I fold in half so easily when I put myself in the picture of success

I have a week left here and I am trying to breathe everything in before my heart freezes. I try to arrange my thoughts delicately so I don't flood my mind with pain. I read the Conference talk "Joy in the Journey" and felt gratified that the prophet felt the same about "Our Town" that I did...it's hard to fully appreciate the moments when you're in the middle of them, even if you really want to, it's when you see the painting on the wall and realize it doesn't belong to you in the same way anymore that you understand how precious it all was.

What feels amazing is the successful interchange of monedas and climbing on the bus, people in the market who know me now, in Juconi, so many open arms, so many beaming faces. I just live here, I have a best friend and places to go and people who love me and it's all a world I carved out in the last 5 months. This was a dream I dreamed for myself and my life really is so young but it's felt so full to me. I have been so blessed. This is what I found in the sunlight that surrounds me. I will be so grateful for all of these days, and I will be grateful for a new adventure to pour my life into.











This is the largest statue of the Virgen that exists in the world (Chignahuapan, Puebla). She is amazingly, massively gorgeous! Her big toe is about the size of my torso. There is a little staircase and you can climb around in back of her...the wall behind her is covered with names and pleas scribbled on the wall, like the "eloquent" graffiti on the pearly gates. "Senora ruega por nosotros..." I wanted to read everything but Lupita wouldn't let me. I understood that they were fragments of soul. That was why I wanted to read. I know I had a vendetta against the Virgen on my mission, but I feel sort of like I'm friends with her now.

Bendita eres tu entre las mujeres...

Adam and Eve are huddled in the folds of the Virgen's skirt...

...hiding from him...



The beloved Hermano Sergio

With Lupita Sunday morning by the waterfalls

Isai dancing with his little cousin at Ilan's pachanga

In Mexico City con mi chilangito





Sweet note from one of the Casa Juconi boys. I love being Recher almost as much as I love being Morena. :)



In so many churches the Lord is huddled in a coffin like this, all weak and broken. I don't like to think of Him that way, I think we're supposed to remember He left us gazing up into Heaven.

This is part of a trail we climb to visit one of the families in TRACA. I don't want to forget.

Chignahuapan and the mist covered mountains















This Wincho and he has my heart

Wincho's front yard



Gaby helping her father spell something

Isai helping me with my GOTH









Isai's parents getting their dance on











Isai's "tios inicuos" who offered me tequila and were spectacularly good company




Going to the mountain of the Lord in Mexico City



I took this from the back of the motorcycle going about 90 mph









Waiting for the bus at the end of temple day































I love it here.

If you don't know me by now...

Que crees! I got tagged by my impresionante amigo Jarrett E. Casey to list 25 Random Facts about myself! I love being tagged and I'm IT! Aqui las instruciones: Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. Orale pues...

1-I have an incredibly flexible back. I can bring my legs up around my back and touch my head with the tops of my shoes.

2-If there is anything broken, ghetto, run-down, dilapidated, in need of repair or sketchy-looking, I seek after those things! I'm also disdainful of really luxurious, expensive or nice things. I’m not sure why I am like that; but I will chose the proletariat over the bourgeois every time.

3-I worked as a figure drawing model for the BYU art department for 10 months and had a BYU issued bikini. I had to sign a document affirming that I would not wear said bikini on occasions other than modeling shifts. I know, it was SCANdalous.

4-When I was 12 I played Dorothy in a production of The Wizard of Oz.

5-I prefer to read while I eat, so I like to eat alone. I can adapt and be social, but sometimes when someone comes in while I am in them middle of a book/meal I get really irritated (secretly).

6-I saw the first Pirates of the Caribbean 9 times in theaters (and only paid for it twice)

7-My best friends from HS and I had porn names based on inside jokes, which we have never revealed to anyone (at least I haven't).

8-On occasion I can do really good impersonations of people. Also, when someone with an accent is speaking with me, I automatically copy it when I speak back to them. I promise I don't mean to do it.

9-I still know all the words to most Eminem songs although I have been off the Slim for awhile.

