Temple Trip

What a cool experience!? And it was all in Spanish! Actually I was so glad I was able to go, I had been pretty sick that day and the day before, but I really wanted to do this. I think we are hoping to get one more session in before we have to take off.

The Guadalajara temple is beautiful, fairly small, but very much familiar. It’s like being home again. And it was so cool to be there with all of our group and different single adult members from the ward. I was excited that, when I walked into the confirmation room, a kid from our group was reading the names. It was fun to hear him speaking the familiar words in Spanish.

Guanajuato....

We just got home from our weekend trip to Guanajuato. It was incredible, and so beautiful! It looked very European to me. I wish I could have captured what we saw on camera…but the pictures do not do any justice. The streets were made of stone, and were so narrow and the landscape full of color. It was really beautiful! The food was great, definitely ate too much! And we did some site seeing and shopping, of course.

I can’t even begin to explain what the overall feel of Guanajuato was. We were able to take a tour of the city and stop at different places, and just look out the windows! We went to the city’s candy shop and afterwards to a mine. It was really cool, and I could kind of follow the history. (I’m torn…I’m glad they talk to us in Spanish when we do things like this, but I really love to know the history of things, and sometimes when they speak in Spanish, they use totally unfamiliar vocab and talk a lot more slurred together and quickly, a lot of the time, we just all listen with blank stares in our faces….a little frustrating actually at times. This time, however, I think I was on the same page most of the time. ) It was way cool and at the end we went and saw some of the different stones and crystals that they used to mine. I actually bought one of the crystals for myself, it’s a memory crystal. I thought it was kind of cool and something that could help remind me of the this incredible trip and experience…kind of cool huh!? Memory stone to help remind me.

Oh my gosh, after the mine we went and saw a torture museum they have there, from the Spanish Inquisition, during the reign of the Catholic church. It was horrible! I felt so sick. I am in a way so glad that we went though. It is part of history, and really got me thinking. It is so horrible to me, that other human beings could do such horrid things to other human beings, and over the idea of Christianity...rather ironic actually. I can not fathom the idea of someone willing and able to hurt another, and especially in that horrific and gruesome kind of manner. As our tour guide explained what each of the different torture machines were used for, he would occasionally ask for volunteers to help him out. I tried as hard as I could to avoid eye contact…however, he got me. He asked me to come to the front where I stood in front of a closed box. (As I walked to the front, Hermana Stallings called… “not my Ashley”…that was pretty endearing….) He then opened the box as everyone squealed…well, that was no help to calm my nerves. He had me step back into the box and said to be very careful that I did not move. As he began to shut the doors to the box, I got a glimpse of the spikes plastered along the surface of the box. I squirmed a bit and felt the spikes along the back of the box that I was now standing in pinch my skin. What an experience! (Obviously he did not shut the doors all the way, or the ending of this little experience would be a bit different...) Really though, it got me thinking, about the restoration, about the lives that were sacrificed, much earlier than just those of the latter day saints and the early American colonists, for the sake of freedom of religion and for the preparation of the Lord’s gospel. It also made me realize how grateful I am for the time and place in which I live in. Wow! What a museum….

It was so funny, last night, after the day was over, most of us girls met up in one of the rooms, for a girls night sort of thing…stories and laughing our heads off…in our pajamas, like you would at a sleepover. However, towards the middle of the festivities, there was a knock at the door, the boys wanted to join. It was so funny; we definitely had to take pictures of the boys….at girls night! They joined in on the stories and laughing. Both shared stories of their first date/first kiss or whatev…it really was so much fun! And it has been so much fun getting to know each other better! Especially this weekend…we were able to spend so much time together (especially on the four hour bus ride), just laughing and taking. I feel like I've known these people forever!

ahhh...i have so many pictures i want to post...but it takes absolutely forever to post them...i wish you could all see what i see! thinking of you all! abrazos y besos!

these kids are amazing....

Service is so amazing to me! Everytime I learn something new…and I watch the children, and Bernardo in awe. One of my favorite parts is when we first arrive. The children come running up to us, feeling our arms and our faces and hair, trying to identify who is who. And they’ve got it down. “Ashy!!!”…they know exactly who we are. Their hugs and smiles make me melt each time we go.

