Hellllllooooooo

Hey all...I'm just sitting here in Ensenada struggling to keep my internet connection up...its a bummer when it just crashes every few minutes...but its a sacrifice I have to be willing to make...bah.

So I just got done with our service time at Casa Gabriel and it was so amazing, as usual. I hung out with one girl named Rosa. She has three sisters who all have the same progressive disease, so the older one is bedridden, and the others are all in wheelchairs and in different stages. They are all four so precious and sweet. They love to laugh. The cool thing is that they are completely cognitive! They can understand everything you say and answer you with a nod or shake of the head. Rosa, being the youngest (nine years old) can still move her arms a little, so she sort of bekons to where she wants to go. She kept laughing and pretending to role her wheelchair away. I would pretend to cry and say "Nooo, mi amiga! Donde vas?" And she would role back laughing and smiling super big... Her sister Ellie is so sweet, she is the second oldest, and she just sat there and watched me play with her sister and she would smile and laugh as best she could...her older sister cannot make any noises and her waist is completely turned around, its really weird and I don't know how it works...The third oldest sister, Sonia, loves to sing (she just makes some noises in the back of her throat, and then laughs; its absolutely beautiful!) and today Liz, my fellow Venatnera, and I sang songs with the four of them, and Sonia joined in while Rosa did the hand motions she could handle. It was super sweet! These kids just keep growing on me, and I am so excited for the next time we get to go and visit them!
I have started to volunteer a few hours a week at the local orphanage...and it is so much fun. I go every Thursday to help clean and work with the little babies if needed, and then every Friday a group of us goes and puts on a program for the older children there, who are between five to seven years old. They are absolutlely adorable...and I get to take my Mom and brothers there with me if they want to go, and then they can experience the cuteness of them all....
We had our second youth group come down the week after we got back from Culiacan, and they were super awesome! We have four other churches coming down starting in the middle of this month, and we are super pumped for that. We love it when the youth groups come down because we get to work out in the community with a bunch of high school students and remember what it was like for us when we were on our missions trips when we were the same age. Its funny cause we all feel so much older than we did in high school...but we really aren't. Its so silly:)
Anyways...thats whats up..I'll tell you about my awesome time with my family in my next post! Please keep them in your prayers as they travel down here...its always scary the first time!
Love,
Mikaela