Mexico Day One–A Day of Rest

After all my travels, it was nice to have a mellow day on Sunday to sleep in and enjoy spending time with my parents on my first day in Mexico.  Their church doesn’t meet until 2 pm, so we had all morning to relax.  It was fun seeing their comfortable apartment.  It’s neat to be able to just look out the window and see the temple and visitor’s center right there.Mom had me bring her some of her hair dye because she hadn’t been able to find the right shade in Mexico.  When I was buying it I decided to get some for me too and have her help me, since I haven’t done it before.  So on Sunday morning we dyed my hair and that was fun.

It came out somewhat lighter than my hair is now, not enough to be super noticeable, but enough that I can tell the difference and it’s kind of fun.  I tend not to be too big on high maintenance stuff, so I don’t know yet if I’ll keep it up, maybe get a little lighter each time until I’m really blond, or try a different color every month just for fun.  Who knows?  But it was fun to play hair salon with my mom.

Mom also worked on making some delicious meals, some ribs and lasagna, for that evening and for another night so we’d have a dinner ready.  Always good to get some good home cooking!

Dad went to a meeting, worked on his computer, and watched a little TV.  He wasn’t as interested in the hair happenings somehow.

Then it was time to go to church.

Yeah, so my hair really doesn’t look lighter in this picture.  Oh well.

Church was really nice.  I could sort of understand some of the things they said.  I can’t communicate really at all, but I can recognize words here and there and kind of figure out the main idea.  The whole time I was there I enjoyed trying to learn words in Spanish and understand more.  I did increase my vocabulary a little bit, but I definitely need to take a class sometime.  In Sunday School Dad translated for me and in Relief Society Mom did.  The lessons and talks were great and I really enjoyed the experience.  It was especially fun singing the hymns.  I basically know the rules of pronunciation and did okay (I think) following along with the hymns.  I remember learning “Love One Another” in Spanish when I was in high school and I can still sing the whole thing, so I guess I like singing in Spanish.  Our primary also learned “I am a Child of God” in Spanish last year and that was fun too.

During church there was a huge rainstorm.  It was just pounding down with thunder and lightning.  By the time we left church, though, it had cleared up.  It rained every day I was there, but it continued to cooperate with us very conveniently for the rest of my trip, pretty much only raining hard when we were indoors.  When we got home we had our rib dinner.  Muy sabroso!

That night we went over to the visitor’s center and I got to see where Mom and Dad work all the time.  Some of the sister missionaries took me on a tour of the visitor’s center.  Even though I was having fun trying to understand the Spanish, I decided to ask for the tour in English because I know the sisters need to practice their English.  They did a great job!  It was really beautiful and fun to see.  My favorite part was the paintings on the walls.  They have displayed a series of Walter Rane paintings that depict scenes from the Book of Mormon.  I play the piano in Primary and about a month ago out of the blue there was an art book sitting on the piano.  There is a lot of time in Primary that I’m not playing and I started browsing through this book.  It was the Book of Mormon art of Walter Rane and the scriptures and stories that went along with it.  I thoroughly enjoyed it and every week since have looked through that book.  I don’t know who it belongs to or if they forgot it’s there, but I love it.  So it was a neat surprise to see all those paintings life size and on the walls.  Probably my favorite was one that wasn’t in the book, though.  It’s a picture of Mary, Joseph, and the baby Jesus.

I really enjoyed meeting the sister missionaries, too.  They are so sweet and friendly and they obviously love my parents, so they are good judges of character too!

It was nice walking around the temple grounds and seeing the beautiful Mexico City Temple.  It was a great way to cap off a wonderful day!

~ by Kathy on July 14, 2009.