After service today we went for a walk in the park with Bernardo. Afterwards, we were walking to the bus stop to say good bye to Bernardo, and I couldn’t help asking. I asked him how he knew to get off the bus when he needed to…and you know what?! He’s got the entire bus route memorized, every turn. I don’t know…I can’t imagine going through life with out the ability to see…every time I go to Helen Keller I am amazed and reminded how much I have to give. However, I feel like I am taking so much- I try and absorb every bit of it that I can.

La iglesia es el mismo en todo el mundo

The church is the same everywhere you go.....

I’ve been meaning to get this one onto my blog for a while, but it is one of the first things that I wrote down in my journal. The church is amazing to me!!! There are no words to express exactly how I feel, however, I do want to say that no matter where you go, the Lord is there. It is amazing to me. Our first Sunday so much was over our head, the feelings though were the same. The men in their white shirts and ties, the children scattered throughout the congregation, the young men seated in the front, even the bishopric talked like bishopric. It is our third week here and I feel like I can understand most of what is said in sacrament and Sunday school, as well as relief society, or enough to understand the lesson and follow along….but even from the beginning everything was familiar. I can be so far from home, yet so close to it at the same time. I love our church, and it is such a testament to me that maybe there is something special about it… J . I know its true.

Cryin’ through dinner!!!

When Jessica and I first got here, I told her that we had to make a deal to try everything here. So far our two most exotic things are small intestine and grass hopper, neither of which, to I am sure your surprise, we did not like. Oh and our list of Mexican Fruit is constantly growing. Yesterday, at dinner, we tried some kind of pepper. I am not sure what kind it was, but our friends, who are from here, were with us and were very willing to dare us to eat them; however they said that they weren’t able to eat the peppers because they were too hot. Well, of course we couldn’t turn down a dare!! Oh my goodness!!! I had tears streaming down my face! At first I didn’t think it was too bad, I even took a second bite,…however, shortly thereafter, I thought my throat had caught on fire and my tongue had fallen out of my mouth! It was crazy hot!!!

Makin’ friends with the locals!

You know!? Jess and I were talking how incredibly cool it is that we have friends who can not speak English!!! Crazy!! I don’t know to me…when I think about it that is so weird. Granted our conversations in Spanish are pretty broken up, we are able to communicate! That is so stinkin’ cool to me!!! We are friends and talk to each other…but not in English!!! In an entirely different language!!!

Livin' the hard life...

We had another trip today all together. We went to Chapala! More of a tourist kind of city. It was so much fun to look at all of the old buildings and walk around the lake. We had a competition who could speak the most Spanish to the people…we find out tomorrow who wins! We tried…and we didn’t do too bad! Afterwards we lived the life of luxury and went to a resort next to the lake where we stuffed ourselves full of Mexican food followed by hours of swimming and football. It was an incredible day! And Jess and I learned that it might be a better idea for next time to reapply our sunscreen a little more often!...but man! What a beautiful day!!!

What an adventure?

Today was so much fun…and of course, always an adventure. We did not have service today because the school’s had the day off…for some holiday. So, Jess and I decided with some other girls that we would meet up and go down town for the afternoon, just to explore. We decided to meet at three o’clock and shortly before Jess and I left to get on the bus, thinking we knew how to get to where we needed to go to meet up with the other two girls that were going to go. Well…Jess and I have had really good luck finding our way to places by bus. Consequently, we took the wrong bus, however, by the time we realized we had no idea hot to get back and, owning no telephone, had no way to contact the other girls….a new adventure had begun. Luckily the bus we were on was headed towards el centro, exactly where we were wanting to head to. So, minus the fact that we had just stood up our friends, things would work out great and Jess and I would be able to say we had our adventure for the day.

