my leg looks like a purple pineapple

(have you ever noticed how beauteous the sky is?)

mom, don't be alarmed if a rather grotesque picture of my back surfaces on facebook. the mexican pharmacist gave me some gross looking cream which is currently staining my pillow a sick yellow color.

if you would like to know why i have the worst sunburn of my life, stay tuned to this blog for more, later in the week when i can't feel a pulse in my thigh.

for now, i am thinking of other stuff. it's pretty heavy.

The challenges and trials God gives us are hard for me to understand sometimes. I'm the kind of person that needs reasons for trials. Does that make sense? If I can look at a hill during a race and say to myself, "Ok, this hill is here so that when I get to the top I am stronger and feel better about myself," then I can climb over it. Otherwise, the trial frustrates me, because I don't know why I should climb up the hill. What's at the top? God knows me better than I know myself, so He must know that I find this troubling. That's why He keeps challenging me with things I don't quite understand. I'll take the compliment.

Since being in Mexico, I have started to notice how little people have, and yet it is everything to them. They don't know what it's like to have a dryer, they just hang their clothes out. It's not a big deal. They don't know what it's like to have nice roads without bumps or potholes everywhere. It's just a road, right? They work very hard to make something perfect and beautiful with their hands, and then they try even harder to sell it for 10 pesos (less than $1 USD). It amazes me how differently people live in our world.

This weekend we drove through lots of little villages where people lived in grass huts, shacks, or planks of wood hammered together with some flimsy metal sheets on top. Little kids played soccer barefoot in their tattered clothes with their dogs. Old women carried huge loads on their backs. I imagined what else they were carrying, tried to see it in their faces.

It's been a month since I moved to this beautiful place. It feels like home now. I miss a lot of things about America, but I have no doubt I'm supposed to be here. It feels natural now. When I go back to the U.S., I hope I don't forget this feeling of immense gratitude and awe for everything I've been blessed with.

If you ever want some serious perspective, visit a third world country for awhile.

I know I share this scripture a lot, but it says what I am trying to say so perfectly:

"Wherefore, whoso believeth in God might with surety hope for a better world, yea, even a place at the right hand of God, which hope cometh of faith, maketh an anchor to the souls of men, which would make them sure and steadfast, always abounding in good works, being led to glorify God." -Ether 12:24-

and one of my favorites from Ezra Taft Benson:

“The Lord works from the inside out. The world works from the outside in. The world would take people out of the slums. Christ takes the slums out of the people, and then they take themselves out of the slums. The world would mold men by changing their environment. Christ changes men, who then change their environment. The world would shape human behavior, but Christ can change human nature.”

did you know He is your friend?