Friday July 3

Friday we went to Chichen Itza. There are two ways I could look at this day. One, it was a hot  we got lectured in Spanish in the sun for hours. Or two, we saw incredible ancient sights, went to the best cenote yet, and I had some powerful moments where I saw God's hand in my life. I will pick the second view. Chichen Itza is about a 2 hour drive from Merida and is a huge community of ruins. They are spread out over 18 km of land, we were just in the main area. I have never seen so many vendors in my life. They were all selling these small wooden jaguar heads that you could use to make jaguar calls. My teacher threatened us with our lives if anyone bought one... after hearing them for 4 hours straight we understood why:) My mama had told me that this was the best place to buy hand stitched souvenirs. I decided I wanted a white coverup dress. The whole day I spent keeping my eye open for what I wanted. At the end of the day we were allowed to shop for 20 minutes and so I ran with 2 other girls to the other side of the site  where we had seen dresses. Within five minutes I narrowed it down to two dresses in two different shops. I liked one slightly more than the other but I liked the woman in the other shop more she seemed more honest and fair. She gave me a really good deal for a dress with so much hand stitching.....

 In the morning after my morning prayer I had the thought I should make friends with a girl in my program named Rebecca. I didn't think twice about it or think of it as a prompting.

 This one reminded me of the testaments. It is the Mayan rain god Cha. 

 After Profe did this in a few pictures you can look at my face and see how I felt. haha. I am glad we have a director who knows how to have fun!

 Jordan and I at the main temple.

 It was a really hot day. 

 Coolest cenote of my life!

 Jordan and I tried our hardest to get a picture but couldn't get the lighting right with my phone. 

 Rebecca and I after our adventures. You can find her side of the story on her blog: http://rjcarr27.blogspot.mx/2015/07/chichen-itza-excursion-2.html

 This picture is dedicated to Sister Roberts (a senior sister who served in Hungary) who taught me the beauty of appreciating almond magnum bars. 

Saturday July 4
Happy Independence day from Mexico!

Sunday July 5
Church
Cockroach

Monday July 6 Uxmal






Tuesday July 7
School?
Bought gym passes

Wednesday July 8
Got home early laid out
hung out with the locals at YSA activity


random facts about mexico
the toilet only flushes about 50% of the time. I just always pray that it is the right 50% of the time.

Second Week in Merida

Friday July 3

Friday we went to Chichen Itza. There are two ways I could look at this day. One, it was a hot  we got lectured in Spanish in the sun for hours. Or two, we saw incredible ancient sights, went to the best cenote yet, and I had some powerful moments where I saw God's hand in my life. I will pick the second view. Chichen Itza is about a 2 hour drive from Merida and is a huge community of ruins. They are spread out over 18 km of land, we were just in the main area. I have never seen so many vendors in my life. They were all selling these small wooden jaguar heads that you could use to make jaguar calls. My teacher threatened us with our lives if anyone bought one... after hearing them for 4 hours straight we understood why:) My mama had told me that this was the best place to buy hand stitched souvenirs. I decided I wanted a white coverup dress. The whole day I spent keeping my eye open for what I wanted. At the end of the day we were allowed to shop for 20 minutes and so I ran with 2 other girls to the other side of the site  where we had seen dresses. Within five minutes I narrowed it down to two dresses in two different shops. I liked one slightly more than the other but I liked the woman in the other shop more she seemed more honest and fair. She gave me a really good deal for a dress with so much hand stitching.  In the morning after my morning prayer I had the thought I should make friends with a girl in my program named Rebecca. I didn't think twice about it or think of it as a prompting.

 This one reminded me of the testaments. It is the Mayan rain god Cha. 

 After Profe doing this in a few pictures you can look at my face and see how I felt. haha. I am glad we have a director who knows how to have fun!

 Jordan and I at the main temple.

 It was a really hot day. 

 Coolest cenote of my life!

 Jordan and I tried our hardest to get a picture but couldn't get the lighting right with my phone. 

 Rebecca and I after our adventures. This is her blog: http://rjcarr27.blogspot.mx/2015/07/chichen-itza-excursion-2.html

 This picture is dedicated to Sister Roberts (a senior sister who served in Hungary) who taught me the beauty of appreciating almond magnum bars. 

Saturday July 4
Happy Independence day from Mexico!



Sunday July 5
Church
Cockroach


Monday July 6 Uxmal


Tuesday July 7
School?
Bought gym passes

Wednesday July 8
Got home early laid out
hung out with the locals at YSA activity


random facts about mexico
the toilet only flushes about 50% of the time. I just always pray that it is the right 50% of the time.

First Week in Merida

We had planned on going into the city tonight, but the rain gutters are spewing like fire hydrants and the pool that looked abandoned yesterday is now overflowing. A perfect setting to plant myself under a fan, watch the lightning, and write about my first week in Mérida.

Tuesday June 23

The day before I left for Mérida all of my energy had gone into my classroom I hadn't even started packing. I started working on my classroom at 8 AM and didn't leave it until 4 (4 hours later than planned). I had to pack clean up my apartment and then drive to Bountiful as quickly as possible. With my packing skills and traffic I was 1 hr and 45 minutes late to my own goodbye bbq with the fam (disclaimer... I thought my party started 1 hour later than it did).  None the less I felt horrible and irresponsible and slightly on the verge of tears from my stressed packed day. It was wonderful to do my favorite thing in the world: sit around the pool with the family and talk. I love warm summer nights with cool breezes, beautiful sunsets, and my wonderful family (not to mention my moms cooking!). After chatting for a while we decided to go to the 10:25 showing of Jurassic World at the IMAX in centerville. When it finished at 1 we stopped by Walmart to get some last minute things and then went home to start packing.

