Mi Mexicano Muchachos and Part of Puerta Vallarta

    Me and some of my mexican boys!!  How sweet! hehe..
   Me and Chewy. He is so funny and a really great guy as well!!
                 Me and Daniel!! The amazing dancer. 
Funny picture. And Daniel just stood their and did nothing while I was being choked! hehe.. jk!
Me and my mexican boys. They took us to the Marachi plaza and paid to have the marachi sing to us. It was so much fun!! They are really great guys and lots of fun to hang out with. Here they basically squished me to death but I was feeling the love.
The gurreras! (the warriors) All the mexican boys were calling us that this night cause when they asked all the girls if they wanted to dance and they all just wanted to go home and sleep. But me and Nettie wanted to go dancing. So it was me and Nettie and about 12 Mexican boys!! Couldn't be any better. They took us dancing to a really cool dance club. I love it here. The boys dance and know how to dance. Especially Daniel. He is amazing dancer. Who says mexican boys can't steal your heart with their dance moves!! hehe...

Us and our boys!! :) Me Nettie Daniel and Arturo. We all were squished in the back of Manuels bug. It was a little tight, but it was really fun!! 3 in the morning and still kicking after a night of dancing. !
Tacos at 3:30 in the morning anyone. We were so hungry so the guys took us to get tacos before they dropped us off at home. For some reason Manuels knife is in the picture. This taco was soooooooo goood! ;)
It was pouring outside and neither of us had ponchos so we decked out in garbage bags. Pretty cute i know!! Its going to be a new fashion statement.

Our plan backfired. By the time we got outside the rain stopped. We looked a little silly but oh well. What gringo doesn't!!
We are here in Puerta Vallarta. YIPEE!!!!! Finally!! This is our hotel. Right on the beach!! We walk out the door and there is the beach. 5 days of doing nothing and just hanging out on the beach boogy boarding and getting a nice tan.
Playing in the sand our first day in Puerta Vallarata. We made Nani into a very curvy mermaid.
Abraham and a crab on his head. No worries its a dead one but it looked so real so they picked it up!
This is the cute little baby the was sitting in front of me on the way to church Sunday. We had to ride a bus for about an hour to the nearest church. Church was really good but we kind of overwhelmed them. They only had a small chapel and had a hard time accomidating all of us in my group and their members.
Free drinks at the bar. Who's up for them. Me, Maggie, and Heather are regularly at the bar. No worries mom they are none alcoholic. Everything is included in our stay at the hotel even the drinks. Thats hard to find in Mexico. Usually you always have to pay for the drinks. But not this time. Our favorite is the Pink Panther which is a pina collada with strawberry! yummy!
A more serious but very cute picture of us all with the sunset. The sunset is the most amazing right at the beach. Each night I just look out my hotel window and can see it. Its breath taking.

The sunset!! Me, Maggie, Rachel, and Mindy decided it would be cool to get a jumping picture. It turned out pretty good!

The view of the coast line at night! Me and Nettie!

Me and my girls out on the beach late at night!

Ya habia un semana? Wow!!

The Temple is right next to the church. It looks so pretty at night!
Brandon, Carlos, and Angel








My fairy picture above that Arturo took and emailed me.
Arturo has on of those cool Korean cameras. He took this of me! So cool!


