A week of stories

Monday, I was kept pretty busy. I had to put a large icon up in the church. Luckily I was able to have Mike help me with that. Looking at the chapel this weekend, it was nice to look around and see a number of things that I had helped put up or clean up. I’ve been put in charge of the chapel cleaning since I got here, so to see it looking better and better is exciting.

The second half of the day, I tried to focus on Spanish. After spending some time on my own with Rosetta stone and a few of the other many programs I’ve been using, I shadowed the boys. Karen was having a class on handwriting, so I sat in on the class. Listening, I tried to translate, mentally, as much as I could from the class. Since I knew what she was talking about generally, I was able to pick up the words I knew, and piece together what she was saying. After that class, I sat and watched an Animal World video with a couple of the other boys. Anything and everything Spanish helps. As I’m writing, I’m listening to a talk show in Spanish on the radio.

Tuesday, the flu that I was fighting off for a few days finally hit. While it’s not fun to be sick, it was nice to finally get a day to sleep. I hadn’t realized how much, I grown fatigued internally. The entire day I laid low, and I felt a world better come Wednesday.

Wednesday, was a patchwork of jobs. I spent the morning watering plants, and then working with Mike a little bit. He’s been organized the Project Mexico warehouse last week. It looks fantastic now, but he put a full week and a half’s worth of time into cleaning it up. As he and Kat, take off in the next couple days. Their imprint on Project Mexico will remain. Both have contributed so much to Project Mexico and St. Innocent’s Orphanage over the last five years they’ve been here. We are all indebted to their great work.

In the afternoon, I had to organize a number of icons in our chapel. Like I mentioned above, all the projects in the chapel are exciting to do as the chapel is constantly being improved.

Thursday, I drove up with Kat and Madi up to the states for the meeting. I did a couple cleaning jobs around the office. Then my amazing Grammy dropped by and donated a bunch of fresh fruit. She and I then went out and grabbed a coffee and got to catch up for an hour or so. We also made a call to Ellena for her birthday!!!

---As a side note, having my grandparents here in San Diego has been a great blessing. When I first came down, I stayed with them for almost a week. Since then they’ve helped with a few different things. When I had to get my Sentri pass, they helped with getting some of the paperwork needed together. I’ve also gotten to see them a couple times since I’ve been in Mexico and went out to breakfast with them a couple weeks ago.

Friday, was a similar to Thursday. I went up and spent the day doing a lot of office work. In the afternoon I had to make some phone calls on behalf of Project Mexico. It was pretty neat when I got to talk to a few people I hadn’t seen in a while. One of which was our pastor’s daughter Tatiana, and an intern from this summer, Alexandra!

Saturday, was cleaning day. The morning was spent cleaning the chapel. However in the afternoon, I went and played volleyball with the boys. Say what you like about futbol/soccer being their best sport, these boys are very good at volleyball. I was impressed. I assumed that my height would give me a clear advantage, however, they still stuck in, each game was quite a challenge, I ended up losing the majority of the time.

Sunday, I helped chant in matins, and actually stayed at the stand for the liturgy. The last two weekends I’ve chanted for vespers, matins and the liturgy. It’s definitely helped with the Spanish, but also worked on my humility at the same time, (a couple of the things I read, did not come out the way they were supposed to – to say the least). Later, after some more intense volleyball, I went with Madi, Geoff, Kat, and the older boys to a canyon to climb. Another cool group experience that was very exciting and fun to be a part of.