Zeta Gas, Cow Bell, y Tlaquepaque

Well, bloggers, we are sincerely sorry for how late this post is arriving. It really has been quite a day! Of course, we went in service, but only in the morning. We wanted to stop at the Starbucks on Avenida Guadalupe, which is apparently the newest one. There was this one girl that worked there, named Victoria, who was very sweet. The guy who took our order didn’t understand us, as per the norm, and he put in the wrong drinks and a whole bunch of stuff. Victoria made sure everything came out right and even wrote nice things on coffee cups. The one said “Have a nice day partner Katherine.” How cute, right? She sounded just like Hilda, for anyone who knows her. Kate asked her if she could read English and, since she did, we got to place a magazine with her. (She was so grateful that she gave me a hug and kissed my cheek the way Mexican women do.) We were absolutely distraught over the prospect of having to come back to visit her…and only a couple blocks away from our new house. (YAY!) We went in service with Sherry again and also this sweet 14-year-old sister who’s getting ready to be baptized soon! Her name is Rebecca, and you’d never believe that her mom is very opposed to her being a Witness, and her dad is studying but not progressing nearly as well as she is.

The congregation we’re working with has so many territories, and they are very big at that. This picture shows Tom and Miguel trying to figure out where we were supposed to go. Poor guys. Sherry decided that she felt like eating pizza from Costco for lunch, so we stopped there to pick one up after service. While it was cooking, we went inside to score ourselves some free samples. You will never believe what they were sampling! They had Bailey’s Irish cream, Tequila, etc. They didn’t even ask for ID, they just gave us some. “Welcome to Mexico,” Sherry reminded us.

Speaking of which, we wanted to let you all know about some cool things that are specific to Mexico. For example, when the gas truck comes by you can hear what sounds like little kids singing “Zeta, zeta, zeta gas.” Also, there aren’t always set days for garbage pickup, so the way you know when the garbage man is coming is the sound of a cow bell. Yes, you heard correctly…the garbage men here wear cow bells so people hear them coming. That brings new meaning to “I need more cow bell!” (How's that, April?)

We had been planning on going to the Saturday afternoon book study, but it turned out that the sister who’s house it was supposed to be at was out of town. It must have looked strange to the neighbors with so many dressed up people waiting outside this apartment building, talking, laughing, having a good time. No big deal, at least we got a picture of all the people who showed up. Quite a crowd, huh? It seems we ended up all dressed up, with no place to go (haha, get it?). We went back to the McCasland’s house and spent some time chillin’ with Lulu and watching Jackie Chan in Spanish. There's a picture of the McCasland family, complete with the baby!

Tom had a talk in Tlaquepaque so they invited us to go with them. We were surprised to see that four different language groups meet at that hall: Spanish, English, Chinese and Japanese. When we got there, the Japanese meeting had just ended and we got to meet a sister who is a Special Pioneer from Japan. After the meeting, it started to rain and we were very glad we had remembered our umbrellas! By the time we got to the middle of town, the streets had started to flood. When we finally found a parking place, the streets were full with rain and we had to watch where we went because cars were driving by, splashing walls of water in their wake.

We went to eat at Sherry’s favorite restaurant El Patio. It is, as Sherry says, “very Mexican.” It was fantastic! We spent a little more time walking around downtown where there were lots of shops and restaurants. By the way everyone, Kate got married today in Tlaquepaque! That’s the real reason we’re so late. You know wedding arrangements, they take FOREVER. Included is a picture of Kate and her new hubby. What a HUNK right? She is the envy of all the city. Enough about that though, I mean geez Kate… way to take the limelight.


Inside a courtyard, there was a restaurant with something like an over-sized gazebo, called a kioska, in the middle. In the gazebo was yet another real Mariachi band (with a muy muy cute singer by the way). This one was really good and they were taking song requests. After observing (and appreciating) some boys break dancing, Tom and Sherry were ready to turn into squash (pumpkins…just kidding) and needed to get us home. We’re moving tomorrow! YAY!!! Hasta luego nuestras amores.

Love you all,

K3LSO and Kate

PS: Be sure to check out "Domingo Flojo" which accidently got posted below this one. Sorry that there's no pics on it!