7-23-12

Hey moms.
First of all, Matt and Hillary are getting married? What? Thats so crazy haha. They definately knew eachother before he left though, I remember they were dating a little bit. I cant believe he has been home that long though, that was crazy fast. Preston, Aaron, all those guys, thats so weird to think that they are already home, but at the same time I am closing in on 8 months, almost a third of the way done. Also Landon's almost a man too, that will be so cool. Vegas though in August, that kid's going to get absolutely roasted out there walking all day every day. Sunscreen, lots of sunscreen. But did you guys give him my email address? Because uhhhh, he didnt email me yet haha. 


As for the fleas they are almost managable now, I just douse my bed every day with insectiside and pray really hard before I go to bed. I'm getting better at killing them too. I sleep with sweats and then have to tuck my sweats into my socks (super attractive, I know) so the fleas aren't free to just crawl all over my legs. But they still get in sometimes. I will just be laying in Big Agnes (tell dad I take back everything I ever said. I am a believer now) and I will feel one start jumping on my leg. So I will stick my hand down my sweats and just wait for it to jump by my hand, then I can usually just get it pinned to my leg and pinch it to death. I have actually gotten pretty good at it and its almost a game. The most I have gotten in one night is three, but some nights I dont even feel them. They haven't been biting me as bad lately. It's just kind of annoying to try and fall asleep when you have little bugs jumping up and down on your legs. I just looked back and re-read through that bit there, sometimes I feel like if I wasn't actually the person living my life right now I wouldn't even believe it...I am not opposed to the flea collar idea though, the books too, dont forget the books.

As for the home thing with Aaron, just know you will never get a call from someone here like that for me. I couldn't care less if I was going home to New Mexico or not. All I know is the second I am going home I am making snow angels on the floor of the airport. Home is not New Mexico, home is the greatest country on earth, all 50 states of it. 

As for here, this is the last week of the changes, keep your fingers crossed that I don't get the call again. :/ We didnt really have a whole lot going on so we have just been contacting people like crazy trying to find new people to teach. We found about 30 people in the last two weeks which is a ton. The mission goal is to get 6 "news" a week so were doing a little better than that. We found one guy that I thought for sure was going to be a baptism too. We were kind of running to another appointment and just breifly talked to him. He told me if I could find a scripture in the bible that says why we baptize in the name of the Father, Son,  and HG he would get baptized. So we showed him in Mathew where Jesus tells the disciples to do that, and he was just like, "no, you have to show me an example of someone actually physically being baptized where it said that". I was just,  "uhhh, there isnt one. If your looking for one you will never find it, because it does not exist." Then he was just like well, I am not going to do it then. I tried to explain to him that Jesus himself said that, so it obviously has to be done like that, but he was too caught up on the fact there is no specific verse that says that so its not true. I wanted to tell him there is no specific verse that says you can't shoot anyone in the face with a gun either, but everyone knows you still can't do that. People.... sometimes mom... so frustrating. Another thing that gave me a good laugh this week too is there is a kid here leaving on his mission. He asked me if I knew any good missionary scriptures. Jokingly I told him to use Alma 10:4. They passed out announcements for his farewell on sunday and he actually decided to use it as his mission scripture, look it up, that will give you a good laugh. Other than that though, can't believe this is the last week of the change. So fast, two more and I am hitting the year mark. That's nice. Also everywhere we go there are puppies, that always brightens my day a bit. Anyways, I love you guys, have a good week.


Adam
ps send more photos

7-17-12

Hey Moms,

So the new training program is two changes, so my comp is in his second change right now. His trainer has one less change then me and he got called to be a zone leader. Yeah our president has been doing some...strange things lately. It’s weird because there are a ton of kids that are finishing their missions right now, and a ton that are starting. In September, my group will be the third oldest group in the mission. I will have like 10 months ha-ha. So yeah, the mission is super super young right now. We went today and played soccer against some of the other zones and there were so many kids that I had never seen before. Which is weird since I have pretty much been around the whole mission and I feel like there are very few elders that I don’t know. McGrath didn’t go to byu before his mission but he got accepted and differed, speaking of which, you took care of my deferment right?

