to catch you up on my awesome adventures...

Sunday 5-1

Lessons i learned on Sunday: how to successfully use the sistema de camiones (kind of),  and how to work the shower (dont judge me).  Also i almost got hit by a car while i was on the sidewalk.

En domingo fuimos a la iglesia. Alison and i were so proud of ourselves bc we successfully arrived to church on time. We got on the right camion and everything! Church was so so good! Like, it was amazing. It was fast Sunday and the people bore such strong testimonies of Christ. Sunday school was super good too. I really loved what our teacher said. Ha, ive never paid that much attention in Sunday school before… :/  we were in John 9 and we talked about when Jesus healed the blind man with clay. I realized that im ciega to a lot of things in my life and I need the help of my Savior. Like constantly. After church we had lunch (which is a ton of food, like equivalent to our dinners) with Carmita y su familia. It was delicious. They are so much fun! I feel like a part of their family. Oh, before dinner we totally hung out with them like all day and they taught us how the streets and camiones work in merida. The streets are all numbered, but each neighborhood (colonia) repeats streets. Like, we live on calle 15, but there is more than one calle 15 in merida. so if you get off the camion at calle 15, you should probably make sure you are in the right colonia...or else you will have to walk for a long time. Or wait for another camion. 

So anyways, after lunch we chilled for a while, then headed to the stake center for a fireside. The stake center is right by the temple and its en el centro. Ok so we got on the camion y kind of rode the bus for like forever. There were only 4 gringas left on the bus and the driver asked us where we were going. I went up to talk to him and told him where and he was like, oh I know where that is! So he told me when we were supposed to get off (but I sort of only understood like half of what he said) so I stayed up there and talked to him. His name is William and he was super fun to talk to. He was muy amable. Everyone ive met so far is super nice and helpful, which I LOVE. Anyways we got to talking about religion and I got to share a little bit with him. It was cool. So the fireside started at 7 and it was like 7:10 at this point. I felt super bad bc we had some girls with us, and I kind of wasn’t exactly sure what the bus driver said about where to go. So anyways we finally get off and walk for like forever and we are sort of lost-ish and just praying that we will find this place. Like we kind of knew where to go, but I sort of had no idea where the chapel was. While we were walking, a car almost ran me over (while I was on the side walk) and after walking 19.5 blocks we are still only sort of sure we are going the right way. We come around the corner and see some gates that looked sort of random and out of place. We thought (well, hoped) maybe they were temple gates, and lo and behold, we walked up to them and saw the temple in all its majesty and glory! 

Seriously, there are not words in either language to describe the relief and comfort I felt. it felt so peaceful, and I started to tear up. The gatekeeper let us in, and we walked through the temple grounds to the stake center. We got to the fireside like 45mins late or so, and the speaker was talking about how God is always en el camino with you. And something about how he guides us. She talked about how each person has their own individual camino, and I got to thinking about some deep stuff and it was way good. And I totally lost it again. Alison and I were both crying. Also, ive never worked so hard to get to a CES fireside before in my life, haha. Afterwards we went to the temple w the group and I just felt so much reverence there. Also, like everything that has happened is like a parallel to something on a deeper level for me. Everything. I’m loving it! I’m learning so much here. Its way cool. So afterwards, we were walking to the bus stop, and I crossed the street and I’m walking past a parked car and I hear a huge rip. I thought, oh crud, and I look down and see that my dress ripped. Fail. But it wasn’t a huge hole, and I didn’t really care that much since I had such an awesome experience just prior. Anyways, so we waited for a while for the camion, but we were w people that knew what bus to get on and stuff, so it was good.

Lunes 5-2

Monday morning we woke up at 5 to leave at 6 to get to school by 7. Ya. For breakfast we had choco krispis and milk from a box. Kinda gross, but kinda cool. Class was SUPER boring, and no one could stay awake, jaja! Also, one of my teachers is blind, which is super weird bc my Sunday school teacher totally talked about ciegos. Weird. Makes you think about stuff. 

