12-2-13

Hi Mom,

Happy late Thanksgiving! The pictures and everything looks awesome. Jack is either getting really big, or Dad is getting really small, or maybe a little of both. Things are really good here. It's surreal to have everything kind of winding down. It's hard not to think about it but I am trying my best to stay focused. We have been CRAZY busy these last couple weeks since this change is going to be shorter than usual. Normally they are six weeks, but since it is going to only be four weeks we have been running to get everything done. Since Elder Funk is going to be taking my place here too, I have been really busy trying to make sure he knows how to do everything. I had a lot more training (and probably a lot better of a trainer) than he is going to have, but hopefully we get it all figured out. Starting last week and going on throughout this week the mission is having all its multi-zone conferences and so that has also been really stressful. President asked me to translate for him this section in a book someone wrote on missionary work that just exists in English and that took me forever. I was really surprised though at how well my Spanish translating skills have come. I had all the latinos here in the office proofread it and I had almost no errors. Its was a couple of pages long too, I was really pleased. I have been thinking that at least I will do a Spanish minor and maybe even do the Spanish second major. BYU offers one that is specifically for double majors. I am sure it is really difficult but I think that would be really cool and good for a med school application. We have been running like crazy lately though. I am pretty tired. 

Thanksgiving for us was pretty uneventful. We just did normal stuff all day and there was not turkey dinner. We ordered some pumpkin pies from a member that has a cake shop here and that was really good. We even managed somehow to find some whipped cream and got that too. Then at night we had appointments with investigators, so when we were walking back home we were trying to decide if we were going to cook beans and eggs for our Thanksgiving dinner but we decided that was too boring so we were going to buy big macs. But then we called McDonalds (which actually does delivery here like if you order pizza in the states) and they told us it was too late to do orders. So we had to settle and get some Whoppers from BK. No turkey dinner, but still, better than beans and eggs.

Our gringo investigator came to church again on Sunday. Its strange because the guy really does not speak any Spanish. I don't know how or why you would want to come especially to this place if you have never been here and you dont speak spanish, but nonetheless he is here. In church we had a national wide conference and Elder Falabella, Elder Scott, and President Eyering did a broadcast that was just for Guatemala. It was really really awesome. It was a little lame that our investigator didnt understand any of it but still, I really really enjoyed it. They talked a lot about the trap of conformism and also the proper respect that should be shown to women. Not something I had thought would be the topic but I really really like all the talks. Its cool too that Elder Scott gives his talks in Spanish. He translates his own talks too in the conference. 

Well, this is my last full week, and that is really weird to think. Its been really fun here in this area, I have really liked it. Its will be sad to start the farewell tour (not really planning on doing that actually). But I love you guys and hope that all is well. Talk to you next week. 

Love,

Adam

11-23-13

I fully plan on finishing this half gallon before I'm done emailing.

Hi Mom,

How are you? I felt that this week also flew by, I was really busy so that was nice. How crazy is it that this coming week is Thanksgiving? The girls are so lucky that they have the whole week off. How did the schools pull that one off, I swear that never had happened when I was in school. I don't think we will be doing anything that exciting on Thursday. Usually the office elders have a dinner at the mission home, but this year they said we weren't going to do anything since there are going to be multi zone conferences throughout the mission this week. Kind of a bummer. I don't have enough money to pay a member to buy the stuff this year either. Looks like it will be a beans and eggs Thanksgiving dinner. Not a big deal though. We are looking into seeing if we can buy a pumpkin pie from somewhere this year, that's about as good as it will get.

