Our first newsletter

Hola!

Dear friends and family,

Well, we’re here! Honestly, it is kind of shock to be doing something that has been in the works for about a year, not to mention that I have been wanting to go to language school for three years. Is it living up to my expectations? Well, yes…it is hard! I have so many words to learn. But when ever I get to thinking that it is too hard I just remember that it could be worse, I could speak Spanish and be trying to learn English (for those of you that may not know, English is one of the most difficult languages)!

Dennis Poulette (my PRIME mentor) has really done a great job with helping Nicolle and I adjust to Mexico. We had a very warm welcome from him and his family the day we arrived and he drove us down to Cuernavaca (where the language school is) and showed us the sights. He also introduced us to our host family, one of our greatest blessings here. This family has bent over backwards to help us feel at home. It has truly been wonderful to stay with them.

Today was my first day in language school. As I mentioned, it was difficult, but impossible. One thing that would make life easier is knowing when to get off the bus! Today I had to walk back three blocks because I missed my stop for the school. But this was not as bad as the attempted trop to the school that Nicolle and I made three days ago. Our Spanish is not very good yet and we thought we told the driver where we wanted to go clearly, but apparently not. He told us we were there, and though we did not recognize where we were, we decided to take his word for it and get off. It was not the right stop. To make a long story boring we ended up walking for about 12 blocks which took an hour. Consequently, we were late for orientation. Funny thing, we walked in just as the school superintendent was explaining how to use the public transportation and how to avoid making the mistake we just made!

The food is wonderful…tasting…but our stomachs are having a little trouble adjusting. Speaking of food, a really funny thing happened the other night. One of our friends down here, Faliciano, took us out for some comida Americana (American food); we had hot dogs and cheeseburgers and even though the food looked American and sounded American it wasn’t. I decided that if Taco Bell made hot dogs and hamburgers they would taste like those. It was definitely the first time I have ever had a hamburger with chili peppers on it! A spicy hamburger?

We went to our first church service yesterday; the family we are staying with is Baptist, but the large walk in baptismal in the church is the only similarity with Baptist churches in the U.S. The service lasted from 10:30 to 12:00 with lots of singing and prayer. It was definitely more relational and made U.S. churches look task-oriented. What the say about time in Mexico is true, in Sunday school there was people that showed up 5 minutes late 15 minutes late and 10 minutes before it ended.

I have made some friends with some teenage guys at the church, some of them are very talented musicians and play in the church band. One of them is teaching me to play slap bass. All in all I am having a fantastic time down here. Please continue to pray for Nicolle and I, that our stomachs will get used the food and that I would learn Spanish quickly. Thank you for your prayers and support.

Jon and Nicolle Reid