We only had one class, so Alison, Adrienne, and I went to el centro. Nate served his mission here, so he knows where everything is, but he said he wasn’t going to tell us where to go, we had to figure out how to get places. It was so fun! He gave us some hints tho, but it was fun to ask people where stuff was. Im getting better about talking to people. It was like a lil adventure and I loved it! We walked around and looked at stuff in some awesome shops. Jaja, we were walking thru el Mercado y there was a really short cart that I didn’t see, and I totally ran into it! I apologized to the man and after I passed Alison heard him say “that gringa!” and something about how I ran into his cart. Haha it was funny. After the centro we came home for lunch and had some amazing soup. It was so good. Instead of a siesta, I went w Lars y Nate to get some Pina Coladas. They were fresh and absolutely delicious! We went over to their house afterwards to swim, then headed to profe’s house after that for FHE. It was really good because we were all outside sitting with our feet in the pool. Michell (profe’s wife) gave a lesson about having courage and patience in our pocket and knowing when to use which tool. It was really good. Afterwards we walked home w some girls that live sort of close, dropped them off, then headed home. Alison and I stayed up and talked for a while. We talked about being en el Centro today with Nate and how he led us sort of how Christ leads us.  Sometimes He leads us (like Nate did the other day), but usually He gives us some hints as to what we should do, then He lets us decide and figure things out so we can learn.  If we're about to do anything that would mess us up, though, He lets us know first.  And sometimes the hints have a different significance according to the situation - when Nate first told us the street number, it didn't mean anything because we were just trying to find the old post office.  When we got conflicting answers from people, though, he reminded us of the clue he had given earlier and that time, it was significant and helped us make sense of other information.  So many parallels. Awesome.

Something funny that happened that day: I was talking w Lars y Nate on skype (making plans bc we don’t have phones. Which is super hard) and I told them “comimos sopa con pollo y calabera" (which means we ate soup with chicken and skulls). I meant to say chicken and pumpkin, which is calabaza…

Martes 5-3

Tuesday we woke up bright and early again and went to school. Which was super boring again. Also, there is a Mexican vending machine by our class and its way cool. After class, we had to get our student ID’s for la Universidad Modelo. Jaja, ok so I was wearing my glasses bc I was way tired, so I took them off for the pic, but my eyes were shut. Then the retake was hilarious bc I looked like I was chinese. Like, no joke. So we had a good laugh about it, then some other girls in our froup came in and I showed it to them, and one of them said, “eres chino?” haha, it was hilarious! After school we have to take 2 busses to get home, and we have a bus stop at la plaza fiesta. We stopped en el super (which is like a grocery store) and had so much fun looking at all the cool stuff there. Like, rows of nesquick in juice boxes and we took lots of pics. And rows of un refrigerated boxed milk… 

Plus we bought some nesquick and when we were getting on the bus we felt like ninos de kinder with our backpacks and juice boxed nesquick. So much fun! Then we got home, then went to the beach!! (progresso). We totally went swimming in the gulf of mexico! It was amaaaazing! I LOVED it! Evertything. I was a lil sad tho bc I charged my camera batteries extra, but I grabbed the wrong ones L, but lars let me steal his camera for a while J and I wasn’t too bummed bc I plan on going back kind of a lot. Also, the water was perfect and almost everyone from the group went (theres 30 of us), so it was a blast! Afterwards, we got some diff kinds of delicious pan and met a guy named William that had a cute lil shop on the corner. He asked where we were from, and he told us he was baptized when he was little, but then he watched the discovery channel, so he doesn’t go to church anymore. Anyways, so his friend was trying to sell me this super cute wrap and he put it on me and was like oh, estas bonita! And trying to get me to buy it. I didn’t really want it but I practiced bartering just for fun. I lowered the price a lil and it was fun. We were on our way home and stopped by profe’s house to chat and get to know him and his fam a lil better. He wasn’t home, but we talked w his (host) mama and she gave us cool tips on bartering and taught us how to do it. She also told us about other fun things to do in merida, so we put those on the list. We also want to ring and run at profe’s house bc we think it would be fun for his kids. (they are young and super cute). We also want to make cookies anyway because on Sunday we were eating and carmita’s daughter asked us if we knew how to make cookies, and we said yes, and she got super excited! J We are planning some good surprises for this weekend! J

