Wednesday, January 2, 2013

12-24-12


Hi Moms,

First of all happy Christmas Eve! From the photos it actually looks like Christmas there, here no. It was actually a little chilly this week but today, it’s crazy hot. This week has been really cool, we have been doing a lot of secret Santa (sorry not your secret Santa I’ll explain) with the branch here. They set all the stuff up, and then they needed some help finding the houses so we and the sister missionaries were just kind of guiding members around to the less active and super poor families. It’s always super humbling to see the people here. We visited a bunch of families this week that really kind of shocked me the level of poverty they live in. Small dirty one room houses, tons of kids, no food. It’s a pretty sad situation. But at the same time, it was amazing to see members who really don’t have a lot of money either, put together what they can and help out other people who really need it more.

We went to some really poor pueblos yesterday. We went to this place in our area called Paxtoca. It’s just all houses made of adobe and stuff, crazy crazy poor, and we were walking around with all the members (maybe 50) and visiting the members out there. It’s probably 15 kilometers from my area, and the members there all have to walk to church because there are no busses that run by there in the morning. It was a super humbling week to say the least.

We found a less active in her house with her three children, and her drunk (and abusive) husband on the bed. They literally had no food, nothing to eat, so of course they didn’t have anything like gifts to give to the kids. When the members gave them their presents and stuff, everyone was basically crying. You could just see that this mother was having a super hard time with everything and to be able to help a little bit, that was nice.

As for y'alls secret Santa, we did see the email, but I wasn’t able to get to an atm until later in the week, and by the time I got the money, I didn’t know what to do with it. I’ll probably just buy me a new iphone and send it home so its waiting for me when I get home. No not really, actually it worked out perfect, because this family we’re going to marry and baptize this week happen to be crazy poor. We were trying to get everything worked out with the mission lawyer, and he can’t come and do the wedding, so we have to pay for it, which will probably be pretty pricey. So this year for secret Santa y'all are going to help a family get married so they can get baptized. I think that’s pretty cool at least. We’re thinking also about buying them a pair of deluxe scriptures for their baptism also, and for whatever is left over we’ll try and find a family that can use some help.
That was actually a really cool idea of y'alls though, that hadn’t even crossed my mind to do something like that. Santa might be coming for new years though, we didn’t really have a lot of time to get things rolling.

As for the sister missionaries who got held captive this week, I don’t know how many details y'all heard about that, but it was here in Guate. Everyone was telling us about it when it happened. It happened in a place called Esquintla, which is kind of like the drug capital of Guate. The sisters were teaching two Niceraguaences and a lady from Guate. They were all part of some drug cartel though. They also were out later than they should have been, either way, they are all ok. The FBI did come and get it all sorted out though. It caused quite a stir here really.

Another fun thing that happened this week was that we had a really awesome ward party. The ward bought a ton of piñatas and all. It was wild. The adult piñata was of Santa and it was literally as big as I am. It was pretty funny to see all the old Corte ladies go to town on a giant Santa piñata. Something that is kind of hard to describe. Anyways, I am running out of time, I will talk to y'all tomorrow. Merry Christmas!

Adam

For Christmas I'm going to be on divisions with one of the gringo dl's, because the Latins are going to celebrate today. Tomorrow’s not really a holiday here, just today, so your going to be calling his phone. We don’t have any plans. Just relax I guess, there is nothing that we can do honestly.  This elder is from Wyoming. He is going to stay in my area with me and my comp is going to Toto, but he is going to take our phone with him so you will have to call on the other Elder’s Phone. We can talk for 45 minutes. I'm a zonie, I have to obey =(

I didn’t see the video of San Cris but is is super pretty actually. My favorite zone so far.

Ha-ha, if it makes you happy, yes we have a dinner appointment on Christmas. But if you really want to know, no. Not a single member invited us over to do anything, and all those we tried to line something up with, told us no. Y'all better treat the sister missionaries super nice tomorrow. Don’t fret though, well figure something out. My area is super super poor mom, physically they can’t afford to feed me ha-ha.

I did get all my Christmas boxes! The APs or the secretaries drop them off at our house. We're not that far from Xela, like 20 minutes maybe. My area is the first one in the zone, so its really close, plus the office missionaries drive around in their own Tacoma




It’s snowing there? Baggy. For P-day today we went with the zone here at our church and had a little party. Ordered pizza and played a bunch of soccer. It’s so crazy hot today...

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