It´s the start of something new

It is the end of our first week of living here in Mt. Sinai, and things have been bustling with the excitement of new beginnings. We moved into our new house on Monday, which is absolutely beautiful. It is spacious and very accomodating for myself and four community mates. In the house we have a kitchen, living room and eight bedrooms. (three of which are serving as guest bedrooms and closet space :) Our ceilings are very high, so it makes everything feel very open and spacious. It also is a lot of fun because it echoes like crazy! The acoustics are great for singing-Jen and I feel like rock stars! The hallway where are bedrooms are is really long and their are doors on both sides. We decided it is perfect for running sprints, and we are working on devising either bowling alley or a slip and slide. :) hehe. The colors of our house are really cheery! The living room, kitchen, and hallway are yellow, the bedrooms are light green and our chapel is light blue. The chapel is my favorite place in the whole house. It is such a peaceful place to be. oh and we have a nice little deck area where they will be setting up two hammocks in the near future.

This week we have been figuring out how our community is going to be functioning together, with cleaning and cooking schedules, food stipends ect. Our first night together in the house was pretty wonderful. We ended up eating dinner fairly late-and we were all pretty tired and we ended up just being goofy and laughing about everything for about an hour. We couldn´t even get through dinner without Becky having to leave the table because she was laughing so hard :). Some other highlights from community living this week would include: nightly prayers, excercise night, movie night, and cooking together.

Let´s see, this week we started our jobs which has been crazy to say the least. As I mentioned before, I am working at a small Catholic school near where I live. The kids are so unbelievably adorable. This week I was able to teach Language (Spanish hahaha) and a little bit of Phy. Ed....which I don´t know if I can even call it phy ed. haha. Madre Luceli came up to me and asked if I could teach phy ed. on Friday! I had not written a lesson plan, and let´s just say the resources available were a bit....lacking. She gave me this little pink pillow, and was like "you can throw this around". So...I was going into this teaching experience with no gym, and no equipment (aside from the pink pillow, which I didn´t have high hopes for being useful) Thankfully enthusiasm and creativity went a long way, and I survived the experience. :) The plan for me is that I will be teaching Computer classes to all sections on Wednesdays, Phy. ed to all sections on Friday, and then I will be teaching 5-6 year olds all subjects on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday in my own classroom-wow that is going to be crazy. I hope that I am not getting into a situation that is too difficult, but I am going to have another week here of observations. The Ecuador school system is pretty different here. All of the subjects are taught almost directly out of books-so you can say goodbye to any cognitive discovery learning experiences. I am hoping that I can do some more hands on learning in my classroom. We´ll see :) I have like a million ideas. I´m pumped!

On Wednesday I went to some religous convention in Guayaquil with the nuns that I work with...haha exciting experience. They told me that it would be good for me because I am a missionary and the content would be applicable to me-which it was...but I was the only "non-nun" in the whole joint! I felt so left out haha. My community mates are convinced that the sisters are going to try to get me to become a nun by the end of the year, but I really don´t see that being in my life plans. haha we´ll see about that

This weekend I helped sing at two masses, which was great, I love the music here. I ended up cantoring and not knowing the songs incredibly well, which made for some laughs afterwards. After mass at Corpus Christi, we had a music ministry meeting and I met some amazing youth with great musical talent. We spent an hour or so learning and practicing music together. I got to sing in a microphone. I felt you know...a little bit legit...just saying.. haha just playing :)

I think the resounding theme of the week is being thrown into incredibly new and awkward situations. We are embracing our "awkwardness" as we adjust to our new jobs, culture and language. It is all together very humbling. You finally think that you are on top of your game, and then boom, life catches up to you. One of the more awkward moments was when i locked myself inside the gate to our house, as I tried to get out to get to a meeting at school. (awkwardly waving at the onlooking neighbors who were enjoying a little chuckle to my dismay) what else-misuse of Spanish vocabulary, and deviations from Ecua-social norms is a daily occurence. Although it can be slightly discomforting at times, it is also such a beautiful and blessed place to be in life. Everyday is a mini adventure and there is so much to think about and learn from everything and everyone I meet. I hope that I can maintain this spirit of excitement as we journey in the weeks to come...more updates on the life and times of Mt. Sinai to come

Friends and family at home-I miss you, I love you, I´m thinking about you lots! Please keep me in your thoughts and prayers!

Con amor,

Marita