Yes, it is true. I am Nacho.

Wednesday, May 12
Woke up at 4:45 am. GROSS. Also, it was after an alarm filled night from the houses across the street (which, in turn, caused Esther to pace the floor--thinking someone was in our house, wake up Juliann and Kassandra and turn on all the lights in the house checking to make sure we weren´t going to die. hahaha). Also, Christina sat straight up in the middle of the night just screaming--apparenty she had a bad charley horse. We were all super sleep deprived hahaha.
We arrived at FUDEM´s office and I was able to go with the rural outreach group since I usually won´t be able to, do to English classes starting next week. We rode to Santa Ana--I was out like a light both ways--I´m getting better at just sleeping when I need to! The driver explained we were holding the eye exams for the general public at a seminario for sacerdotes futuros (a monastery for 18 year old boys that are there for 1 year before heading to a different seminario). We arrived and I just about died with excitement.
TOTAL NACHO LIBRE LAND. If anyone knows me, this is like a dream come true. I only wish my family could have seen it--they would have eaten it right up!!
There was a bell rung for lunch and prayers, the boys played broom ball and soccer, they attended Gospel classes, there were Encarnacions cooking lunch, there was a huge decorative calendar left up from Pascua (Easters...which started a bunch of Nacho jokes..do you not realize I´ve had diarrheas since Easters??), a school bus for field trips, etc. All of this I observed!!
We were there til 2 doing eye exams for the boys and the public. I loved this because it reminded me of clinical work that we did in November and I love that!
We relaxed a lot (apparently the other group saw over 200 people and constantly had lines out the door haha I feel sorry for them!) I was drawn by Christina (blindly--she didn´t look at the paper) and she gave me black girl lips. shooot. Samuel--a FUDEM worker, thought I was 30. that or 13 but pretty sure it was 30. nice--I need to wear makeup apparently haha. Also, a boy gave me a napkin rose--it was cute.
I felt so sad and badly for the boys. I mean, it was cool because they were super dedicated but they are missing out as well because they are dedicated to the wrong thing and I feel badly! But it´s awesome to see dedication and faith that are so often lacking in today´s society.
We made a SMART goal to get Nacho Libre by the end of the week and watch it haha.
the shower and water was not working again when we got home! None of us could shower--woohoo!
We then had a Fiesta with the Barrio Campestre--our ward here for Mother´s day. They seriously went ALL OUT. the stage was decked out with ballon flower formations and signs that said Mamá and they had a whole program with choreographed dances from the primary, a ballroom dance from a Latin couple, Spanish songs sung, etc. We were actually supposed to sing but they forgot. Thank heavens--we would have looked retarded getting up there after all of that to sing ¨Love is Spoken Here¨haha.
Dinner was served and was so so good! They gave us a panini made on foccacia bread, 2 mini tamales in banana leaves, frijoles charros, and a cube of queso con loroco ( a flower here that they mix with cheese often--people love it!) I actually liked it, even though I´m not a huge fan of cheese.
Eric--a recent convert (baptized 3 weeks ago) and handicapped and super awesome--he´s going to be in my intermediate class--offered to give us a ride home in his pickup! We took him up on his offer. It began to rain before we left and luckily I had my umbrella so I pulled it out. There was a rope dividing his truck into kind of a ¨safe¨area for people to be in the back. We didn´t all fit in that safe area so Tyler, America, and I had the opportunity of standing outside the rope in the very back end of the truck. We all were STANDING in his truck bed, holding onto the bar rails of the truck, I was still clutching my umbrella because I didn´t really feel like getting super wet, and Christina was clutching some fried chicken she wanted to bring home. We were seriously cracking up as we could only imagine what a sight to see we were. We were driving on the highway!!---standing, holding on, the truck struggling for life under our weight, me not letting go of my umbrella in one hand as it threatened to flip inside out due to the wind and poke like 5 people´s eyes out, and as Christina straddles the truck rail--clutching her chicken as her life depended on it. I wish I could express these moments so you can imagine them--they are priceless! Its also hilarious because Andres--our night guard in our neighborhood always sees us get home in the most RANDOM ways and we were just joking like he probably keeps a little blog of the crazy things the Gringos do as his daily entertainment. He probably will stop being surprised by our random ways--this tops all rides home right now, though. Hahaha classic.
I seriously love my group--we were all dying laughing in the living room tonight till it hurt--people teasing me about my umbrella, making up dramatic additions to our hilarious stories already, taking things to the next level (always), etc. I loved today!
Family--I wish you could have been at the monastery with me today. I took pics definitely and fulfilled my priestly duties. You know what´s funny? Those sacerdotes probably think I don´t know a buttload of crap about the Gospel. But I dooo.