Week 2 is over....wow....I feel like I've been here for longer, but at the same time as if I just got here. I think that is due to the fact that 2 weeks was the length of my trip last year, so it feels like my time here is almost over, but I've actually only finished 1/4 of it! That is oddly a comforting feeling as well.......

So classes are going great! Last Mon, my class began our week of classes with a new professor, and one less student. We now have Carlos as our professor, and the Dutch gentleman has left. Carlos is EXTREMELY patient, kind of quiet-almost shy sometimes-but a great instructor! I really like how he teaches. Both Kat(one of my class-mates) and I have felt mentally tired after class because we are just thinking/having to process more with Carlos' method of teaching...but we love it! I still have Marco as my tutor in the afternoons, and he is ever consistent with drilling me with similar questions and getting me to practice using everything I'm learning in conversation, not just on paper, while continuing to add new stuff.

One really cool thing that happened this week though.............So I always bring my lunch and typically eat alone in the study area everyday unless I join a group of students going out for lunch. Well, on Thursday I was invited to sit with the professors for lunch. I thought they were just being nice and I replied that I didn't want to bother them since lunch time is their only time not constantly around us students. They replied that I wouldn't be a bother at all, so I joined them for lunch Thu and Fri and am able to join them every day while I'm here! They converse normally and occasionally ask me something, etc. but its awesome! I don't understand everything they are saying, but I'm able to catch the gist of certain conversations and I'm loving the ability to just listen and analyze. :)

In the afternoons/evenings I usually walk around the park close to the school before heading back to the house, or do some shopping for something I need, etc. This past Friday though was pretty cool because Carmen and I went to another district of Lima, Barranco, and had an amazing dinner of Anticuchos(Brined Beef heart on a stick), Choclo(Maize), Papas(Potatoes), Picarones(Sweet Potato flour donuts in fig honey), and chicha(juice made from purple corn). It was so tasty! After dinner, we discovered that Friday evening was "night of the museums" and all the museums were open and allowing people to enter them for free! It was awesome! We went to 2 museums in Barranco before calling it a night. Saturday was a pretty chill day of Carmen and I grocery shopping, cooking, and ending the day with the 5 hour BBC version of Pride and Prejudice....it was a good day. :)

Today has been great, but slightly bittersweet - Carmen and I went to her church again and it was great! The music was amazing and I was really excited that I actually understood quite a bit more of the sermon than I thought I would! Carmen and I talked about it afterward as we were doing some errands together she needed to do, and what I thought he had said was mostly true! Just some additions of details clarified the gist of what I didn't get. :) After we got back home, we ate, but then Carmen had to finish packing because she left this afternoon for Arequipa, another city in Peru, for work. I won't see her again while I'm in Peru for this trip, but it was great to have her here for the first 2 weeks I'm in Lima. I now only have "Aunt Luchi" as my company in the house until "Grandpa" comes home from the hospital and Ernesto returns from the U.S. "Aunt Luchi" is awesome, but it was really nice having someone my own age around to chat with....now I have to figure out what to do with myself during my free time.....lol :)

God has been really gracious and I'm so blessed to be here.....But PLEASE, PLEASE keep praying for me!!!

- I really want to learn as much as I can while I'm in school so I can communicate better once I go to Pucallpa, so please keep my learning/school in prayer!!!

- So far my health has been good and please continue to pray that it stays that way

- And please pray that the Lord would open more opportunities to speak His truth to the people I'm interacting with. I've actually had a lot more opportunites than I expected because the professors are always asking us about our lives to get us talking and using the language, and my field/desire to hopefully move to Peru intrigues many of the professors and students, so being able to talk about myself has opened the door to really be blunt with the gospel. Its pretty cool!

Anticuchos, Choclo, & Papas (Note - "Corn" here is huge, so don't picture the portion sizes based on the relation to the size of the corn.....:)

#spanish #peru #missions #provision