Major updates - Christmas & New Years

Christmas this year was great, though simple. My friend Cherry, a missionary from the Philippines, was on her way to Thailand after working in IAENE for a year, and decided to visit me in Recife :) It was fun! It was great speaking fast/fluent English with her without having to worry about speaking slow or explain some terms lol.

It's was also the 2nd time I spend Christmas in a tropical area, so guess what!? We went to the beach on Sunday :)

With Cherry & Pr. Ivanaldo. He's the one in charge of the AVS in this union.

Christmas program @ the church

The only good picture I have of our Christmas Dinner lol

New Year was indeed great!! Cherry invited me to go with her for a week in Rio de Janeiro. Rio is probably the most famous city of Brazil, and especially during the Reveillon (New Year's), so with the excuse of having to renew my passport, I did not have to think twice when Cherry invited me. Our host family, Pr. Marcio Nascimento, Angelica & Arthur, was extremely kind. They were a true blessing for two missionary girls that wanted to do some sightseeing lol :-)

L-R: Angelica, Arthur, Cherry & I
behind us, the Pão de Açúcar (Sugarloaf Mountain)

We got to stay at one of the nicest (and safest) neighborhoods in Rio > Recreio.

Maracanã Soccer Stadium, one of the biggest and most famous in the world.
*The Stadio Azteca is still bigger though.

Christ the Redeemer. Do I have to explain more? lol :P

With Cherry (left) and the Nascimento family.

InfluenzaBreak

I found my hideout when boredom attacks during this 'InlfuenzaBreak' ► My room! and all I need is:

- My confi bed
- My huge laptop (Dell Inspiron 9400 15'')
- Wireless connection (very important! Needless to say facebook and MSN lol)
- My cellphone (just in case... but I haven't used it that much actually)
- Movies
- My homework (yes, I still have to do homework).

My fav holiday pics

*If you click on the pic you will see it on my flickr. Enjoy!! ;-)




1. A view from the lighthouse
2. Enoc and his scarred face
3. Starfish
4. A priceless moment and lots of fun
5. The girls (my cousins)
6. Sunset in Mazatlan
7. Mr. Turkey (tio Mon)
8. Dad and Mom

The lighthouse

*More about my holidays

On December 26th some of us went hiking to "El Faro" (the lighhouse). My mom and some other uncles and aunts hike every December, but it was my first time. They always invited me to go but I was tooooo lazy to wake up early to be there at 6 am and start hiking. COME ON!!! 6 am when I'm on holidays!! no please!! But this time I was on a more social mood so I went. I don't regret it at all, even though it was really REALLY tiring. And the best part of that day was the restaurant we went after hiking LOL.

enjoy the pics and the nice view ;-)

At the southern end of the peninsula, a particularly prominent rocky outcrop provides the base for "El Faro" (the lighthouse), 157m (515ft) above sea level and supposedly the second-highest lighthouse in the world (after Gibraltar).


View from the top


My grandma!! When we started hiking we never thought she was going to make it all the way up.


After a long walk, the only thing you wanna do is rest.





Not many people went because they were tooo lazy to wake up early and hike.
*I was taking the picture :(

Our ATV adventure!

More pictures...

With the crazy driver... thanks to him we had 3 accidents LOL.
But it was still fun ;)


Vico and Kalra... they were more careful hehe


My turn to drive ;)


Hello there!!! The craziest cousins ever... and the cutest too LOL

"Granja de mi Abuelo"

On December 25th we went to this place called "Granja de mi Abuelo" (a restaurand and a lil ranch kind of thing) to celebrate my lil cousin's baptism. We had branch and the lots of fun with the family.

"My Grandpa's Farm"


Brunch ;)



"The Martinez"
That was only part of the family, maybe half of the family.
We were 45 on Christmas Eve, and even then we weren't complete.



2nd accident. On our 1st one we drove through the bushes, and we had a 3rd one.

Time with my cousins

I'm having a great time this christmas break! I will be posting on different things we did this break, but it basiaclly includes:

• Riding 4-wheeled ATVs
• Shopping
• Going to the beach
• Christmas Eve
• New Year's Eve
• Hiking
  

I got to spend a lot of time with my cousins which I hadn't seen in a long time. Here are some pics with/of them.

Karla, Elvira, SeNdY and Dulce at my aunt's beauty salon.


Elvira and Enoc trying to carry vico.... and I say trying cause it was just like 3 seconds LOL


At the shopping mall with some cousins (Vico, Dulce, Enoc, Karla, SeNdY and Noe).

23°13′N 106°25′W / 23.217, -106.417

Today is the second day in Mazatlan and I'm having quiet a good time. We went to church and my dad was invited to give the Sabbath School lesson. Since the mission stories this quartet come from Asia and there was no story today, my dad asked me to say something... I was like, what am I going to say?

So there I was giving a mission story... What did I say? Luckily enough, I had read Toshi's story a couple of weeks ago and I just complemented it with what I know he's doing now... so that was my mission story hehe. I kinda feel good cause I had a chance to do something for Sabbath School today.

I wish I had brought my Viola though, but my mom said there was no space in the car and I couldn't take it with me on the plane either :( I always say "I'll bring my viola next time" LOL

My dad giving the Sabbath School lesson.


Left to right: My mom, my aunt, my grandma and another aunt.


With one of my aunts after church.

*Haven't gone to the beach yet :(

Finally on vacaction

In 7 hours I'll be heading to the beach! oh yeah!!!!

Won't be suffering from the cold at least for 3 weeks (wish could be more).

Cancun!!

I finally got the pics from Cancun!! here are some of them, and you can go here(flickr) to see the rest.

few more weeks!

yeah!! school is almost over!!! and that makes me HAPPY! 20 more days and I will be out of school for this year!!!
Actually that's good and bad... cause I've been procrastinating a lot (like most of the college students around the world lol) and so now I'm so stressed out with all the assignments that I need to finish. Adding to that, the English classes I'm teaching (thank God everything is going great with those classes).

Talking about other things that are not school.... last weekend was great!!! I went to Houston with my family to visit an uncle. It was sooooo relaxing and it was like the mid semester vacation I was looking for and couldn't see coming at all. I have some pictures but they are kinda bad cause we don't have a camera, so we took it with my brother's phone.
And this next weekend... I'm going camping!!

ok that's it for today... now pics from the day we went to the NASA-->

my dad and Vico at the back, then my mom (pink), me and claudia (my uncle's gf)