Week #33 getting comfortable again

One of the graduation requirements required nationally by law for an undergraduate degree in Mexico is completing 480 hours of unpaid social service. I did mine in 1997-98 in the International Students Office at the Universidad de las Americas in San Andrés Cholula. One of my projects was to create brochures and other promotional products to help foreign students understand and successfully address and emerge from culture shock. We have been in Mexico for just over five months now and while we have lived here before, I think we are just emerging from culture shock, being able to successfully navigate through very different life/work problems with very different social tools or at least newly awakened social tools - the most valuable at the moment seems to be "hold still".

About a month ago, Sister Schlachter and I were given an additional assignment in the Education Department to help organize a number of "education week" events in different places in Mexico. We replaced another senior couple who seemed to be nearing their whits end after weeks of meetings with no decisions ever being made towards accomplishing this task. We find ourselves in the same frustrating dilemma - they politely ask us for our views, we provide them, ideate and complete tasks to inform decisions and make recommendations to advance the work, but all to no avail. Scheduled education week events simply drop off the schedule, replaced by more planning meetings to discuss minutia. It seems to be a situation of high levels of love expressed by managing decision makers with very low expectations for those that report to them, the priority being maintaining their close friendships at all costs versus the ideal of high of love and high expectations where friendships are maintained and the objectives of the education week events are advanced and attained o schedule. Our newly awakened, "Hold still" tool, will get us through and, I expect that one of these events might even be thrown together by year's end and deemed good enough with cudos all around with no thought as to what was forfeited. I am grateful that in contrast, our other assignment in humanitarian aid still has its challenges but it is also fulfilling in many ways. My principle task is to review the incoming applications for assistance to ensure we have all the information we need to consider the request being made. If something is missing or the request being made isn't clear, I engage to get the information we need. There are still many growing pains as our team has increased from two full-time employees with two missionaries to a complement of six missionaries. 

You might ask, why do we care so much, aren't we just volunteers? We are not paid, but no, we are not volunteers. Last week as a global church we have been studying Jacob 5 in the Book of Mormon, Another Testament of Jesus Christ.  Jacob 5 is an allegory of the Lord of the vineyard planting a good tree in good ground. It teaches us about God's interaction with the House of Israel and instructs us of the value of making and diligently keeping covenants with Him to enjoy peace during our lives here on earth and beyond. In verse 61 we read, "Wherefore, go to, and call servants, that we may labour diligently with our might in the vineyard, that we may prepare the way, that I may bring forth again the natural fruit, which natural fruit is good and the most precious above all other fruit."  As missionaries we are called and set apart by the laying on of hands by those with authority and given our commission "to labour diligently with our might in the vineyard, that we may prepare the way" (i.e., the world).  We are not volunteers. The full time employees we work closely with care too - the challenge is navigating through our respective cultural differences and very different experience profiles. Many of the full-time employees we work with have been in their positions for under a year.  

We were assigned to participate in a different ward / congregation in our stake on Sundays - the San Mateo Ward in the Chapultepec Stake. Initially we had planned to take a one-hour, two-bus ride to get there, but after hearing about another senior missionary couple's experience attending a ward in a very dangerous part of the city, we decided to Uber to San Mateo instead the first time around. 

The address we had for the church on Sunday didn't get us to where we needed to be but we got out anyways, trusting that it couldn't be far. Within moments we met some members of the church who gave us directions that included climbing into a combi to get from where we were, down the hill to the chapel - six pesos a head. I really wanted to take my phone out and take a picture inside the combi, but seeing no-one else had a phone visible, I abstained. Here is a video of the inside of a combi with the passengers being robbed. We made it to our destination without incident. As is almost always the case, our new ward was very welcoming and friendly. Part of our Elders Quorum meeting included planning for a Mothers' Day social event on May 10 - for Mexicans generally, they seem to put more effort into this celebration than any other, even Christmas.

On our way back from the office to our suite this week, I took a video clip of very full bus. A headline in the national daily news paper, La Reforma, was about a fellow loosing his toes when he was clinging to outside of one of these buses. I imagine they got caught under the sliding door as was swept off by a post. We didn't expect the buses to be quite so full on a Sunday afternoon.  On that same walk home we came across a marimba band. I couldn't get Sister Schlachter to dance with me... 

My Big-Bola-Casino-wall garden is growing. I harvested our first two Mexican strawberries on Saturday and shared the larger one of the two with another senior missionary couple that invited us for dinner (we cut it into four wedges). I hope there will be many more, I have five ever-bearing strawberry plants, some herbs and some cherry tomato plants and cucumbers that I hope will cascade down the wall to the ground floor. Raised as a scavenger, I found some wood shavings in a box on the street that I used for mulch. I will miss the much larger strawberry harvest in Lethbridge this year.  

Grandchildren are often a subject of conversation among senior missionaries - some have more than 20 grandchildren. Alex's birthday was last week and he sent us a video of his partner Liz and their dog Petzl singing happy birthday to him - Petzl is our perro-nieto, our grand-dog. We love him a lot but hope there will also be children in their lives and ours some day. Sister Schlachter and I were both 30 years of age when we got married and at the time we joked that our children might be pushing us around in wheel chairs during their high-school graduation exercises. I hope we get to meet our grandchildren. 

One last video clip. In neighbourhoods like where we work, everything seems to pass by your door at one time or another.  This fellow was selling cords for blinds - he's got quite the set of pipes.  He passes by once a week and can surely be heard even in the high rise apartment buildings. 

I am teaching two English classes. The Tuesday one is going pretty well as the participants already have a reasonable level of proficiency. The Saturday class hit a wall this week as their lack of preparation before class left them, well, speechless. We may need to do some review this coming week.