June 1st newsletter

Hola!

Dear friends and family,

As you can see from the above pictures Nicolle and I have gone on our first excursion of ancient ruins. The school offers such trips but they were quite expensive so we opted to go by ourselves which worked out really well…until we had to try and find the bus to go home! (Using public transportation is always an adventure; more to come on that note in the future!) Climbing to the ruin was VERY difficult. The altitude in Mexico City is some 8,000 feet, and though Cuernavaca is not quite as high, it is right up there. The altitude makes any kind of labor difficult (and cooking, as our cookie adventure taught us!) because of the lesser amount of oxygen. Another reason it was difficult was because we climbed a mountain to get there…really! Some spots were so rugged that I thought we should have ropes and harnesses. Difficult as it was, our two hour assent was rewarded by a breath taking view of the land below, and the opportunity to climb all over a shrine that dates from 1200 AD.

In other news, language school is going well. Slow, but steady. I have made the biggest gains in understanding. It is super cool to be able to listen to a conversation and understand what is going on. It is sometimes frustrating though because I have an idea what is going on, but do not know enough words to participate very well. But the more I practice, the better I get!

Speaking of practicing Spanish, I had an interesting conversation with a beggar in a wheel chair in town. I was on my way to the post office to male some things and I ran across this gentlemen which struck me as interesting because I have seen him twice before begging at the Cathedral. I stopped to ask him why he wasn’t at the Church and ended up talking to him for 10 minutes! Turns out he is pretty educated and knew some English. I found out that he studied electronics some time ago but there is no work for him, so he begs.

So far, one of my favorite activities is hanging out with the Jr. high aged kids down the street and at church. There is a very talented group of jr. high and high school kids at church that play in the band and I enjoy playing music with them.

That is all for now. Much love from us to you,

Jon and Nicolle.