This photo on the left was taken from inside the penthouse on the top of our apartment building. Downtown Guadalajara is between the red and white tower and the next tall building to the right of it.

So I survived my first two days on my own in Mexico. Joe had to go out of town Wednesday night to Friday night. Thankfully he was able to take a taxi to the airport. I am not quite ready to drive that route quite yet. There is a part of the route that can get dangerous. Some of the roads down here don't have lanes and it can get confusing. One of my first experiences driving down here, a man gave us the back of his hand after a little bit of confusion in a glorieta (round-about). I asked Joe why he was ticked off. Joe just laughed and said he was thanking us for letting him go first. But to me and anyone in America, it means, "I will give you the back of my hand." It seemed like he was looking for a fight. But due to the culture difference, it means "Thank you." It was quite amusing! I really thought he was mad and I was scared.

So on Thursday, I got the courage to go for a walk with Tali in my sling. It wasn't too eventful. And then Friday, I drove to Walmart all by myself while Joe was out of town. Tali and I walked around Plaza de Mexico, where Walmart is located. There was a vendor there that was selling all types of birds. And get this! They were selling ducklings! There was probably a dozen of them. So I had to take Joe back there to show him. He picked one up! It was adorable. It was yellow with cute little webbed feet and a small orange flat beak. They were selling it for only 30 pesos (about $3.oo). Who has a pet duck?

So the best part of the week was while I was at the Plaze de Mexico. A lady asked me something in Spanish. And I was able to answer! Can you believe it? I understood was she asked me! I am learning "poco a poco," little by little. This is our apt building.

So things I miss about America:

1. Cheddar Cheese! It's hard to find down here.
2. Smith's Market Place
3. The American Dollar
4. Fox and ABC
5. Target! I would pay Target to put a store down here if I had the money. (If you think Walmart is ghetto in America, it is even more ghetto down here).
6. Joe misses Best Buy (video games are marked up about $30 to $50 more in Mexico)
7. American Resturants (I really believe Mexicans eat anything put in front of them. We went to a waffle resturant. And my waffles came out stale and cold. We went to McDonald's about two weeks ago and the hamburgers came out cold. And the bun was flattened to resemble a tortilla. I didn't finish it.)
8. The sunny weather in Utah.
9. Mountains
10. Family and friends (okay, really this is the number one thing we miss about America, I just thought cheddar cheese would be funny.)
11. People that know how to speak English

I am going to make a "shout out" to my friend Kristi Shaw. I was thinking of you this week. Do you remember when we went to Target and you were laying down in the aisle testing out all the pillows. You make me laugh. Good times! Joe and I went pillow shopping yesterday. The apartment came with King sized pillows. Who uses King sized pillows? I don't have a King sized head. They are extremely uncomfortable if you aren't used to them. So Joe and I bought good old standard sized pillows for our standard sized heads.

Italia Marie is becoming more animated than ever. She is talking more and more. She loves to show off to her dad. I think she is going to be a Daddy's girl. Now that she's learned to talk, she is also experimenting with screaming. There were a couple of days this week that she wanted to let me know she had vocal chords and wasn't afraid to use them! After those couple of days, I did a lot of research! I think Joe and I finally have her figured out a little bit better. The trick is to put her down to nap before she gets too tired. Sounds easy, but not easy enough for us to figure it out on our own. Apparently, babies can get to the point that they get too tired. And once they reach that point, it is nothing but a fight to get them to sleep. There was one crying fit that she screamed straight for about a half hour and then went straight to snoring! I was like, "What the Heck, Tali!"She straight wore herself out. So now we just look for clues that she is getting tired. She likes to make squaking noises and suck on her hands a lot when she starting to get tired. And I thought babies take only one long nap in a day. But really they need to lay down about 2 hours after being awake. And they can take anywhere from 2 to 3 naps a day. Every baby is different of course. But this information has been like gold in our house. I don't know if this is common knowledge, but it has saved us and Tali. She is learning to play with her rattle we bought for her. She is starting to learn to open and close her fist. She grabs her blankets and anything that comes near her hands.

We gave Tali a haircut today. Really, it was a trim. Her hair was getting long around her ears and in the back. It was fun! Here is a video of Tali talking. I apologize for the T.V. sound in the background.

Hello all, this is Joe now . . . this last week was a neat week. I had to go out of town for a few days to visit with a few clients in the city of Toluca in the "State" of Mexico. My employee working that area is actually a convert of mine and I enjoyed working a few days with him. He's working very hard. When I was on my mission here in Mexico, I served my last 6 months as Zone Leader of the Toluca stake which is where I met Jose Manuel (my convert) and his family.

One of our tasks this week was to visit a few of his clients in the town of Atlacomulco which is about an hour away from Toluca. I served in the Atlacomulco Branch as a new missionary and met some great folks. One of the families that I converted was the Garcia-Ortiz family, and to this day I remember knocking on their door early one hot morning and giving the first missionary discussion. To make a long story short, I had not seen them in well over 6 years (last time I saw them, Mom and Dad Jespersen were with me). Jose Manuel and I happened to be cruising to lunch when we saw the Elders cruising down the street. We drove up to them and I introduced myself as an ex-missionary that had worked this area when Atlacomulco was still a branch. I asked about the Garcia-Ortiz family and how they were doing when the Elders told me that that's exactly where they were headed for lunch and invited us along. So that's what we did, we drove to their humble home and we got a warm welcome. It brought good memories back as I visited with the family. In any event, the church has exploded in the little town of Atlacomulco, it's now a ward with one of the nicest Mexican ward buildings I've seen. I snapped a photo.

Today I was set apart for my new calling on the Stake High Council and was ordained a High Priest. There's plenty of work to be done in the church down here so I'm excited for the new calling. This morning at my stake meeting for example, only three out of the 12 High Council members were in attendance which I'm told is common.

Well, it's getting late, this week is going to be extremely busy for me. Until next week.

Love,

Joe, Andrea, and Tali