Marcella is pretty smart for a gringa

Okay, I'm fully shamed now by Marissa's stellar blog. Shame on me! First of all, I love you, everyone! All my wonderful friends and family, I hope you're having a great summer! Email me sometime!
Carissa and I are doing language school down here. The school we go to is called Harvest, and I'm just about to complete level 3, so next week I'll be able to start level four with their regular classes. So far we've been in individual one-on-one classes, but we'll join other students next week. I'm really learning a lot of Spanish, and being able to use it quite a bit! Every time I feel like I'm doing well, though, I realize how much I still lack. But I am able to have conversations with people and generally get around.
We spend a lot of time with the family we live with. One of the sisters works in her pharmacy all day, so we don't see as much of her, but we eat and talk a lot with the other sisters and their children, especially their daughters. Yuli is 13 years old, and a good friend of the Schroeder twins, so we're having a lot of fun getting to know them, hanging out with them, and trying to be an encouragement to them. Since I'm a missionary kid, too, I feel like part of how God might want to use me down here is as an encouragement to the parents that they made the right decision, and to the kids, that what makes them different is a blessing, not a curse.
Chadd has encouraged Carissa and I to look for ways to serve and be used by God, so one of the ways we've found is to offer to babysit at any time for any reason for any of the missionary families here. They all have wonderful (but tiring) kids, and since we're only here for a short time, we feel like helping them is something worthwhile for us to do. All the missionaries here are such godly people--it's really a blessing to be able to get to know them and hear their stories!
This Friday we don't have language classes, and instead we're going to help Carola Garcia, a Mexican missionary, with her kindergarten class. Getting to know Mexican kids is fun, but challenging! They accept our butchered Spanish more easily, but tend to be difficult to understand, since half the time they themselves can't pronounce words correctly! The little girl we live with, Sarahi, counts: uno, dos, tes, cuato, cinco, sies, siete, ocho, nieve... and instead of veinte says vente. She's pretty cute, but sometimes hard to understand. I call her my amiguita, so now she calls me her amigota. What is it with friends named Sarah and fat jokes?!
Anyway, I'm having a wonderful time down here. We get comments when we walk around the neighborhood, but not too many, and we're well taken care of by everyone.
The only food I've eaten down here that I wasn't thrilled about was, ironically, a shrimp cocktail. I'm sorry, they look like worms! But I ate them anyway (with crackers over them so I couldn't see them) and they actually tasted fine as long as I didn't look at them or think about them.
Okay, so please pray for us! Pray that God reveals how God want to use us here, and that we find ways to serve the church and the missionaries. Pray that our language learning goes well, and that we make good friends here. Pray for our health! We've both been a little sick off and on. We're in a big city, so pray for our safety. Praise God for the good experiences we've had here so far, and pray that God continues to use us!
I love you all!