This week was crazy. On Wednesday there was an Elder who had hurt his foot and President asked that we go and pick him up in the mission truck so he could make it to some doctor appointments. So Elder Marriott and I woke up early and the morning and drove up to get him. He was in this area called Ixtahuacán. It is the farthest zone in the mission, its like an hour and a half past where Huehue is, so its pretty far. Its right on the Mexico border. But we left here at about 5 in the morning and did a little road tripping. The area is way up in the mountains and it is crazy hot there. I got out of the car and it was around 1030 in the morning and I felt like I had just stepped into an oven. The Elders there were telling us that in this area the people do not let the police enter. They live what they refer to as ¨mayan law¨. They still live the laws of the country and all, but they do not let the police in to enforce it. If someone breaks the law they publicly whip them, and if its serious enough of a crime, they either burn them or lynch them. I had heard of that happening in other places here in the mission, but still, its pretty crazy. If the police try and enter there is only one road to get there, and they roll big boulders onto the road and block it off. Kind of an extreme example of the preservation of the culture. And yesterday I had to go to the other end of the mission, in Quiche this place called Joyabaj. They had two pairs of missionaries there and took one of the companion ships out, so we had to go and get all the stuff out of the house before the next month. Also a ton of driving. Elder Marriott had rolled his ankle really bad a few days ago so he just has been hobbling around, he cant really drive, and we are the only two in the office who have valid drivers licences, so I got to do all the driving. It was actually really awesome though. Joyabaj is really close to the capital, and we get to drive on the really really nice highway when we go to Quiche. Seriously it is the only highway in the whole country that doesn't have potholes every two seconds, and there are also no speed bumps. I call it the Guatobahn because you can actually get driving more than fifty miles an hour. Since the roads are so small here and the police are so ineffective, there are no speed limits here. Seriously they are not even posted on the highways or anything, but the roads are so terrible that it doesn't even matter, you cant even drive fast. But the Guatobahn is nice. Feels like a real life highway. Plus there are no speed bumps. Just try and imagine driving on a highway with speed bumps. 

Elder Funk´s replacement came in yesterday. Its Elder Vilca. So the kid I am trained is here in trio with us. Also Elder Marriott´s replacement came in yesterday too. Its a kid from Ogden and he is really cool too. Today I went with Elder Little, the AP that is in my group and goes home with me and we went and picked our suits up that we had bought. They are actually really really nice. I used the money on my card to pay for it, I had the cash to pay for it, but I just figured instead of having another atm fee I just used my card and I still have lots of spending cash for souvenirs. I still haven't bought anything though. We haven't really had time to go shop around. We will do it one of these days though I sure, there is still plenty of time. Everything is good here though, lots of work trying not to financial ruin a mission, hopefully I get out of here without doing too much damage. I love you guys and hope you have a great week. 

Adam

11-16-13

Hi Mom,

Sorry but I feel like every week our emails have been getting shorter and shorter. I have been hitting some serious writers block whenever I sit down to email, plus I dont want to think too much about home. The Wisconsin pictures look really cool. I am sure that was awesome. The stadium looks huge though, I think it would be really cool if BYU filled in the corners on the feild and had the seats go all the way around like that. Its too bad they lost, but still, losing to Wisconsin at home by only ten isnt too bad. Always good for recruiting too. It was funny this week we were talking with our Mission President about football, and he is from Minnesota. He was joking saying that it is so cool that Minnesota is in the Big Ten because then they get to watch all the really good big name teams, but the only problem is they always pound Minnesota. But it is still cool at least seeing all the big name teams if nothing else. He said the Big Ten should change their name to the Big Nine and Minnesota. 

This week was changes, that always leads to chaos but its nice because we stay really busy here in the office. Its hard sometimes in the middle of the changes and we have to search for things to do. The mission is kind of preparing for when my group finishes. There are about twenty missionaries in my group leaving and only about five coming, so they will have to close some areas and do some different things. So they started a little early and closed some of the areas that they could, so that means this last week and probably into the next week we will be running around the mission and taking the stuff out of the houses. The mission has gotten more normal now since the influx of new missionaries. Before there were tons of people waiting on visas going to other countries and stuff. At some point the mission had like forty temporary missionaries, but now there are only two, so we are back down to normal. On Sunday we had something really cool happen. We were in church and all the sudden we see this huge gringo walk in to the chapel and sit down. He had a Bible in English in his hand and he didnt really look like he understood what was being said. After the meeting I went over to talk to him, and it is a man that if from Texas, and he just retired and doesnt live with any family, so he just randomly moved down here. He doesnt speak any Spanish and he doesnt really know why he picked Xela, but he is here for now and he really likes it. He had thought our church was a 7th day Adventist church though, and saw that it was open so he decided to go in and check it out (although I am not sure why he thought the Adventist church would be open on a Sunday if they go to church on Saturday). But either way he was really interested and seemed to like it. We ran after sacrament meeting to the mission office where we have a box of Book of Mormons stowed away and got one for him in English. Then on Wednesday we had an appointment with him and we had such an awesome lesson with him. He had actually read a lot of the book and had lots of really good questions. Elder Funk and I absolutely loved it too because we can actually teach him in English. Its so weird having a gringo investigator but seriously it makes me feel like such a good teacher, because I can perfectly convey all the thoughts and ideas that I have, and I dont have to worry about him not understanding me or thinking I am crazy because I dont say anything wrong. It was so cool though, we are really really excited about teaching him, he said he wants to come to church again tomorrow so we will see how it all goes. Like I said I got a new suit, so that kind of wiped out my personal money. I dont need a whole lot more, but it would be nice if I could have a little payday at least so I can buy a few souvenirs before I leave. I am trying to see if I can get all my stuff into just one of my suitcases. I really do not have that many things, and what I still have I wont bring hardly anything home. There is a forty dollar fee for the second bag, so I am trying to see if I can do it with just one. I sold my guitar to another elder this week too. I dont think it would be possible or likely for me to have gotten it home in one piece, plus it would have been forty dollars to check it like I said. Not worth it, I can maybe try and snag one of KSL or something in the future. But thats all the news I have for this week.

