Plain and Simple

Sunday August 16th, 2015 Part One: First Service

Before I begin, I want to make sure you know a little bit about me. My name is Isabelle. Isabelle Meiers. Feel free to look me up. I'm 15. I'm writing everything as it is happening to me.  From this point forward, I'll try not to lie to you. But I'm not making any promises. WARNING 2: STRONGLY UNRECOMMENDED FOR READERS BELOW TWELVE YEARS OF AGE. VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED.

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I woke up ten minutes late. The first church service starts at 9:45 and my mom woke me up at 9:10. Now, I know that might not sound late to some people. But I'm a 15 year old girl and I have my routine. Wake up at 9 and lie in bed for a half hour and then rush to get ready. I had ten minutes less of lying around! What the heck. Since I'd already lost ten minutes of it, I decided to skip the lying around part and get ready on time. Let me tell you, that never happens. I am the laziest of the lazy. It's happened to me that several days this summer I never got out of bed.

I got myself dressed in a floral tank-top and jeans. I had just bought the floral tank-top prior to my one month trip to France. I walk out of my room, all ready to go at 9:30. That's some sort of early bird record for me. I walked down stairs and my entire family was ready to go except for my sister and I. We are never on time. My whole family was gathered around the living room that connects directly into the kitchen. I decided I would actually eat some breakfast since I was up at a good time.

Let me take a few sentences to talk about my family. There are six of us. My mom, dad, older sister, and two younger brothers. Seven of us, if you count our dog Oreo. Cassie is the oldest; 17. She'll be starting her senior year of high school in the fall. Then there's me. I'm going to be a sophomore. My brother Ian just turned 12 in July and he's going into 7th grade. Last but not least there's Luca. Six years old, and the baby of the family. He'll be going in to first grade. I'll explain more about them later.

"What are you wearing." My mom looked at my outfit up and down.

"You can see what I'm wearing." I rolled my eyes.

"Lift up your arms." She instructed. I did as I was told.

"Just as I thought. I can see your bra directly underneath your arms. Your bra is showing, Isabelle. We're going to church not some teen party." Typical.

"Okay, then I won't lift up my arms." Problem solved.

"Brandon, do you notice anything wrong with Isabelle's outfit?" Of course. Drag my father into this. I cross my arms. Maybe he wouldn't notice.

"Her bra is showing, Brandon." Wow mom way to give the guy a chance.

"Mom, it's not like guys are going to be staring at my armpits like 'ooh, maybe if I look there I might be able to see her bra! OOP there it is!'" This is ridiculously aggravating. It might not seem like that big of a deal and okay, it's not. But this happens every Sunday practically. Mom can always find something wrong with my outfit.

"You don't know how guys think, Isabelle." My dad pointed out. "I don't see why you can't just wear a camisole underneath your shirt.

"It won't make much of a difference they'll still be able to see my scandalous undershirt straps but okay!" I march up the stairs and slam the door. I rush to put an undershirt on then I plop on my bed and wait for my parents to tell me to hurry up.

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We arrived at church 30 minutes late. Which is saying something, because we're a five minute drive away. We attend a huge church, PBC. I always forget what it stands for cause everyone just calls it PBC. Since we were late, we didn't go into the main sanctuary where the sermon actually takes place. We just watched the service from the cafeteria area on one of the big screen TVs. I made myself a coffee and started listening to the sermon. A few minutes into the sermon, Mr. Sweet came up to us.

Let me tell you a bit about the Sweet family. Mr. Sweet is a youth pastor, which means he deals with the majority of the kids in the church. Mrs. Sweet is typically in the Promised Land, which is what the church calls the pre-school section. The Sweets have five kids. I can't remember all of their names, but I know Tommy, who's going to be a senior like my sister. And Zara, who's going in to 5th grade. My mom has told me some issues that this family has, but all families have their problems.

"Guess where I was last night." Mr. Sweet greeted us. He pulled up a picture of Tommy with a splint on his nose.

"Oh my word!" My mom exclaimed. "What happened? Is it serious? Is he going to need surgery?"

Mr. Sweet chuckled. "It was a skateboarding accident. He fell off of his skateboard and his face slammed into the pavement. He was too far from our house so he stopped by the Rite Aid near by and they took him to the hospital. He broke his nose but he got stitches and he's fine now. He was actually feeling well enough to come to church today. We leave for vacation on Tuesday, so hopefully it's not too serious and he won't need surgery."

"Woah. He will be in our prayers." And with that, we finished listening to the sermon.

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Hey you guys! I hope you enjoyed part 1! I was planning on writing a part 2 to this day, and I will write it, but I will only publish it if you give me feedback! Positive or negative, it doesn't matter but please let me know. It seems like the Sweet family isn't quite that important, but just wait until I publish part 2! Let me know what you all think!

xxxxxxx,

Isabelle