5-28-12

Hey moms,
So uhhh, no email from you this week. Where you at? First of all Hunt is killing me haha. In the emails from all our friends and stuff he was talking about how he got transfered out to the boonies, then like his next sentence is about how they go to a gym and work out every morning. Like, uhhh thats the burbs not the boonies haha. Also, in his email from Heather he was talking about how he drives. Like they have a car? I literally have not been in a car in months, not to mention driving around in one to get to all your appointments. What a scrub haha. Anyways, had a really really good week here. I think my comp kind of settled in a little better, and he wasnt baggy at all. We worked really hard and we're hoping to set two baptismal dates this week. 


Rainy season has finally got here. I havent seen the sun in like a month. Its just cloudy all day every day and at like 2 or 3 every afternoon it just starts pouring rain until about 8 or 9 and night. I just walk around with my rain coat and umbrella at all times. I actually really like it though, it's a lot better than having it 110 degrees outside.

Got two good stories for you this week, so apparently there was an earthquake on Tuesday night here. It was at like 10 o'clock at night or something but I was out cold and didn't feel a thing. So the house was shaking pretty bad and it scared my comp. So he wakes up and (he told me this the next morning, i had no idea this even happened) is basically yelling at me and he told me he said ¨Morrow! Wake up! The house is shaking, it's an earthquake!¨(but in spanish) Then he told me I just picked my head up from my pillow and said to him ¨¿De veras? no me importa.¨ And put my head back down and fell asleep haha. He told me there was an earthquake, and unconsiously I responded to him with, ¨Really? Don't care.¨ Nothing broke or anything though so, eh, no harm done.

The second one happened last night. The zonies had a baptism so we went and were helping out. During elders quorum at church earlier, the bishop literally assigned every single adult some kind of thing to do during the baptism, like a talk, prayer, witness for the baptism, in charge of putting up chairs, putting down chairs, everything, just so that people would go to the baptism. So when it was time for the baptism the whole ward was there. So we had all the talks and everything in the chapel and then had to walk into the area where the font is so everyone could see him get baptised. After the guy got baptised they had assigned a guy to bear his testimony He is like this 70 year old guy that is just out of his mind. And he gets up there and starts giving his testimony. He was saying just the usual like this is the right thing your doing right now, this is what Jesus taught us to do, stuff like that, and then he starts going on about how he knows all these things because he talks face to face with Jesus. Everyone was kind of just looking around like, uhhh, did he really just say that? And he keeps going too and starts talking about how Jesus told him when the end of the world is and stuff like that. Just pure, beautiful, rediculous, apostasy. Haha, I could not believe what was going on. After like 5 minutes or so the bishop stands up and just cuts him off. We were dying. 

Anyways, love you guys, Talk to you next week.


Adam

5-21-12

Moms,
The new area is really awesome, it is really kind of crazy how big of a difference there is here from Huehue. I thought that I really loved Huehue when  I was there, but now that I have been here in Xela for a little bit, I would not be that sad if I never went back haha. It is really almost like being in the States, except everyone speaks spanish. There are a few poor people in my ward, but for the most part, people are straight loaded here. The area is actually really really big, and we share it with the zonies so that has been really fun because when we get invited by members to lunch or dinner we all go together. One of the zonies, is just a "good ol" Idaho boy. He has like 19 months or so, but he is just a really humble funny guy. The other Elder is from Honduras, his dad (trainer) is one of the APs right now, so he is a really really intense missionary and a really hard worker. I have gone on a few divisions with him so we could get a little more familiar with the area and everything, I was pretty impressed. He has about 10 months. My comp is from Honduras also and he has 19 months also. He is a good guy and a good missionary, but he is having some serious serious problems at home, like his mom and dad both died, things like that, and he is just suuuuper unmotivated. I basically have to beg to get him out of the house and all, but we actually got some good work done this week. It was a struggle at first but, eh, I just kind of decided that he is having a really hard time right now and I just need to be patient with him. If I just kind of lay out the plan of where we are going to go and what we are going to do I will get him out of the house. He is a biiig dude though. Probably about 5 foot nothing but like 275 pounds. When we teach he is really really good. We taught the Restoration to a family yesterday and I was really really impressed with his teaching. I almost cried haha, the spirit was pretty strong. Also it just made me think of the story that Dad had sent me last week, where they were teaching and some kid spit on his comps head. I dont think I would have every believed a story that rediculous before my mission, but now that I am here it wasnt even that big of a surprise. People here do some crazy things. haha. But the area is good. We are following an elder that just died and his comp that has like 20 something months in the mission, so yeah, they didnt leave us crap. We had seriously not a single investigator or less active family that we could teach, nothing. We cant even find the area folder either, so its basically starting from scratch. The house we live in suuuucks haha. Its super gross. From the toilet I can touch all of the walls in the bathroom, we also have plant growing under the sink which is kind of weird since the floor is cement, and there are no windows. We kind of have a flea problem too which makes it really hard to sleep at night when you feel like a hundred flees having a buffett on your legs. But, I think i got them all killed with some bug spray stuff. Also we dont have a sink to clean our dishes, just a pila, like a stone sink thing. But the problem is that slugs come out of the drain from the pila, so we always just have these giant slugs all over our house, dishes, food. Its great, but my comp refuses to go look for a new house because we pay like 600 quetz a month for rent, so I pay 300 quetz a month to live here, that is about...38 dollars a month for rent. Niiice.


