Joanna's Journal: My awesome week... part 2 (Friday)

Yesterday (Friday) was a very fun day. It started early with my alarm going off at 7 and Rachel saying that there was frost on the ground. Florida girl has to go see that! We don’t have that too much in winter! By the time I kinda pulled myself together, it was 41 deg in our house, and 40 deg outside. Yeah…Really cold! At our house, when it hits 65 inside in the winter we turn on the heater. (forget about that… your heater is extra layers of clothes and a cup of tea)

The photo op took some time, so I scarfed down breakfast to hurry off to my last day of classes. I was determined not to be late the last day because I hadn’t been late yet. I left at 8:01 by our fast clock, and jogged part of the way. I get there and… no one is there at all! I walked back out after 10 min or so, and Marco said that they switched the class to 9:30. No one told me… But, oh well. I got to talk to Marco outside for a while. He came early from home, and didn’t know either. He is the one that speaks really good English. We help each other out, but he helps me more! This was his last day also, because he is leaving to study in Mexico in a bit over a month. He is 17, and he said he is nervous about going but wants to go. He likes the seminary though, and I think he doesn’t want to leave the people behind here. He is the oldest of 3 boys at home. I still don’t think he can get that I’m 16, I flew by myself, and I’m staying in a foreign country for 2 months. :-)

First off in class, Hna. Wendy brought crapes for us all! It was very kind of her, and I enjoyed one, and gave the other to Roxana. After church Thursday night, I studied my Spanish, wrote some notes from my brain, used my Spanish Bible, and my favorite conjugation website, and made my notes all in Spanish for the memory verse presentation. It was a good thing to try to do all in Spanish because it was only about 5 min long. I forgot to mention one thing that I had in my notes, but didn’t see when I was presenting, but other than that, I think it went really well. (todo la gloria de Dios) I presented 1Corinthians 10:31, my favorite verse. It worked out because I already partially knew that verse in Spanish, and it is really short. (not as short as one guy’s… Pray without ceasing :) I also went first which is a bit harder, but I got it done with. Afterwards, Mr. Eric Pardine came up to me and not congratulated, but was like, “Wow, you did a great job on your verse presentation in Spanish. I thought your Spanish was very minimal, but you could generally understand your whole presentation.” (Todo la gloria de Dios) Cassandra must have needed to be at home today, so Mr. Eric came and translated.

We went over everything that we needed for the school in Chichubamba, and loaded up. Our whole class of 10 plus Hna Wendy, Pastor Pat, and Mr. Pardine fit into Rachel’s big red jeep type thing. It was very entertaining, and pretty awesome! The street that the seminary is on is very narrow at some points. Imagine the car with 2 inches on both sides at most. :) That and the road to the school was very bumpy. It was great, and practicing our kids songs made it even better. We are taking that car on the Hida to Puno with 9 people and luggage/materials/keyboard/everything else. For an 8 hour drive…

We arrived at the school, and headed to get ready for our class. The school system is a bit different here as far as years go and everything, but the class was the 6^th grade religion class. (This is a public school. The one we went to on Wednesday was Christian.) I was worried that 5^th/6^th graders wouldn’t like our songs/puppets etc, but once we got started, I think it went really well! One boy especially seemed to have his eyes glued on whatever was going on, and was one of the first to shout out an answer. He talked to Marco afterwards, and I wouldn’t be surprised at all if he came to Oansa. That would be so great! I really like to help with the songs, and those went well. We sang all the same songs except added one that I hadn’t heard before. The puppets were good. One time we dropped the bear again, but oh well. And since the way the curtain is set up, you can’t see the puppet, one line I was saying I wanted the bear and I couldn’t tell if I had it or not. It was kinda difficult with those puppets, but they looked really nice, and they were bigger. Marco’s lesson and wordless book presentations both went great! He has so much confidence and it come across great! (todo la gloria de Dios) I really enjoyed presenting in the schools with the class from the seminary!