Well…we get a ways and the bus driver looks at us like as if we were to know what was going on. At about that point we realized that we were the only ones on the bus – it was time to get off (we have absolutely no idea why….still…we are not sure why we had to get off….it will forever remain a mystery). Our adventure had finally begun. We started looking for landmarks, trying to figure out where we were and how to get to where we wanted to go. We started to look for steeples in the sky. After finding one we began to work towards it, however, we soon realized that this was not the part of town we wanted to be on ( we also realized that it was the wrong steeple, not the one belonging to the cathedral en el centro). So we turned around and wandered for a bit (pretending we knew exactly where we were). After a while we found a street that was pretty crowed…we decided to follow traffic…and guess what??? It worked! We found el centro!

It was so fun to be able to look around again and do some shopping!! (I got something for ya mom!!! He he J!) We tried the coolest pan dulce!!! (pan means bread) They have so many pastries here…and they are all so fun looking. I had this “think”, it was sweetened bread, but it had horns…it was so different. We were inside the store and I decided that I wanted to try the weirdest looking thing!!! (or the weirdest looking thing without chocolate or fruit…)

As time past we pondered over the idea of getting home, we kind of didn’t really have any idea where to start. I decided that I would ask these two boys that we met in the Mercado who seemed to be friendly and we had already been talking with them for quite some time. They said that they would be able to take us home! (mom, dad…you might want to stop reading at this point….everything worked out great, and I know you are not supposed to talk with strangers, but we were a little desperate and we felt that this was an okay thing to do and it was okay for us to trust them). Anyway, they road the buses home with us. Afterwards, Jess and I were talking about how absolutely amazing the people are here. They are so kind, and so willing to drop anything to help others. Really. The people in our ward here, and people we meet on the streets…that’s just what is suspected. It’s hard though, you can not trust everyone, and you can’t tell who is being nice and who’s maybe got other intentions. However, Jess and I decided, because we choose not to give the boys our phone number, we would simply have to “Pay if forward”, to repay them for their act of kindness.

Color Esperanza

Our school had an opening social and a closing goodbye party; two parties combined into one for the new incoming students, like us, and those who were finishing up and getting ready to take off. For the party each class was to prepare a musical “number” type thing. Our teacher’s picked the song for us….”Color Esperanza”….we immediately fell in love with it, and it fit perfectly with our class. Anyway, the teacher’s asked me to head up the choreography (I know…what were they thinking, huh?! I think it was because while we were doing our first practices, before we really got started, I could not stop dancing…learned me lesson…J ) It was way fun though, and of course everyone really got into it. And actually, we are going to perform it to our ward here, at our closing party/farewell kind of thing... it’s a talent show! Should be fun!

Here are some of the lyrics to the song, both in Spanish and in English….

Saber que se puede, querer que se pueda

To know what you can do, to want what you could do

Quitarse los meidos, sacarlos afuera

Throughout your fears, leave them outside

Pintarse la cara color espereranza

Paint your face the color of hope

Tentar al futuro con el Corazon

With your heart turn to the future

Es major perderse que nunca embarcar

It’s better to loose than never embark

…..vale la pena una vez mas

it’s worth the pain one more time

Color Esperanza

One of Three

Believe it or not there are three Ashley’s in our group as well as three Jessica’s. To differentiate between the three Ashley’s, Teresa calls me Arora, meaning rise of the sun…I thought that was really cool. It’s a pretty name, I don’t mind the temporary name change.

ESCUELA

School is so much fun! We go Monday through Friday, nine to twelve. I absolutely love our teacher; Teresea. She is so great, and I think I follow her pretty well. There’s times she looses me, and others, but she has no problem repeating and slowing down. I really love classes. For the first two hour block we go over vocab and grammar. For the second hour, we have conversation class (however, the last week or so that we have been here we have had song practice during this time…another story for later).

mamacitas!!!!!

“Hey baby! You fine!” this place is great for my self-esteem!!!!!

“You have to take control of the kiss!” –Jessica

In Mexico, it is proper, when you say hello to someone to embrace and kiss on the cheek….which I am catching on to and becoming comfortable with – it’s very endearing and personal. However, we have concluded that some boys seem to be confused where our cheeks are and where our mouths are located…they get awfully close…..

