6-25-12

Moms,

Yeah, so I am in an area now called Santa Cruz in Quiche. It’s very movie-esque, like remember the scene in Inception where he is running through the market in Central America? That is what my area reminds me of. It’s really touristy so that is kind of different than what I have been used to. Mostly because it’s clean, that is the biggest change, there isn’t garbage everywhere. It’s really big though, I don’t know why but all of my areas so far have been huuuge. My area is the actual town of Quiche, which is 80 thousand people, and then about 20 aldeas (little groups of houses) of about 200 people. There are a million of the took-took things also, the little red taxis, that is how everyone gets around because they are suuuper cheap. Most of the women wear "corte", the traditional clothes, and almost everyone speaks Quiche. They all speak Spanish too but my comp and I want to learn at least the basics in Quiche if we can.

My comp is Elder Villalazy, and he is a cool guy. He has 14 months in the mission so I am still just going strong as junior comp, but that’s fine with me ha-ha. He is from Panama, but not from anywhere normal. He grew up on some tiny island and spoke only the language that the 200 people on the island spoke. So he came and had to learn Spanish too. Which is kind of funny for me because he speaks pretty well, but not perfect.  He gets a lot of the tenses mixed up, and always prays in the wrong tense. It always just kind of makes me smile a little bit to see a pure Latino, from Central America and all, and he doesn’t even speak perfect Spanish. He can speak quite a bit of English too, which is cool. He is a smart kid really, considering where he grew up and all. But I am stoked, he is a super good comp. In one of his older areas he learned how to speak fluently one of the other dialects here, Mam. So he always tries to speak to people here in Mam to see if they know it, but its basically pure Quiche here.

One of the best parts of my area though is that there is a cream soda factory here, and it’s amazing. Makes me sooo homesick, but I cant resist it.  It rains a lot here too. A lot more than what I have ever seen before, it’s crazy. The roads at night are usually just rivers from the rain all day. I had to break out the shoe dryers for the first time actually. I am glad to say that was a good investment of yours.

As for the church in my area though... it’s not so great. There are three sets of missionaries in my area, and there is no division, and we basically are just in charge of reactivating and hoping that we get some baptisms in the meanwhile. There are 650 members on record in this town, at church yesterday, there were 60 people. There are less than 100 active members out of the almost 700 members here. In elder’s quorum there where more missionaries than other people in the whole class. That’s not good ha-ha. There is some crazy apostasy here too. Apparently there is a branch that is like an hour from here where they just found out that they had women blessing and passing the sacrament because there were not any active men attending the branch. (I am assuming the branch president is inactive also) One of the area authorities was trying to get that all worked out, and he went to the church the next week and women were still passing the sacrament, the guy was like uhh hey guys you can’t be doing this, and the women told him, oh don’t worry, since you said we couldn’t last week we had the branch president give us the priesthood so we can bless the sacrament now. Holy crap ha-ha. When I heard that I was just hoping that it wasn’t true ha-ha. That is sooo bad.  

With my old comp though, yeah I am not really sure, he didn’t really have much to go home too. He told me he was going to come back here and live in Xela, but like right-now-right-now I am pretty sure he is with his uncle in Honduras.

Anyway, that’s about all for the week. Jared wrote me back, he sounds like he is doing awesome. He is such a good kid. Crazy Taft is almost done too. That will be a weird day when that comes. I had a few really good friends here in the mission just go home, that was kind of sad. I know I am starting to get to the point where I have been out for a little bit, but I still feel like I can’t really see the light at the end of the tunnel. That’s all right though, its going fast. Also, a member told us the heat won the NBA finals. That’s a bummer. Good thing I missed out on that.