10-Some of my songs with boyfriends have been (this is in chronological order)
99 Red Balloons by Goldfinger
Drowning by the Backstreet Boys (hee!)
Hold Me Now by the Thompson Twins
With or Without You by U2
Motorcycle Drive By by Third Eye Blind
Beautiful Mess by Diamond Rio
End of the Road by Boys II Men
You're Still You by Josh Groban
Romeo & Juliet by Dire Straits
Another Day from Rent
Wake Me Up when September Ends by Green Day
You & Me by Lifehouse
Volverte a Ver by Juanes
Wow, there's a good range there of poignant to embarrassing, which I guess can also describe the relationships themselves. :)

11-I alway wanted to have *12 children* but I think it's a little late for that now. I also wanted them all to be sons, I have never wanted a daughter.

12-I love onions and spicy food. Si no pica, no rica!

13-I love metaphors and when other people describe things in metaphors it delights me.

14-My favorite GA is Jeffrey R. Holland. The GA I am most terrified of is Elder Bednar.

15-I am constantly plugged into my ipod (in ancient times it was a discman) and I love to walk places while listening to music.

16-I was a solo sister in the MTC and my "companions" were 7 of the raddest elders of all time.

17-When I took the ACT, I got 36 on the reading, 17 on the math. I had to get diagnosed with a math disability in order to waive a remedial math class so I could graduate from college.

18-I am horrible with directions and anyone who trusts me is insane because I will get you lost. I can barely find my way out of a building. It's demoralizing.

19-I am a fan of fake special ops positions and giving titles to groups of friends and significant times in my life. (The Dynasty, NRA, the Yahtzee Boys, the Summer of George, the Bravey Bunch, commissioner of Christmas Celebrations, Caroling and Baptism Specialist, the Quiet Police, Chief Judge, Zone Leaderette)

20-I suffer for people who suffer.

21-When I lived in Romania I loved to go "gypsy hunting;" I would visit gypsy villages and make friends with them. Once before I left my favorite family dressed me and my friends up in their traditional gypsy wedding clothes and we took fake engagement pictures with all the guys in the neighborhood. Gypsies still fascinate me and I wish I could live among them for awhile like Isabel Fonseca, but once again being a white girl is ruining my life.

22-I had a really hard time getting called stateside and even though I loved! my mission sometimes I am still a little sensitive about it.

23-I have a real live soul-mate but we are star-crossed and will never be together. (It was just that the time was wrong.)

24-Kyle Kenny is going to make a movie about me being barren and it will be called BLOODLINE: rated PG-13.

25-On my mission in Houston, I taught a gang member who tattooed my name on his chest. This is possible the number one coolest thing about me, ever. :)

That moment in time when we'll be set free

I love walking in the graveyard here. I love the statues and the stories carved in wood and stone. I found this grave of Maria Ines Flores. Fallecido en 1955. Do you think she is the tree now? It's like she escaped and kept on living.

Every page begins with You

I have had a terrible dearth come upon my blog. I don't know if I'm ready to catch up on everything but I didn't want that whiny lesserthan post at the top of the page anymore. (I am effectively convinced of social work again. It's okay if I am not as quick or bright as other people, because I can be willing to learn.) There will be a few other new ones below, they are little fledglings not fully formed but I will let them fly anyway.

There's a Catholic picture that I just love that has Christ placing his hand on his heart (it is probably el sagrado corazon sticking grotesquely to the outside of his chest, but luckily we can't see it because of His Hand), and from his heart are glowing pink and blue lights. Every time I am out somewhere and I see a store of idolos or a stand of pictures at a feria, I have to stop and check if they have this image. Isai always tells me when he sees it somewhere, "They have your picture for 30 pesos at the mercado." I have three of these cuadros in my little room right now and every time I look at them I think of "glory streams from thy holy face, with the dawn of redeeming grace." The lights also remind me of lightsabers, which makes me feel protected. "Not peace but a sword." But really, at this time, just peace.


Today was the first grupo de adolescentes I have attended since early December and oh the glory to see the kids come running in! "Ay maestra, ya regresaste!" The directoras of TRACA left me to run the group today and we did a New Years activity; we folded a piece of paper in half and on one side drew a trunk, on the other side a suitcase. In the trunk we drew and listed the things that we wanted to lock up and leave behind from the old year, the experiences, memories, and behaviors that caused us pain. The suitcase we filled with all the things we wanted to take with us on our journey into the new year. At the end, we cut away our heavy baggage and left it there, the suitcases we took home with us.

