Lessons Learned... The Hard Way

So, yesterday we set out on an adventure.  Nadia, Nadia's two youngest boys, Meagan, and I headed over to go explore Ciudadela.  We saw an open spot on the street and Nadia parked right behind this police car.  We asked the police if we could park there and they said yes.  We parked and headed into Ciudadela.  We looked around for a few hours and came back...to a missing van!  Where Nadia's van was parked is shown by the lack of a van in the first picture.

It took us a little while to figure out where the van was towed.  This officer agreed to lead us to the lot where the van was being held.  We flagged a taxi and piled all four of us into a teeny tiny car.  I was in the front seat with a stroller on my lap.  Well, she wasn't very happy about having to take us there and took off before we made it to the lot.  We were then left to asking random people on the street trying to find the lot.  We finally arrived!  My new friend, Guillermo who I will talk about later on, was kind enough to take my picture in front of the car lot place.  When we were making phone calls to work things out, we also realized that we had no idea what part of this huge city of 30 million people we were in.  Looking at this photo, it looks like we were in a historic part of the city.

When we got to the lot, Ethan (three years old) was in heaven, because he loves police.  He even brought his police hat, not even knowing that we got to be with them for several hours.  When we got to the lot, the demanded that we pay a large sum of money and needed some documents that we didn't have in order to take the van home.  We got a hold of an Hermano that could bring the documents and began the wait for him.  We waited for a few hours, Meagan did a good job keeping Ethan entertained.  He loved playing in the parked van for a while.  Later he was determined that he needed to climb on the roof of the little building that was the office for the lot.  I was entertained by Ethan begging Meagan for help and Meagan explaining to him the difference between needs and wants.  

This was how I spent a large part of the next several hours, which I quite enjoyed.  Aren't those the cutest cheeks you have ever seen?  He isn't even three months yet, but he is so chubby and cute!

This is how we all felt after waiting so long that we had missed both lunch and dinner.  I went out on the street and was able to buy that bag of bananas for five pesos from a truck driving by, but by the end we were all tired, hungry, and not happy with Mexican police.

This was our friend Guillermo who Nadia and I were able to talk to about the gospel.  He became our new friend and accepted to have the missionaries come by with a DVD and a message.  This was how Nadia's family joined the church, so if this experience could bring Guillermo into the church, it will all be worth it.  Either way we learned a good lesson.  Always pay for parking!

Hello, I am a guest blogger here on Jenn's updates of her adventures in Mexico. It has been incredible being here in Mexico. Jenn does an incredible job of conveying what life is like here in Mexico, but even still it is nearly impossible to create the kind of experience that we are having here.  -Jenna