There are two sides to the cone.

I hope you enjoy the title of this post. 

It turns out I have a hard time speaking in English as well as Spanish.

This is something I told Marisa while trying to tell her that there are always at least two ways of looking at things.

I tried saying that "there are always two sides to one coin" but instead 'cone' came out.

I'm learning that with Marisa, I can't ever live mistakes down. :)

So much has happened since the last time I blogged, but I will try to include all the important and interesting parts.

For starters, the preacher (Sam) and his wife (Anita) had their fourth child last Tuesday. 

They had their fourth girl. If you would like to pray for their sanity (especially Sam's) I'm sure they would be grateful.

Isabella

 Joy was born July 17 at around 10:40ish PM.

She is a tiny bundle of precious joy and high-pitched screams.

Over the past week or so, Marisa Beth and I have participated in the cell group that Morelia began with a few neighbor friends. I just can't get enough of this woman. She is absolutely amazing. 

She has this wonderful ability to encourage everyone around her without having to put herself down or make herself become less.

She has the joy of the Lord and has a stunning desire to share it with everyone. 

A few days ago, Morelia was telling Marisa and I about her favorite birthday memory. She said it was a surprise party for her that happened 3 years ago. 

All her family was there and she didn't have to cook or prepare anything for it. She was almost in tears when she told us how much it meant to her that EVERY member of her family was there. 

For her. When she didn't even ask them to.

Maybe it's because I just met this woman, or maybe it's because I had to translate everything she said in my head, but for some reason this anecdote made me realize how many things I take for granted. 

And she is

 teaching me more all the time.

Above is an 'action shot' of Morelia at her Tai Chi exposition.

On a different note, there are a few fun things I have done over the past few days with the girls. We hung out with the youth of the church by having a scavenger hunt downtown- my team totally won.

We also went to Huandacareo for "water park" fun. 

On our day off, Sara and Montse got their belly buttons pierced, and we went to a VIP movie theatre.

Before I go, let 

me explain this wonderful concept and then maybe one of you can explain to me why I've never heard of this. 

The VIP movie theatre is a theatre filled with recliner chairs with armrests and trays attached to each chair. There are menus you can glance over before your WAITER comes and takes your order so he can deliver your meal.

Please.

Maybe I'll come home if we get some of these.

Okay, I promise I hope to blog soon, maybe tomorrow. 

If not, the other girls have blogs too, check them out!

Marisa's blog is http://muchomunoz.blogspot.com

Beth's is http://lovecoloredglasses.blogspot.com

¡Hasta luego!

Emily

Love your neighbor

Sara said something interesting today. 

We were talking about what some stereotypes are for Mexicans and, after a few days spent here, if we have known them to be accurate or inaccurate. 

She mentioned that the way that the United States of America came to be says much about the people who live there and how they perceive many aspects of life. This may seem obvious, but it becomes interes

ting when we begin to study the psyche of the United States of America citizens. 

We have a mentality that we can change things if we don't agree with them. We can fight for what we believe in—after all, our forefathers left Europe to embark upon a great adventure to begin what is now "the richest and most important country". We can 

sue, we can bring people to court, we can argue, we can fight. We are offered this right and sometimes scolded if we do not use it.

Our foundation is based upon seeing a problem and fixing it ourselves and sometimes with the help of others.

Knowing this, we can take a look at how the country of Mexico was formed. 

It was conquered.

By foreigners. 

Mexicans (unlike the majority of citizens of the USA) seem to have a major distrust in politics and the gov

ernment. They respect those who have political power, but many who run for office here, gain 

much power and respect (this is the same in the USA, but there are many more rules and steps one must adhere to in order to gain an office in the USA—showing us that each potential political ruler has some desire to help the people and not just gain power).

When a new political leader comes to office, he brings 'his people' (brothers, cousins, friends) and assigns them positions of power in order to keep them close. This forces all of those people working for the previous leader to be out of a job. 

When you can see into part of the psyche of Mexico—our neighbor— we can begin to understand why their way of life is so different. Why we perceive them to not have as much ownership on what is theirs, why they might not have the same kind of patriotic pride, what a shift in power means to not just individuals but families and entire networks of people. 

