November 5, 2013
Hola family,
It feels like it has been a long time since I have talked or
heard from you. I've been incredibly busy these couple of days. So I have been out in the mission field for
about 6 days now. My first area is a
place called Santa Barbara it's about a hour from the coast and its very
hot! It reminds me a lot of like what
Hawaii or Tonga would look like. It's
very tropical and pretty. The houses
are. . . interesting. My trainers name is Elder Osegera. He is from Honduras and he can speak a bit of
English, so I've been teaching him. He is very hard working and walks
incredibly fast! All of the people laugh
because they see me trying to catch up to him and start running while he is
walking. My Mission President expects us
all to move incredibly fast with a purpose and to be perfect in everything we
do especially with rules. I feel very
blessed for the trainer I have. He is
very kind and has a sense of humor, but
he is also loyal, hard working and wants
to baptize as much as he can. My first
week here was. . . very hard. People tell you missions are hard at times but
they don't really explain why, especially when you have to serve in a foreign
country. It's very hard to adjust and
try to adapt to your surroundings. My
first few days were definitely the hardest.
I just felt completely useless and not able to understand or say a
thing. I came out of the CCM thinking that my Spanish was pretty good and that
I should be able to be fine, but the
first day was definitely a reality check and I won't lie, it's hard. I was very unsure of myself and I was very
depressed because I felt useless and my companion was doing everything. But that night I talked to him about it and
he said some things to me that helped a lot.
I am grateful for my trainer. The
mission president also told me that everyone is like this and that it will get
better. Also my Zone leader talked to
me and told me how his first few days were horrible, but you just have to make a fool out of
yourself and talk to everyone. So, it
sounds like everyone has to go through this and that does give me hope. For the past few days it has been getting
better, though we have no time for language study. Dad if you could help me know how to make my
language better and how to study it would help a lot. We contact here A LOT, especially my companion and I because he
loves to do it. So we talk to a lot of
people out in the streets and everywhere we go and that has helps my Spanish to
grow. The past couple of days have gotten better I
actually got some complements on my Spanish saying that its better then the
last companion he taught and that it is pretty good for someone that has only
been here for 6 weeks. I am slowly able to pick out what people
say, so that was encouraging.  |
| Picture of Santa Barbara, Guatemala from Google |
We teach a lot of people and we should be having a couple of
baptisms in a week or so. There's about
80 members here. There's also a lot of
Evangelist and CATHOLICS and they all have silly excuse for not wanting us to
teach them but that's how it goes.
The culture is definitely different here. The food
here is okay. There are no stores where
we are so they have little snack bars and small stores that sell some
stuff. If we want certain things we
have to go to another town to get them.
We pay some people to feed us or do our laundry. Our apartment is ..not terrible ha ha, but it isn't exactly fancy either. The showers don't get hot, it's only cold, so
I hate showers especially in the morning.
I am beginning to
teach with my companion. For some reason
it feels harder to teach then it did at the CCM but I am trying. Time goes by fast. I hope we can find more time to study because
I want to be able to actually understand and teach. I hope that comes, so I can really start working.
P.S. Forgot to say I have not received my care package apparently
it can take 6 weeks to get here and we only
get our letters and care packages every transfer meeting, which means
every 6 weeks. This is not great but I
can email every week and I can send letters.
My President pretty much told us that it is going to be hard and that Guatemala
is one of the most successful mission.
We also work the hardest, with a
sense of purpose. This means we work
fast and walk fast and follow all of the rules with exactness. There are interesting animals here ha ha and things smell interesting too. . . People live in hut-like things or in cement apartments, but they all have metal roofs so when it rains
it is so hard to hear. A lot of people
don't even have electricity so that is interesting. There are a lot of just random dogs and
chickens and cows and all kinds of things that just wander around everywhere. I also saw my first chicken get its head
chopped off. There' s a lot of sugar cane fields and all kinds of fruit trees
everywhere.