Si lo puedes sonar, lo puedes lograr

Service is amazing! We work at the Instituto de Helen Keller, it’s a school designed to help those who can not see. There are no words to describe it. It’s amazing… and the feeling that we get when we are there is absolutely overwhelming. Right now we are helping out a lot as teacher’s aids, helping to get ready for graduation. However, we get to spend some time playing with the kids, and every Wednesday we get to go swimming with the children. Woo-hoo! We also take turns, rotating, in the computer lab, helping out a friend. There, we work with Bernardo. And golly….does he have a story. Today I got to work with him. He is completely blind, and his job is to help those in the computer lab, and our job there is to read to him the screen when there is a problem with the computer so he can fix it. Today, there was only a couple times when there were problems with the computers, so there was lots of time to chat and for me to practice my Spanish.

Bernardo was five when his brother accidentally shot him in the face…leaving him completely blind. He is an incredible guitarist!!! I listened to him for quite some time; I think I could listen forever. He sings as well. He is in a band with some of his friends, where he writes the music, plays and sings. He loves to run, and has won several medals in the Special Olympics here. His story is amazing, and very humbling. He showed me a video today, about him, and during the video popped up this quote…… “Si lo puedes sonar, lo puedes lograr.” If you dream it, you can do it. – Walt Disney …

I’m excited for our new friendship. He is very touchy….I don’t really know what I mean by that…but all of the children are. At first I felt a little nervous, but it is totally normal to me. He is trying to draw a picture in his mind of what I look like; touching my face and feeling my hair. He is constantly holding your hand (however,…I believe mine more than others, and probably more than necessary…. J…..) and touching your back. All of the children are very touchy. When they talk to you, they want to know you are there, listening. All together it is truly a humbling experience…I really can not put what I feel into words.

hello from guadalajara! TOP 5

wow! i can not believe we have only been here for less than a week!!! im loving it though!! and kind of catching on to things. our stomachs are a little behind, but well see if they catch up. so let's see....there is absolutley so much!!! im going to give you my top five! so...here it goes;

5. ate an exocitic mexican fruit!

Saturday for lunch we were all eating together in the house, Jessica, myself and our family. After asking what this noise was outside, like a person talking through a microphone, we listened for a bit and Carlos, nuestra padres, took off running outside. It was a street vendor and he was selling pitallas, this rare fruit our family was telling us about the day before. It only comes one month out of the year, may. and it comes off of a cactus. It had the stangest texture out of anything i have ever tried before. Im not so sure I liked them, but it was so much fun to try. He actually bought a couple, and as he pealed each one it was like magic!

4. got lost! twice!

so i think slowly we are figuring out the bus system. and its fun to talk to people on the bus, mainly because we are trying to figure out if we are on the right bus, if we are going the right direction, and where we need to get off. but also we talk just to talk, and really to make a fool out of ourselves. at least they all ready now we are american by looking at us, and we're trying! sunday was definetly an adventure getting to church (note to self, even though the boys say they know how to get there, that does not entail that they really do) and again yesterday, we got lost trying to find hermana stalling's apartment for noche de hogar, FHE, and we were in charge. i just have to laugh! it makes everything so much more interesting!

3. i've developed my own kind of morning sickness.

so...Our stomachs are still adapting i think. we really haven't eaten any street food. or drank any of the water. but we are sure going though pepto bismal pretty fast. i don't want to give you any more information than what you want to know...but the last couple of mornings Jess and I have both been waking up pretty sick. luckily by mid morning, we are feeling much better. our mom keeps us updated on what we can and can not eat and what we need to do and such. hopefully its just kind of the change of things, new bacteria, and give it some time...and we should be good to go!

2. salsa dance and thrown into the pool!

yesterday for cinco de mayo we had a large barbeque with the branch. it was so much fun. and there was so much food. the kids in the branch are so nice and really try and help us with our spanish. most of them know english as well, but for the most part we talk in spanish the whole time...that is our goal! :) we got to dance, true mexican salsa, and another kind...which i actually can't remeber the name of. it was so much fun! and we are actually going some where to go dancing this friday with some guys in the ward! can't wait!!!!!
the barbeque itself was so much fun! its fun to try and communicate with everyone...they just sit and smile and wait for you to stutter through your sentance.
oh..and i almost forgot!!! i got to go swimming! it was after FHE. my friend started to push me in the pool, and i yelled i still had my camera so he stopped. i told if i didn't have my camera, and if we werent going to go dancing later (which we were) he had full permission to push me in. well, we found out we were not going to be able to go dancing...not too many places open on a monday night. and he asked if he could see my camera, and me honestly not catching on, said okay. one second later i was in the pool! it felt great. and its so dry here that i was almost dried out from the walk home afterwards.

