A lot can happen in a month.

So, a lot can happen in a month. Sometimes it feels like nothing has happened besides get ready for class, teach, grace, get ready, etc. It is pretty amazing that I ever had any time in the states. That being said. I feel like I am starting, finally to get the hang of teaching English a little better. (You would think I should know already since I did go to college for that. Of course there is a broad difference between teaching English to seventh graders and teaching English to people who don't speak the language.) If anyone ever tells you that English is an easy language to learn you have my permission to call them a liar to their face. I find that suddenly I don't know the Enlgish language well enough. There are hundreds, I'm pretty sure it will end up being millions, of small intricacies of the English language. I never knew how much count and non-count nouns ruled our lives. (look it up sometime if you don't know what that means, I am not going to explain all the funn things about them here. No one would ever return.

So, you might ask what has actually happened in the past month. Dr. Loren Shrenk came with a group to do eye surgeries. I stayed out of the way and hid in my classroom as normal. It was a fine week and everything went smoothly. Praise God for many lives that could be touched that week.

We also had Peter and Penny Shroeder here with their two kids, Jonah and Jared. Penny spent two years here in Ixtlan several years ago and it was nice to have her and Peter here to visit. We made a lot of memories and even had my first bonfire since leaving the states. Can you believe it Milford folks, I actually went through almost the entire fall season without a bonfire.

There was also an unfortunate incident where I lost the vast majority of my clothes and ended up with, well, not much left. Don't worry. I was able to restock and am getting along just fine. I will say that my hands are kinda cold today. I am in the office so the sun hasn't hit it to warm it up yet. So it's a little chilly. I am going around in a T-shirt today. So, the weather is pretty nice. It warms up quite nicely during the day. Beautiful weather actually.

I will save more information for what will hopefully be another post in the near, a couple of days, future. I will leave you with a couple of things.

First, some pictures from Jovenes, more correctly called Ninos as of late.

Some of the 'older' kids playing volleyball.



Pedro and I. As you can see we get along great.



Here are some of the girls, deceitfully calm



A final note on the last month in Ixtlan. I have discovered, well several things, but they all boil down to this. If you look at Jesus and His teachings in the gospel, He presents a pretty radical message, one that we fight against all the time. I have to think that we spend too much time trying to figure out the right way to do things instead of just living them. We need to live out what the gospel says and do what it teaches. Not sit down and discuss how it should be and then live by a list of guidelines for giving or for solving interpersonal relationships. We need to live the gospel. Not that I can do that.

I challenge you all to read the gospels, a gospel, or the sermon on the mount and see it as anything but radical. If we lived like that, we would be noticed by the world. We would make a difference. There wouldn't be any way that the world could ignore us.

Well, until next time.