I can spew lava out of my nose.

When I was younger (about 1 year ago) I remember someone asking me what kind of superpower I would like to have if I could have any super power in the whole world. I think I eventually said flying or something like that but I remember that one of the first things to cross my mind was that I wanted to be able to shoot fire/lava out of my mouth or nose. Well... this morning all my dreams came true!!! You see, yesterday some friends and I hiked a LIVE ACTIVE VOLCANO! Wahoooo! And this morning... well.... I blew my nose and lava came out (well, the dust anyway) and so now I am an official lava breathing human being. Maybe I can get in with the Fantastic 4? Eh? Eh?

So the volcano we hiked is called el ¨Volcan Pacaya.¨ A pacaya is a type of fruit that grows a lot around that area. We rode a minibus out to the volcano (about a 1.5 hour drive) and when we stopped at the bottom of the lava shooting mountain our van was attacked by about 15 crazy little chamacos! They were pushing sticks through the windows and poking us... in an attempt to make us buy their sticks. Don´t ask me why you would want to buy the stick someone is practically beating you with... but some people actually did! Cute kids... but I didn´t need their stick! They also tried to sell us ¨taxis naturales¨ - or in other words, a horse to ride up the volcano. I saw a 300 pound woman buy one and decided that it just might be a sign of weakness and didn´t give in... and I´m glad I didn´t because it was really a lot of fun hiking up! Our group name was the ¨Panteras¨ which means ¨panthers.¨ A lot of people had told me that the hike was really hard - but we must´ve had a good guide or something because it wasn´t bad at all! The hike was BEAUTIFUL! It was all rocky at the bottom and then all dirt and then you come to a HUGE HUMONGOUS GIGANTIC pile of dried lava... and then because lava is so nutritious for the ground, everything else was super green and lush... with chunks of lava speckled everywhere from past explosions. So after hiking through the grass for a while you come to the really lava lava part.... everything is lava! You hike for about 20 minutes through pure lava and then you come to the red hot lava... HOT HOT HOT! It felt like an oven! I highly regretted not bringing marshmallows or eggs to cook, but I guess there´s always next time. So at the top you are pretty close to the gigantic hole and every 10 minutes or so you hear something that sounds like intense thunder. Only, it´s not thunder - it´s LAVA!! It poofs out the top with smoke and then comes tumbling down. Oh exciting! Don´t worry, I didn´t get hit even once. After staying up there for a while we had to come back down because our guide was yelling ¨PANTERAS! PANTERAS! PANTERAS!¨ At the top of her lungs. Good thing we left when we did because it got dark and we had to hike/stumble/fall (ok, I was the only one who fell...) down the mountain. I thought I´d be sore today, but I am a-ok!

Church was fantastic today! I made some more new friends and found out that the salsa dance teacher at my school is in my WARD! Crazy crazy stuff! He made me promise to go to lessons this saturday so I guess I´m going. I love salsa... I´m just going to have to make some time. I am also hitching a ride with another member to go to a Stake activity on Saturday morning until 12. It´s going to be a busy busy day. Tuesday is institute again - yay!

Other updates from the weekend... hmmm... Thursday night was fun - I went and got cake and hot chocolate with my new institute friend, Byron. He´s a tour guide and told me about a million interesting things about everything we walked by! It was very fun. Friday we went out for Nancy´s birthday (to dinner and then dancing) and then a few of us went roofwalking... the sky is much more beautiful from on top of the world!

Well... things are grrrrreat! I hope that everything is great with all the people I love too!