Day 8 (6/9/11)

Today we woke up around 9:15am to start the day. I decided to take my first shower in Mexico after I got up and found that this requires a little more patience than what we expect in the US. The missionaries said that it took a while for the water to warm up so I expected to wait for a while until it warmed up. In the shower there are two unmarked knobs and that’s it. Since it takes a while for the water to warm up, I had a tough time figuring out which knob was the hot and which was cold. After about 15 minutes (no joke) of trial and error I found the trick to running the shower. To get the warm water started I decided to turn the hot water on in the sink of the bathroom. This seemed to speed up the process and pretty soon I had hot water running in the shower.
Then I found out that there’s a lag between the time you turn the knob and when the water comes out of the shower head. So in order to get the shower to a good temperature I had to twist the knobs slightly and then wait a few seconds. It’s also deceiving because you can turn the knobs all the way on full blast and yet no water comes out until after about 15 seconds. All that said, it really wasn’t that big of an issue and I walked out of the shower clean. Then I headed down for some breakfast with the rest of the team.
Following breakfast, one of the host missionaries for Andrew and I arrived. His name is Casey and he seems like a great guy so far. He enjoys making jokes and also has a very strong knowledge of Spanish. Casey filled us in on where we’ll be living in Huehuetoca, which is a town that is north of Mexico City and about an hour away from where we’re staying now. It was quite comforting to learn that we’ll be living in a gated community that is quite safe and has nice amenities compared to most of the city. After we talked for a while Kay and Casey then filled us in on the schedule for the summer and some CMF Mexico team missionary bios. Later after lunch (we had tamales and rice) we talked about our expenses and how we’ll keep track of them once we start eating out on our own.
Once we were done with this we left for the Las Aguilas church so we could join in on their prayer time that they host each Thursday night. During this time the leading pastor at the church spoke in Spanish and it was cool to know that I could understand some of what he said. We also got a chance to pray in English and then one of the Mexican people would pray in Spanish. I met a few of the “jovenes” (youth) of the church as well as some more members of the church and in each case was welcomed joyfully. Following the prayer session we journeyed to a local taco stand for some more authentic food. And this time it was definitely authentic.
The reason I say that is because the meats for the tacos were quite odd compared to what we eat in the US. Of the weird meats available I ate tripa (gut or intestines), cachete (cheek), and lingua (tongue) of the cow. I can’t say that I prefer one over the other but I can say that they didn’t have a bad taste. We also ate pork tacos and longaniza (sausage) tacos. After this we headed back home and got to see some pretty big houses on one of the main roads to our house. It’s quite surprising that with all the corruption here in Mexico there are those that are rich and still don’t make any effort to make changes for the better of the country. Anyway, another good day has passed us and I’m looking forward to tomorrow!