Bernal, Queretaro

To get to the student conference, I rode w/ the Herreras to Bernal, Querétaro, a little pueblo south of the state’s capital (also called Querétaro), where the camp was located for the next three days. I was really sleepy, but enjoyed getting to know them. I think Mr. Herrera was going to try to set me up with his son, but I assured him that I was pretty serious about my boyfriend now. Haha. The Herreras are a delightful couple from Texas. Mr. Herrera, being a Spanglish-speaking chicano, had to take interpreting classes while his wife took Spanish before they moved here. There children, of course, became fluent growing up here, but all of whom now live in the US. I have seen the Herreras a couple times since, and it's always a delight.

At the conference, instead of immediately moving in and mingling, I ended up going out to eat with several of the leaders/speakers for that weekend. I met Jerry Fine and Mark McClellan (sp?), who were obviously very intelligent, passionate men of God. I felt honored to dine with them personally before the conference commenced. The whole rest of the afternoon, I moved in my cabin and met many wonderful Christian friends from all over Mexico. It was pretty exciting. We met in “families” 2-3 times a day, and mine included Ingrid and Sergio from Querétaro, Nadia from Tepic, and our group leader, Elizabeth from Guadalajara. We prayed and shared our testimonies, struggles, passions, and convictions over the next few days. We also had “campus” or “City” time, but since I was the only one from Guanajuato, I met with the Querétaro group, probably because of my knowing the Youngs who work with them. (Though I might be biased, I really thought they were the coolest group there!) We prayed, cried, laughed, shared stories, ate, sang, and goofed off together all weekend. It was great.

Some of the things that really impacted me the most were:

1) Jerry Fine’s workshop on meditation (something that I don’t really do well with the Lord and his Word, but which I was inspired and excited about in a new way),

2) making lasting fruit (through consistent discipleship and being discipled), John 15:16, Matthew 28:19-20

3) abandon to ministry to the Lord (I met a group of students, unrelated to the conference, but living at the same camp, who dedicated a year of their lives—giving up a year of education/work/etc—to study the Word for hours daily, and do some volunteer ministry work on the side.

Our last night we had a big bonfire. Here I am with Sergio, my friend from my “family group,” who seemed to take me under his wing while I was around.

Also, the last night, I got to accomplish one of the things on my list of things I want to do before I die; I witness someone being proposed to! As you can see, all the girls were pretty excited about it. We were all getting in our beds whenwe heard singing. Outside the door was a semi-circle of guys singing, or serenading "the guy" (all dressed up) who starting to dancing with his girlfriend (in her pjs). At some point, he said some thing about his love for her, and then he proposed. Too bad I couldn't hear everything, but much of it he whispered in her ear, anyway. How sweet! The next day the whole cafeteria was decorated with balloons with her name on them. It was exciting for everyone.

I visited the Young’s), two other missionaries, and a few studentThe next morning, Nolan (the short-term missionary I met whens from the Qto group and I hiked up “La Peña,” the famous mountain of Bernal. We wanted to see the sunrise, so we hiked up in the dark. It was scary and fun; sometimes we even had to scale the mountain with our hands and bodies! Though we never saw the sun, it was a gorgeous sunrise! (The blond girl in the picture is Kristen, a US student in Qto who was in my cabin and who I really enjoyed getting to know. She really had a neat perspective on people and Christianity.) Climbing the mountain one of my favorite times of the whole weekend.

John 15:4 “Abide in me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.”