El Bosque Nacional en Uruapan, Mexico...

Hey all,

First, I haven´t posted any new prayer requests for a while, so here we go...

I´ll be moving up to 5 hours of tutoring per day for the rest of my stay, so pray that I don´t go crazy. I´ve finished the grammar program at the Institute, so from here on out, I need lots and lots of practice with listening, recognizing, and speaking Spanish so I can actually communicate fluidly and naturally, instead of halting and pausing and stammering like I do now.

Pray that I will be a bold, faithful, humble, broken, and obedient witness in words and actions with my teachers, peers, and Mexican family. Also, I seem to have hit a dead spot in my devotions, because I´m having a really tough time focusing during prayer and reading times. Things just seem very blah, like I´m sitting in the doldrums spiritually.

Keep praying for my teachers, Suzy (a new one), Gina, Jaime, Rocio, and Rosy (I should have some pictures of them posted on photobucket before too long...I hope).

Keep praying for my family in Mexico, Margarita, Maria Louisa, Daniela, and all my aunts, uncles, and cousins.

Also, on a note of encouragement, I met my first devout young Mexican Catholic ever! There are some Catholic seminary students from the U.S. here who are very faithful and sincere, but until now all the Mexican young people were ambivalent at best or cynical at worst about Christianity and the claims of Christ on their lives. His name is Luis, and after talking with him for roughly an hour it was clear that he was very sincere, faithful, and diligent in his relationship with Christ. Very encouraging. The one thing (rather big, I know) was that he seemed to have developed a very works-centered view of Christian life, not to the point of saying he could work his way into heaven necessarily (I don´t know what his thoughts are on that), but probably too much emphasis on what he could do as opposed to what God can do. Thus, you can pray for Luis (and for me, since I also fall into that trap often myself).

Ok, now for another post about the entrancing, scintillating details of my life...On Wednesday I had a chance to visit a national park in Uruapan that basically consists of a river running through a jungle with man-made fountains everywhere, waterfalls, stone-paved trails, etc. Joel and Kristi plus Joel´s parents and myself took the bus to Uruapan, spent a few hours trundling through the forest, then returned and had dinner at a very nice but very empty Mexican restaurant in Magdalena. Probably my favorite place in Mexico thus far. There were also several divers who would take leaps from various heights for money. The most impressive was a guy who did a perfect swan dive from approximately 60-70 feet up into the river for 100 pesos. We were told that for 200 pesos, he´d jump from even higher. All in all, great trip. I even had a very tasty $2 burger (definitely better than any fast food places in the U.S) in the bus terminal, and tried ¨chorros¨, which are a really good sugary treat.

For pictures of Uruapan (the volcano and national forest), my previous trip to Ixtlan, and my coming trip to Patzcuaro (tomorrow), look in the sidebar of my blog. I should be able to post the links in a week or so, depending on my busy-ness level here in Morelia. Keep checking the pictures whenever you desire, I´ve been adding new ones roughly once or twice a week.

Ok, that´s enough.

Todd