Teotihuacan photos

That is great that Karen is having a baby girl. It sounds like family halloween party was a blast. I went to Teotihucan and these are the pictures.And as they say that a picture says a 1000 words, so I think that I have said enough. They also explain everything. It also looks like for VIDA, Catalyst will be sending me a digital camara. Hopefully this means you will be getting some more pictures. I think that everyone should have one.

Getting buzzed

have to tell you that even though a lot of things didn�t happen this weekendit was interesting. First, we stayed home to finish the book on MedicinalPlants all weekend. We got most of it done. Then we went to a birthday partyat 4 pm and I was excited because they were going to have food. We got theretoo late and all of the food was gone. There was only a lot of Birthday Cake.SO being hungry I went for the cake. A girl at the party told me that it wastoo strong for her. Another person told me that the cake was really strong andthat she couldn�t finish it. I thought that they ment that the chocolate wastoo rich. I pounded the cake. Later I found out that they weren�t talkingabout the chocolate but about the quantitiy of Rum in the cake. The peoplewho told me the cake was too strong for them were big drinkers too. I didn�trealize it when I tasted it but I felt dizzy and light headed. �Because itwas on an empty stomache and there was a lot of it and because I hadn�t tastedalcohol before it gave me a little buzz. Chris did it too. I thought thatalcohol burned out when you cook it but maybe they made this cake different.To think that the first time tasting alcohol was when I was clean shaven!!Beards don�t lead to other things Dad, cakes do.We also finished our book and gave a presentation in the town plaza to thehigh school and the women of the community. It was really great. However,really expensive to print the books. They look really nice and we probablyspent over 50 hours putting it together. But hey it was a good experience.It is interesting what Mexico will do to you. We have conversations with allof the students here about the color, texture and frequency of their bowlmovements. Luckily, I have been pretty good and only get sick when I eatjalepe�os. Also, my clothes are getting worn out from all of the handwashing. I have lost a lot of weight and I am not such a stress case. I thinkthat everyone needs a little mexico in their livesAlso Josh Wilkins who used to live in our ward is serving in the ward I goto. It was funny to see him.I know that this email is a little scattered but that is how my thoughts areright now. Congrats Dave and Michelle on #4. That is great!! I think it isgoing to be good to see all of these women with no belly buttons at christmas.And good luck stink and scott with your move to Oregon.

Another adventure in Mexico

Hello Family, That�s right, it is adventure time. Chris and I and a Finnishgirl named Ulrika went on a wild adventure this weekend. We first took a busto Mexico City where we had to travel to the other side of the city by metro.We ate lunch at this sandwhich place where this crazy lady was scratching herback with the knife that they used to cut the bread. She wouldn�t take ourorder and when a customer asked for a fork she got very defensive asking her,�why do you want a fork?� �did you order a fruit salad?� the customer saidthat it was for her potatoes, (which came with every meal.) The lady thanbegan to yell at her saying that nobody had ordered any potatoes. Thecustomer then tried to explain that it came with every meal. Well, it waspretty funny.We left the Mexico city and went to Queretaro. It was a small but beautifulcolonial city with cobblestone streets and great museums. I was jealous thatI didn�t study there. We stayed in a hostel and went to this club where theyhad all of these remakes of famous paintings and a live band. We sat next toa wall where the candles had dripped wax down the walls and they had thesecool masks. I felt like I was in the pirates of the Caribbean. It wasincredible. We say the table where they signed to take the west like Utahaway from Mexico and make it a part of the US and some cool archeologicalstuff. I took a lot of pictures so I had to buy a new roll of film for thenext city. By the way mom would be very happy. I brought my harmonica andplayed the whole trip. I even have to play it for one of my classes.Our next stop, we went to this huge worldwide Cervantes festival in one of themost beautiful city I have ever seen. It is about 5 hours from here, it iscalled Guanajuato. It is a colonial city that was founded by the Spaniards andit was the richest city in mexico for a long time. They found tons of gold andsilver there and so they decided to make it the most beautiful city. Europehere in Mexico. It looked a lot like the old cities on Spain. Skinny,cobblestone streets, balconies off of every building with geraniums all overthe place. It was really neat this time because of the Cervantes festival.People come from all over the world. There were tons of people all over thestreets singing and dancing. There were these groups of musicians that weredressed like the times of Shakespeare and they would rally people together andparade around the city with these groups of people singing and dancing andtelling stories and jokes and drinking. Mom would have liked it because itreminded me of when we went to Lagoon and she would make us follow themarching bands. This was a lot classier than Lagoon though. We followed a fewof them for a while. I took a lot of pictures but I just want everyone to comesee this place There were groups from Germany, Japan, Brazil, Argentina,Spain, and all over the world. Right when we got off the bus we met thisFrench guy who ended up sleeping in our room and hanging out with us the wholetime. There was no chance at getting a hostel room so a lot of families rentrooms at their houses. We stayed with a really nice family that just had asign on their house. It was cheap and pretty nice. We also met these cutegirls from San Luis Potosi. They had ironically wanted to stay in the sameplace we did, but when they went to go tell their friends about it, we wentand got the room. We ended up meeting them and spending the night and the nextday with them. We went and where the War of independence started in Mexico.It was cool. The Spanish were held up at this fort and it looked like theywere going to be able to withstand the rebel forces, when one of the soldierstied a rock to his back so they couldn�t kill him and lit the fort door onfire. Many of the Spanish died of the smoke and had to give up the fort.Later when the Spanish retook the city, they hung the heads of the rebelleaders, like Hidalgo, on the four corners of the building. It wasinteresting.We got back late Sunday night. IT was a fun trip.

