Lately

A lot has happened over the last two weeks. One of our lawyers left the mission for a job closer to home, Kimberly and Kelly (new interns) have come to start their year of service, and Alex finished up his service and headed back home to Chicago. Here´s some pictures, many of which are courtesy of Kim.
We went to the beach for the day two weeks ago for Kim´s first full day in the country.

This is Alex. He just finished a year of service here as a Church Relations intern. He showed me the ropes and became a dear friend. We spent the last week hanging out as much as possible. Following our day at the beach, we went to this fondue place to kick the last week off.

Cheesy deliciousness.

Alex was really sad about leaving. I tried to console him... ...everything got better when dessert came. I really enjoyed the chocolate-covered marshmallow. We had wine flights at a little shopping center named Fontabella. It feels like a tiny, tiny version of the plaza in KC. That´s Kim on the left.

Then we went to dinner at a bookstore/cafe called Sophos. They have the best salad in the world. It´s called the Paraíso. On Saturday we had a Día de Gozo, which means "Day of Joy." It mostly means we bring all the clients and their families to a church or children´s home or somewhere and play with them all day. At this particular Día de Gozo we had a clown (payaso), which was both creepy and great. He did a great job. All my other pictures are of our totally adorable clients, which you´ll just have to see when I come home.

We went dancing for Alex´s last night at a dancehall reggae club. We were busting earth-shattering moves.

My first Sunday morning at Union Church I was invited out to lunch with an older group of folks, and I kept coming. At first it was a more mixed group, but now it´s usually just three women over 50 and me. Totally strange, unexpected, and hilarious. Also a good time. It´s usually just a quick lunch after church, but yesterday we went to Julianna´s apartment in Zone 14 for cake. This is her view. I live somewhere down there in the valley. Yesterday I ran for 80 minutes to the top of that half-hidden mountain on the left and came back down to Boca on time for dinner. It was awesome. Now we´re back to the daily grind. This is what traffic looks like in the morning. It moves about as fast as this picture.

And this is where we park. It´s a tight squeeze every day.