one month left
All of the photos are courtesy of Audrey's camera this week. For some reason I didn't take a single one. Probably because I was always in the car driving somewhere...
Erick and Audrey
It's hard to tell who Cecily likes playing and flirting with more, Erick... 
or Juan Carlos. 
Erick brought his XBox to our house and the boys turned Grandma and Grandpa's room into their den. It looked like a bomb had gone off in there by the next day, but thirty minutes before we had to leave, they cleaned it all up all by themselves without any encouragement.
Erick and Juan Carlos having fun stuffing their mouths with popcorn for Audrey to photo- Elliot oblivious because he's playing the XBox....
Audrey singing at karaoke night for youth conference.
Audrey playing for the talent show, Ricardo is turning pages for her
The kids watcing "Shrek tercero" at the Jonguitud's house.
Dear Friends and Family,
Monday morning at 9, Audrey and Elliot started their “curso de verano”, their summer school classes, at the University of Colima. They had us file into a little stadium and the kids were on one side and the parents were on the other. They introduced the teachers to us and then the teachers did a dance for us. Then they made the parents leave. And Audrey and Elliot did just great. Cecily and I came back to pick them up at 1. They do all kinds of sports- tennis, basketball, soccer, swimming, and they also do art, singing, and dancing. It is mostly staffed with students from the University of Colima. We were on our way back from picking the kids up, just outside of Colima, when I hit a piece of concrete in the road and popped our tire. It bent the rim and everything. We managed to get out of traffic and pull over to the side of the road. We were about to walk down the street to the supermarket to call someone, but just then a guy ran across the road who was on his way to lunch and said he’d seen us, and wondered if we needed help. We didn’t have a jack, but did have a full-size spare, so he ran to one of the businesses nearby and borrowed a jack and changed our tire for us. We were so lucky. Lucky in that one situation, but also lucky because everywhere we turn here there are people like that. So then Tuesday, after Audrey and Elliot’s second day of their classes, I decided to take them out to see the new Harry Potter movie in a theater that was showing it in English. (My parenting philosophy here has been part bribe, part threat, part tearful begging.) We left Cecily in the house with Bianca (the daughter of Rosi, who cleans the house). It was really raining, and we could even still hear the rain as we sat in the theater. When we finally left it was still raining heavily, and now it was dark. There were huge puddles in almost every intersection. We got to Comala and the road we had to go up was just a river. We inched up, because the traffic was pretty heavy, and at one point got stuck idling in water up to the floorboards. A couple of blocks further up, the engine quit. I barely got the van out of the road before it wouldn’t move anymore. So we were sitting in the van in the pouring rain in the dark trying to figure out what we were going to do. I thought I might be able to remember Diego’s phone number, and thought I’d just have to run through the rain a couple of blocks to a store and see if I could borrow a phone and see if Diego was there (he’s the one in charge of Project Amigo’s vans). So we had Elliot say a prayer, and sat there, to see if the engine would dry off enough to start, and about three minutes later, we turned to see Diego and his family inching past us in their car. They had been out shopping. He helped us push the van the rest of the way out of the road (in water up to my mid-shins). They brought us home and Diego returned for the van the next morning because the engine had finally dried out. We teased Elliot about being a powerful prayer.
And you can’t even imagine how gingerly I drove that car on Wednesday. On Wednesday Elliot had planned to go to his friend Juan Carlos’ house to play. So we went to Juan Carlos’ house and Audrey ended up staying plus they invited Erick over with his Xbox. When Cecily and I went to pick them up that night, they had hatched a plan for Elliot and Erick to sleep over at Juan Carlos’ house so that they could keep playing. But they asked Juan Carlos’ mom and she said they couldn’t because they had family coming, so Elliot invited them up to our house. So they dragged a couch and some chairs into Grandma and Grandpa’s bedroom and set up the Xbox and Audrey popped them some popcorn. I finally gave up on them and went to sleep at 2 in the morning and they were still playing. Audrey and Cecily and I were down in the lower house, so they didn’t bother us. We brought them back home at about 5 that afternoon and took them right to the opening session of the District’s youth conference. About one hour before they left their room looked like a bomb had hit it, but I was impressed well they cleaned it. The District youth conference was much smaller, with only the kids from Colima there. There were probably only between 20 and 40 kids at each activity. The first night they did job night where they went around and learned skills that they would need to have for different jobs. They got to give injections to green oranges. On Friday morning they went to the fair grounds and planted trees.
