Week 3

Hey guys sorry I haven't posted in so long. Wow the last two weeks here have been great! I do truly love Mexico. One thing that I really like is that before and after church you greet everybody really warmly and tell them God bless you. It's so fun to watch. I'm still a little ackward with it yet. With the girls you do the touch cheek air kiss thing. :) 

My Spanish has gotten a little better but it a still a long way in coming. I'm trying to study it in my free time. 

My weekly scheduale is this:

Monday is my day off so if anybody wants to skype or call me that is the best day to do so. 

On alternate Tuesday and Wednesdays I  take care of Boni. 

Sundays we have have church here at the yoders house in the backyard and then we go out to San Pedro and have church in the evening. One of our busiest days. 

The rest of the week I help Donna around the house. 

My normal day would be 

help with breakfast dishes

Clean the kitchen 

Sweep house 

Help with laundry

Bake something 

Help with lunch 

Lunch dishes 

Naptime 

Church or activity in the evening. 

It's pretty chill and I like it. 

The Yoder family is awesome! It's fun having 3 younger brother figures since I've never had a younger bro. Caleb is always fixing something or playing guitar and Kedrics doin school or playing sports and Kyle is telling jokes and hanging out with whomever he can find that's not busy. :) 

I have made some great friends with some of the girls out at the children's home as well. Is it crazy that I've not even been here a month and I'm already thinking about how hard it is gonna be to leave and how much I'm gonna miss everybody down here! 

I have been having some problems with my health. But I think if I just get more sleep and eat less sugar it will get better. (sugar has a negative affect on my joints especially)

The food down here I really like although they don't eat to much meat which is really differant for me. The tacarias here have some AMAZING tacos! I crave their food a lot! Yum. 

The other night i went to one of the singles night. Ironic though cuz half the people were dating. ;) We hiked beside the river. 

Afterward we picked up food from the Tacaria and hung out at Vaughn's house.

We sang and it cracked me up so bad cuz half of us would sing in english and the other half would sing in Spanish. :) luv  it! 

It's been really fun learning how to bake and cook while down here. Praise The Lord nobody's gotten sick from my cooking! ;) ;) 

 Soft pretzels 

My fav cookies!! 

My first pie!! Lemon merange! 

Prayer request. 

1. Energy (I'm always tired)

2. I feel like Satans attacking me a lot if yl could pray against that that'd be great. 

3. Sickness- people keep getting sick. 

Thanks y'all your da best!!! 

I've Been in Mexico for Only a Week??

I can't believe it's only been a week since I got down here!! I already have friends I adore and I absolutely love te family I'm staying with! My day is always filled with laughter at the antics of the two youngest boys. It also blesses me to see how te serve down here with all their hearts! Mexico is truly blessed to have the Yoder family here. Donna said to me this morning ya the weeks you've been here haven't really been normal. I reminded her that I've only been here a week. :) Seems longer :) 

So what was my first week like? Hmmm pretty awesome id say but I am definitely glad that it's over. I don't really enjoy the ackward first moments. It's been kinda frustrating trying to understand Spanish. I've learned enough that I can catch words here n there and recognize most of the words but my brain can't put them together fast enough so consequently I hae been exhausted everyday from thinking about everything people says and I say. I'm studying really hard so I can learn it really quick.

They are really patient with me which I'm very grateful to them for. 

I have fallen into a sort of scheduale already which is my style and I am cleaning and cooking and washing dishes a lot. The house is the center of activity a lot of the time so people are in and out a lot. Ok so I came from a house full of girls so I will admit it's taking me a little bit to get used to a house full of boys. Not bad at all just a little different. :) 

I have already made friends with some of the girls from the children's home and I love them so incredibly much already! They are so sweet and full of life. 

I'm gonna be completely honest the biggest change for me is the mentally handicapped children. I love them a lot but I have never really been around them much. Y'all know what I mean and I am taking care of a handicapped boy by the name of Boni and I'll admit I was so scared to take care of him but my first day went ok and I think this is gonna be a  good expierance for me. I absolutely love when Boni starts just grinning away. Makes me wonder what's going on in that head of his! 

A few things I did this week was go clothes shopping with Vaughn (who is da bomb I'm just saying!). I've gotten to ride on Motos or mopeds a lot which I love!! 4 of us went to a really cool smoothie shop and I thouroughly enjoyed that! 

