Long week with sightseeing and a little drama

So this week... has been an interesting one. Last Thursday I found out that one of the couples at La Raza had been transferred to another church and won't be working with us anymore. In a way it is a good thing but there will be a lot of adjustments to make. I think it's going to open up a lot of opportunities for the center that were not able to happen before for various reasons. Tomorrow I'm going to be in on the meeting with Paty and Alejandro's bosses (kind of like the district pastors) and I'll be able to be a part of it and give my ideas. I'm really excited because I think that what they do, they do well, but they are missing a few things that I think could drastically help them. Plus I'm the only one that has a social service/ psychology/ etc background (or part of one) and they are really appreciating my thoughts and ideas about things. I definitely feel useful.
So that whole situation was a little bit of drama. Today there were three of us and 2 volunteers instead of 5 of us and 1 volunteer. I'm definitely thinking it's for the better but like I said, they will be adjusting until after I'm gone. I'm only going to be working there this week and next week. My last week I'm going to be a counselor at their church camp. It's an actual camp with cabin type living. I'll be in charge of 10ish kids. It will definitely be a stretch for me, but last week I was thinking about Moses when he kept telling God that he couldn't talk very well so he couldn't do it. I guess I can't use that excuse anymore haha.

Friday there was a group of people from the US here. They are thinking about becoming missionaries and starting raising funds to come to Mexico in the next two years. They were doing all of the touristy stuff as well as seeing an overview of all of the ministries OMS has in the city. So, I joined in their touristy ways and went to the Center of the city to the Zocolo. The cathedral is down there so I got to see that and then the other two girls and I took a little adventure around. They'd seen everything before, but I got to see it for the first time. We had so much fun. One of my favorite things about Mexico is the fruit juices. All freshly made. Some of them are kind of like smoothies. Delicious! (The best one I've had so far, I got on Saturday with them... sooo good)
This is the cathedral.


We also went to the Basilica of Guadalupe. Guadalupe is the godess of Mexico even though it's through the Catholic church. Back in the day when the Spaniards and the Aztecs were battling it out, one of the bishops was praying for peace. He wanted God to show him a sign using Castillian roses. An Aztec man kept having a vision of this woman on a mountain. She told him to go and tell this bishop that he had seen a vision. They didn't believe him. He went back to the mountain and told the vision and so she told him to pick the flowers and put them in his cape. He held up his cape to hold all of the flowers and went back to show the bishop. When he let down his cape, there was an intricate picture of the Virgin of Guadalupe (the woman in the vision) and the flowers were castillian roses. To this day, the cape is in the basilica and all of Mexico come on pilgrimages to see it.

Old Basilica on the hill where the Aztec saw the vision


New Basilica


This is the monument to what happened.


This is the famous cape in the basilica.


And this is the lines of people waiting to see the the cape from underneath... yes they have a moving floor to get the people through.


And modern day indulgences... pay for a service to get your relatives out of hell/ etc.