Finally, we were finally there. We had been traveling for hours on plane, from Seattle, Washington, to Oaxaca, Mexico. We'd decided to become missionaries, me and my husband Justin. We'd been married for three years now, and after the Doctor gave us the news that we would never be able to have kids, we decided to go into missionary life with some friends of ours. We'd always wanted to, but we thought we'd be to busy with our kids. Now that we knew that wasn't going to happen, we headed to Mexico.
We already had a an apartment all nice and ready for us, so all we had to do was get our luggage and go.
"Mellisa," I heard Justin's voice calling me, "Welcome to Mexico!" He smiled and gave me a big hug, before we went to go look for the luggage.
Finding our luggage was sort of a mess. At first we couldn't find any, then when we finally found one package, only to find out that it was really someone else's. We eventually found all our luggage and hauled it out to a taxi. Now was our chance to practice our Spanish.
I asked the taxi guy nicely if he could bring us to the apartment at 324 Rosetta 14th st. in Spanish. I couldn't believe we finally made it! We were missionaries in Mexico!
When we got to our apartment, we were too excited to not to go out and explore. So we went out to some shops. Everyone had something to sell, and they wanted it to be sold. We went into the Zocalo and had a great time. We could have stayed there forever.
When we got a little bit tired, we settled down at a really nice restaurant. They served us chili powder covered peanuts for the appetizer, and I ordered some beef and cheese tortillas with beans and chips as the side, while Justin ordered some mini tacos as rice for the side. There was so much left over food that we had to take it to go.
The only thing Justin and I hated about Mexico, was having to watch all the poor, weak Mexicans struggle to survive on the streets. We'd see kids asleep on their mothers lap every now and then. We gave some money to those that played a song on what ever instrument they had.
We were getting ready to head back to our new home, because there was so many dogs, we were scared one of us would get sick, so we gave the rest of our food to a family on the street, a mother with two little boys curled up on her lap. But as we headed back, we saw something that we'll never forget. We pulled up around the corner of our street. Justin was a bit in front of me, so he saw it first.
"Oh, Melissa, do you have any of that food left? Your never going to believe this." He grabbed my arm and pulled me over.
He was right, I couldn't believe it. Standing there right in front me was the most fragilest, weakest, yet cutest thing I'd seen all night. It was a little girl with a small side bun, holding hardly any hair. She had on a torn-sleeved little Mexican dress. She was probably about three, but it was hard to tell by how little she was. At first I didn't know what to do, but then I maneged to interpret the sign she was holding,
Please help, it read, No food, No home, No mama. It was in too nice hand writing to have been by the little girl, and besides she was much too young. The note made my eyes water as I told Justin the food was all gone.
Justin kept saying that someone probably just used her to get food, but in the end we had to take her in, just for the night at least.
Justin left a note taped against the apartment wall asking if she belonged to anyone, while I got her a nice warm bowl of chicken and noodles. She really ate it all up, she didn't stop to take one drink, until she was finished. I gave her one of my old shirts to use as a gown to sleep in. When I got her in bed I couldn't stop thinking about how scared she must be, she obviously couldn't speak any English, and maybe not even Spanish. I was also scared to have to give her away, back to the street, where her mom probably lived. I tucked her in all nice and tight, laying in the living room, by the fire and told her goodnight even though she probably couldn't understand. As I was leaving the room, to see if Justin was finished making the sign, I heard a small squeak. I turned around and heard the little girl say in very hard-to-understand-but-English-voice, "Tank, too, tank too."
I turned around and gave a bright smile, to the little girl, all curled up and snuggling with the pillow I'd given her, "Your, welcome." I said back.
Suddenly I knew exactly what I had to do, I dashed into the front room and found Justin just walking in. I ran up and gave him the biggest hug and whispered in his ear, "Justin, can we keep her. Like as our own child?"
Written by: Mrs. Bieber
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