Wednesday 

After being up all night I took a 5 am shower and was ready to catch my 8 AM flight. I felt a little bit sick but I thought I just had a nervous traveling stomach. After two flights of misery (and hearing that some of Shell's kids had the flu),  I realized it was more than a nervous stomach. Half of my group was on the same flight as I was and the rest met us at the airport. After waiting for all of our luggage and going through customs, When we arrived there was a woman holding a sign with four names on it. I knew Jordan Smith would be my roommate but I didn’t know there were going to be four of us. I soon met the most wonderful woman south of the border. Malena Patrón. At this point I was still feeling horrible. I survived the long car ride home and then when we walked in the door I mentioned to my mom that I was feeling pretty sick and I didn’t want to eat dinner with them. I went up to bed and slept for the next 4 hours, woke up to Skype and went back to bed for the night. 

Thursday

Mama gave us a ride early to our first day of classes. Classes are MW 9:15-11:15 and TTH 9:15-1:30.  That night mama was going to a play,  and offered to take us with her so we had some time to get to know the city while she was at the theater. We walked around until we saw crowds right out side of the main Cathedral. It was a live band and a reenactment of a Mayan game that was a ancient fertility ritual.. so of course we scooted ourselves onto the nearest bleacher and waited for the show to start. The game is played with a 3 kilo rubber ball that can only be hit with your hip. Two teams hit the ball to each other by sitting and swinging their hips across the ground until they can get it to bounce high enough to stand and use their hips. The goal is to hit the ball through a hoop that was at least 2 meters high. It seems to be an impossible task, we watched until their hips were bloody and they quit and we never saw them make a goal. And thus the Mayan population is decreasing. 

Afterwards we went to the restaurant Los Trompos in the main square, which had been recommended by a friend. I had fajitas mexicanas y gringas(corn and flour tortillas... they eat lots of corn tortillas here) and it changed my life. There was a live band I had a drink and a huge meal at a super nice restaurant for under $9. I love México.

Friday

Friday we went on our first group excursion to Dzibilchaltun.  I'll be honest the tour was in Spanish so I did my best to listen and then as we were walking in-between signs I asked the returned sister missionaries to clue me in.

 Book of Mormon stories that my teacher tells to me dun dun...

The Yucatan doesn't have rivers and lakes, but instead relies on subterranean waters.  This is a cenote, which by definition is a sink hole caused from the collapse of limestone bedrock filled with water. 

 Iguanas everywhere!

 If you held still long enough in the Cenote the fish would come and eat the dead skin off of your feat. 

Look closely... those are all fish!

 

Dr Price, Scott, & Raquel

 Our whole group

Fruit dipped in sweet spicy stuff.. aka mexican candy. No me gustó...

 Beach volleyball on our private beach... living the life. 

 It was all fun and games until I stepped on something in the ocean and 4 pieces of that something broke off in my foot. 

 Saturday
We decided all of this delicious food needed to be accompanied with some good running, so all four of us left for a run early in the morning. After our run all the girls took a nap and I had a heart to heart with Mama. She is an incredible woman. She is one of those people who can make you feel like you are her best friend and her number one priority just by the way she looks at you when you talk to her (and the patience she has when you don't speak her language). We really lucked out. I think all of the other host moms are great, but ours goes above and beyond.
When everyone woke up from their naps, she drove us out to this little city, Homun, in the middle of nowhere and took us to 4 new cenotes.

 We followed our guide Juan Diego everywhere on his motorcycle to each of the different cenotes. 

Sunday

We went to church in the morning and enjoyed a relaxing day with a long nap. In the evening we went to the city to watch Merida in the streets which is where there is alive band and dancing. We enjoyed watching it. We tried to join but got embarrassed when we realized how many natives were taking pictures of us. 

Monday:

We woke up early and went running and then everyone went back to bed because I am the only one with school on Monday from the girls in my house who have class. While we went to class everyone else went to the beach:( After class 3 of the 5 of us in the intermediate class decided to meet up with the advanced kids. We had the adventure of a life time with a 2 1/2 hour bus ride there that should have only been 30 minutes. When we got there and changed into our swimsuits the whole group was leaving. We weren't going to let that ruin our fun so we stayed and played in the ocean. Fun fact, the ocean in Progresso is the warmest I have ever been in. You can walk out 50 meters and it is still only waist high. The clarity is horrible and the water tastes worse than any ocean I have ever tasted, but it is warm and beautiful. 

A crazy storm started to come in while we were laying out.

As soon as we got on the bus the down pour began.

 As soon as we got home we headed to Profe's house for FHE

.

 Wednesday
Scott came home with us and we had empanatas made by this little old Mayan lady that works for Malena once a week. Afterwards Jordan, Scott, and I went and got Manicures and Pedicures at the Rush Salon by our house. We live right next to a huge mall with Walmart, TGIFridays, Tony Romas, Dairy Queen and everything you could possibly need.

 Mama and I had a heart to heart making ham and cheese quesadillas together. In Mexico we eat dinner at 9-10 PM. It is really strange but it is becoming more normal. 

Things I didn't know before this week:

-Geckos bark and make lots of noise

-Mexican mosquiteos love me
-All the buildings and walls in Mexico are white
-Rain is warm and welcome