We then began to talk about what a 'crisis' the immigration issue is. Okay....I'm not going to get into this because I'm not stupid :) but maybe, as a 'leader' of the world, as neighbors, as Christians, we need to be open to the possibilities that maybe there is just not a whole lot of work in the pueblos of Mexico. Maybe Mexicans go to the USA to survive—not to mooch off our economy and steal our jobs. 

I understand that there are many sides to this topic....BELIEVE ME, I just think we can stretch our imagination and LOVE our neighbors because that is what we are called to do. 

There is a movie that highlights a specific story of a Mexican woman leaving her child to find work in America so her family can live. It is called La Misma Luna (The Same Moon) and I have heard that it is beautiful. 

Maybe when we open our eyes to other possibilities, we can see the whole picture that God is painting. 

I LOVE chicken...for food.

Welp. It finally happened. 

I had a misunderstanding of what I thought what people were saying and what they were actually saying.

Let me paint the picture for you.

Marisa and I were going to pick up Fernanda from school with Miguel and Morelia. She got in the car and immediately started asking us a whole bunch of questi

ons like what our favorite music is and such (She's real cute). 

Then she asked us what our favorite food was, we answered and then asked us what our favorite animal was. 

Well, I thought 

she was asking what 

my favorite meat was (like what animal I eat...I realize it sounds weird now, but I promise it didn't then). Anyways, I was telling her about how much I like chicken and, I mean, I probably went on for a few minutes before Marisa (who was cracking up by the way) informed me that Fernanda was asking about my favorite animal. Then she said that hers was a Giraffe.

Thanks for the help Mar.

Don't be misled. This kind of thing has happened many times and probably will continue to 

happen...many times... but this was the first and the easiest to explain in writing. 

There are a few things that are very different here in Morelia. For example, the day doesn't start until aroun

d 10:00 AM. Some people even call noon "morning". 

The biggest 

meal of the day is eaten around 3:00 and is always delicious (at least in our house).

Dinner isn't serve

d until around 8:30 to 9ish. 

In the last few day

s, Beth, Marisa and I have done a lot of tourist 

things including going to the zoo (which was HUMONGOUS), downtown Morelia, and even a little town called Pátzcuaro.

Pátzcuaro was beautiful. A man named Vasco de Quiroga created a place of commerce for many indigenous people and probably saved the lives of many of those people through the trades that he taught them. We got to go to the place that specialized in copper (Santa Clara de Cobre). They showed us how they create their copper creations (how's that for alliteration?) and now I understand why copper is so expensive. It was SO cool. 

We also got to go to the town that specialized in weaving and basketry (called Tzintzuntzan) and the place that specialized in wood work. It was very int

eresting.

We also saw the Temples of the indigenous people. They were called yácatas and they are so beautiful. They are surrounded by "mountains" and a huge lake. I loved every moment of it. 

The indigenous people believed in a sun god and a moon god and so throughout the little towns that we visited, we saw a lot of symbols and idols representing their heritage but they were also mixed in with Christian symbols. This syncretism was interesting to see, especially because it seems so alive still.

We also 

met with a few other cell groups and met a lot of wonderful people. I am really starting to think that this system of creating community through cell groups throughout the week to build community along with a meeting place for all the groups on Sunday is really effective. 

Church was yesterday. The preacher gets very passionate when he speaks and the audience is very active in the message. It is a little different than Abilene, TX or Parker, CO...believe it or not.

Anyways, I will try to blog more often becuase too much builds up and then I can't remember what I wanted to tell you all. 

Thanks for the comments! I'll keep you updated!

Oh, and something else we learned was that here, if you invite someone somewhere, it means you are paying.

Good to know.

Also, Marisa is sitting next to me and singing one part of a song that goes"ABRAZAME!" very loudly. (That means "embrace me"). What do I do? :)

Hasta luego!

Emily

Tope

¡Estamos aqui!
I can´t even tell you how many times Marisa and I keep repeating that. 

"Estamos aqui." 

Sometimes we say it in English though (we're crazy... I know).

There is so much to say, I don't even know wh

er

e to begin. But because I know you don't want t

o read a 1 million word blog post, let me sum up some recent happenings for you.

1. Beth missed the flight to Morelia and had to come a day later. It was sad, but it also gave Marisa and I a chance to see parts of Morelia.

