Almost There...

Today is a monumental day for several reasons. The first is that we are officially three weeks out from graduating. It is hard to believe that we are so close to the end. It has been an incredible journey and it is very weird to think about not being in Mexico anymore.

The other reason today is a big deal is because we officially learned the last two verb tenses in the Spanish language. We know them all. All 14. I remember looking at our big book of Spanish verbs and thinking, "Is it even possible to learn all 14?" It's so cool that Natasha and I can open that same book and say, "Yep, those are all of 'em." Learning all 14 is a very big deal, yes, but learning them doesn't mean that they have been incorporated into our speech yet. In fact, Natasha and I have both had to fully accept something that has humbled us both.

Spanish is kicking our butts.

I have never given anything so much effort in my life and felt like I had accomplished so little. It's even more insulting for me because this process has been an academic one. I rock at being an academic! School is my thing! Both Natasha and I had to accept that we are both very average when it comes to learning languages.

It's alright, though. One of our dear friends, who lived in Latin America for a couple of years and has been speaking Spanish for a long time, told us before we left, "Levi and Natasha, being in language school for eight months will not make you fluent. A solid year of study and you'll be well on your way, but don't expect to claim fluency for awhile." We took her advice, but thought we would be the exceptions. Eight months is plenty of time to learn a language, right?

Anyone who has ever learned another language is probably laughing at that statement. Of course, there are naturally talented people who can translate fluently after eight months of studying. We are here to announce we are not those people. Our eight months here are just the beginning of a lifetime of practice.

So, for those of you that know us and speak Spanish, just talk to us like you would small children. Speak slowly, have compassion, and know that we really want to get better at our listening and our speaking. Thank you ahead of time!

Stay up to date with us on Facebook and we'll see you when we get back in August!!!

Big News

Hey friends and family.

We have a big announcement.

No, we aren’t pregnant. Let’s get that out of the way right now…

We have decided to stay in Mexico to complete all four levels of our program. That means instead of coming back in April, we won’t be back in Springfield until August.

This decision didn’t come easy. We spent the better half of our first 7 weeks here trying to decide if it was the right thing to do. We kept coming back to the same thing, though. In 10 years, would we look back and say, “We’re glad we left in April,” or, “We wish we would have stayed longer.” In the grand scheme of things, taking four more months to really learn Spanish made more sense than coming back four months earlier not being able to speak it well at all.

We feel very good about our decision, but we know that means we won’t get to see all of you sooner. We miss everyone and will continue to update you on our crazy adventure! We don’t know what God has for us next, but we are sure it will be amazing. As soon as he fills us in on the details, we’ll let you all know, too.

See you all in August!

The Good, The Bad, The Ugly, and The Unexpected

We have now been in Mexico for 5 weeks! Crazy, right?!? I never knew just how much a person could experience in such a short time. Let’s start with

The Good…

1.      We got to go take a history tour in the mountains and learn all about Mexico’s history. It was pretty fascinating to learn more about the culture and the way certain things are the way they are. 

Catholic cathedral in Tututapec

Murals depicting Mexican history

2.      We are sleeping at night! Despite the animals’ efforts to keep us up at night, our brains have learned to tone out the dog fights, goats, and rosters. 
3.      Walking home from school, a person (who we knew) came up to us and said, “You have to come and release sea turtles with us!” So we did and it was AMAZING! 

Sea turtles!

4.      We (in theory) can now talk in the past tense! After 4 weeks of asking our host family only things in present tense, we now have 2 past tenses in our minds (this will, however, later lead to the ugly…).

The Bad…

1.      Drinking your body weight in water EVERYDAY is much harder to do than you would think, haha! 
2.      Bugs…  no need to say more. 
3.      And more bugs!

The Ugly…

1.      I (Natasha) had my first real big mental break down last weekend. In three days we learned two past tenses and when I went to translate them in class, I missed literally almost every single one of them! My brain snapped and I thought, “What are you doing? You can’t learn Spanish! Spanish is dumb, it doesn’t even make sense. Why would a language have 14 tenses!!!!” and so on. Then, after our 5 hours of classes, we were reading our homework and literally my brain just stopped being able to make sounds… I might have broken down and cried just a little… then Levi decided we were done with Spanish for the night. It was ugly. The next day we went to a friend’s house to watch the Superbowl in English. By Monday my brain was back up and running! 
2.      Levi had a melt down too… it sounded quite a bit like mine, so I won’t retell it ;)

The Unexpected…

1.      We knew we would be learning Spanish but I don’t think we expected to learn as much about ourselves as we have. Being so far out of our comfort zone has been so hard but really good for us.

