Letters home from kids:

Dear Abby,

It sounds like you had a fun trip to the East. Do you want me to type some Spanish words and put what they mean in English for you so you can learn some Spanish? It’s kind of harder than English but it’s easier to learn than English, is what my parents say. How’s everything back in Logan and in Providence? How has the weather been? It’s probably pretty much the same here except we get these huge rainstorms and the driveway floods and the river floods because it’s the rainy season. But it might still get hot. Moss is growing all over the place because of all the rainstorms. Especially on our sidewalk. At first, when it rains, it’ll sprinkle and then it will pour, like it doesn’t pour in Utah. Water keeps coming down into our house, at least my mom’s house. We don’t have clean water here so we can’t drink out of the sinks. The water has to be purified. And our streets are cobblestoned and it’s not very fun to walk or run on. But it’s pretty. My class, they had a graduation because they were in sixth grade and they were going onto the next school, and I went to a party for my friend Bizmarck, and their parties that they have are way different. We sat and ate for about four hours and then we went and danced and played and there was music and dancing and the music was REALLY loud. I felt like my bones were shaking. We stayed there until 11 o’clock. The food was really good. They had some kind of roast and tortillas, of course, and this mixture of refried beans, carrots, and potatoes, and I thought it was really good- and I’m not a fan of beans! There’s this boy that’s the same age as me in my ward. And he’s sort of cute. My mom thinks he’s really cute. His family is leaving this week to go on summer vacation. It’s sad. I won’t see him probably ever again. He sort of looks like he’s Italian. Well, tell me if there are any cute boys you’ve met this summer.
Love,
Audrey

Dear Dad,

We had a huge rainstorm yesterday and the streets were flooding with water. You might not recognize our house when you come because it’s all covered in moss. The boy named Rodrigo is leaving this weekend to go on a family vacation and me and Mom think it’s sad. Because he’s cute. It would have been fun to see him every Sunday. But maybe their plans will change like ours! Because Rosi’s family isn’t going to go somewhere after all. Bring more peanut butter stuff for Cecily. We accidentally bought low fat Skippy and Mom doesn’t like it. But Cecily and I don’t mind.

Love,
Dad

Dear Austin,

I had a long week. Sorry I haven’t written back for a long while either. Because we went on a trip to Mexico City. My mom and dad say it’s the biggest city with population in the world, at least it switches off with New York City and the capital of Japan- Tokyo. It was pretty cool. It wasn’t like New York City, though. NYC is just buildings but Mexico City had lots of trees and it was really nice. My favorite part of the trip in Mexico City was the pyramids and burying my tooth. I lost a tooth and when I woke up it was sitting on my tongue. So my grandma told me the story of Jacob, my uncle, he kept losing teeth when they were in Spain and France and Italy, so he buried them in gardens and now he has teeth, a part of his body, all over Europe. So I decided to do that on the pyramids that they have here in Mexico City. The pyramids are really huge and we climbed up the Pyramid of the Sun and it’s the biggest pyramid, fatwise, ,and they say if they would have kept building it to a point, because they cut theirs off so it’s like a pyramid except with it’s top chopped off, and they said if it would have kept going up to a top it would have been as big as the ones in Egypt. It was really cool. It was fun to see my dad because then I could play with him because Audrey and my Mom and Cecily don’t like to play the same games as me. Ceci bought a ball and we played with it at the park. Audrey played but she didn’t really want to. We went to my friend down here, Bizmarck’s, party that he had from graduation from our school. And we ate food and we danced and we me and Bizmarck and Audrey and Cervando played tag. I caught a lizard one day at the Hacienda and the cats at the Hacienda helped me catch it. I brought it home and we got a Tupperware and nailed holes in it and stuck him in there and then when I was trying to catch bugs, I caught a frog, so I had a frog in there too, but I couldn’t keep them because the lizard was getting sick and I thought it was a good idea to let the frog to too. I want to give you some more Spanish words: comida- food, bebida- drink, misioneros- missionaries, and nosotros jugamos- we are going to play.

Sincerely,
Elliot

Dad,

I’m having a fun week. I miss you because I want to play soccer with you. And basketball. I caught a lizard at the Hacienda and the cats at the Hacienda helped me to catch it and my mom said to go stick it in at Tupperware and we nailed holes in the Tupperware and we put it up in Grandpa’s windowsill thing and put a lamp next to it and we caught a toad while we were trying to catch flies and we stuck it in there too, but we had to let them go because the lizard was acting kind of sick and I thought it was a good idea to let the toad go with the lizard. Today and yesterday I didn’t do a very good job of feeding them, so that’s why I think the lizard got sick. He changed colors from light brown to dark brown and that’s why I think he got sick. I went to nursery with Cecily and then Primary all by myself and I didn’t cry once. Love you.

Elliot