7-22-13

Hey Mom,

Sounds like things are good there. The spitting activity sounds great ha-ha. I can just imagine Dad laying into some kid for not having a seed. Classic Phil. I feel you with the heat and monsoon weather. The rain has died down a little bit here, but the sun has been absolutely crazy. I don’t know if it's because we're closer to the equator and also up high in the mountains, but the sun here literally itches your skin. It’s so strong that your arms and neck and face just feel like this prickle all day. And then at nighttime the rain sets in and gets you nice and soaked. I had to buy a new umbrella because of some hurricane like winds and rain a few days ago. My boots are still holding up good, plus the pair of timberland shoes I have are pretty waterproof. 

Tonight we are going to work with President Bautista. I always like that a lot. He usually works with the zonies once a change but this will be the first time I have gone out with him in this area. I always really like it because before hand we always do an hour of companionship study with him, and that’s always fun. We have a few appointments with some investigators but we don’t really have any great investigators right now so hopefully it will go well. I have been thinking this might be my last change as a zone leader so I will have to enjoy the time with President while I can. 

This week we had two pretty exciting things happen. The first was we had a drunk guy kick us out of his house with a monkey wrench. It was a less active and when he answered the door you could tell (and smell) that he was obviously pretty hammered. But he insisted that we come in so we went in and were talking to him for a bit. When we realized he was too drunk to know what he was saying, we tried to leave and he kind of stumbled to the door. We said a prayer real quick with him to finish the lesson and then we started to walk to the front patio. There is a front door and then a little gated patio and while we were standing in the patio, my comp kept telling the guy to bring out his liquor and we could pour it all out for him, but he wasn’t really responding at all. After three or four times of telling him to bring it out, he finally agrees and walks into his house again. We could hear him start moving around his bed or a cupboard or something and I was just thinking to my self is this guy really going to do this? But then all of the sudden my comp tells me to run, so I look around the corner into the door and the drunk guy is stumbling towards us with this giant monkey wrench ha-ha. Obviously he was too drunk to have been able to do some damage, but regardless we knew that was the time to get out of there. So we left and I look back, the guy is just standing there with the wrench and a confused look on his face. Not sure if he was going to try and hit us with the wrench, or if he wanted my comp to get rid of it for him. Either way I was just kind of in disbelief and laughing to myself. He called me again yesterday and asked me if we could go and walk him home, he said he was outside lost and drunk and he wanted us to come get him. I just told him we were busy eating lunch and he said that he understood and told us to come pass by his house later. Uhhhh no thanks. Drunk people ha-ha.

 The other thing that was pretty funny, was yesterday when we went to church, my comp and another priest were up ready to bless the sacrament, and when the hymn starts they go to break the bread and...no bread. They panicky whisper to the Bishop that there was no bread and the Bishop really loudly says "how can there not be bread"? So some members in the congregation notice and two run out really quickly to a store and bought some bread like items. My comp was just sitting up on the stand dying laughing the whole time, even through the prayers and all he was struggling. Just because he was laughing too I couldn’t help but laugh. It was like a three-stooge moment or something. Just good Guatemalan chaos. The good thing too was our three investigators didn’t show up until after the sacrament, so they didn’t get to see the whole fiasco. 

Either way, life goes on. Things are good here. I had to buy a new backpack this week so that is the expense on my card. I also pulled out the money Grandma told me she was going to deposit. The rest of my stuff seems to be holding up well. 

Anyways, I love you guys; hope you all have a good week.

Adam

7-15-13

This was a huge sour lemon a member made us eat

Hey Mom,

I think something was wrong with my email last week because I had a bunch of return emails that were failed but that were resent and stuff like that. I wrote everything on Monday but yeah, Guatemalan Internet isn’t the most reliable in the world I guess. 

Things are all right here. The fair is in town this week and last week so it’s been pretty dead in our area. Our area includes the center of the city and it’s been quite the party there these last few days. They had some big parades and everything so our area was looking a little ghost towny. Also we had probably the biggest rainstorm I have ever seen in my life on Saturday. I couldn’t believe how hard it was raining. We were on our way to an appointment when it started to rain, and the people that we were supposed to go visit live in this apartment kind of complex. When we walked back to their house, I broke a light bulb outside of their neighbors house with my umbrella (the roofs are really low here). Since our appointment wasn’t home, we went and bought them a new light bulb. While we were walking to a store to buy a new light bulb is when it really started to rain. We were walking down the street and the rain and wind were going so hard my companion and I both had our umbrellas pretty much straight in front of us instead of above us, and then, my umbrella just breaks in half about a block from the house. We run back to the house, I grab my raincoat, and we run back to this house to change out the light bulb. By the time we do that, it was raining so hard that the roads were all at least 6 inches deep in rainwater. We tried heading home but the sidewalks were all covered with water so we ducked under a little cover and we were hoping it would pass. A man close by was standing in his garage and yelled at us to come in so that we wouldn’t get wet. So we ran over to the garage. We talked to him for about half an hour when we realized the rain wasn’t going to get any better, just worse, and that we just had to face it and walk home. The water literally almost was up to my knees and we had to walk home a couple blocks. We were just laughing by the time we got home because we were soaked. When I got home and took my boots off it was like in the cartoons when they turn their shoes over and pour all the water out. Like I said, I have never seen so much water in my life. 

