We fall but our souls are flying...

I am still loving my life here! Weekdays are full of business with JUCONI and nighttimes and weekends I always seem to have more than enough fun. I went to a really "fresa" mall this weekend, Angelopolis, which has stores like Prada and Gucci. Definitely out of my league. Mexico has no middle class; it seems like people either have tons of money or none at all. The other day Manuelcito picked me up and we went to the Centro on his motorcycle to look for a missionary backpack and it was so exhilarating weaving through traffic in the dim streets. We have so much fun. C-Mar, you would love it here because everyone drives like they're in a video game. Stop signs are erroneous and you can turn left from whichever lane you want.

Mondays and Tuesdays are especially exciting for me because I love doing the family visits. I love the trip out there in the mornings, it's been so sunny and hopeful lately and just looking out the windows of the caminon at all the marketplaces and little stores and people spilled all over the streets is very exciting for me.

We take the bus out to these dusty villages in the middle of nowhere with dirt roads and houses scattered all over the hills. Many of them are built out of cement blocks and they drape curtains all over to form separate rooms. In the winter, they tell me that they place blankets in the windows to help insulate the home. There are always stairs leading up to the roof where they hang the laundry. Most of the homes we visit don't have running water or electricity. A few of the homes are so far away from everything industrialized that walking around them you can pretend it's a few hundred years earlier. Animals are everywhere, stray dogs sleeping in the sun and cows and goats and horses are tied up near trees or fence posts. Some families have pigs and chickens running around in their front yard.

One family we visit has a particularly aggressive turkey that will jump at you and try to peck at your face. Yesterday when we came in the yard and the kids ran out to greet us, he was hiding and suddenly scuttled out towards the smallest little girl, Yami, who is 2. I scooped her up and then he chased us around the yard for a few minutes. He is a seriously menacing bird! The kids control him by chasing him up onto the roof with the broom. I think a better way to control him would be to make him into soup, but hey. You can't just go telling people what to do with their turkey.

When we are walking in the streets in these little villages (Santanita, 2 de Marzo and Chachapa) there are many people who recognize us. People call us "Las JUCONIs," which isn't nearly as good as "las hermanas," but in either case it means little kids bursting out of the house running happy to see us, people confiding in us about their quiet sorrows, and hopefully doing a little bit of good.

What we do in the visits depends on the needs of the family and how far they have progressed in the TRACA program. We have family group therapy sessions, sometimes we split up and help the kids with their homework (Lolis and Marce have special workbooks that they bring for each child), sometimes we play games with the kids while someone else goes into another room with the mother in the family to talk to her privately.

Sometimes I get an achy kind of almost-missionary feeling and I have to admit that I'm growlingly jealous of everyone who got to serve here. It would feel so good to teach these families about the gospel. I do mention the Church as often as I can and expressing faith in God is definitely very culturally accepted, but as far as my work with JUCONI goes, busting out with the Jose Smith story wouldn't really be appropriate. But I do feel needed; at least, I feel useful. There are a few families with so many children that one or two social workers really can't spend one on one time with everyone. It feels so clean and beautiful to be able to help! I'm getting to be good friends with the mujeres in TRACA and they make me feel that they enjoy having me around. They are very patient with and protective of me.

This morning we had an adventure! Carla and I went out to Chachapa to visit a family and to tell them about a meeting TRACA is having tomorrow. We arrived to find the mother in great distress. Her husband was very sick and she had no way to get him to the hospital because she lives so far away from the city, and the roads are so muddy and rocky that taxi drivers refuse to go up there. The husband was in a very bad way; from what I understood, he had stopped drinking for the space of a time but this last weekend disappeared for a few days and came home very drunk. He was having horrible stomach pain and vomiting constantly.

Carla got her husband to come bring the car and it took an agonizing 10 minutes for them to get the sick man up from the bed and out to the yard. He was groaning bien feo. He could not stand by himself and once he got out of the house he fell to his knees and began vomiting blood. It was awful to see and hear. His wife and daughters were just wailing. I pulled the little girls away because they were panicking and Carla left me with the kids while she and her husband took the parents into town to the hospital. The little girls were understandably agitated and cried for awhile but then they calmed down and I suggested we say a prayer for their father. We held hands and prayed for him and afterwards I let them listen to Rebelde on my ipod and we went outside to play. They cheered up considerably and I was happy I was there so that their mother could be at the hospital and they wouldn't be left alone. They are such sweet and beautiful girls, I really do hope their father will be alright.

Later Marce and Lolis came for me and we went back to Volcanes (where the TRACA office is) on the bus. I was sitting in front of them with an open seat next to me and an old man (Jose) came and sat down next to me (haha, I feel like I'm writing a chapter in Zara). He turned to me, paused dramatically, and said, "You have the most beautiful eyes!" (I have to be honest that people tell me this about a million times a day here. It's like the Pulga). I thanked him politely and turned to look out the window but he asked me, "Do you believe in love at first sight?" Actually, what he asked me translates more to "Do you believe that love can be born between two people the moment that they see each other?" I told him no, I didn't, and he said, "I need to sing you a song about your eyes." (What???) He then cleared his throat and burst out singing a very sweet song about this girl whose eyes are like the sea and like fire and some other stuff I couldn't understand because I was so embarrassed. Everyone on the bus was smiling and Marce and Lolis behind me were cracking up. Then he asked me if I would sing the song with him and I said I didn't know the words, so he taught it to me very slowly and then we sang it together. After that, thankfully, he got off the bus.

Jajajaja...I just wanted to share that story because I thought it was funny. I have so much more I could say but I have to get ready to go to Michel's setting-apart. Conference made me think so much of my mission and I wanted to give a shoutout to mis homies on the front lines: I am so proud of all the missionaries I know this week: my brother Scott, all ready to go out and teach songs of freedom to the Czech Republic, Mihaitsa, who is tearing it up "like a beast" in Montreal, Ismael Sosa who gets locked in tomorrow and who is going to drop bombs, my cousin Nick with his adventuous spirit who played the piano for church in a country I can't pronounce the name of, and my cousin Karl who will be one of the most humble and powerful assistants ever known to mankind. Los quiero mucho a todos!!!