Viva la Vida: 24 March 2014

¡Hola familia y amigos!

Viva la Vida is a Coldplay song, but it also means "Live Life." I'm not trying to sound like an American Eagle commercial when I say that we really do have the ability to just go out and live our lives, but we really do. Sometimes I feel like we tether ourselves down with unnecessary boundaries.. an ever growing list of "What if's" and "if-onlys" and etc etc etc..but they're mental. Take them off, untie them, and throw them on the ground Andy Sandberg style. And then run and do the thing you've always wanted to do but have never done.

Suitcase Heart: 17 March 2014

¡Hola familia y amigos!

They fumigated all of Fundeci (the apartment complex we live in) this week, which means our house is basically just a graveyard for cockroaches.  I wonder how many times I've used the word "cockroach" in my emails.  Far too many. Someone should count and tell me.

Walking on Water: 10 March 2014

¡Hola familia y amigos!

So I thought it couldn't get any hotter here, and then it did.  If I die here, just know that I love all of you. And that you won't really have to miss me because you can just google Justo Llamas and remember me in the version of my ugly Argentinan Doppleganger self. He sings and everything.

Also, to celebrate my official 6 months in the mission (wooooo!!) we went to a French bakery called "Pan y Paz" (or "Bread and Peace") last Monday, and it was sinfully delicious. A double chocolate mousse for dessert (dessert first, naturally) followed by a goat cheese sandwich on crisp freshly baked french bread.  Worth the calories.  If anyone is coming to pick me up in Nicaragua post-mish, we're going there. We're also going to drink Papaya Milkshakes, because they too are delicious and I tried my first one today. Or maybe we drank two.

Fat for life.

Siete Oop: 3 March 2014

¡Hola familia y amigos!

Siete Oop is how my Nicaraguan friend pronounces 7Up.  (In Spanish the letter "U" is the "oo" sound.)  I believe I mentioned this in a previous email, but Pizza = Pixa and Pepsi = Pexi as well, haha.  

Other random Spanish fact: there are two forms to express the word "you"--Usted (the formal version), and Tu (informal/personal). Here, they use a different version, the "vos" form. It's pretty much just like tu but maybe even a little bit more personal. I didn't pick up on it until recently, but now I hear it all of the time. Not allowed to use it (missionaries, ya know . . gotta use the more formal form), but there ya go.

Guinea Pigs and Miracles: 24 February 2014

¡Hola familia y amigos!

I had to walk home from the Central of Leon in jeans today because we got on the wrong bus, and it felt so weird.  I'm always, always in a skirt, and walking down the same streets I pass by every day in pants felt scandalous. I seriously felt naked. The cat calls don't help, either. "Ay! psst psst psst, Gatita! Chelita! Que bonitas ojos tienes!" commence with snapping and clapping, because logically I would respond to those things.  "WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME HAVEN'T YOU EVER SEEN A WHITE PERSON BEFORE??" Geeze.

Spanish lesson of the week: Ulitos = little hair ties. Culitos..... hahaha well, you can google it. But I can assure you I don't want them anywhere near my hair.

99 Isn't 100: 17 February 2014

¡Hola Familia y amigos!

I am in a strangely flippant mood at the moment, and the curtain that is adorning the window I'm sitting in front of keeps smacking me periodically in the face, which isn't helping anything.  So, it will be interesting to me to see what I came up with at the end of this letter.  Also the whole "Relying on my journal and just copying things down" thing just isn't going to happen anytime soon, or ever, because I haven't written a single thing in the last two weeks.  It's because I'm a mom, and training is hard.  Worth it, though. I just don't think I've ever worked this hard in my life. Expect spelling errors and sentences that make no sense.

Water Bottle Showers: 10 February 2014

¡Hola familia y amigos!

Let me explain to you the logistics of a water bottle shower.  A water bottle shower is when you're in the shower (which is about as ghetto as it gets--a metal hose attached to the ceiling that spouts freezing cold water onto a concrete floor) and completely covered in soap (because you feel disgusting and you are disgusting and so you feel the need to lather every inch of yourself with an unnecessary amount of body wash), and then, whilst in the midst of your soapy haven, the water decides to cut out on you completely.  So you are then left with no other choice but to ask your companion if she has any water available, and after some searching, she comes up with two small water bottles she has been keeping in the freezer.   Thus is born the water bottle shower. A freezing, miserable experience, and at the end of it, you are pretty much just as soap-covered as before.