This caught my imagination although some of the kids struggled with it. The ones who don't go to school sometimes stumble with artsy expressive projects. Luis needed me to write for him and I told him he could whisper his ideas if he felt shy. He said gruffly, "Write in the trunk that I don't want my parents to fight anymore." He had me write "tristeza, enojo, miedo, contencion" in the trunk. He wanted to fill his suitcase with flowers, love, and friends. He drew stick figures holding hands and flowers in between them. I loved his bashfully delighted look when we clapped for him later. Juan reminded me of my brother Bill when he said he was leaving the video games he played at the public arcade behind: "They are making me waste my life. " (HA!) Winchel might have the most full and cluttered trunk in real life, but the reality is that it's Pandora's box and at 12 there is not much he can shut away. I think he didn't know how to articulate that and that's why he sat silently for so long. Finally he said, "Put in the suitcase that I want to be a mechanic like my brother. And that I want to go to school." I do anything to make Winchel smile because his whole face is starving for it and when it comes it is so filling.

And me? What will I leave behind this year? More broken angels. In my trunk I wrote pride, intimidation, criticism, bad memories which I drew as dead leaves. I drew a sun in my suitcase for the esperanza I want shining brightly before me. 3 hearts for faith, charity, and love. Books and a chain of stick figures for being "bien accompanada" (well accompanied?). I could have drawn a yellow bird, but not yet, not yet, not yet. I feel tonight that I have the vida abundante. I have such a short time yet to love this and let everything sink into my heart before I get lost in a February song. I am going out into the morning sun of the open road with my suitcase. How can I regret this life? It is so beautiful streamed with earth sorrow, longing for home.

When Luis left this afternoon he gave me the besito on the cheek that everyone exchanges in comings and goings but then he threw his arms around me and hugged me, hard. I can't explain. I hope I can make them feel a little of how much I love them.

Crash this Train

About a week ago Juconi had a posada (Christmas party) and all the families came to chant the posada to the innkeeper, watch a program, break pinantas, eat, dance reggeton and generally make merry. Mary and Joseph were played by Don Victor and Dona Irma, one of the families we work with in TRACA. I didn't get a picture of them in their Biblical finery, but here they are in a family session:



The posada is sort of a song, but more of a long, tuneless poem that is split between those outside a building, (seeking shelter like the parents of the Christ Child.) and those inside who represent the Innkeeper. It's bien Catolico because the Innkeeper doesn't really concern himself with the Messiah, but once he realizes that Mary, "The Queen of the Heavens" is outside, he opens right up! Hee. I wanted one of my old companeras to giggle with at that moment.

It was such an exciting night--the music and the colors were so vibrant and everyone seemed happy collecting candy, cheering the skit some of the kids put on, chanting for the crowd favorites in the pinata contest. At events like these, a few of the families of the boys in Casa Juconi show up and it is incredibly warming to see them sitting hand in hand with their mothers or cradling a baby sister. I want them to feel so loved in those moments that it will feed them during the long weeks between visits, that it will smooth away the sting of the reasons why they don't live at home anymore.

These mother and child reunions throw into sharp contrast the boys who don't have anyone. Several of them have been abandoned and Juconi has no contact with any of the boys' relatives. Instead of monthly family visits they get "compensatory visits" when Juconi staff takes them to a movie or swimming.
The night of the posada I felt it thud into my heart--again--the dearness and necessity and rightness of having a family--any kind of family. One of the boys who is an orphan from Mexico City--Angel Ortiz--lost in the pinanta contest and ran off crying. Some of the educators followed him and I thought, he should have his mother here to tell him it's okay, she's proud of him anyway. I had a vision of a woman with Angel's sweet eyes drawing him into a side hug and telling him they'd put the pinata up in the house, and that she liked it best. For some reason this thought was agonizing to me that night and every time I think of it I tear up. I can't stop thinking of Angel and of Silva's plaintive little face playing the cat and mouse game with me through the crowd. His brother ran away in November and that was his last tie to family.

Last night my father told us about having Christmas with his Italian grandmother. We shared scriptures of the Savior and talked about why we were grateful for his birth, we sang, "sleep in heavenly peace" and "peace on earth and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled." My mother gave my brother a picture of Christ and Lazarus and told him that anyone can be healed from the very worst pain. I do believe that, I feel wretched that I can't get rid of my own entitlement. I just want to take the boys home with me and shield them from any more hurt. I want to stave off their loneliness with hope. I love being here with my own dear family. I cannot relax completely because I keep remembering that night and how the wrongness of being Motherless distilled on my soul.