Love you, 

Adam

6-18-12

Hey Moms,

So, things are changing... My comp had interviews with President every day this week, and I guess that the area authorities decided that he has to go home. So he is leaving 4 months early or so, but it’s probably better that way. It’s been super rough lately. We didn’t even really leave the house this week because he was just so sick. I feel bad for the guy, but dang, I want to actually be able to do something every now and then. We literally had nothing going. But since he was going home and we just opened the area I figured I probably wasn’t going to get changes, but I did. I don’t know where or with whom yet, just that they are re-closing my area and that I have to be at the bus terminal at 9am tomorrow morning. Kind of a bummer didn’t really get that much time here or anything, plus I have to repack. That is seriously the worst part of changes is trying to get all of your crap back in your suitcases again. I am hoping I get sent to Momos, that’s the area in the mountains where none of the houses have light or running water and they all bathe in the rivers and stuff. I think that would be a really cool change right now. The city is cool and all, but there is not much here. They baptize a lot more out in the areas like that, plus the people are super humble and friendly and stuff. We’ll see though, I don’t really know what’s going on for sure because there are 26 elders going home right now, and only like 12 coming in. So for that they have to close a lot of areas. I probably will just get changed to another area here in Xela, that’s what I feel like is most likely.

I cant believe yesterday was fathers day. That’s so weird. I didn’t really know, nobody had said anything about it being father’s day. The Guatemalans just celebrated it in the usual way that they do things here, with a ridiculous amount of fireworks. Yesterday I was just lying in my bed and at about 5 in the morning it all started. They are so nuts about that stuff here. It just sounds like bombs going off, and they always have to do them before the sun goes up for some reason. Other than that we didn’t do anything to celebrate.

For my six month mark we didn’t do anything either. My comp had been throwing up all day, and then at like 5 or 6 o’clock our district leader called and said we had to be in the house because there was a hurricane that was pounding Mexico all day and was coming straight for Xela, but nothing happened. It rained like usual but nothing like hurricane-esque. I convinced my comp to go to this bread shop at about 7 so I could buy a slice of cake to celebrate. Other than that, yeah, didn’t do anything, wasn’t super fun but hey, six months down.

I have been getting everyone’s emails and stuff, don’t worry. We only have about an hour to respond and usually most of my time is used emailing you sooo...

Anyways, I am going to shoot an email out to Jared and Landon, I will talk to you next week and fill you in on the new area and all. Love you guys,

Adam

6-11-12

Hey Moms,
It was another really good week here. We dont really have anyone to teach right now so that has been kind of tough. Just trying to fill time it feels like sometimes. The weather was amazing this week. It's been cool, like 70s ish, but it hasnt rained as much as it has been lately, only late at night, which keeps it cool during the day, but were not soaked all day every day which was a bonus. 


My comp is still sick as crap though which has been tough. We have gone and had every test humanly possible to try and figure out what is the problem and we still have no idea, super frustrating for my comp. I honestly think it is just stress, that will do some freaky things to your body, and I am almost sure that is what it is because they cant find literally anything wrong with him. He just throws up everything that he eats. He can only eat corn flakes and pan (little rolls) thats it. He will throw everything else up. Poor guy.

Sorry, yeah I got the package like two weeks ago, kept forgetting to write about it, also I got three of dads pouch letters and two from Wendy and Bree. Holy crap, Wendy´s letter litterally had me dying, she was like asking me if  I have a girlfriend and stuff, I was just like, yeah...sorry, don't have a girlfriend wendy haha.

I am trying to think and just nothing really exciting happened this week. Just another week in Xela, concrete jungle, what dreams are made of. We did find a dog skull one day just in the middle of the road haha. The mission has changes this next week but I dont think that I or my comp will change. We will probably be together for at least one more change. 