Side story that will scare everyone in the medical profession: Ricardo, the 16 year old friend of Elliot and Audrey in our branch, was telling us once that he participated in the anti-polio campaign that they had last year and that he and a friend went door to door asking if the little kids in the house had been vaccinated for polio and gave them the shots if they hadn’t. Ricardo is a great kid, and is incredibly mature, but HE’S 16!!
That night they had a dance and karaoke night. They got Audrey to sing karaoke on some of them, and she did some of the line dances, but Erick says he’s going to have to teach her how to dance “banda”. They dance all the time so they’re so much better than we are. Saturday they had a sports morning and I had been told the day before that I needed to pick up Audrey at 12. So Elliot and Cec and I headed over at about 11:30 and were sitting at one of the stoplights near the church when Erick came up and knocked on our door and said that the activity had ended at 11 and no one had known what to do with Audrey, so the district president had taken her home with him. He and his dad happened to see us and turned around to let us know. We turned around and went to the Jonguituds’ house and ended up staying their and playing with their kids and I talked to his wife, Maby, whom I really like. But it made me so nervous that I was sick to my stomach for the rest of the day. I realized that if I lost one of my kids, I had no idea who to call. That even though we were feeling really comfortable here, that it IS still a foreign country. Luckily, once again, we were surrounded by really wonderful people who took really good care of us. That night they had a talent night and Audrey played a piano piece. Sunday was good. Elliot went to both hours of church by himself. Audrey needed more convincing. Cecily even did really well. I still had to stay with her the whole time, but at least she didn’t have to sit on my lap. I ended up spending the whole hour playing “this is the way that the ladies ride” with all of the kids. Elliot went home from church with Diego, the son of the District president. We brought Audrey back down to the church that night for a testimony meeting. We picked up Elliot from the Jonguituds, brought Erick back to our house again, and will pick up Juan Carlos and bring him up tomorrow night. We’re playing musical families. Erick fixed us Mexican pizza- on tortillas with salchichas and Vienna sausages. And he ate his with catsup. Ew. Then we tried again to make chocolate chip cookies. They turned out better than last time, but still not as good at home. I’m thinking that the flour is the culprit. Something about the way the cookies taste makes me think of wheat bread. But Audrey thinks it’s the butter. We may never know. It may be one of those important mysteries that always remains unsolved.
Wednesday night I was opening a can of peaches and cut myself right below the bottom knuckle of my thumb. I probably needed a couple of stitches in it, but the thought of piling the kids into the car at 10 pm and driving to the hospital and filling out all of the paperwork for two stitches hurt worse than the cut. So I just fashioned crude butterfly bandages for the next few days. It’s healed up but there is going to be a bad scar. I guess I won’t be able to be a hand model for Palmolive anymore when I grow up.
I had a meeting this week with Ted and ran a bunch of my ideas past him. One of them is that I’d like to set up a program where the kids from here can spend a summer in Logan like my kids were able to spend here. We’ll bring them over for July and half of August. We’ll have them to a presentation for the Rotary Club there and have them live with families in the valley. I’m excited. And Ted is more than excited. He’s already secured funding for about four kids, has some people in the office who want to go as chaperones to and from Utah, and is looking into ways of choosing which kids get to go. Like Kathy (Wyatt) said, it’s just always a good experience to be the “new kid” once in your life, and to get out of your comfort zone. And some of these kids have never even been to a movie, so getting out of the country will really be a new experience for them. Nelly, Diego’s wife, was telling us that this year she had a unit that she had to teach her fourth grade class on means of communication and she asked her class of twenty how many had been to a movie theater and only half had ever been in their lives. So she took them all to the movies at the end of the school year. Spent her own money. And you’ve got to figure that if it would be a pinch for us to afford to take twenty kids to the movie, how hard it must have been on her budget. See- that’s the kind of people we have met here! They just make you want to pitch in and add your efforts to theirs to help in whatever way you can. You know, we don’t see beggars very much at all. Usually, instead, there are guys with one arm, or in a wheelchair, who are sitting at intersections selling gum and suckers for whatever you’re willing to tip them. There’s a guy in a wheelchair who sits right after one of the topes (speedbumps) on our way home from church every Sunday, and he knows us now and knows that we’re on our way home from church and will sometimes ask us how it was. (The suckers he sells are really weird, but we keep buying them just to see if we can figure out what flavor they are…..) And I’m so impressed with how many of the Mexican people support them- you see people all the times that you know are probably just as hard-off as they are, giving them a few pesos. They’re really generous with whatever they have.
We are having fun but still miss all of you and the fun activities with family and friends that are going on without us. Like reading Harry Potter. I swear, if anyone spoils the plot for me before I get to read it, I may let slip some Mexican swear words.
Take care.
