank everyone who has sent me letters and care packages while deployed. Your love and admiration is highly appreciated. On deployments mail tends to become the highlight of the day since we are not at home and able to just go to the store to get the usual items that we would need. Thank you to my extended family *THE TRUETTS* Jessi I truly appreciate you sending me any and everything that I need I don’t think I could thank you enough, thank you to my friends who are like sisters ( Janae, Skyy, Alisa, Ashley M.) I appreciate your friendship more than you will ever know,  thank you to so my sorority KAPPA EPISLON PSI  and there *MY SISTER’S KEEPER PROGRAM* thank you to other sorors who have sent me items, and thank you to my line sisters * my THETA BOOS* KEY will forever be in my heart, thanks to the random West Point parent Brenda M., thank you to my wonderful male friends ( Rocky and Sigmund), and thank you to the organization who have sent me items when you do not even know me. The love that an American Soldier receives while deployed is unyielding and I am forever thankful.
Now let me give you an update on where I stand in this present day.
2015 will be great year for me indeed. I’m competing in the MS VETERAN AMERICAN 2015 competition (pageant)  and THE MISS ALABAMA USA 2015 pageant as well. I have never participated in a pageant before so this entire experience will be interesting. I will discuss more details about the pageants in later posts dedicated solely to the pageant. So far the support I have received has been amazing and it’s so inspiring to see so many people on #TeamLela I will be sure to make you proud. 

I started graduated school at the UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS at EL PASO (UTEP) mid February and I have completed my first class. I am working on getting a Masters of Art in Leadership Studies. TThe program is very military friendly and my goal is to complete a Masters Program before my initial 5 years in the Army is done. I completed the first class yesterday ( 8 March 2016) and I hope to finish the degree a year from now. 1 class down 9 more to go. 

Glasses FLOW

The last thing I would like to touch on is the female mentorship program that I recently started while on this deployment. There have been many times where I have thought to myself ” what is my purpose here on earth, what is it that God wants me to do” Over the years I’ve discovered that I am passionate about uplifting other females. Upon arriving to the base I am deployed at I discovered that members from the other branches of the United States Military were stationed here as well ( sailors, airmen, and marines), but upon discovering this I also noticed that each branch’s personnel tend to keep to themselves and not interact with the other branches. Myself along with a Navy non commissioned officer decided that we were going to start up a female mentorship program .We pondered upon what we would call it and then my favorite word popped in my head “FIERCE” from there I said it would be called FIERCE and that we had to come up with an acronym for the program. I came up with ” FEMALES INSPIRING EMPOWERING and REINFORCING CONTINUOUS EXCELLENCE” and the creation was born. My co founder hails from New Orleans and has been in the U.S Navy for 17 years I met her after I put up flyers seeking out females who wanted to be on the Praise Dance Team and she was the only person I had come out. Since then we’ve been close ever since. We decided that upon returning to the states we would have a logo created and get the acronym we came up for FIERCE patented. We would then start of the program in our respective locations and grow the organization. Eventually we are going to transform it into a non profit with the aim to positively influence as many female lives as possible.

Repping what I love and what I am inspired by

Well there you have it, that’s what I’ve been up to these past weeks. I appreciate you all for sticking with me and I send nothing but blessings your way. I’ll talk to yall later I’m off to look at pageant gowns and pageant jewelry (oops I mean Army documents and powerpoints) lol. I hope you all have a prosperous 2015