4 Weeks...

Today is Tuesday. In four weeks, I will be finishing up packing and saying goodbyes to leave Mexico. It's hard to believe how quickly the past ten months have flown by. These next four weeks will be very busy as I continue to study Spanish, pushing new aspects of Spanish grammar, and getting my things sold or packed. The To Do list seems to keep growing rather than shrinking!

Language:
In the past two weeks, I have begun trying to learn two new verb tenses. Do you remember learning "Perfect" tenses? I'm doing present perfect and past perfect (ie--I have eaten and I had eaten). These are fairly easy to learn, because I only have to change the helping verb. Over the weekend I was able to spend quite a bit of time with Spanish-speaking friends, and they were as excited as I was when I heard the new verb tenses. God has blessed me with great friends here, who get excited with me as I learn new things!

Prayer Requests:
1--Time Management: I have a lot to do in four weeks time.
2--Spanish Study: My Spanish study will be wrapping up in early December, but I am NOT done! I'll have about another year when I get to Paraguay, and I don't want to lose what I already have learned while I am in Missouri.
3--Farewells & Transitions: I'll be saying goodbye to many good friends here in Mexico, and don't know when I'll be back down to visit them. Pray also for the transition to the U.S., as I will have been here 11 months. My 'normal' now consists of Mexican daily things, and everything will change again as I head back to the U.S. Pray for a good transition back.
4--Walk with the Lord: That during this time of change, I will keep my eyes on the Lord.

Thank you so much for taking these requests boldly before the throne of GRACE!
Carrie

Globos

This weekend was the Hot Air Balloon Festival here in Chihuahua. I got to go with Judit, Sarai, and Raul. We had a great time watching them set up the balloons and taking a lot of pictures. I guess we looked like we knew what we were doing with our cameras, because two different families came up to us to say they didn't know how to make their cameras work. We all wanted the balloons, and many of us wanted to be in a photo or two with the balloons. In the dark, that was pretty difficult! With the flash you could see every dust speck in the air, and there were certainly a lot! :-)

Judit and I wandered off to take pictures. You can't tell, but there's a pretty balloon behind us!

They set up all the fair rides, too!

Me with the FIESTA balloon

This guy had a purple wig on!

Going UP!

Thanks for visiting!!

Global Warming

This morning as I was waking up, I heard a funny noise...

I thought maybe it was hailing...

So I jumped out of bed and ran to the window to see what was the matter...

Only to discover...

SNOW ACCUMULATION!

It snowed, flurried, and sleeted for a few hours this morning.
This is only the second time in the past two years this has happened in Chihuahua.

Don't worry though--it's supposed to back up to 77 degrees by Sunday!

I Spy Something...GREEN!

I love the color green--I can't say it's my favorite because I think I just like colors! But I was very happy to see this guy outside today:

Learning Family Relationships

When I first arrived in Mexico, one of the first things I learned in Spanish was how to say who I was related to and how I was related to them. So I learned things like, "abuelos" (grandparents), "primos" (cousins), and "hermano" (brother).

Today during a language session, I got a "surprise" revisit to family relationships. Somehow the song "I'm My Own Grandpa" came up, and since I have it on my computer, we listened to it. My language helper is very good at English, so she was able to follow along for most of the song--much better than my first time hearing it! We drew a diagram of "Grandpa's" family which never forks:
The benefit of this? ... Well, I was able to practice describing how they were related to each other--using relationships I know, and we found a few new ones, like "tio abuelo" (great uncle).

If you want to here the song, you can click on the song title above and listen on YouTube with a graph. You can also click on the photo to make it bigger!

Not my own grandma,
Carrie