Week of August 6-12

Thought I would get on here and give a bit of an update for all that's happened throughout the week.

Monday-Wednesday were pretty normal days with more classes and nothing too hard as we are winding down our trimester. Tuesday I had my official last grammar test of the trimester. For the last three tests, all over the same subject, since the subject was so huge, our teacher is averaging our scores...so I was happy to get my average score of 98.66%! I hope to get an A in the class, even though I had a rough start with lots of not so good test scores.
In culture, we've been studying religion all week and its been really interesting to talk about the functions of religion and the reasons mankind is prone and driven to having organized religion be a governing force in their lives, whether it be Christianity or any other system of belief. It was a really beneficial time and I think I understand a lot more now about other religions as well.

Thursday I took my "big sister" Shelley Grimm out for a girl's evening shopping (mainly window shopping) at one of the nice malls and then for an American dinner. It is her last week here. She is also a missionary with ABWE, going to Managua Nicaragua and was my "big sister" mentor when I arrived here. She really helped me a lot, and has also become a very good friend and source of wisdom. I will really miss her when she's gone, and I hope to be able to visit her in Nicaragua for a vacation at some point in the future. It was a really good time, since we both have gotten so busy in the past few months that we haven't gotten to spend a ton of time together.

Friday (yesterday) was a fun day in class, as we are doing projects in grammar right now, where we are each responsible for teaching one day of class, over one prepositional word, which we were assigned. I have to teach on Monday over "con" (with) and "sobre" (about). On Friday we played Jeopardy in Spanish which was fun, in learning the preposition "a" (to, or for). And for culture class, Nelson was gone, so it was just Dena and myself and our teacher. We decided to have a breakfast and coffee together and have it be just a conversation class. It was a lot of fun. Laura our teacher almost started crying and said that when we have to leave she is going to really miss us.

Friday was the last singles get-together of the trimester, over at the Edgar's (also ABWE missionaries going to Nicaragua). We had pizza and a movie, and a really good show. Here are some photos from last night. The one where my mouth is gapping open was taken right as Peter Edgar, the Edgar's 7-year old son, blurted out, "I'm single!" He was trying to talk his mom into letting him watch the movie and "hang out" with all of us "singles". It was hilarious. We had a really good time.

Yesterday was also my friend Jessica's birthday. Happy 24th bday Jess! I talked to her on the phone and she said all the mexicans had thoroughly soaked her. In Mexico, birthday tradition is to chase down the person and soak them with freezing water. How nice! And then when it comes to the cake, they shove it in your face. Mexicans are a rare type:) I got to talk to Jess for over an hour and we talked a lot about our futures as missionaries in Mexico and also her trip in 2 weeks to visit here. We are both very excited.

Today is another day of teaching English, I am really excited to go this afternoon. Tomorrow will be church and our Bible study. It will be the last study for 3 weeks, as we are going to be leaving for vacation from our trimester next weekend. This week we study "sent" in our Bible study, and will talk about the need to go and tell others about our faith in Christ, sharing the gospel message. It looks like it is going to be an amazing study, and the study has a neat guide to lead people to Christ in Spanish, so that will be helpful for all of us in the future. Please pray these believers who are coming will catch God's heart and passion and the vision to go and share the good news with as many as possible. Also pray for class today that maybe I would meet some new students and be able to talk to them about God.

I'll update more soon, hope you all have a blessed Sunday in the Lord and a great weekend!

Bethany