Goodmorning! Goodafternoon!  Goodevening! I'm not quite sure when yall will be reading this but there's your greeting! I hope you guys had a fantastic week, and I just wanted to say thanks for reading and keeping up with us. We just finished up our fourth week here in the Bronx. Only two more left to go. It's weird because it feel like we just got here some days and then other days it feels like I've spent more than a month and a half here. Kinda crazy to think about. Anyway, let's get this thing rolling, shall we?
    Wednesday was one of those days where we were cooped up in the apartment because of Sandy. So our group went downtown to go shopping and see what kinds of cool stores were down there. Some of us got super yummy Dunkin Donuts! Bekah and I gt super cool shoes. But, that's not the important thing. We basiccally had some good bonding time walking around in all the different stores. The shops were full and the buses were pretty packed too becasue some of the subways were not working yet so a lot of people had off work and school. People were everywhere! The rest of the day, I'm pretty sure we just chilled. Actually, maybe we watched Lord of the Rings-Asher brought the extnded version..ahhhh!
     Jueves, also known in English as Thursday, arrived at 12:01am. Karla led group devotions, and we sang some songs. After lunch we were able to go to The Food Pantry at Manhattan Bible. It was actually a good day! (Sometimes the people are not as happy, but I think they wer even more grateful for the food because of the storm.) Afterwards, we had a group discussion about one of the books we are reading. We stayed up talking and bonding until our eyeballs only wanted to see the darkness of our eyelids.
    วันศุกร์   means Friday in Thai. (By the way, I just googled that word. Bekah and Karla are still learning Thai but not the days of the week...just simple stuff right now.) Friday we went to World Vision. It was sooo exciting because we were not the only volunteers there, so we definitely got to meet a lot of new people; I think there were like three to four other groups there.  The downside was that because of Sandy, the whole builing was under three to four feet of water. This means that all of the stuff we had done previous weeks was somewhat destroyed, which was a bit of a downer but we began to understand what the workers at World Vision have to go through. I don't know if everyone has built something; put all the pieces of a shelf together; moved things from one builing to another; set things like pens, pencils, books, hand sanitizer, etc on the shelves in nice little color-coded boxes; and then also felt the excitement when you realized the project was almost done. The people would soon be able to come in and take what they needed for their classes. (What World Vision does is stocks up on school supplies, clothes and necessities and then gives them out to people. So, they have shelves stocked and organized to the max. It is a very clean facility, and they just moved from their old warehouse. I'm pretty sure they were actually getting ready to open up the doors this week to the public...sometimes plans are changed though.) So! Our hearts sank with all the workers who have been preparing for this week for months only to come into work one day with half of their upplies completely ruined. Yeah, please keep these people in your prayers. World Vision is right next to a river so they got hit pretty hard. Anyway, we had to take shelves down and clean them outside. One of the volunteers got hurt while bringing a load of shelves outside, so prayer for him would also be greatly appreciated. We're pretty sure he will be fine; it was just a bit scary! Anyway, we had a speaker, Greg, come. We watched the movie The Karate Kid (the new one with Jaden Smith), and Greg talked about Intercultural Communications. Then, we talked, of course...we always talked. Our warm blankets and fuzzy pajamas started calling our names, and we answered. Goodnight.
     Saturday morning we had another session with Greg. Then, everyone except Renee and Karla went to Little Italy. Renee and I went on a walk and just stayed back to catch up on some stuff. Then, we all sat down for dinner, watched Lord of the Rings-The Twin Towers, and played Spoons. Greg even played! He was fun; he lost, but he was fun. Bedtime came after another good bonding time (aka: staying up late to talk).
     This morning-today is Sunday-we went to church and sang some songs for them, which we did not have prepared but hey!  As missionaries we're supposed to be flexible so BAM! That was a great opportunity for us! We came back and had lasagna...yum! Great job to Steve! Everyone except Karla and Renee went shopping this afternoon, and Renee and I yet again had alone time (with GOD and just by ourselves). It was actually really nice and everyone else seemed to have a really good time too. Now, we're all just sitting around. Tomorrow Ken will come again to teach us about Blessings. Until next week! Thanks for reading! :D