Things are all really good here though, we are trying to keep working hard. Its been really fun in the office. We all took an office Christmas card photo today so we are going to get those printed out this week and send them in the mail. I hope you are all doing well, I love you and miss you all. 

Adam

11-9-13

Hi Mom,

How are you? I got your package! Its kind of sad that that will be my last one, but still, it was greatly needed. You can never have enough beef jerky. It came really fast though so that was also really nice. How is everything going? Is it cold there yet? I feel like when I get there I am going to freeze. I haven't been in anything below sixty degrees in a long long time. The rain has calmed down a bit here lately and that has been really nice. Its still a little more chilly too so it has a little fall-ish so we have been breaking out the sweaters almost every day. Its good that the rain isn't so crazy anymore also because all of my shoes are getting nice and holy. My boots are so worn through on the bottom that there are a few holes on the sole and water seeps in through the bottom of my shoes. So dry roads mean dry feet, wet roads mean wet feet. I just realized that you guys are now in Wisconsin. That is so crazy! So jealous. I bet there for sure its really cold up there.

Things here are good. Like I said its been a little dryer and the weather has been really nice. Since Elder Funk is going to take over my job when I leave, we have been pretty busy since he still has to do all that he usually does, plus learn how to do my job. He is a really funny kid, and he is a really good comp. Plus he always wants to get my fat butt out of the house and go running in the morning, that has been fun. We are working hard but it has been a little tough lately. Our only investigator that we still have been visiting frequently is Pablo. It is really awesome when we teach him, but we still cannot get him to get to church. He seems to like anything and everything we teach, but he just cant seem to make it to the chapel on Sundays, so like I said, its been a little difficult.

Its been a really quite week though, I cant really think of anything more interesting or exciting that has happened. We are just trying to keep working hard and find some more people to teach. I am really happy here and really love my area and my companion. Its been a lot of fun. Today for pday we are going to play some soccer pretty soon here and then we are going to be playing games here in the office for the rest of the day. We dont usually do much since we cant mosey too far from the office in case of an emergency. I love you guys and hope you have a great week. 

Elder Morrow

11-2-13

Hey Mom,

How is everything going? Things are good here. It has actually been a really quiet week. With it being the first of November it’s a pretty big holiday. We even saw some people doing Halloween stuff too so that was funny. Yesterday was Day of the Saints here, or as the Day of the Dead it’s a little better known. Apparently the tradition is to go and visit your dead ancestors and then eat the dreaded fiambre. I don’t know if you guys remember but last year it was the same, it's this really...interesting dish they love here and they only eat it on this one day. Last year it was pretty gross, but this year it honestly wasn’t too bad. We went with some members here in our ward with the other two secretaries also, so that helped. I honestly have never eaten anything similar to fiambre so it’s a little hard to explain it. It’s this cold mixture of beans, meats, cheese, mini corns (like from Big) and broccoli like food items. Then they bathe it in vinegar and you eat it. I was seriously stressing it though this year because I had remembered that last year it wasn’t exactly the best thing I had eaten in my mission. Then they put the plate in front of us and seriously I was getting a not-so-pleasant smell. I thought someone had stepped in dog poo or something, and then I realized that odor was coming from a piece of cheese and a giant sardine head staring at me from my plate. I'll be honest I had to pull a little napkin maneuver to get that sardine head out of there. There was no way I could eat that. But other than that I got the rest down and it wasn’t as painful as I had prepared for.