Keep us in your thoughts and prayers! Session 1 is almost over and we will be testing most of next week. Things will be a little crazy, but it will soon be over…

…only to start all over again, ha ha!

Expectations

Hey everyone!

When we came down to Mexico, we had certain expectations of what we would encounter. Some of those expectations have been right, but some have been wrong or there have been things that have occurred that we could have never prepared for. Here is a list of just a few:

THINGS WE THOUGHT WE'D MISS, BUT DON'T
1) Driving instead of walking
2) AC (don't hold us to that one, the hot season hasn't come yet...)
3) Having instant access to the internet
4) A dishwasher
5) Not being able to flush your toilet paper
6) American food (again, that one might change in a few weeks, ha ha)

THINGS WE DIDN'T EXPECT TO MISS, BUT DO
1) An automatic washing machine/dryer that isn't the wind
2) Windows that are made of glass and that aren't just a screen
3) A life where scorpions and ants lived outside
4) Being able to pronounce words correctly when reading
5) Having two Wal-Marts and an Aldi's with a two mile radius (nearest market is a 45 minute bus ride away)
6) Along the same lines, being able to buy everything at one store.
7) A sermon that had three points and lasted under 3 hours (it is really funny to watch Natasha try and sit through a "big kid service")

THINGS WE WEREN'T EXPECTING TO LOVE, BUT DO
1) Fresh food for every meal
2) Not having to cook any of our meals (our host mom cooks amazing food!)
3) Fans
4) Learning (as weird as that sounds, ha ha)
5) Not paying taxes on any purchase ever
6) Mexican prices (example: a tasty chicken panini as big as our faces is 12 pesos which translates to roughly $0.90)
7) The people here (we were expecting to really like everyone here in Mexico, but everyone here is so incredibly nice that it is a little overwhelming!)

Here are also some pictures to give you a better idea of our life in Mexico:

Part of the route we walk to school every morning.

 

 

Our room and literally EVERYTHING we own here in Mexico

Our saving grace in the morning. We named the coffee maker Ms. Hughes. And don't judge out mugs. They were literally the only ones in town!

Levi went on a hike and found a bridge. This is the only way to get to one of the nearby villages.

The beach at Roca Mar. One of our favorite weekend hang-out spots.

The rest of the beach. The grass hut on the right is a restaurant owned by one of the host families, so we get all the awesome off-menu specialties no one else knows about!

Hope you enjoy! Please keep praying for us! Hasta luego!

Week One Complete!

It's been one week since we left for Mexico. How crazy is that???

For the most part, things have gone really well. We had the typical stress-filled travel days. We nearly got bumped from our flight to Chicago, one of our bags got separated from us because the airlines didn't have enough room for it on the plane in Springfield (it somehow got to Mexico City, thank ya Jesus), our plane to Mexico City was delayed 6 1/2 hours due to a mechanical problem, and our plane out of Mexico City was delayed an hour. BUT, for all those problems, we had no other issues and made it to Puerto Escondido in one piece. A lot more things could have gone wrong and we are thankful that they didn't!

Levi on the lawn of our school.

As for Mexico, we are adjusting well. It is the "dead of winter" down here with temps only getting in the low 80's during the day and in the low 70's at night. Brutal, right? Don't start hating yet. When March, April, and May roll around and it's 100 degrees in the shade, you'll be the one's laughing :)

The hardest thing to get used to is all the night noise. We are surrounded by chickens, dogs, pigs, and parrots that are all either pets or livestock of the people in the homes surrounding us. Wednesday night, some random dog barked from 10:00 PM until 4:00 AM. Needless to say, we got no sleep. By the grace of God, another student here had several extra pairs of industrial grade ear plugs and gave some to us. We have slept well since then.

A cool tree we pass every morning on our way to classes.

As for Spanish, we are moving right along. Week one was all terms and concepts we were familiar with, but that will change soon. We are learning a lot of new things, too, and are excited to learn more. The people here are all very understanding and helpful with our limited understanding of Spanish. They just smile as we butcher their language to pieces. Everyone is so friendly and we feel very safe in our village.

Our school!

Keep praying for us as we continue to learn the language and assimilate into the culture. We still can't believe that we are here and are so excited to see what else is in store!