Erick and Audrey
Erick's English is already pretty good, but Cecily has helped improve his vocabulary by adding the phrases, "I'm going to get you" and "No comprendo!? I'll show you 'No comprendo!!"
It's hard to tell who Cecily likes playing and flirting with more, Erick...
or Juan Carlos.
Erick brought his XBox to our house and the boys turned Grandma and Grandpa's room into their den. It looked like a bomb had gone off in there by the next day, but thirty minutes before we had to leave, they cleaned it all up all by themselves without any encouragement.
Erick and Juan Carlos having fun stuffing their mouths with popcorn for Audrey to photo- Elliot oblivious because he's playing the XBox....
Audrey singing at karaoke night for youth conference.
Audrey playing for the talent show, Ricardo is turning pages for her
The kids watcing "Shrek tercero" at the Jonguitud's house.
Dear Friends and Family,
Monday morning at 9, Audrey and Elliot started their “curso de verano”, their summer school classes, at the University of Colima. They had us file into a little stadium and the kids were on one side and the parents were on the other. They introduced the teachers to us and then the teachers did a dance for us. Then they made the parents leave. And Audrey and Elliot did just great. Cecily and I came back to pick them up at 1. They do all kinds of sports- tennis, basketball, soccer, swimming, and they also do art, singing, and dancing. It is mostly staffed with students from the University of Colima. We were on our way back from picking the kids up, just outside of Colima, when I hit a piece of concrete in the road and popped our tire. It bent the rim and everything. We managed to get out of traffic and pull over to the side of the road. We were about to walk down the street to the supermarket to call someone, but just then a guy ran across the road who was on his way to lunch and said he’d seen us, and wondered if we needed help. We didn’t have a jack, but did have a full-size spare, so he ran to one of the businesses nearby and borrowed a jack and changed our tire for us. We were so lucky. Lucky in that one situation, but also lucky because everywhere we turn here there are people like that. So then Tuesday, after Audrey and Elliot’s second day of their classes, I decided to take them out to see the new Harry Potter movie in a theater that was showing it in English. (My parenting philosophy here has been part bribe, part threat, part tearful begging.) We left Cecily in the house with Bianca (the daughter of Rosi, who cleans the house). It was really raining, and we could even still hear the rain as we sat in the theater. When we finally left it was still raining heavily, and now it was dark. There were huge puddles in almost every intersection. We got to Comala and the road we had to go up was just a river. We inched up, because the traffic was pretty heavy, and at one point got stuck idling in water up to the floorboards. A couple of blocks further up, the engine quit. I barely got the van out of the road before it wouldn’t move anymore. So we were sitting in the van in the pouring rain in the dark trying to figure out what we were going to do. I thought I might be able to remember Diego’s phone number, and thought I’d just have to run through the rain a couple of blocks to a store and see if I could borrow a phone and see if Diego was there (he’s the one in charge of Project Amigo’s vans). So we had Elliot say a prayer, and sat there, to see if the engine would dry off enough to start, and about three minutes later, we turned to see Diego and his family inching past us in their car. They had been out shopping. He helped us push the van the rest of the way out of the road (in water up to my mid-shins). They brought us home and Diego returned for the van the next morning because the engine had finally dried out. We teased Elliot about being a powerful prayer.
And you can’t even imagine how gingerly I drove that car on Wednesday. On Wednesday Elliot had planned to go to his friend Juan Carlos’ house to play. So we went to Juan Carlos’ house and Audrey ended up staying plus they invited Erick over with his Xbox. When Cecily and I went to pick them up that night, they had hatched a plan for Elliot and Erick to sleep over at Juan Carlos’ house so that they could keep playing. But they asked Juan Carlos’ mom and she said they couldn’t because they had family coming, so Elliot invited them up to our house. So they dragged a couch and some chairs into Grandma and Grandpa’s bedroom and set up the Xbox and Audrey popped them some popcorn. I finally gave up on them and went to sleep at 2 in the morning and they were still playing. Audrey and Cecily and I were down in the lower house, so they didn’t bother us. We brought them back home at about 5 that afternoon and took them right to the opening session of the District’s youth conference. About one hour before they left their room looked like a bomb had hit it, but I was impressed well they cleaned it. The District youth conference was much smaller, with only the kids from Colima there. There were probably only between 20 and 40 kids at each activity. The first night they did job night where they went around and learned skills that they would need to have for different jobs. They got to give injections to green oranges. On Friday morning they went to the fair grounds and planted trees.