We were lucky though that we live on the second floor of a house so no water entered into our house. Another funny thing that happened this week, is we met this really cool investigator whose name is Mefì, which sounded exactly like Nephi. I was so happy ha-ha, we contacted him and I asked him like 5 times what his name was because I thought he was messing with us.  It wasn’t until after that my comp cleared it up for me that he was saying Mefi and not Nephi. Either way, it would have been cool to have an investigator with a Nephite name. 

Anyways, I love you all have a good week. 

Adam

The owner of our house`s dogs.

7-9-13

Hey Mom,

So first of all, I finally got Grandma’s package this week. It was trashed and had some gross smelling brown liquid spilt all over it, but it did get here. Grandma’s a champ though; all of the stuff that was inside of the package was in plastic bags so nothing got the stuff on it. Make sure and tell her thanks for me, and great choice on the BYU tie.

As for the Momos, that is the one part of the mission that I have never been too. Momostenango is actually a decent sized city and fairly modern, but its famous because the stake is just that one city and tons of little tiny aldeas that you can barely even call aldeas. They are more like entire mountains where the houses are dotted out really far apart. The missionaries in those areas have to live in a little room that’s part of the chapel, and they have to go to Xela once a month in order to buy their food. It’s the land of milk and honey though, the people there are super humble and really except the gospel. Even though the areas are really big and spread out over mountainsides, the members are super strong and the wards are growing really fast there. It’s pretty wild though, like just imaging having an area that is just a mountainside, no roads, nothing. Just walk in the direction your trying to get to and walk until the house shows up. That’s funny you saw that from Elder Snow though, because do you remember my old roommate Scott? I really liked him, he had served his mission in New Zealand, and Elder Snow is my old roommates’ cousin ha-ha. They are super alike too.

Huehue is good though. It’s really hot in the morning and afternoon until it starts to pour rain and we get soaked. Little bit of the worst of both worlds ha-ha. Landon had told me they had gotten up to 120 though, that’s disgusting, I’ll be honest that would kill me. I have had some hot days here, but never that hot. Why is Vegas such a big city, who wants to live next door to Satan?

Tomorrow are the changes. My ZL comp and I don’t have changes, but our other comp has changes. It was a good change; I really, really like both of these kids. Trio is fun because it’s easier to converse and have fun, but it’s hard to teach, so the change has its plusses and minuses.

I baptized a lady today. She doesn’t live in my area, but still. It kind of just fell out of the sky for some sister missionaries in our zone and yesterday they called us to do the interview and the lady said she wanted a gringo to baptize her, so I had to go today in the morning and I got to baptize. It was cool even though it doesn’t count for me. The last time I have baptized someone was April last year. It’s almost always been a member that has done it, which is preferable, but it feeds the fire a little bit every time you get to stand in the font.

This week was really good though. Really tiring. We had meetings in Xela and some other things going on, I woke up at about 4:30 almost every day. I know mornings have never really been hard for me, but 4:30 comes early every time. It’s nice and warm in the mornings though so it’s not too bad, waking up when it’s cold outside, that’s when its hard.

4th of July was pretty normal. Our lunch appointment fell thru so we ordered Dominos, that’s about as American as it can get here, and my companion bought me an ice cream cone even though it was pouring rain outside ha-ha. But other than that we just worked. Lots of people here remembered that though, pretty much the whole day people were like hey, happy independence day. Probably since like more than half of the people we talk to have been in the states at some point illegally in their life, but still, they remembered. Anyways, everything is good here. I love you all, say hi to everyone for me.

Adam

PS I don’t think I’ll be home thanksgiving day. I'm not coming home early, sorry, I can’t. I wish I could extend honestly. I'm not ready to go home....

6-24-13

Hey Mom,

Yeah I did hear about the Elder that died. Some members told us the name and I am pretty sure I had recognized that name. When you said he also had 18 months yeah that must be him then. I remember he was in the CCM with me but he went to the other mission. He wasn't in my district but I did know him. That is so sad honestly. I haven't heard anything about it other than that though. Seriously though, that's too bad.

On another note. What kind of sick freak would buy my wisdom teeth? And not just that, but spend 26 dollars on them. I feel like if there was some kind of justifiable reason as to why he would want them, he could have just gone to any regular dentist and asked him for some. But if you have to secretly buy them over the Internet, that scares me. I have been trying but just cant seem to get my mind wrapped around the fact someone wanted my two year old wisdom teeth....

