Morelia

This weekend Calvin and I went to a place called Morelia. It is in the state of Michoacan and it is about 4 hours away from here. We went with a past student named Nefi. He owns english schools and he was opening up another one in Morelia with another past student named Javier. They want us to go for their first day of classes. We didn't really want to go but we wanted to help them so we did. We didn't leave until 7:00 Friday night. When we left it was raining so hard. It was kinda a scary drive since we didn't have seat belts. Any time you drive in Mexico it's a terrifying experience...so imagine it in the dark, pouring rain, and no seatbelts! But we got there safe. We didnt get in until midnight. Calvin and I said with a family that is in Javier's ward. We got there and the mom was like showing us around. And they only had 2 single beds so we had to sleep in different rooms. And then she says, "Now in the morning we don't mind if you guys shower together, especially since you are not sleeping together. We are open minded, we know how it is. My husband and I do it all the time." HAHAHA so awkward. We were just laughing and like "Thank you...". So then she takes me up to my bedroom where I am sleeping. And she points at this bottle of bug spray and says, "You might want to put that on, my son has been getting bug bites every night in this room." Oh gosh...i was loving my life at that moment. And then she left, I lathered myself in bug stuff. And then I pulled back the covers and there were ants all in my bed!!!! It was horrible. It was a very bad night of sleep. I would've gone downstairs to sleep with calv in that bed or switch him beds but the stairs were all twirly and stuff and they didnt have walls next to them or railings! And it was dark so I'm sure it wouldn't have been good. So I slept there all night. I put on all the clothes that I brought. In the morning we woke up and the hermana (sister that we were staying with) graciously starting heating up the beans that were out on the stove all night. She then put sugar, carrots, and water in the blender and that was our juice. Then with some cold eggs and it was a perfect meal! I was handling it ok until i looked down and saw some ants floating in my juice (after I'd already drank half of it!). It was like being on the mission all over again.

So we had heard where we were going wasn't the safest place in the world because of all the drug stuff going on in Mexico. There is a drug cartel in Morelia called "La Familia". Anyways so they were taking us to the place where we were meeting and I was just trying to make small talk. And I asked them about the crime here. And he was like "Well it's not that bad except for the other day the drug cartels cut off all 5 exits out of the city and pulled the cars over and forced them out at gun point and lit them on fire. But its really not that bad." Not that bad?!?!?! You gotta be kidding me. We were terrified to leave. I haven't felt unsafe here once since we've been here. But when he said that...I was a little scared. We were terrified to leave that night...but we got home! And safe! It was a very interesting 24 hours to say the least. At that point I was pretty excited to come back to America. We have three weeks now! We have loved our time here but we are excited to come back.