Tu Palabra me da vida...

¨Tu Palabra me da vida, confío en ti Señor
Tu palabra es eterna, en ella esperare
Tu palabra es luz que ilumina nuestro oscuridad¨

WEEK #3 --
It´s easy to skim, if you want the quick version

So Thursday, my day off, was AWESOME!
-Mass , Angela, Itocta to see MP & Amber, and Bolivian dance performance!

       Went to Mass around 8am, so had to get up early to shower and catch Micro, but got off a little too early and had to walk, so I was a little late, but it was nice to be in Mass during the week. Afterward the caretaker, Jorge, came and welcomed me. He´s an older man and I was like oh, that´s nice and then continued my prayers...he came back and handed me a pamphlet on confession ¨to help me¨which was actually good bc now I can do it in spanish...ok creepy part: he sat like RIGHT NEXT TO ME and I was like totally looking uncomfortable (closed body lang.) and he kept rubbing my arm and kissing me on the cheek. I was like, oh tengo que ir and left. Walked to the Cathedral and then another church nearby to try to find a quiet place, so got a little church tour, which was nice.
       So, took the long way back to the Parada. Met up with Angela at her language school and talked to a couple girls there. Then did more walking, trying to find this theater, prob. took the wrong street, but it was hot so I went back and coordinated my ride to Itocta
       The other Hogar, where MP and Amber are at is on the East side of the city, it looks more ¨country¨ I guess because more dirt roads and plenty of Cows!! But it´s cute, their orphanage is different than mine, and their main job is homework rooms with the girls. I was there a few hours and then we ate scrambled eggs and tomato and cheese sandwhich! so good, then went to a dance performance together in the city.
       So, since it was the bicentennial, this dance studio focused on tradional dances from all over Bolivia. I wish I had a video of some costumes, they were really cool and interesting and it kinda went from way back to present day, where the kids were in street clothes and did a dance to a song about Bolivia. The 3rd part was a cute story. I´m just glad I was able to go with them, got back kinda late and was tired on Fri, but it was worth it!

Crazy, Creep Cab Driver :
    So, Friday, normal day, but when I took a group of girls to ballet the cab driver was crazy!
He was speeding up to 100km per hour and weaving through traffic and he kept looking in his rearview mirror at me, I kept my morning face on, def. NOT IMPRESSED! the cab drivers are sup. to come back an hour later and pick us up after dance, so it´s safer and we don´t have to wait for the right cab co., etc...but for some weird reason Hermana called at the end of class and said he could not pick us up...we had to wait awhile afterward, but I was secretly glad we didn´t have to ride with him back.
No worries, he was younger usually they´re not like that. There´s one guy we get a lot for ballet and he usually comes with his two kids and is always there when we come out of class!

I can wash my clothes...OUTSIDE:
    So, my second time washing my clothes. the nuns said I could use the washing machine, but I´m on mission right? Solidarity and plus I find it more fun! So they use soap and stop up one of 6 sinks outside and then just you know wash them. It´s interesting, then hang them on the line to dry after rinsing them out. I was able to use some detergent from the nuns for a few items, which was good.

Now on Saturday night, an older girl invited me to watch a movie with a group of them. I kinda wanted to get to bed, but thought I could watch part of it since I was invited and could spend time with the older ones. Well, after watching the end of camp rock 2, they put in Jeniffer´s Body. It was weird, didn´t really understand a lot of the convo. but after she attacked this guy, I was like oh going to bed! There´s a reason I quit watching scary movies, they make me upset and plus the first house, where my room is, is dark...sleeping by myself.... realistic dreams and don´t want them to be negative. So I read the rest of my book, Rooftops of Tehran! (SO GOOD btw) and then went to bad happy. Good thing, because def. heard a couple weird noises outside my window while I was reading. then slept fine after that.

Semana Biblica - a week of the Bible:
¨Si no toma su cruz y me sigue, no puede ser mi discípulo¨
¨If you do not take up your cross and follow me, you cannot be my disciple¨

At Mass on Sunday, they handed out little papers inviting us to a week of the Bible. It´s just a week every year with a diff. theme, so I asked the hermanas if I could go. It´s at a church like 25 minutes walking, so it´s okay to walk during the day but at night I take the 43 bus... The theme is about discipleship.

Day 1: Martha and Mary
The nun asked me to read! I was like what? me? It went okay though. We talked about listening to the word of God and sang and then did a psalm, listened to someone´s testimony that related to theme, then I read and we got in groups to discuss it. Luckily the questions are all written out so I kinda understood them.
Day 2: 1st day of spring, dia de amor and Padre Wilson´s bday (so we did a special blessing after Mass).
I made banana bread to share, went to Mass, and went to the party afterward. It was nice to be in a Christian community again! I recognized a couple people from Bible class, and one man said he´d walk me home so I didn´t need to take bus. It was really nice.
Day 3: The first community (Acts 2: 42-47)
same format...song, reading, testimony...We shared food-drink and talked about values and customs we share and what we could do now to put the model of this first community into practice in our daily life. Met Ariel, he played guitar today since the hermana who usually does wasn´t there. Then a couple said they could walk me back and so we chatted.
I was able to go to Mass before it again, which I loved, and I met the other priest there. I like him, he did Mass in our little chapel one Sunday that I really liked.
Day 4:  Servidora (Annunciation in Luke)       Mary was a servant of God, so we talked about how we could better serve our community. It´s awesome because it makes you think about each passage as a model. God gave us these models and stories to incorporate them in our everyday life. We also made agreements and wrote them on flowers as an offering to Mary and to the Lord, so I wrote about what I could do to make the hogar better and decided to...
Day 5:  Vayan!  (Luke 10...where God sends 72 out to preach to nations)
      Basically a summation of the week, now we have the characteristics of being a missionary and it´s our job to go out and teach others and preach to the nations. Isn´t that why I am here? Need to find a way to talk to girls about God more often. . . Us young ones split into two groups to talk about what this means to young people and the adults did the same. it was fun talking to other around my age about this stuff.
   
I loved this week because it gave me confidence in my Spanish and it´s spriritual food I enjoy. I think being on DR mission has given me some practice talking about God, so I have some of that vocab and that´s how I know a few prayers too, and I had my dictionary to help me with verbs or whatnot that I needed to know. So, still not perfect, but they are so welcoming and open and helpful!
     Just 8 more days and Angela will be here, I think that will help because I feel like when I´m not with the girls I have too much time to think, which is both good and bad, but it also gives me good prayer time and some time to read, so can´t complain too much.

Today is my day off, I cleaned my room and such...GOT OUT MY CLARINET! I can play almost all of ¨STOP¨ by Spice Girls!! Need to look up some of the sharps and flats that I don´t remember, but it was relaxing to play some this morning. Plan on playing more later, reading more of The Last Song (my 3rd book since I´ve been here), and then going for a walk before Mass. Ciao!