Google earth was correct. My area is just pure mountains. I like it but my legs are just dead tired every day. The hill to get to our house is nuts. We literally have to take breaks to get to the top. It’s a good 10 or 15-minute climb and its practically straight up. Its not like were not used to walking either, we walk all day every day so were in pretty good walking shape. On the brightside though, if I am here for a few changes (hopefully, I will cry if I have changes again) I will have some nicely toned buns. Work off some of that tortilla fat I have put on. I’m getting fat ha-ha. I thought I would come here and get loaded with parasites and drop a ton of weight, nope, turns out eating greasy meat and tortillas only makes you fatter.

There is a huge catholic church here though, crazy people. We always get lost in the milpa (the giant corn fields) but we can always kind of get a sense of direction because you can always see the great and spacious building from anywhere in the whole town. There are a few roads, but to get to houses and stuff we have to go through the milpa. It’s crazy because it’s like 7 feet tall, so we just kind of walk a little lost. But I will admit it does remind me of the Vermont house like crazy. If you watch the movie Signs, and just change all the actors into short Latinos, you would have my area.

We are in a ward and it’s actually pretty well established which is super nice. There were 130 people that attended this week. We are also sharing the area with two other Elders, a Mexican with 5 months and a greenie. So yeah, I am the senior elder in the area, working on 8 months and I am the vet ha-ha. Like I said, the mission is super young.

My comp’s Spanish isn’t bad, like he has a pretty gringo accent but he speaks a lot better than most of the people with his time. I told you guys his dad also served in Buena’s Aires right? How crazy is that? I would love to go with pops to Argentina. Tell Alex and Dayoung sorry, I am not going to marry a Korean, I am going to marry an Argentinean. They have the best accent out of all the Spanish speaking countries and they basically look American so it’s a win win situation for me.

The house we live in is pretty nice except the mountain climb and the fleas are eating me alive. I don’t know what it is? I have bathed everything I own with bug killer and repellant and nothing. They are just super pulgas or something and raid doesn’t kill them. Or missionaries have been trying to kill them for so long that they just built up a super immunity and now they are totally immune. Hopefully not.

Those pics of the mountains made me super baggy. I am going to live in the mountains one day. When I get home pops and I are going skiing. Make reservations now. I love the Tetons and the cabiny feeling. Ahhhh, making me baggy moms, making me baggy.

Anyways, nothing really sticks out in my mind to tell you guys from this week except I finally destroyed someone while Bible bashing. Am I a real missionary now? I pulled like 10 scriptures all out of the Bible and had some guy just straight stuttering. I wasn’t planning on doing it but the guy really made me mad ha-ha. He was kind of being really sarcastic and mouthy to my comp who was talking to him about baptism, so I rocked the guy. Pulled out some stuff against infant baptism because the guy was catholic and then the guy no joke told me "Somewhere in John it says we don’t have to exactly follow Jesus, just for the most part." I just looked at the guy with my mouth wide open for like 10 seconds and just handed him my Bible and said, "show me". He just started stuttering and I let into the guy and scripture bombed him.  Afterwards my comp was just like "Uhhhh, we could have handled that better". I just started laughing and was kind of like yeah probably, whatever, it felt good.

But yeah, that’s about all that was noteworthy from this week. I did get a package from gram, it was sweet, she sent the book about Porter Rockwell, uhhh I already finished it ha-ha. It was actually really cool but not that long. I was wondering if in the package your getting ready you could send me a few things. First of all The Day of Defense, and also a copy of Mormon Doctrine, and then some more anti itch things for bug bites. The medicated baby powder actually works really really well for the pulga bites, so maybe another thing of that, the one that dad sent before is like target brand. That would be more than anything the things I want/need to fulfill all my ocd desires. Thanks.

Love you mom, have a good week.

Adam

P.S. In the pic with the tags, notice how dirty my tag is compared to my comps, that is not the light, the letters on my tag are actually turning brown. yum.

7-9-12

Hey mom,
Well...Like 20 minutes after I emailed you guys on Thursday I got a phone call from the Zonies. I got changed again ha-ha. There are a bunch of guys going home early this change so they have to close more areas and move some more people around. My comp got changed to another area in Quiche called Jehóva, but I am now in Olintepeque, which is in one of the Xela zones but its up on the mountains above Xela. Yeah, it has been super hectic lately, I feel bad for President ha-ha. That would be so frustrating to figure out all these changes and stuff. But, some good news, I finally got put with a gringo ha-ha. I will be honest I never thought that it would actually happen. It’s really kind of weird actually. It just feels like I have been on divisions, not like he is actually my comp. His name is Elder McGrath and he is from San Diego.