So far I absolutely love Mexico! I do have a couple prayer requests. 

1. Energy. I am tired a lot. Mentally n spiritually. 

2. That I can pick up Spanish quickly. 

3. That I can be a blessing to those around me. 

4.  That God would remain my focal point! 

Thank y'all!! <3 Bethany 

Traveling Mercies

So 34 hours of traveling can sure get ya exhausted! So like I said I left my house at 4am. And that night I had gotten maybe an hour of solid sleep. And 90% of the time I can't sleep when i travel so I was rather dead while traveling this time. My first flight flew out of harrisburg but praise The Lord I did not have to go by myself. I met up with 4 others at the harrisburg airport. During the first flight I sat next to a liberal mennonite lady that had been a teacher in Indonesia for a long time so we got to talk about Asia and stuff which was really cool! Then I had a 3 hour layover in Atlanta Georgia and a 3 hour flight to tuscan Arizona. *sidenote* it's is sooooo incredible AWESOME to be in this day and age were we can fly. I mean we get to see a birds eye view of stuff!!! We take that for granted to much in my opinion. :) 

We arrived in Tuscan at 12:30 and our bus didn't leave till 8. So we wondered around Tuscan killing time. Tuscan is basically Mexico in America. Ok heart attack time. So around 6:30 I was just chilling in the bus station and I decieded to check out my passport and see what a horrible pic it was of me n stuff. Well I just happened to glance at the expiration date. July 18 2015. :O I about flipped. I was gonna come home July 24th but if I had never looked at the bus station who knows what might have happened when I tried to get back into the country with an expired passport. We were a little worried if they would grant me a 6 months visa at the border since my passport expires in less than 6 months but praise The Lord they didn't say a word. Our bus got there at 8 and we loaded up. It was a really nice bus except for the the annoying loud video they had playing. I got to sit next to an old guy. Yay! #sarcasm. Ok here is 2 stories that you can laugh at. So I'm there sleeping and it's like the middle of the night and I suddenly wake up and am discombobulated and for some reason my arm reaches out and grabs the old dudes head!! GAH I immediately was like what am I doing and pretend like I'm sleeping as he kinda wakes up and looks around. #EMBARRASING!!! Then I wake a little later and I had to go to the bathroom and I had the window seat. I was to shy to wake this guy and try to explain im Spanish that id like out so I waited like 2 hours till he woke up a little and I then I got him to move. But then I locked myself in the bathroom so I should have just stayed in my seat. It took me like 5 min to figure out how to open the stupid bathroom door. I kinda panicked a little. 

Our bus arrived at Los Mochis at 7:30 and we got to freshen up! Yay! But then our two guys and the girl who spoke the best Spanish when to the airport to get the rental car. They said it should take maybe and hour 20 at the most. So Vanessa and I stayed at the bus station and waited. Two and a half hour later they showed up. A lot of crazy scenerios can run through your head in that time. Omw so the car thy have them was just a little bit bigger than my bug and we had to get 5 big suitcases in it. And six carry ons! Oh and us too. Let's just say we were a tad squished for the 2 hour ride to choix. It felt so good to get out of car when we reached choix! I instately went rather shy when I say all the new people n I was tired so that makes for quite a personality switch on me. But I actually ended up knowing quite a few people so it was a blast seeing them again. So wa so I'm here. I'm safe. And I'm tired. Praise The Lord. ;) 

(All of these blogs are being written out on my phone since I accidentally destroyed my laptop before I came so don't mind the text lingo and lack of punctuation n stuff) 

Leaving the US

   Wow this has come way faster than I thought it would. Tomorrow I get to wake up at 3 am to leave at 4 am to get to Harrisburg airport at 5 am and my flight flys out at 6:20 am. I have one layover before I get to Arizona and then I'm bussing to Chiox Mexico which my friend informed me is like a 12 to 15 hour trip. I think it's safe to say I will be exhausted by the time I get there. I am very excited though. This week I spent a lot of time saying hello and goodbye to my friends and family which I am not good at. I don't like goodbyes but I just keep telling myself that it's only four months.
   From what I understand I will be living with Loren and Donna Yoder and helping her out around the house as well as assisting with the church plant. I don't know to much about it yet. I do know that once a week I will go out to the orphanage and take care of a handicapped child. Honestly that will be a bit stretching for me but hey what's life without stressful situations.Thanks for all your support and prayers!