I was dying with the birthday suit comment. I feel for Da young. I say stupid things all the time too. One time in Chiantla we were visiting with this family, and all people care about here is soccer, more specifically the league in Spain, and since the two best teams in the world are in that league, they just talk about these two teams. Real Madrid and Barcelona. So everyone always asks, ¨Que equipo le gusta?¨  which team do you like? But the real translation for le gusta is pleases you. So one time someone asks me who I liked and I said, ¨Barcelona, porque Messi(really popular player from Argentina.¨ And soooo, basically I said I liked this team because one of their best players ¨pleases me¨, and they all kind of started laughing and were like ¨Ooooh, porque le gusta Messi?¨ and I was just like...what the freak are you guys talking about, so I said ¨Porque me gusta Messi....uhhh porque su pelo (he has hair like Jonah)¨ like trying to be funny and stuff. The family just lost it, like they totally think I am gay for Messi, whoops. I was pretty embarrased. But yeah, birthday suit, classic mistake.

With the package and all, Moms, why are you such a freaky witch doctor? Like I already have to deal with all this crazy Guatemalan food, do I really want to roll the dice with some freaky plant suppliment? But so far the food here has been pretty much the same, Right before I got changed from Chiantla though, like my last meal there, holy crap, it was the same lady who had given us the cow stomach the time before, and we walk into this ladies house, and she is cutting up raw cow stomach, and she just put it in tomato and vinegar and served it to us like that. Yeah, I ate raw cow stomach. Why? Why do they eat that crap? Oh, Hunt also said that his mission banned the word crap haha. What a joke. But I think that is the run down for the week. Love you guys
Adam

5-14-12

Hey Mom, 

Sorry, really no time this week to write. Just thought I would check all the emails and get  a quick one off, p-day ends in like 30 minutes and we still have to go grocery shopping...bummer. This day was sooooo long. This country has some ridiculous policies, I swear. So we woke up at 2:30 this morning in order to be on the bus on time which left at 4. It is a five hour busride, we stopped at McDonalds when we got to Guate City. We went to the immigration office, took a photo (yeah, we went all the way down there so the government can have a photo of us on our file in there government office, like our passports don't have photos of us) left there, stopped at the drive through at Wendys and drove back here. I just feel bad for all the kids that are sitting on the 2 1/2 hour bus ride back to Huehue. That is a rough p-day. Anyways, gotta go, I promise I will write double next week.

Adios

5-7-12

Moms,
All week I have just been laughing to myself about flat Adam. You guys are really weird.  I love the fact I am just chilling in the house still scaring dad though haha. Just put me in the shower or something so I am waiting for him in the morning.

