MEXICO

On the way home from the temple I took some pictures. I took them all from the car so they aren't that good. I just took them so that you can all get a better idea of what Mexico City looks like. It's been really cool to live here and to learn so much about a different culture and to see their way of life. I really love the people here. Mexico City is a lot less scary than people say it is. I mean you have to be careful and obviously you don't walk alone at night and all of that stuff but those are things we have to do even in the states. So that has been a pleasant surprise. We have never felt unsafe here in the city and we have walked, taken the metro, and taxis. We have been very grateful for this opportunity.

This is a lake/swamp thing right by the Academy. Every time it rains it fills up with really dirty water. Calv will never go swimming with me

Yes. I am a photographer

So as part of my job here I have to take lots of pictures of the students and just things that go on here at the Academy. There is a kid that used to work here named Guillermo or "Memo". A couple of months ago he asked if I could take pictures for his wedding. I laughed first. And then I realized that he was serious. I told him, "I will do it but you have to know: I have never taken pictures professionally, I have never taken wedding pictures, and I have no idea if ANY of them will turn out BUT sure I'll do it." So I have kind of been dreading it ever since I told them that I would do it. I didn't want to be the one to ruin their wedding day. They didn't really give me any directions either. I went on Friday to take their pictures. I think everything went okay. I dont think they will hate me forever. It was actually pretty fun. I still need to edit the pictures and stuff. Here are some of the many (700 pictures) I took!

Her dress was pretty!

They LOVED the temple in the background of the pic. I'm not sure about it

Me trying to be creative. Not sure why she is wearing her ring on that finger. It was pretty though

This is all of their siblings

Memo's Family

Is he not adorable??? Look at those pants!

FLOODDDDDDDDDD

It has rained every day for the last month. Sometimes it rains all day and then sometimes it is just at night. And it rains HARD. I've never seen it rain so hard actually. Last night Calvin and I were skyping with my family and I kept telling them how hard it was raining. And then Calvin got up and look at the doorway and he could tell that water was coming in. He then opened the door and started screaming...I went and looked and there was 4 or 5 inches of water in our house! Jeremi and Rebecca were out of town so it was just us in the house. It was still raining really hard but we ran over to get some of the students and the employees to help us out. We were outside for like a minute and we were soaking wet. It took a couple of hours to get all of the water out of the house. Luckily we only have 3 carpeted rooms and the water probably only got about 3 feet into each of them and then the rest of the house is tile. It was crazy though, I'd never seen anything like it. We were lucky that it didn't happen the night before because we wouldn't have been there and every room would've been flooded and there are alot of things on the ground. While we were getting the water out of our house the bishop called and said that there were a ton of people in the ward that had called cause their houses were flooding. So all of the students went and just helped a bunch of people. I will post pictures later but they said that they had water up to their waists in a lot of the houses. We kinda live on a hill/close to a big mountain thing. And the students were saying that the water picked a bunch of the cars up and they ran into businesses and houses. It was pretty bad. It was quite the adventure. One of the employees is now calling us "Jack and Rose" off of the Titanic. Our hearts will go on.

You can kind of get an idea of how much water was in the house

Adrian and Lalo were splashing eachother

We would get the water to Lalo then he would sweep it out of the house

Adrian is so very focused

Morelia

This weekend Calvin and I went to a place called Morelia. It is in the state of Michoacan and it is about 4 hours away from here. We went with a past student named Nefi. He owns english schools and he was opening up another one in Morelia with another past student named Javier. They want us to go for their first day of classes. We didn't really want to go but we wanted to help them so we did. We didn't leave until 7:00 Friday night. When we left it was raining so hard. It was kinda a scary drive since we didn't have seat belts. Any time you drive in Mexico it's a terrifying experience...so imagine it in the dark, pouring rain, and no seatbelts! But we got there safe. We didnt get in until midnight. Calvin and I said with a family that is in Javier's ward. We got there and the mom was like showing us around. And they only had 2 single beds so we had to sleep in different rooms. And then she says, "Now in the morning we don't mind if you guys shower together, especially since you are not sleeping together. We are open minded, we know how it is. My husband and I do it all the time." HAHAHA so awkward. We were just laughing and like "Thank you...". So then she takes me up to my bedroom where I am sleeping. And she points at this bottle of bug spray and says, "You might want to put that on, my son has been getting bug bites every night in this room." Oh gosh...i was loving my life at that moment. And then she left, I lathered myself in bug stuff. And then I pulled back the covers and there were ants all in my bed!!!! It was horrible. It was a very bad night of sleep. I would've gone downstairs to sleep with calv in that bed or switch him beds but the stairs were all twirly and stuff and they didnt have walls next to them or railings! And it was dark so I'm sure it wouldn't have been good. So I slept there all night. I put on all the clothes that I brought. In the morning we woke up and the hermana (sister that we were staying with) graciously starting heating up the beans that were out on the stove all night. She then put sugar, carrots, and water in the blender and that was our juice. Then with some cold eggs and it was a perfect meal! I was handling it ok until i looked down and saw some ants floating in my juice (after I'd already drank half of it!). It was like being on the mission all over again.

So we had heard where we were going wasn't the safest place in the world because of all the drug stuff going on in Mexico. There is a drug cartel in Morelia called "La Familia". Anyways so they were taking us to the place where we were meeting and I was just trying to make small talk. And I asked them about the crime here. And he was like "Well it's not that bad except for the other day the drug cartels cut off all 5 exits out of the city and pulled the cars over and forced them out at gun point and lit them on fire. But its really not that bad." Not that bad?!?!?! You gotta be kidding me. We were terrified to leave. I haven't felt unsafe here once since we've been here. But when he said that...I was a little scared. We were terrified to leave that night...but we got home! And safe! It was a very interesting 24 hours to say the least. At that point I was pretty excited to come back to America. We have three weeks now! We have loved our time here but we are excited to come back.

we are alive

I am sorry it's taken so long to update the blog! It has been so crazy. New students got here a couple of weeks ago and there are 55 of them! That's almost double what we had last generation. Then we have 30 night students. So we have been very busy. I am going to include some of the writings that I have done for the daily reports.