This week was a little slow though honestly. People here take their holidays very seriously; needless to say we spent a good amount of time just out walking around trying to find anyone to talk to. It’s hard when members aren’t even home and we cant even go around and look for some references. I found out who my replacement is going to be, its Elder Funk. Ha-ha. Poor kid is going to be here in the office forever. He will probably do an amazing job though, he is really really good at what he does now. I don’t think we will have any changes or get a new comp or anything until I am done, since he can train his replacement when I leave since he will still be here in the office anyways. It will be a little crazy with the changes and all though. Not this coming Tuesday the mission will have changes, and then we will have a four-week change, and then that’s it. Can’t believe I am almost done. Its kind of sad and a strange feeling. Everything is really normal and easy now here and I think it will be really bittersweet to have to leave. It’s a mixed emotions kind of thing I guess. I think it is a worldwide thing they are doing though having the changes like this. My friends that I knew in the MTC and stuff said the their missions are doing the exact same thing. 

Something else that was really funny this week that happened. On Monday I had to go and make some deposits at the bank, and my companion was pretty busy so I walked over to the bank with one of the APs and we were there standing in line. Just to explain in this country banks get robbed a lot so they have tons of crazy security. When you walk in you walk past shotgun guards and then through a metal detector and you are not allowed to talk on or use your telephone at all while your there because they think you are setting up robberies outside. So everyone just stands there really awkwardly and silently. We walked in and we had been in line for about fifteen minutes and all the sudden this little old lady with huge grandma sunglasses walks in. Like the grandma glasses that look like giant black goggles. But she walks in, walks through the metal detector and yells, ¨Good morning everyone, how is your day going?!¨, and then she continues on, walks and cuts passed everyone in the line, walks up to the teller who is already helping someone, and steps in front of the person being helped. She digs in her bag, pulls out some money in a bag, throws it over the counter and yells again at the guy telling him to deposit it in her account. Then she turns around, walks back around like she is going to walk out, and she sees the Elder that I was with. She walks right up to him, stops, yells ¨Hey good looking, how are you doing today?¨ and then keeps going and walks out. The Elder turned bright red and was just kind of standing there like...did that just happen? I lost it. I was laughing so hard. I could not hold it in, seriously couldn’t believe this crazy little old lady. Totally owns that bank. That was the highlight of my week though. I love you guys. I miss you all and hope all is well. Have a great week and I'll talk to you next Saturday.

Adam

10-26-13

Hey Mom,

Sounds like you had a very eventful week. Sixty-degree weather in Provo sounds pretty nice right about now. This week has actually been really nice here too. Sometimes the weather gets really dreary and not chilly, but cooler, and this week has totally been like that. Today its really cloudy and dreary outside but it hasn't been raining. Kind of has the small hint of fall. I really like it. We had a ¨Fall Party¨ last night here in the ward. It was actually pretty funny. We had a pumpkin carving contest, but the only problem is there are no pumpkins here. They have something that is similar that is called ayote, its a small pumpkin-ish looking thing but on the inside it is white and has a way more bitter taste then pumpkin, and the outside skin is basically rock hard. I am not sure how they actually carved them but they turned out really good some of them. Elder Funk´s was my favorite. He just bought an ayote and then put a little pumpkin hat on top of it. Didn't carve it or anything. Everyone was asking us what the origin is in carving the pumpkins, like why we do it. I honestly have no idea. None of the North American Missionaries in the ward did actually. I don't think I have ever heard that story, do you know why? I was thinking it would be cool in December to do an activity with the luminarias. That has to be my favorite New Mexico tradition honestly. Of course we couldn't do it as cool as San Juan but it still would be cool to do some small scale thing. Talk about that tradition and have it be a pretty cool send off thing.