Sorry that I haven't written in a while. Its funny cause we are so busy here, but each week seems to get busier and busier. Monday was family home evening. We got together to practice for our talent show which was this Saturday. That went well. Afterwards Nani stayed to practice her dance with a couple other girls in our group. So I just chilled afterwards hanging out with some of our Mexican guy friends cause I didn't want to take a taxi home alone at 10 o clock at night. They had a skateboard and we were just playing around on it. I was in a dress that day because it is so much cooler here to wear a dress cause its so hot. I sat down on the skateboard and then all of the sudden i felt a hard push from behind and I went soaring on the slick marble straight for Abraham who is just laughing and when i almost get to him he pushes me back straight towards Chewy, but instead of Chewy catching me like he was suppose to the board veered and ran right into the wall totally knocking me off. They both laughed and then came and helped me up. They are always teasing me cause I am one of the youngest in the group and one of the smallest. They are both in their later 20's and both Mexican boys in our ward here in Guadalajara. But anyways after that, they threw me in the pool clothes and all. I was tempted to be mad at them but then they jumped in after me so it made it even! The only problem was afterwards we had to take a taxi. hahaha... All I have to say is who ever climbed in after we got out must have had a pretty wet seat cause we were pretty much soaked. Tuesday the nuns at our service informed us that the boys don't have school this upcoming week cause the nuns needed to take a break. So last week ended up being our last week of service. It was so sad and it was even harder cause the end came a lot more sooner then expected. Wednesday we had a party with all the boys. Kind of a good by sort of thing. I took a lot of the toys that a lot of you donated. All I can say to express my gratitude is THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU. If you could have seen the look in the boys eyes you would see that it was totally worth it. The bouncy balls were flying and they were coloring away. It was just such worth while to watch them have fun with the simple things we take for granite in our ever day lives. I took some of the money you all donated and bought about 50 erasers and 100 pencils cause they boys can never find any pencils or erasers to do their homework with. I hope that was an ok purchase with you guys. The nuns looked so thankful when I gave the school supplies to them. I told them it was all because of my family and friends and their donations. My words from them to you are "muchisimo gracias" (thank you so very much)! That night was our practice for the talent show. The practice went well but like all rehersals it had its glitches. I ate my first mango that night from start to finish. I peeled it and ate it!! The mangos here are heaven on earth, no joke. I love all the fresh fruit, tortillas, and other fresh food you can get here that you can't get in the united states. Thursday was probably one of my hardest days here. I had an exam and a presentation in class to do. Our presentations were suppose to be food. So I decided to make rice crispies because they are a favorite American treat. I go to the store Wednesday night to find the three ingredients it takes to make rice crispies. Easy right? WRONG. First of all (note for all of you who go to Mexico and want to make rice crispy treats) they don't have regular white rice crispies in Mexico, only chocolate coco crispies. And they don't sell regular marshmallows, only strawberry and other flavors. So my regular every day american rice crispies turned into Chocolate strawberry "a kera original" rice crispies. But the good news is they turned out to be a hit with my class and they all wanted to know how I did it. So all was good that way. Then after school we went to service. It was the hardest day ever. That day the boys found out it was our last day of service. I had printed off pictures of all the boys cause they love seeing pictures of theselves and wrote little notes on the back of them so they would remember me. They loved them so much and I was so happy i had done it. Then I had them all write little notes to me. The one little boy never left my side. He just kept crying and crying and crying. It got to the point were I was so sad I was crying to. I have gotten so attatched to these boys and so involved in their lives. The nuns just kept telling us thank you and the one kept giving me hug after hug. I just had a hard time leaving. Brandon, the little boy that was crying, asked me before I left if he could have something of mine to remember me bye. I honestly had nothing on me but my eraser since the boys have already borrowed and broken almost everything of mine. So I gave him my eraser and he was just like "thank you thank you thank you"! Then they all grabbed onto my legs and wouldn't let me leave. Even the ones that i didn't connect with very much were crying. Thats the point where I broke down and cried with the.m too. I couldn't hold it back anymore. The madres were crying, the boys were crying, and I was crying. It was a pretty hard day for all of us. Lots of tears and lots of goodbyes. Well after that little episode we all went horseback riding as a group. It was so much fun and really cheap. It cost us like 60 pesos for an hour which converts into like 6 American dollars. Its so cheap!! This place had tons of horses to ride. The group was laughing because my roommate is the tallest girl in our group and I am basically the shortest one (imagine that.. hehehe...) and some how they put me on the tallest horse and then my roommate Nani got the shortest horse. The whole group thought it was pretty ironic and funny! The only problem was the stirrups were like this really sharp iron and they rubbed on my pants which rubbed my skin raw. That hurt a little, but I am tough! :) I even got my horse to run at full speed across what they called a meadow, but it was basically just a big open space of dirt. hahah.... It was a fun group activity. Friday was our group trip to Talaqupaque. Its a little town just outside of Guadalajara. We got to shop for a while and also got to go watch a guy mold and paint pots. It was pretty cool! Then Saturday we went to a place that I don't remember the name. Its where they have big Indian type ruins of the ancient people. We got to go and see the ruins and walk around and explore. It was really neat to see big structures that were hand made by people that lived way back in history. That night was our talent show. It