Back but leaving

Well…I’m back from my trip, but we leave tomorrow morning for Mexico again. It’s been a whirlwind week, and it’s not finished yet. Hopefully, I’ll get to write more soon.

End of the Season

Originally posted last Sunday.

Dolphins beat Patriots for 6th win in a row

We went to Janell’s sisters house to watch football today. We mostly watched the Bucs game, but I also got to see that the Dolphins won their sixth straight game. The season is over for them, but they finished the season strongly, which was a huge improvement over last season. Nick Saban should get some votes for coach of the year.

Janell’s dad also fixed the brakes in the Bonnie, so we can get around town now. I still have to finish preparing for my upcoming trip (more on that later), and we have some people to visit. It should be a busy next few days.

Finished!

We just finished Christmas shopping. Surprisingly, here it doesn’t seem like there is much traffic. Maybe I’m just used to the traffic in MC now. It’s been pretty easy. We got the first parking spot at the mall today, and we were done shopping by 10:30. Sweet! Now there’s the wrapping. Ugghhh!!!

Home for the holidays

We don’t know where home is. We often say we have two homes. We arrived at our home in Florida today after waking up at 3:30 am, leaving our house at 4:30 am, and being on planes all day. We almost missed our connecting flight in Dallas. Unfortunately, our luggage did miss the connecting flight. We even thought we were being smart by packing different stuff in different bags, but we didn’t get any of our bags. We didn’t even get Nathan’s car seat. So, American Airlines loaned us one, and we are waiting for them to deliver our luggage to the house. It could be tomorrow before we get them. This is the first time that’s ever happened to us. Frustrating. Stay tuned to see what happens. UPDATE: Our luggage arrived at 11 PM last night. Finally, we can put on new clothes, take out our contacts, and we have diapers!!!

Workday

I woke up at 5:55 this morning to finish studying for my sermon. Then, I went to church for the 9 o’clock service. I preached on Luke 9:18-27 and the steps to being a disciple of Christ. Then I returned home to pick up the family, drove the 30 minutes back to church, and preached again. We got home at 2 pm from church. I’m really tired. It was our last Sunday of the year, since we are going to Florida next week.

Tomorrow is the Guadalupe Day, when supposedly, the Virgin of Guadalupe appeared to Juan Diego. So, we are hearing tons of canons and fireworks exploding getting ready to the huge celebration. On our way home from church today, we saw a group of people wearing t-shirts with the Virgin on the back of them, getting ready to ride their bikes to the bascilica.

Almost Christmas

It’s almost Christmas. The stuff is piling up. This morning in my Youth Ministry class, I tried to cheer up my students by telling them that this is the last weekend of the quarter. The following weekend there will be no more homework or tests. If we can all just get through this weekend. I am preaching at church this weekend, and I haven’t had any great inspiration yet. I am still praying and waiting on God, but I’d love to be finished with the sermon. Tomorrow, I have no classes, so maybe then I will hear something.

Today we went to the mall to shop for a gift for an 8 year old girl who lives in an orphanage here in Mexico City. Janell goes to a Bible study every Thursday, and tomorrow they are having a party with the children from the orphanage, too. So, we got her some stuff. Janell is also busy baking today. We are giving baked goods as gifts. Saturday is a missionary Christmas get-together with all the missionaries from Mexico City. It should be fun. We sure are busy! It’s the most wonderful time of the year!