"I hope you have the time of your life"...

Well, I simply love it here and am having the time of my life!! This weekend was very busy and lots of fun. Thursday was Father's Day so Raquel asked if I would make a cake for a little party at the mission. Made lunch Thursday, then the cake. Thursday night I had my youth English class. Two more students were added so it was a busy night catching them up on the lessons. After class, Lideo, Angela and I went out for icecream while the marriage meeting was going on at the mission. When we got back we had the Father's Day party.

Saturday we all went over to Naranjos for Beto's 23rd birthday! He's the worship leader there. They asked me to make a cake, so I did. Naranjos is about 20 minutes from Entre Rios. Picture the ride over: it was hysterical. Guido drove (!), the car was packed, bumpy curvey roads, cattle in the middle of the road, and I was holding a huge frosted cake! A couple close calls of the cake flying ...thankfully we all got there in one piece. Beto is the only one in his family who is a Christian so he wanted to use his birthday to reach out to them. He asked Guido to lead a time of worship and give a short message before the huge meal they always have for brithdays. There are two traditions here before eating the birthday cake. You have to make three wishes, tell two of them and keep one of them in your heart -- that's what they say here. :) One of his wishes he shared was that his whole family would come to know Christ. He shared this with his family at the table and then played for everyone a song he wrote. It was a prayer to God for his family, that they would come to know Him. It was amazing. His siblings were very affected and his sister came to church the next day! Pray for his family! The other tradition here is you have to take a bite out of the cake. Of course those around try and smash your face into it. While eating cake, they had people share with Beto an encouragement or a song.

Uba sang a song with Guido. It was so pretty! then they all started chanting my name like I was to go out there and sing in front of everyone. yeah OK! I was so nervous I wanted to throw up. I thought I was going to get away with it but then Beto asked me to sing so of course I had to go out there. Here are some pictures...

Beto in the green

Afterwards we rode his horses part of the way back to Entre Rios!

That night was the youth meeting!

Sunday, Lindanadia and I made another Father's Day cake for the church service at 4pm. She's 22 and from Argentina and is here visiting her family for a couple days. It was fun hanging out with her!

After the church service the kids put on a little song for the dads. They dressed up as animals. It was so cute! Joas was an elephant...

He got embarrased during the song and took off his costume, started bawling and ran offstage. So Guido went ahead and put it on and filled in. :) The kids forgot the words to the song, their costumes were falling off...but of course it was adorable. We all hung out after the service and had cake and soda! That night we had worship rehearsal! Here are the words to my favorite song!!!

Te Alabaré

Eres tú la única razón
De mi adoración, Oh Jesús
Eres tú, la esperanza que
Anhelé tener, Oh Jesús

Confie en ti, me has ayudado
Tu salvación me has regalado
Hoy hay gozo en mi corazón
Con mi canto te alabaré

Te alabaré
Te glorificaré
Te alabaré
Mi buen Jesús

En todo tiempo te alabaré
En todo tiempo adoraré

Here are some cute picture of Matias! He's getting so big!
A famous drink here is Coca Cola and Milk. Sounds really gross...but it's really good! And I even hate milk. Matias likes it too, as you can see...

Aww!

I have two opportunities coming up I would love for you to pray for! Next week, I'm going to have a party for the teenage girls here. Angela has been trying to talk to them about purity in their relationships so we came up with the idea to have a party and incorporate a time to talk afterwards about love and purity. Were going to start the party by watching A Walk to Remember. All of the girls here love that movie and we figured it could spark a conversation on love. The girls of the church are going to invite their friends from school who don't know Christ. Pray that they will come! And please pray for me in what to say afterwards. Pray that I would be able to capture their attention without watering down the message and my convictions. Pray that they would feel comfortable with talking and that our conversation would encouarge them to change. I'm so excited, I'm going to make invitations (thanks mom for that ribbon you sent...I was wondering what it was for...and now I know!) and were going to have food of course because what's a party without food!! :)

The second opportunity...One of the teachers in the church here asked if I can teach one of her high school classes about American culture. We haven't set the date yet for when, but I'll let you know. I'm hoping to incorporate Christianity. I will need your prayer! Thank you so much!

Looks like we will be here all week. This weekend we may go to Las Abras!!

Love, Julia
ps. 17 days!