But we got the transfer calls last night, my comp and I are both staying put for at least another change. But we are the only companionship in the whole zone that didnt have at least one change, so even though I didnt get changed it will be cool to have basically a whole new zone of people. I am excited to see what happens. Only one person is training in our zone but he is a Lat, so he should be training a gringo. That will be nice to no longer be the zone baby. I think my comp is the new district leader too, so that will be really cool. I will probably just be on divisions the whole change and we get a cell phone, that will be soooooo nice.

When you were talking about Molly, thats so weird, it just kind of really dawned on me that when I go home she wont be there. Dont replace her either. Nothing will ever replace my first love. That dog was an absolute garbage disposal. Think about it, what did we give to that dog that she could/would not eat. Maybe she was part goat or something. 

Also, loved the sacrament story, reminds me of something that happened in my ward here a few weeks ago. We usually sit on the first or second row in sac mtg, and everything was going normal. The priests here do the sacrament a little differently though, they always wait until the first verse of the song is over to start prepping the bread, and then they sing all of the verses of the songs so they have time to finish, like even the ones below the song, like verse 6 and 7. Its great, so yeah, one day they are doing this all normal, the first verse ends, and priests stand up and remove the cover of the table, no bread. The bishop just puts his head down and then swears really loud haha. Like everyone heard it too. The priests just kind of sit down and dont really know what to do. Guate is not really a country known for its problem solving skills, and everyone just keeps singing. Nobody gets up or does anything. The song ends and its just kind of like, well, what do we do now? The first counselor of the bishop eventually stands up and just walks out. Still everyone is just sitting in silence, nobody does anything. Then all the sudden some guy on the back row just yells out, ¨lets just sing again.¨ So the chorister just gets up and we sing the entire song over again, buuut, still no bread haha. So of course, we just sing the same song again. We sang it three times, all 6 verses and still nothing has happened. Finally after sitting in silence for another minute or two, the counselor runs back in and is all sweaty and out of breath. He has something in his hand. The priests just start busting up laughing and I couldnt exactly see what it was that they had. So we sang the same song one more time so they could brake the ¨bread¨, and they are just going about everything normal now. When the tray finally gets to me, I am just staring down at a broken oreo haha. We literally did the sacrament with oreos haha. Great times. I was just holding it in the whole meeting. Almost died laughing. Love this country.

Anyways, we had divisions for almost the whole week, Monday till Thursday, so I was in the area of my dl, it was great. On Tuesday we went to their appointments, the first one was this old lady that we were just going to visit and chop her wood for her. We walk up to the house and there are just a ton of people outside. So we just kind of mosey up and ask what is going on. This lady just looks at us, totally straight faced and just says.¨Oh, she died last night.¨ We are just kind of like, uhhh what are you talking about? She just starts explaining how their investigator had three heart attacks the night before and died, whelp, looks like she wont be progressing any more haha. 


So we left there and decided to go to their next appt, and  it's this family they found out in the middle of nowhere, and they had giving him a blessing to help him get over his alcholism, and the guy hadnt drank in like two weeks.  But we go to the appt and this guy is just absolutely plastered. Soooo drunk, and his wife is just livid.  I thought she was going to punch her husband. We had to calm her down a little because she was going nuts about how mad she was that he had stopped drinking and then just decided to go get drunk again today. So she goes back in the kitchen and starts making some stuff. She then invited us in to eat with them. She made some chicken soup stuff and we're eating that, and she just drops down this bowl of the biggest looking crawdads I have ever seen in my life. We technically arent allowed to eat sea food, its against mission rules, so I didnt eat it. But the Elder I was with just started eating them. He was just kind of eating and talking, and he asked her where they had bought these crawdads, and she just kind of laughs and says oh we didnt buy them, we just caught them out of the river. Let me explain a little, the people here, a lot of them don't have bathrooms. They just go in bucket things and then go clean them out in the rivers, this Elder was eating Crawdads from a river filled with feces. He just looked at me and started laughing, then in english so the lady wouldnt understand says, ¨I am going down so hard tonight.¨ Killed me haha, I lost it, I just started laughing soooo hard. Which is super offensive when your eating some poor Guatemalan lady's food. Oops. Hopefully she doesnt totally hate the church now. 


