I woke up to Mike’s alarm left over from before we left the US. I was annoyed, but in a much better mood considering this had been the first night I had slept a solidly’— and roughly 9 hours as well.
“What are we going to do Mike?” I said. “I think we needed to talk to better about this, and try to increase some communication between us in a well slept state. We decided to still go to church and have lunch with Valentine and family. We got showered, packed up and got to church just in time for the closing prayer. James had just begged in the car ¨No more Spanish!¨ Í want English!” Kind of ironic since we were just about to send him into a classroom for Sunday School with only Spanish speaking children. The twins went to the nursery as well. In class one of the missionaries translated for us so Mike could just listen. The lesson was on ministering, and it was interesting to have the twist of the situation of this congregation recently converted from a branch to a ward and in which half of the members were recently restablished immigrants from Venezuela and Peru. After that, we gathered for a photo in front of the church, which occupied the bottom floor of a building with apartments above it.
We headed to the home of Valentine and had lunch with the 5 of the 7 children who now lived at home. It was a four bedroom place that was connected to other homes, but with no other homes above it. IN the country, or El Campo. He was quite proud of it. They we doing well, and despite driving a van with 150,000 miles, he had just purchased another new vehicle . I told him congratulations, and I could tell he was quite proud. The living room and kitchen were each roughly the size of my daughter’s bedrooms and although the exterior was older, inside was modest yet clean. Food was held on the kitchen table do to lack of cupboard space I assumed, and we all ate around a small dining table and couch in the living room.
We laughed as we talked in a mix of me speaking broken Spanish and Mike translating Valentines different sense of humor. I could tell it was a perfect exposure for my children to show how different cultures have different standards of living and are completely content and happy. The American philosophy of ´bigger is better,´ is not always better.
Afterward, we got on the road where I am typing this now. It was raining when well left, but now through the dark clouds spreading over the southern-Idaho like landscape, the sun is shining through. And inside I feel like maybe some of the dark clouds that had clouded the first part of our journey might give way to new light as well.