Bonus!

Hey Mom!

So since it is our last day and there are only about 30 Guatemalan missionaries here, everyone else left, they are giving us a little extra time to email and pack and stuff like that. Kind of a little "Bonus" p-day. Well we still have had some classes and stuff so it’s not totally like p day, but it’s been pretty relaxed. I am really excited to leave, its crazy to think I have two months down already and I haven’t even hit the field yet. 

I understand Spanish really well, but in the process of translating, formulating a response, and then translating that back into Spanish still takes a little time. Everyone tells us it will take three months or so until were fluent, I hope that is true, if not, it is going to be a quiet couple of months for me ha-ha. I am feeling a lot better this week than I have been the last two.  I think I am finally rid of whatever sicknesses I was carrying. Last Wednesday was one of the most fun days I have had in my life ha-ha, wow, Guatemalan flu is definitely not like the American flu, that is for sure. I had no idea you could physically go to the bathroom that many times in one day. Definitely a new personal record. 

I am really glad I am serving in Xela, everyone always talks about it like it is the best mission in the world. I am so tired of daydreaming about it, I just want to go and actually see what it is all about. It is so hard not to, after nine weeks of just being parked on my fat but all day, your mind starts to just wander.

Everyone tells us all the time that it is really really cold there. We never know how credible that really is though because all the Latinos break out giant winter coats when it is 60 degrees and raining outside, but even still it is way up in the mountains so makes some sense. 

I am really glad to just get out of the city though, I can’t handle the noise anymore. Our room is right next to the main calle that runs through town, and it is freaking nuts.  I have no idea how anyone is still alive in this place. We hear "almost" accidents about every ten minutes, and accidents almost every hour. I keep track of the number of times I hear sirens every day in my planner, the record is 34.  

I have really been hoping I get sent out in the boonies, I want my first area to be just some crazy tiny village in the mountains where I have to bathe in the river and eat spiders and monkeys and stuff, just so I know I can do it, and then I wont need to worry about it for the rest of my mission. Also I have been having these dreams where I am machete-ing my way through the jungle, I have no idea what the point is or what I am doing, maybe searching for the waters of Mormon or something, but I am soooo psyched to buy a machete. Our president here told us we have to buy something here for our future wives so they know we were thinking about them on our missions, even if we haven’t met them yet. Hope my wife likes machetes, maybe I'll get it inlaid with some pink stones or something. 

Apparently there are no spiders in Xela either, that’s good, because there was a spider that lived around the water cooler in the chapel where we had class that was about the size of my outstretched hands, hairy, and orange. We always had to walk by it to go to the bathroom, and I will admit it, I would close my eyes and power walk past the water cooler every time, and by power walk I mean like 20mph, I don’t mess around with spiders.  That thing was nasty. I will try and send some photos when we get to our area, I have like 200 on my memory card here.  I hope everything is going good there. 

Love you guys, 

Adam