Perseverance: The Key to Life-Changing Missions

Ideas and Missions Change the World

Why do people undertake life changing missions while others only undertake missions to improve the day? Everyone has their own reasons for undertaking a mission. From survival, to striking it rich, everyone has a mission they want to accomplish. Ernesto and Apollo 13’s crew had different missions, but both needed to work hard and persevere to achieve their goals. Ernesto had to work hard to fit in, and determine who he could trust; whereas Apollo 13’s crew had to make quick decisions to survive.

In the story Barrio Boy, Ernesto Galarza is a Mexican who moves to an American school. He is faced by hardships such as the fact that he has never seen, or let alone, spoken English. He has to determine

who is friend or foe. He has to learn how to read, write, and speak the English language. He determines when Ms. Hopley stands up, that she is “a match for giants”. He “decided he liked her.” He did not want to learn English, paragraph 12 says, “her voice patiently maneuvering me over the awful idiocies of the English language”. Ms. Ryan and Ms. Hopley both helped push him towards their goal of Ernesto learning English, and he succeeded. He also learned something very important, “It was easy for me to feel that becoming a proud American, as she said we should, did not mean feeling ashamed of being a Mexican”. In the end of the story he learns the American language, and how to read it. He learns how to become a proud American. Most importantly, he learns that he should never be ashamed of being a Mexican.

Unlike like Ernesto, who was nervous, and had to learn a new language to fit in; Apollo 13’s crew had to make split-second decisions to simply survive, and make it back to Earth.

Apollo 13’s crew was on a mission to the moon when an oxygen tank exploded. “Houston we’ve had a problem here,” reported Lovel. The ground control also faced many setbacks. They had to find out how to improvise electricity, save oxygen, and use supplies wisely. Paragraph 10 says, “Ground controllers in Houston faced a formidable task. Completely new procedures had to be written and tested in the simulator before being passed up to the crew.” The crew had to persevere to make quick, life saving, decisions as a team. After a long while of decision making, worrying, and improvising supplies, the crew finally made it home safely.

Ernesto had to learn to fit in and learn a new language to improve his life; whereas Apollo 13’s crew had to make decisions in a matter of seconds to survive. Regardless, both had a mission to undertake, and be successful at. Everyone has their own missions, whether they are daily activities and goals, or wanting to change the world. Everyone has their own ideas on how to accomplish a mission. Maybe we should all go a little farther to to make those missions

happen.