WWF Mexico Style

This is Scott. I know that I just emailed yesterday, but last night we wentto a Mexican Wrestling match. It was just as fake as in the US, but it wasmuch more fun. They wrestlers had their costumes and they taunted each other.They also beat up the ref and the crowd threw food at them. They would fightin the crowd too and throw each other out of the ring. It was so funny.There was a bunch of old men wrestlers too. We bought the cloth masks likethe wrestlers wear here. IT was great. The people yelling at the wrestlers,some of them really believed it, and the little kids screaming and loving it.It only cost $4 so it was worth it.Have a good conference weekend. We are going to listen to it at school on theinternet so we can hear it in English, and so that we don�t have to put on oursunday clothes!!! Well, have fun. I will talk to you mom and dad and spencerand paul on Sun at 7 your time.

Mexico CiTY ADventure

I need to tell you about my latest adventure. We ditched going to service tocelebrate Chris's birthday. We left Tuesday night to stay in Mexico City. Weleft at about 9:30at night, it was spontaneous and actually a pretty stupid idea to be wanderingaround mexico city without a place to stay at 11:00 at night. but anyway, wegotthere and all we had was a travel guide in french that one of our roomies lentus. we rode the metro to the downtown area and started to look for a hostel.We found a sweet one that only had room left, which is like a community hotelroom. It was dirt cheap. so they put is in a room with two other people. wegot in the room and there was some stuffalready there, it looked like some girl stuff, we were a little nervous butsuper hungry, so we locked out stuff up and set out on the street to find arestaurant, it is about 11:30 at night at this point. we found a little randomtaco stand and had some tacos, and went back. the streets were pretty scary.We were pretty nervous the whole time, but it was alot of fun. we got back and met our roomies, they were these two really prettygirls from Spain. It was great to talk with Spanards again and use my accent.I was really nervous though because they were girls that we didn�t know andthat I had to use the vosotros form with them and I didn�t even use that inthe mission. We found out that they were going to be traveling around Mexicofor two weeks. I talked to them for a long time about Spain and then decidedto go to bed. They were wearing some interesting pajamas, if you could callthem that, and we all got in our bunk beds and kept talking until one in themorning. I was nervous all night because Chris and I had the top bunks andthey would squeak everytime me moved.We woke up at nine and decided to spend the next day together so we go upearly and went to these beautiful art museums and to one of the worlds biggestanthropology musuems. It was very cool. the girls were very nice and thehostel gave us free breakfast as well on the roof of this big building thatlooked out over the central palace and cathedral area that is all made ofancient french architecture. We also saw some indian dancers and these ruinsthat were buried under the city center. Also there were these indian guyswho twisted these ropes around a wheel at the top of a 90 foot tower and thenhung upside down with the ropes attached to their stomachs The wheel turnedand slowly let them down . One of the guys just had eaten lunch and you couldtell that he was feeling sick because he held his hand on his mouth to notthrow up. It was pretty funny. We went all over the city and I now know themetro system pretty well so I won�t get stuck going to Brookland again!!!Then when we left Mexico city to got home were my roommates and I planned asurprise party for Chris. It was a great adventure and fun day.