Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2001 09:22:11 -0700 (PDT)
From: Joy McMasters <maestrajoy@yahoo.com>
Subject: Saludos de Mexico (2)

I feel like part of my family away from home now after over a week living with them and April and I will begin our ESL class ministry tomorrow (Tuesday) night at 7pm local time. We have planning and preparation left to do, but we´re excited because our church seems very supportive.

I have had some struggles with culture shock that wouldn´t have been possible a couple years ago--I have discovered that I have to be very careful about spending time with Jon in public because of the tendency toward gossip here. Since we are here as missionaries, we have to be especially careful. Hopefully, this will stop being an issue because the issue itself has the potential to turn into a distraction, even if our relationship isn´t one.

April and I seem to have gotten really close to our family very quickly since we spend so much time talking after dinner each night. We have also gotten really close to each other as we pray and talk nightly, and this is a huge blessing for both of us since we both have struggled with a lack of really close constant friends. I am glad she´s from Bakersfield because that will make it possible for us to see each other after we return to California.

We will start learning our clown show soon so that we can begin performing it on the street in front of various churches as a way to reach out to the children of the community and then share the Gospel using the bracelets we will be making. Last Saturday, we went to Chapultepec, a huge park where many of the museums are and where people just go to hang out on the weekend. We discussed tracts such as the Four Spiritual laws in Spanish and taught the guys on our team how to braid so that they could make the yellow, black, red, white, green, and yellow (again) bracelets.

We went to the Zócolo with our teams to see Diego Rivera´s murals at the national palace, take pictures in front of a giant Mexican flag, and see the Catedral Metropolitano. I was excited to see that the scaffolding that was up the past couple years had finally come down and the ceiling was repainted. Unfortunately, now they´re using jackhammers at the bases of the columns to try and fix them somehow so the place was full of dust. Since the city was built on a filled-in lake, it sinks a little every year and the really old buildings are falling down.

I guess it´s time for prayer requests and praises again. Praises:

Prayer requests:

¡Que Dios les Bendiga!
(May God Bless You!)
Joy<><


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Last modified: Wed Dec 26 14:31:54 GMT 2001