This month marks 10 years of living on the mission field in Mexico City, Mexico.  There have been some scary times, but there have also been some hilarious times. Most of the funny things that have happened are related to language issues. For example, in the first year on the field we were helping another missionary with his feeding center.  Every 2 weeks we would receive a grocery list and would buy and deliver the items to the feeding center. One of these times as I was looking over the list I was a little surprised to find pineapple (piña) jam on the list.  I searched and searched and finally found it.  When we delivered the items to the feeding center the lady in charge asked me where the Pinesol (pino) was.  We had a good laugh when I explained that I bought pineapple jam instead of the cleaning liquid she needed. Another example of something humorous as a result of the language is that once we were truly bilingual there were times we didn´t know what language we were speaking in.  During one church service my husband stood to pray and started out, “Father, we thank thee…OOPS!” The whole church got a good laugh that time.  I don´t think anyone has laughed harder than during the ladies retreat when I told the ladies that the people in our area were “festejonas” (people who like to party) That word doesn´t even exist in the Spanish language.  I made it up.

Some of the funny things are the result of a different cultural perspective.  We were following the trash truck through our neighborhood one day and found the workers joking around in the back of the truck. They then proceeded to push one of the workers down into the trash, head first.  They thought it was a hilarious joke. We have also had to learn a new definition for the word “close” while driving in the traffic here.  In the United States, if we were within 6 inches of another car we felt like we were too close.  Now we understand that an inch is lots of space.

Looking back over the 10 years I would have to say the funniest thing happened when we had first arrived.  We had been in Mexico City about a month and one Sunday morning we were sitting in church and heard very loud “explosions”. They continued throughout most of the service and I was convinced that we were under attack.  During the whole service I was silently praying for God to protect us from whatever was happening. I was a little surprised that no one else in the congregation seemed to be concerned, but I was very scared.  When the service ended I asked the missionary what was going on and he explained that the neighborhood church was setting off fireworks because the loud noise would scare the bad spirits away.  I was so relieved that we weren´t under attack that even I found the humor in the moment.

Lori Bradley

Missionary in Mexico City, Mexico since June 2007