Welcome to the East Coast

Hello all...
so i haven´t updated in ages, other than the few added pictures, so.... I´m going to jump a bit and write the latest happenings.
So we left monday morning (5am) and travelled east... so basically across the country, we stopped after about 16hrs driving and stayed at a hotel then continued the next day for like 4hours to the state of Campeche in the city of Ciudad del Carmen. That´s where David Alves is working with mexican´s and has had a wonderful response (don´t know exact numbers of those saved right now) so... we´re staying at one of the houses where the gospel meetings are taking place in the garage, however we left that night for Candelaria, another city south of Ciudad del Carmen. We took a big white van with 11 of us in it: David, Issac Cain, Ciela, myself and a group of young people that are down here helping: Ajay, Aaron, Johnny, Andy, Luke (a Duncan Beckett twin), Tim and one poor soul: Laura! (the only girl) Anyways, so we got down here and stayed at a bit of a sketchy but good enough to lay down y head hotel (I´ll be paying 45$ for 3 nights haha) So we woke up and then spent all day yesterday passing out texts... the problem here is never the fear of people not taking a text, rather the dogs! eek! they´re NUTS down here! It´s sooo hot and much more humid so I was drenched in sweat! :P Got to really practice my spanish though. then to cool off we swam in a river and jumped off a train bridge over top! all these mexican kids came to swim after school and you should hae seen their backflips! Then for lunch I payed $2.50 for an enormous meal! (the guys had to finish mine) food here is super cheap... but i still think i´ve spent a fortune in water. we delivered a few more texts and then we held gospel meetings in a stadium... there were an encouraging amount of people out and we sung some in spanish and then Andy gave his testimony via the translation of David and then David preached. then we went out to eat at a taco stand and then package some more texts. This morning, we delievered more texts and then headed off to see some Myan ruins! They we super cool although the weather certainly was not! It was sooooooooo dripping hot out! There were 3 pyramids with tons of ruins around. Very amazing to see! We then came back, went out to lunch at the same place and then now I´m here at a "cyber place" writing this for you all to see. Hope everyone is doing well and I truly am sorry with my procrastination. Love you all... Emily

Another Update....

WOW- so much stuff happens in such a short time and it's so hard to write it all down and remember it to tell you guys. Well the other night after meeting, we went for supper at a taco stand (lunch is at 2ish and supper is more like a snack at 9ish) and i had four mini tacos which are like 5pesos=50cents. 2 were a sausage type, 1 a mexican cheese, and 1 was made from cow head. The next time we go back, the kids and I want to try the intestine, brain and udder kind. :) Friday, I spent the day mainly helping Sammy and Evelyn with their homework, which I actually really enjoy! I also spent some time outside painting a bench outside (don't worry mom, I wore sunscreen) and I also squeezed fresh lemons from the lemon tree in their "courtyard" to make lemonade. For lunch we had special visitors... that I can't seem to remember their names - but they were from Kamloops, BC. After meeting, we went to a hotdog stand, and it was simply amazing! They wrap them in bacon and put all these different ingredients on them and ya... delicious! The guy who runs it stays open from 6pm to 6am on weekends!!! We then went home and straight to bed, because we jad to wake up at 5:30am to go to a bible conference in Puerto Vallarta. Met lots of people there and although the preaching was hard to understand (being all in spanish) Erica, a missionary's daughter form Guatalajara took notes and translated them for me! The food was also excellent! Had my first ever authentic fricoles (beans), rice and I am now a pro-tortila-roller! Ciela's flight got in around 5pm, so we sat together for gospel meeting and the baptisms that took place after. She is much better at Spanish than I am, but she helps me a lot, which is awesome - I'm trying! :) We then drove home that night, and woke up this morning for Morning Meeting. It was quite small this morning, due to most people staying for the conference, but I loved looking around the circle and realizing, that though we all have so many differences we still have so much in common in Christ! It seemed to be hotter today than normal, but definitely not as humid as PV. We went to a restaurant (Liverpool) for lunch, and they had a buffet! It was awesome! I tried so many different types of food: everything from lengua (cow tongue) to flan (a traditional latin american dessert)! That brings me to now, where Ciela and I are about to take a nap before we leave to pick up the kids for Sunday School and then Gospel Meeting. Hope this finds you all well and I apologize now if I don't respond to you right away, but rest assured that I am reading all your facebook and e-mail messages and I love all the updates from back home!
Love you all,
EHC

The Hall in PV where the Conference was, notice the sweet canary yellow walls!

One of the million taco stands there are in Tepic

Intestine Taco... yum yum!

The Journey Begins...

After passing through 4 security checks, 3 countries and 2 new airports, I finally reached my 1 destination: MEXICO!!!! As you can guess, I made it here safe and sound! Woke up at 3am Wednesday morning and my journey began at 6am, as I flew out of Saint John. I then stopped in Montreal and RUSHED through customs, but made it through with 20min to spare! It was then time for my big flight from Montreal to LA, it turned out a lot better than expected with triplets on board - I barely heard them and there was also the option of choosing your own movies, which was nice! LAX ws huge, I had a 3 hour layover so I walked outside a bit and it was beautiful! On my flight to PV, I moved seats to accomodate a family of 3 from Argentina. There were soooo many kids on that flight! Finally when I arrived, I passed in my customs forms and then got my bags (which were so awkward to carry without a cart - having 2 stuffed bags and 2 carry-ons) and then I had to press a button, where if it lights up green, you can walk through or if it's red, they search your bags. You can already guess which light I got! The thing was though, I had wrapped my bags in saran wrap, for safety and easy-to-recognizeability (yes I just made up a word) reasons, so when the guy looked at my bags he just looked through my "naked" carry-on, which was fortunate. I then walked out to meet Alison, Sammy and Evelyn and we then drove the 3hr trip back to Tepic through very twisty, mountainous terrain. We got back at the house around 10:15pm (Tepic time; 4hr time difference) and was shown around the coolest house ever. Today I mainly caught up on my rest, unpacked a bit, helped the kids out with their homework and science experiments (they're homeshooled) and helped out a bit with mopping. Breakfast was quite normal with bagels and cereal, and lunch was good as well - we had fajitas and with a cactus salad, which was good, but was really slimy (and of course Sammy had to liken it to spit! haha) We're leaving tonight at about 6pm for Gospel meeting, which just started last Sunday I think. Anyways, that's all for now... take care!

Emily

Evelyn, Sammy and I at the PV Airport

The Cain's House

The "courtyard" in the Cain residence (my room is the black door in the back/right)