From Jess´s Perspective

Hello again from the land of many mosquitos, or at least on my end of things. This week has finally brought some cooler weather and much needed rain, so it has been fairly pleasant, or at least until the afternoon when the sun comes out and creates intense humidity, and more mosquitos. This week I finally had to break down and buy a mosquito net for my bed because Monday morning I counted 55 bites just on my arms, since my room doesn´t have a screen, and decided enough was enough, but other than that this week has gone really well and I think that as a team we are finally beginning to feel like we belong here. We are speaking spanish better and understanding more each day, and Wednesday we had our first team meeting to discuss how we are feeling since we unfortunately live very far apart and we had the chance to sit down and pray for each other which was very refreshing. After our meeting we went down to MCC for the weekly bible study and potluck and it finally began to feel like Christmas, even though it feels like July here, because the theme of the hymn sing ended up being Christmas carols! Tomorrow we are going with our tutors to our first movie at the Cine Center, where most of the movies are in english, but since we are going with our tutors, we will be watching one in spanish, which will definately be a challenge, but I´m sure next week we could tell you how the acting was :). Oh! and tomorrow I have the chance to go dress shopping since my host family is Catholic and New Years calls for a big celebration and that means a new dress, and I´m not talking any dress, I´m expected to wear a prom dress! Can you picture that in Times Square? I think not. To wrap this up, I´m just going to tell you a little about my host family, my mother is a stay at home mom while my father is a doctor for a program called world vision where he goes all over the world to provide aid to malnurished persons. I have a brother who is 17 but isn´t home much since it is summer vacation right now and it is mandatory to be in the military so he spends almost everyday training in the hot sun. I also have a 7 year old brother who is autistic and that can be a challenge sometimes but it is great to had that experience since I´ve with autistic children a little before. There are also two young women that live with us that are aids to Sebastion (my autistic brother). The reason there are two is because the one is finishing up and will be doing something with MCC I´ve been told and the other is taking over. But that is just a little about me and my host family. Blessings to you all and thank you for your prayers and support!