Anyways, this week was good. Its been super overcast but hasn't rained very much. I found some brand new timberland waterproof dress shoes in a used clothes store and paid about 100 quetz for them. It was seriously a great deal. They look brand new honestly. I am hoping I can wear these throughout the rainy season and preserve my eccos in good condition for when I'm done. Those eccos are really nice, but they aren't 100% waterproof because of the seams they have on the front. Plus I still have my boots that are in really really good condition so I am sure my feet will be nice and taken care of. This week we were out working in this little pueblo in our area the whole time. Its this little village called San Lorenzo, but its part of our ward. It's actually where our bishop lives. Its about fifteen minutes in a bus away from the city but its nice and calm out there. It's a nice break to get out of the city a little bit. Its really hectic actually the life in my area. The roads here are really really narrow and the cars all drive really fast, so I feel like I am playing frogger every now and then dodging through cars in the streets. So when we go out into the mountains its nice and calm. 

My whole mission have wanted to go to one of the aldea areas where there are no roads or cars or anything, just pure mountains and little dirt paths. Maybe when I get changes they will send me there. I also like going to areas like that because we can do a lot of service stuff. I am actually pretty good with a machete but I cut my finger pretty bad on accident on Friday. It closed up alright though. No stitches. We are teaching a lot right now, just not having baptisms. Our date that we had for this week fell through because the guy couldn't attend church. Hopefully it just gets set back a week or two and that's all. We have interviews coming up this week but I still don't think I am going to talk with my mission President about when the release date is exactly. I still have plenty of time until I have to worry about those kind of things.... 

Also they told us were going as a zone to the temple again. Not this week but next week. I am really excited about that. The temple here is really really pretty, and its nice to go and just not stress or worry about anything. Its like a good two hour vacation they give to missionaries. I got the package from you this week Mom. Thanks for sending all that stuff. I really really liked your class on balance. I let my comp who speaks English read it too and he also really enjoyed it. He was really surprised that you had written it, he thought it was someone high up in the church or something that had sent it. Other than that though, nothing really exciting happened this week. 

Good to hear from you, I love you all and have a good week.

Adam

7-1-13

Hey Mom,

This week was good. Yeah Alex told me that it has been really, really hot there. It’s not too bad here right now. We are into the rainy season now so the blazing sun has stopped. It rains pretty much all the days here in the afternoon so that cools it off nicely. It has been causing some problems with the electricity in our area though so that’s kind of the down side. It has gone out probably every other day here and this morning it went out again. I am not sure if it was my fault or not but, I was trying to get into the shower, and here there are no water heaters, there are just electric shower heads that heat up the water as it comes out (yeah super safe). But when I turned it on, it heated up for about 5 seconds and then I hear a little explosion from outside. I walked outside and my companions where looking out our front window. Our apartment is on the second floor and when I looked out of the window a large mass of electric cables had melted and caught on fire and they were burning other cables and I am pretty sure it took out the power on our whole street. I didn’t mean to do it though ha-ha.

Like I said before too, it has been raining hard this week. On Thursday we were out working in a little pueblo outside of Huehue and it started to rain. We decided to head back into town before we got the heavy part of the rain but we were too late. I even had my umbrella but we still got soaked. It was windy too so everything from about belly button down was soaked in about 5 minutes. There weren’t any busses either, so we had to walk for about an hour in that rain to get home. My comps and I were soooooo soaked. Literally the only part of my body that wasn’t wet was my hair, my umbrella isn’t so great. 

Another funny thing that happened this week was our ward got a visit from the stake patriarch yesterday. He gave a talk in Sacrament meeting and also the class for the last hour. He talked the whole time about marriage but it was actually really really good. There is a problem of YSA people here in this town, just in my ward there are like 25 return missionaries that have more than a year to be home and haven’t been married yet. Needless to say the topics are usually marriage for that reason all of the Sundays. But he was talking about how men don’t have to wait for their Virgin Mary and women don’t have to wait for the Angel Moroni to come down from off of the top of the temple in order to get married. Just that people need to accept responsibility and accept the next step in their life to continue progressing. I really liked it though; the guy was really giving it to the YSA people though.

As for the changes I have no idea what’s going on just yet. This is the last week of the change so next week we will know for sure. My comps are still good. We have been in trio the whole time and I really enjoy them both. I would be sad leaving them as companions, but the area wouldn’t be the hardest to leave. It’s a good area, but I have had better, and I am kind of getting a little bit of mountain fever since I have just been in the city my whole mission. I sure hope my last area they send me to some crazy mountain area, that’s my last wish. 

As for implementing facebook and things like that here in the mission, I still don’t think those kind of things will be done here. One for the security risks, we get robbed for having the crappiest cell phone in the market. If people know we have ipads or blackberry phones in order to use facebook, we would all get robbed so fast. Plus nobody here has a personal computer so facebook is used, but nothing like in the states where it would be a good means for communicating with and finding new people to teach. Like.... I am in the mountains of Guatemala, let's be honest. 

Anyways, sounds like everything is good there, I love you all and hope all is well. I will talk to you all next week.

Adam