the return of the prodigal son!

Yup my dear friends, that's how i'm feeling right now for having neglected you all for... woah! a whopping amount of 2 months! now that's some serious slacking from my part... wich i inted to amend. i will resume posting at least once a week from now on :D

so, you might be all wondering what have i been up to, and well, to be honest, i have been quite busy studying for the exams during the month of april, then i had my exams at the begining of may, more exactly the 2nd, the 7th and the 8th of may, these were the last exams of the year YAY!!! aren't you happy for me?? :D and the best part is that yesterday i got the grades for those exams! and i passed them all!!!! TYJ!!! now i've officially passed college! it really wasn't me, i must confess... it was definately all a BIG miracle from the Lord, he did some pretty awesome and cool miracles for me :D wich is some more proof that He really wants me to leave everything and serve Him and give my life to Him 110% for this summer, now aint that neat? :D if i would have failed only one of those exams, i might have had to wait till september for that... and i didn't really want that... so i was a bit desperate, and the Lord came through and here i am! i got an overall of 7.25 out of 10 on this year's grade, and a 7.5 overall betwen last year and this year. but again it has ALL been Him, wouldn't have been able to do it without Him He sure is a real pal to count on!

now off to other accounts, these past 2 weeks, since i came back from the Exams, i have also been quite busy, fist studying for the really last exams that i hope to do, wich are the ones fo access to university, now don't freak out, i'm not thinking of throwing away my calling of beeing a missionary to study a career, it's just that you only have to do this exam once in your life, and it's about the things i just studied in this past year, so i guess it's better to take the exam now than to leave it for some other time. the exams will be the 2nd and 3rd of june and i will be doing them in Lisbon, Portugal (pray for them too if u fell burdened too :) and then, i've also been quite busy picking cherries :P
no, it's not a joke, right now i'm in south western Spain, in a city called Plasencia, near the border with Portugal, in the valley of Jerte, now this valley is almost solely dedicated to the cherry production, and my parents happen to have 2 fields with cherry trees, and it's cherry time! so we go a few days in the week to pick them up, clasify them, measure them, and then put them in boxes and sell them. this valley has the biggest cherry production in Spain, and the cherries grown here are then transported to all corners of Europe, so if you happen to see some cherries in your local supermarket check if they come from Spain, and if they do, then thikn of me :P and pray that i don't fall from the trees while picking them!
here i post a picture of me beeing a cherry-picking monkey ;) let's just state for the record that it's not the best picture you might have seen of me, in fact it's quite bad, but it's the only one i have...


we normally get an average of 20 kgs of cherries every day (believe me... that is a quite a lot, more than you would like to see together) and we're actually starting to get tired of the cherries, as good as they are, when you pick so many, and eat so many, you start to grow tired and some even sick of them, but i must say that their taste is exceptional ;)you should come over here drop by for a few days and taste them to understand.
the process of picking them and classifying is quite laborious, because first you have to pick them up risking your life in the trees, then when you're so tired from beeing up there that your legs start to shake, you go back home wich is normally for dinner time, then you have dinner, and a few moments after you've finished it's time to start clasifying them and putting them in hard boxes to be sold the next morning on your way to pick more :P
clasifying them, first you have to take those affected by bugs or picked by the birds, then the remnant ones you have to clasify them by sizes, and by the time you finish doing all that and cleaning all the mess left behind after classifying them, it's already time for bed, and don't have time to get on internet to write on your blog or talk much with your friends...
that's what's been happening lately, and i really am sorry! i'll try to keep in touch with you all more often from now on....


anyway, enough of cherries, let's move to some other topics. you might be asking yourself where am i going to go this summer to join FD missionary life, and to be honest, i've been praying about it these past weeks, but i still don't have it that clear, all that i know is that the Lord has showed me to stay around Europe, so i had to say goodbye to my dreams of going back to Mexico... sniff sniff.. or going to some far away land like china, and learn chinese... or ask to join my friends in the Prophet Bus... but i guess the Lord knows best, and He might have something even better planned for me, somewhere where i will be able to learn all the lessons tha He wants me to :D and become just what He destined and designed me for, where i will fit the best :) the centre of His will. i will let you all know where that is as soon as i know it :)

oh well my friends, it's time for the goodbyes again, i have to write a few e-mails to some of you and chat with some others, but hopefully you'll be seeing some more of me soon!

much love, Santi