My Brother

On the 18th my brother decided to put on Christ in baptism!!! and I got to be there! Please pray for him to take his decision seriously and make good choices!!

Fun in Leon!

Hello everyone!!


Last Wednesday our coordinators surprised us and took us bowling as a team!! It was a lot of fun spending time with everyone doing something fun! We all had a good laugh sharpening up our bowling skills. (I hadn't bowled for over a year!) And recently a family from the church invited us girls over for dinner and games! We played Chinese checkers afterward and it was a blast! (although I look kinda tired from the picture below!)

This morning Donovan and I met with a girl named, Montse. We are going to be studying English with her. She is 22 and works on the Leon Tour buses giving tours of Leon!


Things have been good here as I am filling up my schedule with more and more things. I am still studying with Lucy (our guys neighbor) and Elvira. It feels good to be busy!

The next two weeks will be pretty dead here in Leon as many people go on vacation during Semana Santa and Pascua (Holy Week and Easter Holiday). It is traditional to go to the beach with your family at this time. Lent also started here, which means people eat only fish on Fridays and maybe give up other things. Many restaurants close on Fridays altogether because their main foods are meat! example: taco stands.

It's still strange to me sometimes to live in a country so rooted on one religion. Almost everyone claims they are Catholic, and especially around the part of Mexico where I live. The population around Leon has the strongest percentage of Catholicism. Here it is strange if you are not Catholic.

A couple of weeks ago, when I was in Mexico City with the new class of AIMers, we all visited the Basilica. It is like the Vatican of Mexico. While I was in one of the temples, I saw a statue of Jesus. He was on a cross. His face was forever stuck in a grimace of pain and agony as blood flowed from his wounds. I noticed a Mexican girl standing next to me in the temple. She looked about my age and was crying. I don't know why she was crying or what exactly had impacted her, but I told her that Jesus is our King. I wish I had said more now, but at the moment I was kind of at a loss for words. I do know that that experience certainly had an impact on me. Many people in Mexico have this view of Jesus. Helpless, on the cross, and in pain. I am so glad that he is alive today and gives me strength!! He is my hope and my salvation! He is not helpless or in pain, but has conquered death and made a way for us to be a part of the Kingdom of God!

Besides all this, I am coming to the U. S. A.!! Tyler, Donovan, Ben, and I leave very early Thursday morning to go to Texas! I'm very excited to see my friends and family in person after 10 months! I will be staying a week and I hope to see you while I'm there!

Good Times...

Well, there are not enough words to express what has happened these last couple of weeks...and if there are I am definitly not going to write that much...there is just too much so I will give you an abrigded version.

My time in Mexico City was awesome and it was really encouraging to see some of my classmates! We got to share some of our experiences on the field and just hang out together. I really miss them a lot and feel really blessed that I got to see some of them!

I also got a very big surprise from my mom...She came to Mexico City!! Not very many things surprise me, but this pretty much did it for me. And now she is with me back in Leon for a week! It has been cool to show her my home and friends here in Leon.

Besides all this I got to spend some time with our new team!! There are 4 girls and 2 guys coming to Leon this May! Omar and Tana came for a day and we had our first team meeting with the new team. It was cool because there were three generations of Leon AIMers (LAIMers) there. Two of my teammates from the 05' class are now assistants and were able to go on the trip. The new LAIMers seem really cool and I'm excited to begin working with them.


I hope God is doing amazing things through each of you!!
~Annie

Elvira and more

Yesterday I started studying with a woman named Elvira. My teammate, Heather, from the 05' class studied with her for a long time before she left. She is really sweet and is teaching me how to cross-stitch. Right now we are studying English through the Bible using LST curriculum. Please pray for God to soften her heart to the gospel and to have a desire to learn more about Him and not just English.

Also, this morning we got a REALLY big surprise!! Two of our classmates from a team in Peru decided to come and visit! They arrived last night and surprised the rest of us this morning. I'm excited to spend time with them and talk about our different experiences. It is soo cool to hear what God is doing in other people's lives!

In a week we will all be traveling to Mexico City to meet the new AIM class and work with them there!! Every year the new class from AIM travels to Mexico City to experience a different culture and help the missionaries out there. I'm very excited to see the new Leon Team and see some people from Lubbock that I miss very much! Please pray for their safe travel in Mexico. It's going to be a very long bus ride for them...

I love you all so much and thank you for the prayers!!! God Bless!

Annie

update

My dad's surgery went well and he is now recovering at home. The surgery is called a laminectomy. During the surgery bone is removed from the spine to relieve pressure on the nerves and/or spinal cord due to spinal stenosis. If you want to know more go to http://www.spine-health.com/dir/laminectomy.html to read up on it or watch an interactive video. He will probably be at home for 3 weeks getting better. Thanks for the prayers!

I LOVE my Daddy!!!

Please pray for my dad because he is having back-surgery today.

Being Sick

I have learned some things from being sick here in Mexico. Everyone you meet who distinguishes that you are sick, immediately diagnoses you. All the sudden everyone is an expert on what you have and they all have their own types of cures, remedies, or medical advice. The most popular advice for the "gripe" (pronounced gree-pay) or cold/flu seems to be:

• hot tea (preferably chamomile) with honey and lime before bed. Someone actually invited me in their house and fixed it for me yesterday. It wasn't bad. I fixed it once.
• staying inside at night to avoid cold air. I have been told by several people that I shouldn't go out at night for anything.
• not drinking or eating anything cold. the cold is something to avoid here if you are sick.

None of this advice is necessarily bad and I have followed a lot of it myself. I just thought it was kind of interesting.

Here you are able to buy your own shots with medicine and inject them yourself. I don't think that's legal in the U. S. A. I have taken 6 shots. Three were of eucalyptus. The other three were some kind of medicine that is supposed to kill the bacteria of my cold. But don't worry, I didn't inject them myself. The well-trusted pharmacist who has been there for 40 years did. It wasn't all that bad. She also gave me jarabe (cough syrup) and pastillas (pills) to take.

It's probably a good thing I have so many people here telling me to how to take care of myself. I have been taking my medicine faithfully and hopefully I'll be completely healed soon! God is taking care of me here!!