Miercoles 5-4

Woke up at 5am again. Gross. Also, had so much trouble staying awake in class. Its hard bc its 2 hours straight w no break. And then another class right after it. Also, I made some friends at school. Then on the camion, I met a muchacho named hector and he was super nice. He goes to our school and offered his help in case I ever need it. We had a nice convo, then we got to his stop, so he gave me un besito and left.  After that, Alison y yo fuimos al super (which is like a mall thing) a la plaza fiesta. We saw burger king and we wanted to get some because we thought it would be fun. We were right. 

It was the funnest burger king trip ever. Plus they had this awesome apple pop. I liked it a lot. We got home and we were in dire need of a siesta, but Ariana (Carmita’s granddaughter who kind of lives here) really wanted to play. She is so adorable and hilarious. We swam with her and she was cracking us up the whole time! Ha so here the use the word banarse for swimming instead of nadar, so like the 3^rd day we were here, Carmita asked us “quien se ha banado?” and im like, umm we’ve been here for 3 days, we have both showered, but then we realized what she meant… anyways so after that we went to el centro with some people from the group. We met up here, then went to the cathedral to wait for the others. We were sitting inside (during la misa=mass) and they were praying and I just felt like I am so blessed because I have the gospel. Like in every aspect of my life. we met a little mayan woman and she was super cute. I love their dresses too. 

Entonces, we went to the middle of the centro and there were lots of mayans (and other yucatecas) selling beautiful hand made things. Like everything, earrings, shirts, purses, bags, jewelry, henna, everything! I love this place! I bought a bolsita, and its super cute. I totally bartered for it too which was way fun! I also found these super sweet earrings and bartered for them too. if you know how to do it, you can get the prices pretty low. You just stare them straight in the eye and make them lower it. Mom, you would be proud of me. After that, we went to find a tiendita that la mama del profe told us about. we looked at stuff there, but didn’t really find anything cool. Then we found this store with the coolest earrings. I really liked these silver ones with part of the mayan calendar on them, but I acted totally uninterested. He asked for like 700 pesos, and I got it down to less than half the price. It was awesome. I was totally in charge. Like he would lower it a teeny bit and I would pretend like I was deciding if that was a good price, when I was really figuring out what he said, then converting how many $’s that would be, then trying to figure out whether or not it was a good price. haha, I got them for super cheap and i kind of felt like I ruled the world after that. Then Alison y yo found this little pizza place on the corner and split a piece. 

It was way good, but it didn’t have hardly any sauce so I had some picante w it and it was way good! I really liked the guy that helped us too, he had a cute smile, so we told him, jaja. We caught a camion a la plaza fiesta and we were waiting to catch another bus, and we met a cute boy, made friends with him, then when he was getting on a bus he gave me un besito too. J later, we found out there weren’t any more busses running that late, so we walked the rest of the way home, which wasn’t super far, but  among other things, it made me think about how much we need to rely on the Lord everyday. Entonces, we went home and it was almost 11 by the time we got home. We were super tired, but Alison was skyping w her husband and I wanted to tell my mom about my day so I skyped w her (hi mom).  Then we got ready for bed, and my bed is super crujiente. Like you can feel all the springs in it, so Alison was kind enough to share her bed (which is twice as big and seven times as comfortable as mine). We pushed the beds together and had our feet on the crunchy bed. I slept like a baby.