Anyways, not much else happened, we found a crocodille the next day haha, sometimes I am just like, wow, what am I doing here standing two feet next to a crocodille in a 3 world country, great times. Well love you guys, gotta go

Adam

ps, sprained my ankle reeeaaaally bad

Wedding email 4-30-12

Hey Moms,

First of all, what...? You guys made a cardboard cut out of me? Like you can actually do that? There are literally places in this world where you can go and make a cardboard cut out of just anyone? You guys are so weird ha-ha. The pics looked awesome though, wish I could have been there. I am so baggy :(

Also what’s up with Jonah? Looks like a straight scrub. His hair is so so long. But yeah, good to see all the photos and everything. I am sure it was awesome. It was just kind of another usual week here, not much going on. We find out if we will have changes this week or not so that will be good, I am fine with another change where I am, but I am also good with getting sent out of here, whatever works really. Its all Guat wherever I go I guess.

To answer your questions, hot water does not exist here. There are no such things as water heaters. To shower some of the houses have these weird things you attach to the pipes and it warms it up for you. For my first 7 or 8 weeks the one we had did not work, but a little while ago we got it changed out, so yeah I am one of the few lucky guys who can shower with hot water. Some of the houses don’t have showers and they just splash water on themselves from the pila, (a giant Guatemalan sink thing that all the houses have).

I haven’t really had problems from fleas in a really long time, but I have problems with spiders I think. I get really nasty bites every now and then, they are really big and red and blister really bad, but I am alright I guess, everyone says that after a while your blood just looses all nutritional content and the bugs leave you alone after that. I have actually been really healthy though, not really that sick, but yeah even my perfect immune system takes some hits every now and then.  I haven’t had any days in bed or anything so I guess that’s good. Ha-ha, BU, is really pronounced boo, its sounds really similar too its meaning actually. Its just what we say for extreme diarrhea, which is kind of a pain to say in Spanish, so boo is just a lot easier. But yeah, boo is a mission wide epidemic, that’s all you want to know ha-ha.

Haven’t really found anything out about calling, apparently the AP´s are going to send an email with the instructions and stuff. It’s kind of hard to tell and all right now because I feel like I am getting changed and don’t really know where I will be when I am calling so I guess we will see. We actually have a phone in the house. It works kind of like a cell phone.  You don’t have to plug it in the wall or anything but its a house phone, it has a cord and all. So I am sure we will just call you and then you will just call the number back so the mission doesn’t pay for it. So you might want to buy a calling card or something. The Lats all call on the 10th, but we (Norte’s) call the 12th so I shouldn’t be rushed for time or anything since my comp calls the 10th. I am sure they will let us know this week though. And for right now no, we don’t have access to a church, they are building a capilla in my area, but we have to come into one of the buildings in Huehue for church, like 30 minutes away, so that is kind of a pain.

This  week was good, really fast, this next week should be fast too because we have a lot of awesome things planned, hopefully I will be on divisions with my gringo dl for like the whole week ha-ha. And with it being the last week of the change and everything, hopefully it goes fast.

Something this week that was really cool, since I knew on Saturday I would be suuuper trunky, we decided to make a cake for one of our investigators. It was soooo much more difficult than I could have imagined ha-ha. We don’t have an oven, or anything to bake the cake in, so finding a member with those was quite an adventure, took a few hours actually ha-ha. But we finally found them both, the baking pan was what we were really struggling to find, but eventually got it all figured out. Took like 5 hours to make this cake, also, I was the only one that had any idea what to do. So weird to think that something so simple like baking, just doesn’t exist here, like what? The member we were with didn’t even know how to start her oven, which was a gas oven, so I had no idea how to use it either without blowing up the whole house, took a while but we got it. I will send some pics; it actually turned out really awesome.

But anyways, I got to go, sorry not a ton to report on this week. But the wedding email was great, made me laugh, made me cry, yep, but its good. Glad to hear it went so well. Also glad to hear that Payton caught the bouquet, just tell her I will be home in a year and a half ha-ha. She didn’t ask about me or anything did she? Did she? Probs not. Anyways, love you moms; you guys are ridiculous with the cardboard cutout ha-ha. So funny.

Love you guys, tell Alex and Dayoung congrats for me, talk to you next week.

Adam