We all squished back in for the ride back. :-) it was pretty fun! There were 2 motos partially in front of the Santa Clara street entrance, so we made a few rounds on the street before we could turn in. Oh, the driving here… :-)

The second year students have been working really hard this week selling different things, and today was the big “pollada” or chicken dinner. By the time we got back, we were ready for some lunch. I had a piece of chicken, 2 potatoes, beet salad, a piece of lettuce, and some rice from the kitchen. It was really good! Some second year students are Isabel, Alicia, Lis Carmen, Ellie, Douglas, Juan, and Lenin. (those are some that come to mind) Alicia and Isabel are really sweet, and I know them pretty well! I ate with Elana, Jackie, and Milka. :-)

Another girl from the states is coming to stay for 1 month. Her name is Ariel, and she is from Rachel’s home church. She gets in the 28^th… I think. She has finished her first year of college, and has been to Lima on a missions trip with a group, but Rachel says that Urubamba is very different than Lima! That is about all I know about her. My room has to fit 2 beds, so this afternoon cleared out cabinets, moved cabinets, cleaned my portion, vacuumed where stuff used to be, and put all the random pulled apart stuff in an organized fashion. :-) Everything looks really good, and I think there should be enough space for Ariel’s things.

I went to play the piano for a bit because I am playing in church Sunday MORNING! :-) Yay! I’m really excited! Roxana came in, and I could tell she really wanted to play. She speaks 0 English, and Rachel says her Spanish isn’t too great because she grew up speaking Quetchua. She knows no piano at all, and I really don’t know how to explain it/where to start. So…I taught the easiest best thing that came to mind. Sonya gave me a copy of Feliz Feliz Cumplianos, their version of Happy Birthday. It was more like memorize the sequence and spots and your good, but she enjoyed learning it, and I have a feeling I’ll be learning the Peruvian Happy Birthday very quickly!

I went to dinner, and Milka asked if I wanted to go to Edgar’s and Carolina’s house because they were having a birthday party for David Freddy. (His birthday is Sunday…Like a special David I know, but were celebrating tonight.) He is in our class, and our whole class was there. I really enjoyed eating dinner there (chicken for the party, rice, potatoes, and some green bean something that was very good) and seeing what they do for a birthday. I think he really enjoyed. Part of their many verses/something anothers of their birthday song is counting, and your supposed to blow out the candle on your year. I know the tune, but am still working on the words. :-)

After dinner, I headed down for the end of course activity of a doubles ping pong tournament. It was pretty fun! I got randomly paired with Raquel! :-) She is pretty good, and we enjoyed being on the same team!!! We won 2 games which put us into the finals for the girls. :-) We were against Jackie and Milka, both who are really good. It’s play to 15 best out of 3. They won the first game, but the second game was really close, and they won 15-14. It was fun, and everyone had a great attitude. I mean, these are your friends are your happy for them! The first and second places for girls and guys got a prize of their choice of book from a pile. It ended up that Raquel and I chose the same one, a study on Hebreos. It’s in Spanish, but I think it would be fun to see if I could try to work trough it! Something to do in my free time…haha.

Volleyball with a kids plastic ball was going on at the same time. It was fun, and if you messed up, it really didn’t matter. Lots of laughter and everyone had a great time! I played piano with Raquel towards the end a bit. Again…Raquel is like, “I like this song, could you play it” and I’m like, “I have never heard this song, so I’ll be doing a lot of counting 1,2,3,4 in my head.” It’s all good though, and those type of things just stretch you to be able to do more. Also, side fun note…I had icecream! Yay! I have had icecream now 2 time since I’ve gotten here, and it’s a real treat! The most common quick dessert is oreo like/sandwich cookies. We had some of those to go along with the icecream and pineapple juice too.

We finished pretty late, and this morning is breakfast at Pat and Wendy’s at… 7:15. :( No sleeping in for me. Pancakes for breakfast, and then we are playing baseball for an hour after that! Pretty awesome morning, but very tiring. I am horrible at baseball, but I saw a bunch of girls signed up, and it’s with friends, so might as well try huh?

Yes, it was 41 degrees in my house Friday morning. It was 40 outside and we had frost.