Side story that will scare everyone in the medical profession: Ricardo, the 16 year old friend of Elliot and Audrey in our branch, was telling us once that he participated in the anti-polio campaign that they had last year and that he and a friend went door to door asking if the little kids in the house had been vaccinated for polio and gave them the shots if they hadn’t. Ricardo is a great kid, and is incredibly mature, but HE’S 16!!
That night they had a dance and karaoke night. They got Audrey to sing karaoke on some of them, and she did some of the line dances, but Erick says he’s going to have to teach her how to dance “banda”. They dance all the time so they’re so much better than we are. Saturday they had a sports morning and I had been told the day before that I needed to pick up Audrey at 12. So Elliot and Cec and I headed over at about 11:30 and were sitting at one of the stoplights near the church when Erick came up and knocked on our door and said that the activity had ended at 11 and no one had known what to do with Audrey, so the district president had taken her home with him. He and his dad happened to see us and turned around to let us know. We turned around and went to the Jonguituds’ house and ended up staying their and playing with their kids and I talked to his wife, Maby, whom I really like. But it made me so nervous that I was sick to my stomach for the rest of the day. I realized that if I lost one of my kids, I had no idea who to call. That even though we were feeling really comfortable here, that it IS still a foreign country. Luckily, once again, we were surrounded by really wonderful people who took really good care of us. That night they had a talent night and Audrey played a piano piece. Sunday was good. Elliot went to both hours of church by himself. Audrey needed more convincing. Cecily even did really well. I still had to stay with her the whole time, but at least she didn’t have to sit on my lap. I ended up spending the whole hour playing “this is the way that the ladies ride” with all of the kids. Elliot went home from church with Diego, the son of the District president. We brought Audrey back down to the church that night for a testimony meeting. We picked up Elliot from the Jonguituds, brought Erick back to our house again, and will pick up Juan Carlos and bring him up tomorrow night. We’re playing musical families. Erick fixed us Mexican pizza- on tortillas with salchichas and Vienna sausages. And he ate his with catsup. Ew. Then we tried again to make chocolate chip cookies. They turned out better than last time, but still not as good at home. I’m thinking that the flour is the culprit. Something about the way the cookies taste makes me think of wheat bread. But Audrey thinks it’s the butter. We may never know. It may be one of those important mysteries that always remains unsolved.
Wednesday night I was opening a can of peaches and cut myself right below the bottom knuckle of my thumb. I probably needed a couple of stitches in it, but the thought of piling the kids into the car at 10 pm and driving to the hospital and filling out all of the paperwork for two stitches hurt worse than the cut. So I just fashioned crude butterfly bandages for the next few days. It’s healed up but there is going to be a bad scar. I guess I won’t be able to be a hand model for Palmolive anymore when I grow up.
I had a meeting this week with Ted and ran a bunch of my ideas past him. One of them is that I’d like to set up a program where the kids from here can spend a summer in Logan like my kids were able to spend here. We’ll bring them over for July and half of August. We’ll have them to a presentation for the Rotary Club there and have them live with families in the valley. I’m excited. And Ted is more than excited. He’s already secured funding for about four kids, has some people in the office who want to go as chaperones to and from Utah, and is looking into ways of choosing which kids get to go. Like Kathy (Wyatt) said, it’s just always a good experience to be the “new kid” once in your life, and to get out of your comfort zone. And some of these kids have never even been to a movie, so getting out of the country will really be a new experience for them. Nelly, Diego’s wife, was telling us that this year she had a unit that she had to teach her fourth grade class on means of communication and she asked her class of twenty how many had been to a movie theater and only half had ever been in their lives. So she took them all to the movies at the end of the school year. Spent her own money. And you’ve got to figure that if it would be a pinch for us to afford to take twenty kids to the movie, how hard it must have been on her budget. See- that’s the kind of people we have met here! They just make you want to pitch in and add your efforts to theirs to help in whatever way you can. You know, we don’t see beggars very much at all. Usually, instead, there are guys with one arm, or in a wheelchair, who are sitting at intersections selling gum and suckers for whatever you’re willing to tip them. There’s a guy in a wheelchair who sits right after one of the topes (speedbumps) on our way home from church every Sunday, and he knows us now and knows that we’re on our way home from church and will sometimes ask us how it was. (The suckers he sells are really weird, but we keep buying them just to see if we can figure out what flavor they are…..) And I’m so impressed with how many of the Mexican people support them- you see people all the times that you know are probably just as hard-off as they are, giving them a few pesos. They’re really generous with whatever they have.
We are having fun but still miss all of you and the fun activities with family and friends that are going on without us. Like reading Harry Potter. I swear, if anyone spoils the plot for me before I get to read it, I may let slip some Mexican swear words.
Take care.
posted by Parnell Willmores at 8:56 AM
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