was suppose to be a talent show, showcasing all the talents of our BYU group and others in our ward and also be a missionary tool. Many of the missionaries brought their investigators, we all also invited our host families since none of them are members of the church. So many people came that they filled up the whole gym wall to wall and also the over flow and then had people standing all along the edges of the walls, in the door ways, and sitting on the floor in front of the front row. I got really nervous, but so excited. We all did our talents. I played "waterfall" on the piano. It went really well. At the end we all sang as a group "Joseph Smiths First Prayer" in spanish and the spirit was so strong. I really hope the song touched the investigators and our families and I hope that they felt a little bit of the spirit that we felt. The feeling was so overwhelming and I really felt like Heavenly Father was helping us touch those people. Even if they don't act on that feeling, I hope they don't forget what they felt and know how much this gospel means to us. Afterwards I talked with the missionaries for a really long time. A lot of the missionaries in the mission here are from the States so it was fun for them to talk to some people from back home. They told us about some of their experiences so far. It was really neat! Our host mom commented the other day to me that she is so impressed on how much different we are then the other students they host from other Universities. She commented that we are just so much more willing to help, seem more personable and happy, and are well rounded in the things we do. I took that as a very big compliment and was glad she could see that our religion has a huge effect on the people we are. Saturday after the talent show the mexican boys were going to take us Salsa dancing, but after we finished eating it started to rain and when it rains you don't want to get stuck in it. They took us home and soon after it started downpouring. It was the first rain of the season. I have never seen it rain so hard in my life. It just came down and down and down and the thunder shook the windows and the whole house. It was a little scary but it was really neat. Some of the other girls that are exchange students from San Diego, that just got here and are living in our house as well, went clubing that night. The next morning they said they got done at like 2 in the morning and caught a taxi, but the taxi only took them a block or two and then kicked them out of the taxi because it was raining so hard and the streets were flooding. So they had to walk an hour or so in the rain that was up to their knees. I am glad they got home safely because their are pot hole type things in the rode and our mom here warned us about walking in the street when its raining because you can't see the pot holes and people have died falling in them and drowining. The streets were so flooded!! I am so glad the boys were smart and took us home before we got caught in a situation like that!! Sunday was another hard day for us all. It was the last Sunday we have with our ward because we are all going to be leaving for Puerta Vallarta this Saturday. So we had to say goodbye to a lot of the members that we have made friends with! It was a great way to end though with fast Sunday. As I was sitting in their listening to member after member bear their testimony in spanish of God, Jesus, the atonement, their family, prayer, etc. It was just another witness of how the members all over the world are the same and have testimonys about many of the similiar things. The spirit I felt in that room was just as strong as the times that I have felt it in the States. It was also really fun because I was able to give away my first Spanish Book of Mormon on Sunday as well. I have a friend named Arturo that we met back when we first got here. He is from Korea and the more we talked to him we found out that when he was in Korea he was a convert to the church and was baptised. But he fell away from the church cause his family moved to another part of Korea and he couldn't find a church near by. So we asked him to come to church with us and he has been coming every Sunday since. Mark is a boy in our group and he served his mission in Korea so he had a Korean Book of Mormon to Arturo cause Arturo didn't have a Book of Mormon. Yesterday I sat by Arturo in church and he leaned over and asked me if I understood what the lesson was about. I did and told him I did. He said he didn't understand anything. He right now is only in level 1 Spanish classes and the rest of us are in Level 4, but he does pretty well communicating with us. He also knows a lot of English and if we don't understand what he is trying to say we have him tell Mark in Korean.. hehe.. But he was struggling cause he couldn't follow along in his Korean Book of Mormon. So I gave him a Spanish one. He was so greatful for it and gave me a huge hug! I was really excited. I really hope he keeps going after we all leave. He is such a neat guy! He took a picture of me on Saturday night when we were driving home. He told me I look like a fairy. I wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not, but he told me it was a compliment. ( I attatched the picture up above). Sunday after church we walked over to the park. Every Sunday they have an art in the park type thing, but we never go and since this is was our last Sunday we decided to go. Its a round park and everyone displays their artwork and you can just walk around the edge of the park and look at the art. There was one little area that had some pretty out there art, but I really liked it so I took a minute to look at. The artist came up to me and we started talking. I brought up that I draw and he was really impressed. He had me sit down and draw him something on the side and then he invited me if I wanted to sometime this week come into his studio and he would teach me some new techniques. He also invited me to come back to Guadalajara at some point and study under him. I was very flattered and told him thank you. He had me sit down on a bench and he drew me and gave the piece to me free of charge. It was really fun and I realized afterwards that now I am able to carry on a conversation with a local in spanish. I was really excited!!! Well this is our last week here in Guadalajara. On Saturday we are heading to Puerta Vallarta to hang out and partying in the sun all week! Can't wait! Hope all is well! I will be home in two weeks. Its crazy. It feels like I just got here. It has gone by fast, but I can't wait to get home and see you all. Lov ya!! P.S. Sorry this was such a long blog! I had to catch up for a whole week! Lo siento!