I did break into the zone leaders house this week. They share the area with us, and we always go to lunch appointments together and stuff like that. One of them accidentally forgot his keys, and it's just like tradition here in the mission, for literally everything, we have some kind of dibs system to see who does what.  Like who will play goalie, who prays, sometimes we will just do nose goes, like the last person to touch their nose has to do the thing. Another favorite is someone will just lay down on their back, the last person to be laying on their back has to do it.That one is my favorite, I am sure people always get a little confused when they see a group of people in white shirts just hit the deck in the middle of a dirt road but eh, whatever haha. But yeah, so I lost for this one, and had to jimmy up the side of the zonies house, avoid the barbed wire, avoid the power lines, and then jump down like a ten foot wall. Survived though haha, I will send a picture. 

Anyways one of the senior missionaries did a fireside last night, it was really cool, it was about all the stars and galaxies and everything, just how small and insignificant we really all compared to it all, but how we are still so importand to Heavenly Father and all, I really really liked it, it reminded me of that Uchtdorf talk from last November, super cool stuff really. But he said something that really caught my attention, he said, ¨We are not human beings having spiritual experiences, we are spiritual beings having human experiences.¨ Thats cool right? I loved that, makes you think really. Anyways, short on time, love you mom, have a good week.
Adam

6-4-12

Moms.

How could you forget about your son like that? Unacceptable. I sit around all week just wondering what my dear mother will have written me; get to my email, aaaand nothing. I was crushed.

But yeah I feel really bad for my comp. Sometimes I want to kill him and all, but he is a good guy and actually has it pretty rough right now. His mom died when he was 15, and his dad died three months ago. He was talking on the phone this morning with another elder that he wants to come back here to Guate and live with, he was just like “yeah, I have nothing to go home, no family, no home, just nothing.” So he is planning on just coming back and living here in Xela when he goes home. Poor guy. I don’t know how much more time I will be with him though, I have been hearing from some people that I might be training this coming change but I don’t really know, I could be here another change or two with him. But it is true, when you see what the world is like outside of the United States your just kind of like, whoa, people live like this their whole lives, holy crap. We have it pretty good.

As with the weather, yeah its rains like crazy here, every single day, and sometimes multiple days in a row. My shoes are doing all right I guess. In my normal shoes one of the soles is starting to crack. But other than that they are holding up. I would suggest people just getting two pairs of the normal shoes and a pair of boots, the walking shoes suck, I really really don’t like them. The raincoat works really good too. I only use it when it’s really really pouring. But I also use an umbrella; the one you bought me, because I can just throw that in my backpack and always have it with me and it’s not a big deal. But yeah I wish I had brought another pair of normal shoes. I might need you to send me some for my b-day or Christmas or something. But well see how my shoes are in six months or so.

So yeah, I will just go ahead and tell Alex your welcome now for getting his career started, maybe an email or two would be a good way to tell me thanks, what a bum. That’s cool though, I always loved that family, I wonder what Kim has been up to, last time I had heard she was still just in Farmtown.

Speaking of flat Adam though, I am kind of starting to hate flat Adam. He gets to do all the cool stuff I wish I was doing at home. Keep him, and when I get home I am going to burn him. Jessie, remember my friend from the y, she is getting married in a few months and she asked me if she could borrow flat Adam so I could attend the wedding ha-ha. I told her I would ask you and maybe the next time you guys go back up to Utah you could drop him off with them. Strange ha-ha.

This week was pretty slow though here, my comp ate a really sketchy torta, like these weird sandwich things, and he got some kind of a stomach infection, so pretty much the whole week we were in the house. He was just throwing up all the time. Everything he ate or drank he would throw up. So I called the mission nurse and she was just like, well tell your comp to take pepto bismal. I was just kind of like uhhhh lady, like my comp has been throwing up nonstop for like 5 days now, he’s beyond the help of pepto. So we went and got all these blood tests and things like that done and found out he has an intestinal infection. Like yeah, that’s not good, pepto won’t clear that up. We did go make boleadas last night with a family. It’s food from Honduras that’s really really good. It’s a flour tortilla with beans, eggs and chicken. Dang, I was in heaven. It almost felt like eating Mexican food, almost.

 Anyways, that’s about all for this week, Love you guys, talk to you next week.

Adam