From 2006 - Mexico 05

This was taken in Saltillo at almost midnight, with the 3800. With that 3800 I could always count on perfect white balance, no matter the lighting. Which makes me wonder...if they could do it on that little bitty model, then why not with the Fujifilm s7000, which was the same maker - or even the Nikon D300s, which is a high-end SLR? Even the reviews for the Nikon counted its lousy white balance in artificial light (especially incandescent) as a "con". However, its saving grace is its ability to correct that deficit by finely tuning the white balance and saving the settings for the next time you have to shoot in similar circumstances. I haven't learned how to do that yet, but have put it on the list as one of the first things to master.
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To continue from yesterday's posting on the topic of Mexico...

Ramón and I connected right away, with him getting used to his new life here in the United States, and me stumbling along in broken Spanish. It was not long before the topic turned to church. The previous semester I had been elected the president of the Lutheran Student Movement, and let my new friend know that one thing I wanted to do during the summer was learn more about the Bible. We made a deal - I would visit his church one Sunday and he would visit my church the next.

Trouble was, I didn't yet have a church; after visiting a couple of Lutheran congregations things weren't falling into place. Thus, I committed to visiting Ramón's church first, which was a small Mexican congregation on Robertson street. Truth be known, I was looking forward to it only because I'd never before been to church in a foreign language.

Fortunately the preacher, Mario de la Garza, was perfectly bilingual. After learning of my desire to study the Bible he started me on the 5-part Jule Miller Bible study series. I diligently followed the lessons and searched the Scriptures through the summer, and on August 15th, 1978 was baptized into Christ. Needless to say, I never go around to holding up my end of the bargain by bringing Ramón to a Lutheran service.

The reason this is all about Mexico is that, after befriending Ramón and many of his family members, I was given a standing invitation to visit his mom and extended family in Mexico. The next summer I had to work to earn more money for college (again at IBP), but the following summer - the summer of 1980 - I decided to take him up on it and arranged to spend about six weeks in his neck of the woods before taking some college classes in Guanajuato.