Donde Esta Tonala?

Well this Saturday our field trip was to Tonala. It was a cute little city about 45 minutes outside of Guadalajara. There was a lot of little shops that are relatively cheap and they had some really good and unique stuff. We had a few hours to walk around and shop and explore. I found a cute pair of earrings and a couple other small things. I more enjoyed just stopping and talking to people along the way at the shops and using my Spanish. We kept seeing these coconut stands everywhere. So finally we decided to stop at one of these shops and try a coconut. We started talking to the guy and he asked us where we were from. We told him we were from the U.S. and the state of Utah. He started asking if that was close to California and the Lakers. I am beginning to think everyone here loves the Lakers because I get asked about the Lakers a lot and if I am close to where they play. Its pretty funny! I also found this really cool chair that I would totally put in my house. They had so many home decoration stores. It made me wish I had my own house to decorate because a lot of the stuff was totally up my alley. But I asked the guy how much the chair was (thinking maybe i could shove it in my suitcase.. hahah.. not really... jk) It was real leather and was pretty big and it was only $950 pesos which translates into about $95 american dollars. Everything was sooooo cheap in Tonala. I ended up talking to the guy for a while. He was really nice and we talked about the US and he tried using what little espanol he knew. It was really fun and I found that talking to the people here in Mexico is more priceless then anything else. I found out so much about there culture and it has helped my Spanish grow leaps and bounds just using it. And the locals are pretty good about helping you out with Spanish too. If I say something wrong they help correct me and explain to me why. After Tonala we stopped at an Art Museum in Zapopon. It was really cool because it was very modern art. I really enjoy when we go to art museums because I just totally love art and could spend hours at the museums. Sadly we only got an hour, but it was very interesting and amazing none the less! That night we had stake conference for the adult session. It was so good because by now I am getting to where I can understand more of church and actually feel the spirit because I am not having to concentrate so hard on translating every word and now i can focus a little more on the actual content and feel the spirit. Its so amazing the feeling of being able to understand someone talk in a different language and actually be able to communicate back to them in it as well! Its such a feeling of self fulfillment and I can feel all that studying paying off!! Well thats me. Hopefully I got you all up to date! Miss you all!! Te quiero!! :)