Last week was really good. The sisters had their baptism at night and since they had helped us out with ours earlier in the day we went to that also. They baptized the husband of the girl that was married and then baptized a few weeks ago. It was really awesome actually, that family seems really excited about the church and they are so funny to see in the activities and stuff. They totally just look like little kids going around and seeing the new stuff. We have been teaching the mom and sister of the girl we baptized this week too. We had a lesson with them that went really well. The mom is crazy evangelical so hopefully we can get her to come to church and see if she progresses at all. We have another investigator named Pablo that seems really positive. He is the husband of a less active member and we have been visiting them lately. He also was evangelical before but he no longer is. But the evangelicals usually have really crazy ideas about the church and he definitely has a few of those. He is NOT okay with baptisms for the dead and he made that very clear to us ha-ha. I think it would be really cool to take them up to the temple grounds one day and talk about it. We explained more to him the plan of salvation then actually baptism for the dead and he seemed to understand it a little more. Kind of a hard topic to explain sometimes when you teach someone who believes all you have to do is accept Jesus in your heart to be saved, that baptism is essential for salvation. Regardless of whether or not you are dead or alive. But like I said, a trip to the temple and just having him be up there would be awesome.

We finally have Internet again the office. It was a huge problem not having Internet for a week. We had so many things we had to do and no way to get them done. There are public Internets and all, but all the documents and procedures we have to follow are all on our specific computers. I was dying though, so bored. I was talking to President this week and he said that my replacement will be here on the 5 of November so I can have him trained before I leave. So crazy to think I will finish in a gringo trio ha-ha. I don't know if there had ever been a trio of missionaries here in the mission where they have all been gringos. If not it’s pretty rare. Something to look forward to I guess. I love you guys, I hope you all have a great week.

Adam

10-19-13

Hey Mom,

So we are sitting here with all the office Elders in a public Internet because we have been out of Internet for almost the whole week. This place is so crazy. We had our Internet in the office go down on Tuesday and we were calling people trying to get it back up, and nothing. So we kept calling all week and still nothing. Then today we find out that the bank where we had been paying our phone and Internet bills to had not been paying the company for like the last two years. And so the company got mad at us and cancelled the contract they had with the church. Cancelled it definitively, and they will not let us renew the new contract. Soooo, we have to get a new Internet provider ha-ha. Seriously though, you cannot get a whole lot (if any) of office work done now these days without Internet. I seriously couldn’t do anything. My whole job is on some online program of the church. So it was needless to say, a very slow week in the office. I did lots of reading. The only problem here too is that I cant find anywhere to plug my memory into the computer so it looks like you’ll have to go another week before I can send some photos.

We have had a very crazy last 24 hours though. Last night we were out visiting people and our investigator called us and said that she couldn’t get baptized today because she has a cousin in the Capital that just died and that her and her family where going to go down and visit the family. So we ran down to her house and got the whole story a little better. She said she was going to leave yesterday and just get baptized next week. So we went around the corner of her house to tell this crazy lady member that had given us the referral for her in the first place just to tell her that we were going to do the baptism next week, and this lady was not having it. She is seriously crazy though, I wish I could sufficiently describe the crazy that this lady is but I cant. She is partially deaf and her house is a mad house. She lives with her husband and her three daughters, their husbands, and like ten granddaughters all in between the ages of 3 and 10. All girls. The house they live in is tiny too. It’s basically a shared kitchen, bathroom, and one bedroom per family situation.  And when you go into that house you feel like you cant hear right for a few minutes. It’s so crazy. Plus they have 5 dogs that just add to the gross and loud levels. But we went over to tell her we were going to postpone the baptism and she would not have it. She told us to sit down on the couch and said she was going to talk to her. She came back like twenty minutes later with the investigator and said that she was going to get baptized today just earlier. The girl seemed like she agreed but still I thought the whole time she was going to run away on us. I hope the lady didn’t bully her into getting baptized or anything. But either way we were running all morning to get everything ready for the baptism and at noon we had the baptism. She asked me to do it so that was really cool too. Baptism days are always the best days in the mission. You just feel like all the crazy and hard work all pays off. The sister missionaries have a baptism later tonight too that we are going to go and help out with also. We had planned to do them together but since all that happened it didn’t work out. Even still though, awesome. Now we just have to find someone else.... -_-

Things are good here. Everything is great in the office and it will be even better when we finally get our internet back up. Like I said, sorry for no photos again, I guess you’ll just have to wait until next week and you’ll get triple dose. I love you all, say hi to everyone for me. 

Adam