So the week they got here I wrote:

On Monday a new generation of students arrived to the Academy with a lot of excitement and hope. Their faces were that of other students who had come before them in previous generations. They were filled with excitement, though not quite sure of what they were about to experience for the next six weeks. Eury (our Recruiting Leader) had been working day and night to recruit students over the past month. Her hard work paid off when all 55 students that she had talked to showed up. It is the first time that every single person came that said they were going to come.

With almost twice as many students as the last generation, it is also by far the biggest generation in the history of the Academy. I must admit, it was a very humbling sight to see the students fill up the classroom. There are students here from every part of Mexico.

Throughout the week the students continued with the same excitement they had when they arrived here. On Tuesday the students went out for the first time for their AGI (income generating activity). Each group was given a lime and told to make at least three trades before returning to the campus. The groups returned full of enthusiasm. The majority of the groups returned with about 200 pesos (about $20 USD). For some of them this is the first experience they have had with sales. Many of them commented on how surprised they were that they could start off with a small lime and then return with over 200 pesos! Jeremi taught them about the importance of starting off small but with big ideas.

The students had the opportunity to hear from two very successful businessmen who followed the rules that are taught here at the Academy to become prosperous. The first man was named Benjamin Hinojosa, a current stake president in Mexico City. Benjamin started AYM Sports which is now the biggest sports channel here in Mexico (the ESPN of Mexico). Benjamin also talked to the students about the importance of starting off small and then growing from there. He testified that, “I know that the hand of God has been in this work and I couldn’t have done it without Him.”Especially after the debate, it was great for the students to hear from a very successful stake president that was living righteously while being successful. He challenged all of the students to accomplish their dreams and promised them that it is possible. He said, “If you follow the rules that are taught here at the Academy and are diligent then you will succeed.” Benjamin’s business started from humble beginnings. His last words of advice to the students were, “Persevere, persevere, persevere.”

So that was from the first week that the students were here. I will try to post more pictures and more posts. It is very cool to see lives changing. The students are great. We have a really fun time interacting with them. We can't believe that we have just a month left here. Time is going by so fast. WE are enjoying the time that we get to spend together. It has been raining sooo much here. It literally rained 2 weeks without even stopping. And I've never seen it rain so hard. Calvin's mission trainer is here as a student. That has been really fun for him to have him here. His name is Carlos. He has 2 kids. When he came here his daughter was only 2 weeks old! Calvin has been teaching alot lately. I created a cleanliness class on the importance of having a clean business. Alot of the businesses here in Mexico City are pretty dirty. So we talked about how that is one way they can have a competitive advantage over their competitors. Anyways we are loving it. I think we are going to Morelia this weekend to give a training. It is about 5 hours away from here. That should be funnnn.

This is a student named "ZiZu" he's pretty big and I sometimes think he is Tongan

Jessie got really into the debates...wish I could've recorded him yelling

Gus and Gibby are good friends

Calvin's mission companion Carlos on the right

ESPN dude

Look at that full class!

The big 26er

It was my birthday this week. It was kind of nice to have it during the week that we didn't have any students here. We had more time to relax and hang out. We woke up and had french toast (a very special treat). We went out to lunch with Jeremi, Rebecca, Guillermo, and Adriana. The restaurant was in a very nice mall so it was fun to walk around. I told Calv to wait to get me something till I found something that I really wanted. He did lots of nice stuff for me for my birthday. We came back and just relaxed and hung out with each other. It was nice just hanging out together. That was the perfect birthdayyyy. Here are some pics:

Nice b-day singers

While getting sung to: pure happiness

Shoe Shoppin

The other day we went with Eury and Marvin to "El Centro" to buy them some shoes. We didn't to buy anything, we just went along for the ride. Downtown is so crazy. There are just people everywhere. We took a taxi down there so it didn't take very long. There is always a ton of traffic. I still have a hard time keeping my eyes open the whole time in the taxi. There are a million stores downtown. We went to a ZCMI and it was really nice and air conditioned (something that I really miss alot). It was fun to get out and walk around. It only took Eury about....5 hours to find shoes! We were so tired. Marvin kept telling her he was gonna kill her if she tried on one more pair of shoes. It was pretty funny. This week has been really good. We are just working hard to get ready for the new batch of students. They will get here on Monday. Five of the students from the past generation were hired as employees, so it is fun to have more of our friends stay here. I am in charge of getting the kitchen all ready. I have to write out all the systems and basically everything that goes on in the kitchen. One of the students that was hired, Gaby, will be working in the kitchen so I am training her this week. Calv is busy working on the websites and the videos. One of the guys hired will help him, so that will be good for him too. The next generation we will have 50 day students and 25 night students. That is the most we have ever had so it'll be exciting. I started an exercise program this week with calv and I and some of the employees. It has been really good so far. I really missed working out so it feels great to get back into doing it every day. I am feeling much better from the sickness from last week.

Another old building

Us after five long hours of shopping...we were ready to go home :)

A view from the top of ZCMI

Another view from ZCMI

One of the MANY shoe stores that we went to

This is in one of the mall type things that we went into

shoes shoes shoes

All of the buildings in El Centro (or downtown) are really old