The Zoo and Banda!! hmm... :)

Well this weekend was quite a weekend!! Friday after school we went all went to the zoo which is like a two hour bus ride!! And not the charter bus we get for our Saturday field trips, this was a rickety public transportation bus. Luckily it wasn't very full when we got on because there was 25 of us plus our leader and the 5 members of her family. We filled up every seat on the bus plus filled a pretty big part of the isle way. But the closer we got the zoo the more and more people that got on! Holy Cow! I was one of the people standing up and we were crammed in there like sardines. We had fun taking a couple pictures which I posted above. By the time the two hours were up I needed a breath of fresh air. It was so crazy!!! The zoo was pretty cool. We got to go on a Safari. We sat in little train type things ( i posted a picture of a few of our group on it) but they were driven like normal vehicles not on tracks. We drove straight through the animals and some of them came right up to the vehicle. We got to feed carrots to the giraffe. He came right up to the vehicle. It was really neat to see a giraffe close up. They are so much taller and bigger that close up. We also got to see the coolest zebras. One was black and one was this tan color. I took a picture of it (posted above) and it turned out really cool. Nani told me it was good enough to go on a post card. I am assuming thats a compliment. hehe.. We also got to go explore the zoo after the safari. We found a petting zoo and I found a pygmy horse and immediately thought of grandma! So grandma I took a picture just for you cause I know you want one a pygmy horse really bad!! Maybe I could bring this one home in my suitcase for ya! ;) heheh... I also made sure we went to the elephants. Mom always has us stand by the elephants and get our picture taken. So not wanting to break tradition I had my roommate take a picture of me in front of the elephants. We left the zoo and then had to ride the bus back for two more hours. Since it was a little later the bus back wasn't as crowded. That night our friends Jared, Manuel, and Chewy invited us to go dancing. We usually end up going dancing on the weekends with these guys. Usually we go dancing at an American or Modern club where its just hip hop and pop music. But the guys wanted to surprise us and take us to do some different type of dancing. They told us this kind of dancing was more native to Mexico. Its called the banda. So we went to a Banda club and we got our first taste of banda. Its really hard to explain exactly what it was cause I have never see anything like it in the states. Basically it reminds me of rabbits or something cause you do a lot of hopping and just moving around. It was definetly an experience and fun to try but it was not my favorite. It was fun to dance with the boys and just talk to them. They were all there that night and I got to dance with each one of them and just talk to them in Spanish. It was a really fun night! The last picture on the post is of all of us girls waiting for the boys to pick us up to take us dancing. Well I am going to make another post about our field trip Saturday!! :)

A day in the life of Kera in Mexico! :)