1. first day of classes!

i love school! the campus is great and our teacher is amazing! maestra teresea! she is very sweet and really not the difficult to understand. when i can't understand her i feel like i can at least get the main idea what she is saying. i am really glad to be formally learning new things in addition to just absorbing things off the street...if that makes any sense. it is going to be really helpful to review the tenses and verbs, and learn new ones to be able to use.
today after class we began preparing our song, that we have to sing, in spanish...no joke for the closing and opening social next week. (there is a big party on campus for those who are just starting classes and for those who are finishing) it is so much fun! and really fun to sing! i hope we get an audio copy of the music. i'd love to share it with you! ill keep ya updated though on the next biggest version of Mexican Idol.

Wow! There is still so much more! and so much more to come! We get to go to a game today!!!! ahh! can't wait! it is one of the things on my list that i had to absolutely do when i came to mexico...go to a Mexican soccer game in Mexico. we are going to a game also on thursday, as a group. (today we are going with some friends we met here) we were told this is really the only week to see the teams here play, so we are taking advantage of it. we getting our talent show together, for the end of the term...something we can do to kind of give back to the ward, we've got a trip planned for this weekend to visit some sites that are of historical importance to guadalajara, we got a dinner date with a mariachi band on friday, followed by..of course, dancing, and instituto!!! so much to do! we are kept busy, and by the end of the night, you can almost hear your bed calling your name . ;-) its great, and all of it is centered around spanish....no anatomy homework and such....ya follow? its been great!

oh...and i almost forgot, yesterday after everything, on our way home for the night, there was a churro stand open...and we had to stop, a real mexican churro. and we were in heaven. it was filled with dulce de leche (my favorite)....it was so good. and the bad thing is that stand is not too far away from us.....

love ya all!!!

te amo ! te extrano!

estamos aqui

hola familia y amigos! estamos aqui!!! we made it! the weather here is absolutely fantastico!!!! la me gusta mucho!!!! y nuestra familia is amazing!!!! they are so patient, and actually for the most part Jess and I feel like we can understand them. it is so much fun to talk to them.

I'm addicted to speaking Spanish, at times it's frustrating, though, because I know what I want to say, I just don't know how. I feel like I am already learning a ton.

There are so many cars here...holy cow!!! no wonder they have problem with car accidents and Americans when they come down here. yikes!!!! our goal is to look like we belong here within the next day or so... no more looking around like wow...or the occasional yikes! actually, today's been better. We are catching on to the traffic laws and such. :) but i don't think the weird looks will stop.

Last night, Liz, nuestra nuevo mama o mi mama Mexicana, cooked dinner for us. It was really late, they eat dinner between eight and nine, so I should feel right at home, right padres?! :) It was delicious, though. She said she didn't want to cook anything to...mexican yet, while we let our stomachs get used to the change in diet. We had some tortillas and some home made chilli sauce. She also made this jello/yogurt dish, con fescos, or strawberries. It was so good, and cold...which was even better.

Jess and I are trying to get used to brushing our teeth with our water bottles, or rather using that for water when brush our teeth, enjoying all the tastes and sounds, and soaking up every minute of Mexico that we can.

Love you all! Ambrazos.

eebers!

Erin!!!! I got to see her between our two flights. Our first flight left Salt Lake at seven in the morning (many thanks to grandma and grandpa for the transportation so early in the morning), where we then flew into Phoenix. I got to meet up with Eebers there for a bit, where we freaked out for a bit, calmed each others nerves and freaked out some more. After our goodbyes, we then flew from Phoenix into Guadalajara, Mexico. Woo-hoo!