Occasionally it was hard to not have any close friends, especially after Heather Daniels (a summer intern who shared a house with me) went back to the States to continue college. While Heather was here, she introduced me to our church youth group and we hung out with them more than I had previously. It was around that time that I decided that I could not stand not having better friends any more. I had been studying Spanish for high school during that year and listening when I was around the Mexicans so I could now understand a lot of what was being said even though I still could hardly speak it at all. I began spending more and more time with the Mexicans that I knew and listening to them talk amongst themselves, began understanding more of the sermons at church and actually wanting to go to church and listen and try to understand.

It is truly touching to see how much many of the Mexicans care about the other Americans and I. The way that they reached out to me, even when I was holding back, showed such unconditional love. Sometimes it even gets annoying how much they try to include us; they often say “talk about anything…. in Spanish!” or “sing something for us! We promise we won’t laugh and you can do it in English!” I do not like to sing for other people alone and I can still hardly speak in Spanish so I refuse but they are usually very persistent. Though my understanding of Spanish is very limited, we work with it, their broken English and my very little Spanish and can usually communicate what we want to. Their patience with our Spanish is amazing and they are very careful to not laugh at us, no matter how bad our Spanish is. Spending time with them is very refreshing and enjoyable. In a small town, they have to create their own fun and more often than not it is more entertaining than anything you could do in a bigger town. It ranges from renting a movie and talking to each other through the whole thing to cramming ten people into a 7 passenger mini-van to drive across town and during that time learning that one of the 18-year old guys can scream like a girl if he wants to. There are things that are not enjoyable about the Mexican youth as there is anywhere but overall the Christian youth here are a great blessing to me.