The last couple days have been really super busy, but every minute here is totally worth it. School is going well and service is still amazing as ever. Yesterday the madre asked us if we could plan a little carnival or something similar for the boys for the last day we are with the boys. We are starting to brainstorm some ideas. The other day I gave the madre that is always so nice to me (the one that I posted a picture of before) copies of the pictures I took of me and her. She was so excited and asked me to write a note for her on the back and sign my name to. Then she asked if I wanted this treat they always give the boys. The boys call them churros, but they are nothing like them. They look like one huge wafer with salsa on them. The salsa is more just hot sauce, but every type of sauce here is called salsa. I said sure and she asked if I wanted the salsa on it. I said just a little cause the sauce is really hot. When she came out with it she had literally put one drop of sauce in the middle of the wafer. I tried hard not to laugh, because she took me wanting a little literally! It was pretty funny. Monday night was family home evening. I love family home evening because the single mexican boys come too and it gives us an opportunity to use our Spanish more. We just played some games and then afterwards rehearsed for our talent show which is next week. We got done late so Manuel, one of the single mexican guys, offered to take Me, Nani, Kaela, and Becky home since we all live near him. We all crammed into his little red bug. Its so much fun cruising around in his little red bug. He is so nice and always offers to take us places. The one picture of the three of us, is when we were crammed int he back of Manuel's bug. Its a little squishy in the back but we didn't mind. Tuesday we got to go do baptisms for the dead in the Guadalajara temple. It was such a neat experience. The guys in our group are returned missionaries so they got to preform the ordinances and that was really neat and I think brought us closer together as a group on a spiritual level. As we were coming out the sun was setting and looked so pretty against the temple so I took a couple pictures. It was beautiful. Afterwards a big group of us went and got ice cream. We have been doing that lately after activity because the ice cream is soooooooooooooo good here!! We are all addicted and will probably gain 10 pounds alone from ice cream!! Yesterday morning was quite an interesting morning. On our way to school there is this little black dog that we named "Todo" because he looks just like Dorthy's dog off Wizard of Oz. Anyways, we were walking past him and all of the sudden I hear Nani gasp and she starts crying. I look at her and she rips here hand out of the dogs mouth. He had put his head through the fence and grabbed onto her hand. He punctured pretty far in and she was bleeding all over. There was a lady out there with the dog and she just looked at us and said "el no esta enfermo" (he isn't sick) and then she put the dog inside. We both stood there, Nani crying with her punctured bleeding hand and the lady didn't do anything. So we went back home and told our mom. She got so mad that the lady didn't do anything and she was scared because rabies is a little bit more of a worry here then it is in the states. So they scrubbed Nani's hand out and then called the doctor and then the police. So our dad, being the nice and caring man he is, ran us to the doctor. The doctors was a little bit of a run down place and I was a little scared but they took care of Nani and scrubbed her wound out with iodine looking stuff. Then he gave her a prescription for medication to make sure she isn't in pain and doesn't get an infection. Then we had to go to the animal shelter place and file a report to have the dog picked up so they can be observed for 10 days to make sure he doesn't have rabies. Then we went and picked up Nani's meds and we also had to pick up a tetnis shot and the needle. Here you have to go buy the needle and the medicine first and then take it to a doctor or a lot of people just have anyone give it to them. A little scary! Nani ended up having one of the girls in our group give it to her. I thought she was crazy but it worked out and now she is still in a little pain but doing well. Well that was yesterday morning. Kind of crazy. Then last night we went with a big group of people to "Indiana Jones 4" it was ok, but not as good as the first three. I sat by one of the friends I have made here. He is from Korea here in Mexico learning Spanish at the same University I am. Me and Mark and some other kids in our group were in line for something one day and we started to talking to him cause Mark served his mission in Korea and come to find out this guy is LDS but went inactive for a while cause he was baptized 5 years ago but when he moved back to Korea he couldn't find a church to go to and ended up just not going. We invited him to church and now he comes to church with us every week and goes to a lot of our church activites. He is such an awesome guy. During the movie he leaned over and was like "quieres esto" (i want that) as he pointed at my popcorn. So we ended up sharing my popcorn and having a good ol time. It was really fun. Today was kind of a long day, but it was interesting as well. Today we got to see the boys at our service perform one of the Catholic services celebrating the Virgin Mary. We went in with them to there chapel where they hold mass. We kneeled with them as they said their prayers and sung some songs. It was really interesting to me. They had a statue of the Virgin Mary in the middle and through out the service they gave different gifts to the Virgin. I started to get a little emotional because I was excited that these boys are at least being brought up in a religion where they are taught to love God and there is someone who loves them, but I was also really sad because I felt like the madres taught them a lot about God but there were some things missing and at times it felt really empty. I wanted to get up and say I have some things that could really change the boys lives, but I just kept my thoughts to myself. But anyways, it was really interesting and got me curious about what everything symbolizes cause there was a lot of symbology. But afterwards we played with the boys and they have found out that I can draw so they are always bringing their notebooks to me and asking me to draw things in them for them!! Its really fun cause I haven't drawn for a while! But anyways.. thats me so far. Still living it up in Mexico. Hasta Luego!!