Friends

Have you ever had a time in your life when you didn't have any friends? I'm blessed in that we have other foreign friends here to keep me accountable and to share life with, but my first year I struggled with ups and downs knowing I didn't have any local friends. In the summer, I started hanging out with a girl, but we were soon off to have a baby and she was back to college. We can only meet on her breaks. This past month, the Lord has brought several people in my life that make my life here so much fuller. God created relationships for a reason. He created us in His image, and He is relational. I'm at introvert at heart, and love alone time, but even an introvert needs time with people. Because I don't put myself out there as much, I really have to push myself to spend time with people. The Lord seemed to just start placing people in my path. One day, Britton got a call from his friend that he gets massages from about someone who wanted to learn English. Normally, we always say we are too busy, because well, we are and we're supposed to be learning their language! For whatever reason (I think a divine reason), Britton said he would help. Well, in the language here, the word for he/she/it is the same, so when the pronoun was used, Britton naturally assumed it was a guy...turns out it was a girl. So, he passed her number to me. I texted the girl to she if she wanted to meet, and we have been meeting twice a week for the last 4 weeks! She is an excellent teacher...probably because she teaches fashion and design (my mom would love that!). She has taught me so many things and has really re-motivated me to learn the language. Praise the Lord for random (or divine) occurances that lead to unexpected outcomes. There's another lady right across from my building that speaks impeccable English. Fortunately, I can talk in either language with her, but if I don't fully understand I can ask in English. She has been a great friend and has a little girl Caden's age. We have had her family over to eat dinner, and we've gone to their house. On New Year's day, we went to get massages together...awesome friendship! Needless to say, I'm more than grateful for the chance to build relationships with people and discover more about their lives. Everyone wants a friend and to be loved, and I'm just glad I can be apart of these ladies lives.

Caden has many friends here too. He is always mentioning his buddies, and we love hanging out with their parents too! We recently went to one friend's house. While the guys went to get us some pizza (Caden always says each family member's name then says pizza at the end because we always eat pizza when we're together!), we let the kiddos watch 'Elf' (Caden's most favorite movie right now). I love this photo and how intent they are on watching the movie. Love our time to hang out!

This is my new friend who's been helping with with my language learning. We talk about different topics each time we meet. One day she brought her tea set, and we talked for 3 hours about tea! I tried 4 different kinds of tea...flower tea was my favorite (probably because there's sugar in it!). I had no idea making tea here was so detailed. 

 This is one of Caden's new friends. They're sweet together, but they also wrestle too! She is a few months older.

Our friends in our neighborhood.

One of Britton's good friends is a brother, and he recently came over for dinner. He loved my American cooking and finished any bit of food that was left. I was so impressed and loved having him over. Britton enjoys meeting with him and having a good friend that's a brother.