Also, Marisa and I read SkyMall while on the plane and found a very lovely raccoon sculpture that I think would go well almost anywhere. 

2. I got to sleep in until 10 this morning...HAPPY.

3. Our host family is ABSOLUTLEY amazing. But really, they are wonderful. Our parents are Morelia (yes, like the city we are in) and Miguel. They have one son and three daughters. The youngest one is named Fernanda and I belie

ve that she is a real angel on earth. She is remarkable. I'll probably talk more about her later.

   She made this for us. 

4. We went grocery shopping today (in order to 

see the city) with Morelia and Miguel. We went to a Sams Club, it was very Mexican. 

5. Marisa and I convinced Morelia to let us come to her small group bible study that she leads on Tuesday night. There, one lady named Estela told me that I would be the mother of her grandkids. This lady is hysterical, I randomly think of things that she said and then can't stop laughing.

This bible study was a really interesting experience for me. This is probably because it was the first all spanish group I've ever been to. The women 

were wonderful and did their best to engage Marisa and I in conversation. They joked with us, they joked about us, prayed with us, prayed for us, it was wonderful.

6. I'm still in the honeymoon stage of this trip...I love everything...can you tell?

7. We saw a lady with a rat-tail look going on. Marisa and I thought it was hysterical and tried to reenact it.

And you're probably wondering why this post is called Tope. Let me explain. When Sara (our missionary friend here) picked us up from the airport, we engaged in awkward and forced conversation. She told us about the city and we asked her random questions. The first word that Sara taught us was "Tope" (Toe-pay). It is a word for a big speed-bump. 

I thought it was interesting how this word was the first that we learned while here. Maybe this is because I identify speed-bumps with times of caution, transition, or spectacle. 

If this experience in Mexico isn't a metaphor for a speed-bump, I don't know what is. 

We have a full day tomorrow, but I hope to keep you all posted as much as I can. We are mooching internet off of the neighbors, so I'll try to make it soon!

¡Hasta luego!

Emily

Cacahuate

So...in less than one week, I will be getting on a plane to live in Morelia, Mexico with two wonderful ACU students for 9 weeks...of our lives...

I would just like to say one thing— HOLY COW...Or should I say Vaca Santa?

Here's the deal: I have never been out of the country for more than a few days, and I have never been away from my family or from anything that is somewhat familiar for very long at all.

This will be something different.

I would like to sit here and tell you- my family and friends- what I expect and what I hope will happen, but the truth is, I have no idea. But rest assured mom and dad, it will be good— I promise.

Even if I am a little timid within this foreign culture, I hope to gain at least an understanding of the Mexican people and how much I can learn from them. I want to experience God's presence and plans in Morelia. I want to create lasting relationships with members of the church. I want to create lasting relationships with my c0-interns (because we will have shared this WONDERFUL experience together).

Selfishly, I want to come back confident in my Spanish-speaking abilities- I mean, I'd be okay if I became bilingual, not timid about my many mistakes in the BEAUTIFUL Spanish language. I'd also be okay if I learned how to make real, legit Mexican food (I accidentally wrote 'foot' instead of 'food' and then couldn't stop laughing... thought you should know).

You might be wondering about the title of this post. Cacahuate. This word means 'peanut' in Spanish. I find it to be one of the more fun Spanish words. It's great. It's got the 'caca' (which you KNOW is funny) and then the unexpected, yet elegant 'huate' (who-ah-tay) to finish it off.

I discovered this word in one of my Spanish high school classes. One boy would repeat this word until people would laugh, unfortunately for me, I would always be laughing.

It was around this time of my life that I discovered my love for everything Spanish. For some reason, this word (among other wonderfully hysterical Spanish words) reminds me of the beauty in the words we use while reminding me that though all humanity cannot all speak and understand everyone, we can communicate with each other, even in ways we do not intend.

Here's the part where I tell you that I have never had a blog before and so I don't really know what I'm doing. But I really appreciate your interest in my travels and in my life and I thank you for embarking on this journey with me.

My teammates are named Marisa and Beth and the missionary in Mexico that we will be working with is named Sara. We would all appreciate your prayers.

More to come in about a week or so. Thanks again!

¡Hasta luego!