La Cruz and more

Wow, where to begin? We spent the entire day in La Cruz on Saturday and managed to get the truck unloaded into the house at long last. Three weeks of packing everything we own with us was getting old! And Ralph can see out the back window of the truck again!! He’s a happy camper now.

After unloading we started shopping for the things we needed: A fridge, stove, boiler, living room furniture, kitchen table and chairs, cupboards and a bed. What an adventure. We shopped first at the two largest stores: Coppel and Valdez. They had the stove I wanted at Coppel, but they didn’t have it in stock and wanted to order it from Culiacan, but couldn’t say when it would get here, so no stove! Ralph and I had some confusion over the fridge as it turned out we were talking about two different models and were comparing apples to oranges! But we finally got on the same page and ended up saving about $1100 pesos on the fridge by comparison shopping and buying at Valdez. They delivered it to the house at 3 that day! Talk about service!

Darwin and Ralph were off to get the gas tank and boiler we need for hot water, and were successful on that venture, again saving about $200 or more pesos by shopping a bit. They also checked out cell phones and satellite TV, but we are still considering those things. We shopped at several furniture places, large and small and were having trouble finding a queen size bed. One shop keeper actually told us that they only have “matrimonial” and king in Mexico, no queen. We knew that wasn’t right as we’d seen them here in Mazatlan. So we continued to shop.

We took a break to have lunch at the Chinese restaurant, and it was very good, lots of fresh veggies and no breading on the meat, plus really good sweet tea to drink. It was great! Then we were back to the house.

While Mary Ann, Gracie and I were home waiting for the fridge delivery Darwin and Ralph discovered another furniture store, and low and behold, they had a queen bed and frame at a very reasonable price. Also had a good set for the living room and a kitchen table and chairs all at great prices. So they came back to the house and gathered us up and we went back to the store. Ended up buying them all after a few trips to the cash machine!!

It still blows me away that you pay for most things in cash here, even big purchases like these! But the store owners are all mostly small business owners, so they do what works best for them. I sometimes feel like the Bank of Mexico with my wallet stuffed full of pesos for these big purchases.

One of the things I’ve not mentioned before is that Genaro cooks! Every weekend Carmen turns the kitchen over to him, and he goes to town! He makes a mean omelet, and he cooked a great shrimp dinner for us a couple weekends back, shrimp ceviche plus big shrimp in a spicy tomato broth that was wonderful…we were stuffed. Yesterday he made a great fish stew, loads of big chunks of fish and a ton of veggies!

And we’ve discovered a new use for those old scratched CDs…bike reflectors! They are everywhere on bikes here and it really does make it easier to see them coming and going.

Another interesting thing is that we’ve discovered that the neighbors have an in-ground pool! Pretty amazing! There is a lot of variety in this neighborhood, that’s for sure.

We also had our first rain since we’ve been here, it rained a little on Friday, a lot overnight and into early Saturday, then cleared up and was beautiful again. And I’ve been getting teased a bit because we’ve just been marveling at how warm it’s been, and the other night when the wind kicked up I went in the house to get my jacket. I was chilly with a windy 68 degrees! Who would have thought it a few weeks ago.

Thanks so much for you prayers for Jorge! This is a man who hasn’t seen the inside of a church in decades, and yet he is so drawn to the other Christians here. He came to the cell meeting on Friday night and stayed for it all, and then showed up at church on Sunday! We were all so thankful. Please keep praying, there is a long way to go!

Thanks also for your prayers for our continued language learning. Carmen wasn’t up yet when we left the house this morning and so I left her a note telling her where we were going and when we’d be back and she was so impressed she kept the note! We still have a long way to go, and we are learning so much that we are virtually exhausted each night, it’s all so overwhelming at times!

We appreciate your prayers and your support! Thanks so much.