Puerto Rico--Day 8

Since today was Sunday, we went to church. Which was quite an experience! The original plan was to assume no one spoke English and to muddle along and make the best of it. Turns out, pretty much everyone spoke at least a little English, and between us doing our best and their being patient with us, we got along okay. Though, people do talk really, really fast, and the Puerto Rican accent is different than the Mexican accent we’ve been practicing with at home. So, about halfway through Sacrament meeting, we asked the elder behind us to translate for us. We understood most of the first person (it was testimony meeting), who spoke slower and annunciated well, but then we got nothing out of the next two, so we asked for help. Next week we'll just start with the translation.

In Sunday school, I couldn’t understand a thing the teacher said, but between having a copy of the lesson manual (in Spanish), John’s copy on his itouch (in English), and the occasional translation from the missionary sitting next to me, I go the idea of what was going on. We went to Gospel Principles, since we figured they’d be speaking in more simple terms. John even made a comment, in English, which he had the missionary translate.

In the Relief Society meeting, The teacher asked me if I was okay reading a quote, and I was fine with that. I read it through about five times before it was my turn and I had to look up a couple of words (I brought my dictionary, just in case), but I read it clearly and probably much slower than they were used to, and apparently I was understandable, because there were some pleasantly surprised comments when I was done. Yay me! I didn’t understand very much of the lesson, and the lady who sat next to me who said, “I’m here to translate for you”, didn’t translate anything unless I specifically asked, but I got the general idea of what we were talking about. I also offered to play the piano for the closing song because no one played in the opening song. A number of the ladies thanked me when I was done, and considering how bad I messed up and only played the right hand and the occasional left note, they must have been very desperate for a piano player. Since I've learned how to pray in Portuguese, I think I could cobble together a prayer in Spanish if needed.

The only room that was air conditioned was the chapel, the classrooms had open windows and ceiling fans. It was toasty. And humid.

The kids all had a good time. Squig traded phone numbers with one of the girls, and made plans to go out with the sister missionaries. They were encouraging the young women to go out with them. They had one set of sister missionaries and about 3-4 sets of elders. Everywhere we turned, there seemed to be more missionaries, so we weren’t exactly sure how many there were, at least 4 sets including the sisters, maybe more.

Ruby’s teacher told me that she participated, and told a story from the lesson in English and the teacher translated it, and that she answered lots of questions. Shy, that girl is not.

It was a good day in church. Everyone was friendly and helpful, and when I asked them to speak slowly, please, they laughed and were accommodating. I had a nice conversation with one lady after church who speaks English about as well as I speak Spanish, so she was particularly sympathetic, and there were a couple of ward members from the States who chatted with us.

After church we came back, ate lunch and changed, then went for a nice Sunday drive. We drove down the coast the opposite way from where we’ve been before on little tiny roads with chickens and stray dogs and random lane closures (as in, on a two lane road, one lane is closed, so you just have to share with the cars coming the opposite direction!) Then we turned in on PR-3, near Patillas and took 181 up to a scenic drive, 182 (ruta turística: panoramic--that's what the map says, the signs said ruta panorámico) through some very jungle-y looking hills. Here are a couple of shots from our drive.

This is Lago Patillas, which was on the way to the scenic drive.

This is a little valley between two hills.

This is from the top of the drive, looking back toward the Caribbean Sea, which is over that last hill. I couldn't remember how to change the setting to landscape on my camera, or I could have gotten a better shot. I had it on Auto, and in Auto it tends to focus on the closest thing it can. After we got home, I figured out how to change it. Of course. I like this camera a lot, but having the manual be on a CD only is a big pain for quickly referencing things on the go.

A warning to my loyal readers: John starts working tomorrow, so between not having a car and me not wanting to drive much anyway, we won't be doing much more than swimming when it's not raining and lounging around when it is. It will depend on his schedule, and when he's working nights we might do something with him (or without him) during the day. So, stay tuned, you never know what we'll be up to!