Missions Training Classes Begin

So, it's Sunday, and this morning marks my first experience at a Mexican church. All of the gringos (what Mexicans affectionately call us 'white people' among a few other things) on base go to local churches down here every Sunday. Traditional Mexican churches apparently last for hours, sometimes up to four! However, the church that I went to only lasted for two and a half hours today, which went by relatively quickly considering that I could not comprehend more than a few stray words here or there. There is a praise and worship session at the beginning, which was so great! They had an overhead projector with the lyrics, and the first song was even a worship song that I knew in English, so I was able to learn a few words by translation. I brought with my my Bible and also my Pocket Spanish-English Dictionary. Going into Tlaxiaco is great; each time I learn a little more Spanish. Yesterday, actually, was the first time we went into town with out anyone to help us out, and I had my first conversations in Spanish with the locals! It's true that they were extremely short and broken conversations, but I am counting them nonetheless. I have to admit at this point my most commonly used phrase is, "no entiendo" which means "I do not understand." But, I am encouraged at how much I am learning each day! My first phrase was, "estamos caminando" which means, "we are walking" since  we walked into town that day. So far, my favorite Spanish word is "popote" which means "straw," as in a drinking straw-which I ask for by name at every restaurant to which we go! Today, after church, we went to one of the two pizza establishments in town, and one of the pizzas we ordered was Hawaiana, which is mostly similar to a Hawaiian pizza in the States...plus one ingredient. We found a list of the toppings after ordering and read them, included was the word, "tocino," which none of us knew. So, I got out my Spanish-English dictionary and looked it up. Come to find out we had just ordered a pizza with LARD as one of the toppings!!! I was shocked and grossed out and rueful all at the same time-I debated whether or not I was actually going to eat it. When we established that we could not visibly identify any lard, we decided to eat the pizza, and we all liked it, it was pretty Western. But, out of that experience, I added a new word to my "cuaderno" (notebook) that I carry around: tocino.

We just finished out our first week of classes, and had our first three book reports due Friday at midnight (I submitted mine at 11:38pm, I think, staying true to my American ways of procrastination). We had our first test on Saturday morning, and discussed the next week's reading selections. I am opting to read the additional books in order to have the option of attaining the Associates' Bible degree at the end of this year. The books we are reading are very, very good. All applicable and conducive to nuturing an ever-growing and ever-maturing Faith. The books we read last week really helped me to understand the life of a missionary and to adapt to my new life here and my current role. We read Foreign to Familiar, Unveiled at Last, and a book about language learning and bonding. The first one on the list for next week is John Piper's Let the Nations Be Glad. We've been having some great class discussion, I am really loving the classes here, learning so much! I will be sure to make a post soon about what I have been learning. Also, I am going to try and find a way to post pictures on this site so that photographs of town and of the base can be made available for viewing.

Blessings,

Missy