It is a little strange too because I am finishing training him. His trainer got changed to be a zone leader in Huehue so now I am here doing that. I forgot how amazing English is. Kind of random though, his first name is Adam also, and his dad served in Buenos Aires, Argentina also. When I found that out I was just kind of like, huh what are the odds ha-ha.

It’s been super fun; we kind of just walk around lost in our area though. It’s way up in the mountains and it’s where the people are all just corn farmers. With it being rainy season and all, the corn stalks are all like 8 feet high so we can never see anything. There are some roads and city parts but for the most part we are just trying to get house-to-house walking the trails that weave in and out of the corn mazes.

It’s super different being with a gringo though. Since both of us can play the guitar we were getting ready for a baptism for some other elders yesterday and we were just like, hey, we should play and sing a song with the guitar for the baptism. We got it on video, I will try and get it uploaded sometime and send it to you guys.

Also we had to kick a drunk guy out of church yesterday ha-ha. The church building in our area is two stories and the upstairs is just the chapel, so we were sitting in sac mtg and my comp just turns around and is like, crap, not this guy again. I turn around and there is this guy that you can just tell is hammered drunk. He has like weeds and dirt and plants sticking out of his hair and vomit all over his clothes. I was just like, great, so we walk over to the guy and he basically just starts yelling at me. So I just kind of grab his arm and start dragging him down the stairs. He was swearing so bad ha-ha. My comp afterwards was kind of like, uhhh what was he saying? I was just thinking to myself, you might not want to write those words down elder. But we kind of had to drag him out to the street. He could barely walk and he was just asking me where I was from and stuff. So I told him I was American. He didn’t like that very much. He kept saying that he was pure Guatemalan so he is better than me. Then he said some very unfriendly words about you. Here if you tell someone ¨your mom¨ and then stick out your hand like if you were going to give them a handshake, it’s like the equivalent of saying the f word and flipping you off. After that you could say I kind of lost my patience ha-ha. My comp was pretty oblivious to what was going on and he kept saying to me in English, lets just go sit him down in one of the classrooms in the church so he calms down. I was just like uhhh no. Not a chance I am going to let this drunk idiot throw up and urinate all over the church after he just insulted my sweet mother. So we eventually just kicked him out and he stumbled off. Hate drunk people.

I loved the DR quote ha-ha, that’s exactly how I feel sometimes. Its not hell, but very very close sometimes. I can’t believe Preston is home. That is sooo crazy. I remember when he left, that was soooo fast. I haven’t heard anything about these fires and stuff, all my emails this week people are talking about them, maybe you guys have forgotten but uhhh, I am in Guatemala remember? I don’t get news about the US...

Anyways, I love you guys, talk to you next week.
Adam

7-5-12

Hey Moms,

Sorry I didn’t send any photos last week, I hadn’t taken any ha-ha. I am emailing right now because we postponed our p-day this week so we could go to the market in Chichicastenango today. Thursday is market day here, and that is the biggest market in the whole country. It was just nuts, literally people were just swarming around us trying to speak to us in English and sell their crap. There were a ton of gringos too. It was crazy. They all looked so surprised to see us. They would all come up to us and ask us where we were from and things like that. So strange to see white people again. I got you some stuff to finish up your bday package, don’t worry I didn’t forget your bday, just hadn’t found anything cool enough to send you, so keep an eye out for that.

There are some ruins here in my area that are pretty famous too, they are called Gumarrkah or something like that, we are allowed to go if we go with the zone, well probably go eventually I am sure. Yeah I don’t really know if I will ever get a gringo comp. The mission is mostly latinos, and there is only one or two non gringo lat companionships in the whole mission.  If I ever train I am sure it will probably be a latin.

I can’t believe that the 4th of July passed. I hate holidays in the mission because I can always remember exactly what I was doing that day the year before. Crazy though, we didn’t really do anything to celebrate because my comp wasn’t too stoked about an only American holiday ha-ha. We did go buy some ice cream though so that was nice. It has been suuper hot here lately too, the rain has kind of hit a break, and it’s supposed to start again in a few weeks or so.

Things are just kind of going here though. Sorry I don’t really have any kind of stories or anything to share. We have just been contacting a lot lately because we don’t really have that many good people to teach right now. Anyway, I will write more Monday, its almost 9 o clock, probably should start heading home.

Adam