It does feel so good to be back!

When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me

I think I have a good heart, but I get intimidated too easily and I am not the most professional guera you will ever meet. Really. Trying to write my statement of intent for admittance to an MSW program makes me feel like a hypocrite. The worst section is the analysis of my strengths and weaknesses. My only strength is that I have a heightened sense of compassion and love for the underprivileged. I am absolutely riddled with the kinds of weaknesses that would make me a mediocre social worker. Jini Roby once said that social work is not all about having a caring, bleeding heart, but it's having the skills and instincts to be able to help effectively. (Also to set appropriate boundaries in a client/worker relationship, effectively communicate, and in general avoiding being a spaz.) Maybe I was wrong all the time, except for the 3 weeks of spring semester right after my mission when I suddenly and desperately wanted to change my major to special-ed. That frantic phase of neurosis passed quickly in what I thought at the time was a "smoothbeautifully folded" miracle but now I have a heavy heart about it again.

I LOVE social work, everything about it is glorious to me. I love the idea of seeing the whole person in the whole environment because that is what Christ does. I know studying it has made me a better person and I have gotten to know AMAZING people. But maybe actually practicing it not be in the best interest of anyone? In any case, it's always good to have a plan de respaldo (back up plan) so I tried to make a list of possible other careers that are in line with my skills set. Since it's unlikely that I can gain employment playing checkers, making toast, or reciting Slim Shady lyrics, my ideas are working in a tanning salon or in a mall kiosk. Paper route? Lemonade stand? Let me know if you have any brilliant ideas. I'll be back from Mexico in the bleak midwinter...unemployed. (In Greenland).

Opened my eyes, had a dream last night, that both my arms were broken...

I had written a couple of faceless, stillborn vignettes about Christmas and dance parties and lighthearted tales about Casa Juconi, but they all seem so trivial and tasteless now and publishing them feels humiliating, like the smoldering wounded feeling right after someone slaps you.

Last night I dreamed I was on the back of a motorcycle driven by the person who has hurt me the most in this world, racing over cracking concrete and crossing rickety bridges chased by sinister figures. I had to cling to him to survive, and in my dream I told him what I really felt, not the angelic words of self-depreciating sugar I spun for him. Don't worry about it, this is what I deserve. You go on and be happy, that's what YOU deserve. I resent the tricks my mind plays on me while I am sleeping. I'm over the missing but I don't know if I will ever be over the shame and the indignity of that kind of Leaving, my heart stores those feelings up and casts them over me in freezing burning poisonous nets of paralysis that I have to shake off.

I took the train underwater today instead of immersing myself in the words of Christ. Sometimes I need a minute to mourn before the answers blaze in my mind and allow me to go merrily on my way with the dove of peace singing in my heart. This is the truth: "We love you regardless." Allowing disapproval to taint friendship makes me a judgmental hypocrite. I ache for what will never be, but it's not my story to write. I'll exorcise that bitter feeling. I'll be a character in your story, always your sister, I will try to always be bright and loving with you still, or I will listen and follow you into the dark. Thank you for trusting me. Please hang on. Don't forget your yellow bird.


Simon Joyner:

Came a yellow bird outside my window
Said bring me water and crusts of bread
Came a yellow bird outside my window
Said bring me water and crusts of break
For I’m injured and I’m haunted
By the storms in which I fled
I tried to fly to New Orleans
But I got lost in heavy rains
I got many holes in my two wings
From arrows that you aimed

It wasn’t I wounded you, any arrows I could shoot
I’m just a lonely man, I never left this room
Besides that I, how on earth could I
Hurt anything so frail as thee
When we’ve never met before this moment
When you called for help from me

Now yellow bird step down into my room
And she chose her words carefully
She said you were aiming for the sun
And I was just in-between
And every time you wish to die
An arrow was released
And the only thing between dark and light
Was my breast or yellow wings

Well this can’t be true I shook with fear
Though I knew she didn’t lie
I never wanted to harm anybody else
It’s just I who wish to die
And then the tears came rolling down
And the floor fell underneath
And the yellow bird folded her wings together
And I dragged her down with me