One week left in the MTC!

Christmas night we had a good fireside by the mission presidency. Only a week left and I'm out in the field! It's crazy! I hope that I get a really nice companion so I can learn a lot from her!
Monday we went proseliting and instead of going to the park and doing contacts we went to some streets and they turned us loose so we ended up knocking on doors but it was really hard to tell which was a house, garage, or business. We ended up with a Latino companion with us because she couldn't go with her group the next day so she ended up talking almost the whole time but it was alright. Hermana Walden and I are doing well on our teaching together and are really getting in tune with each other and the spirit. We've had some really good lessons. So far here we've got our investigators to be baptized but then we don't go any further and move on to a new investigator so I haven't really taught any lessons to do with the commandments like law of tithing or law of chastity but we have practiced them.
Things are going really good! I love you all!! :)

Speaking in Church - Again!

The weather is really nice today! Probably because it rained for the first time since we got here yesterday! I wanted to go out in it but it rained a lot and hard!

It's so nice being able to go to the temple here. It's really small but a huge blessing.

So Sunday I got to talk in church again haha! I've talked twice while being in the MTCs. Once in Provo and once in Guatemala. Out of six Sundays (not seven because of fast sunday) I've talked twice. Good thing I'm always prepared :) I also got to play the piano for the other North American district (Matteo) on Sunday and then just last night I played for the elders in my district (Marcos). It's so much fun!

Christmas is a little different here. Here they stay up all Christmas Eve night and at midnight they open presents and party into Chrismas. We're going to have a traditional Christmas dinner here with tomales and everything! I'm really excited! We have a really cool schedule for Saturday and Sunday too!

Goodbye and Hello

This last week was pretty good! It went by really fast!! Yesterday and this morning we said goodbye to all the Latinos and the old Northamericanos. I was really sad when my Latino companion, Hermana Garcia, left. She was awesome!

Hermana Walden and I got chosen to be the new coordinating sisters so we're going to be over all the sisters. Scary!! Luckily the last coordinating sisters gave us a paper from their speech that they gave the first day we were there. The other three sisters that are still here with us, as we are now the "old" Northamericanas, they're the music people so they get to set up all the special musicals. I’m super excited and I’m really looking forward to the new people.

Sunday we got to watch the Quetzltenango temple dedication which was awesome. They provided the white hankies for us and they're really cool. They sewed a picture of the temple and the name and date on it.

I can see the Guatemala City Temple from the window right now and it's way pretty! We're so lucky to have so many temples so close to us in Utah!!!

Today we got to go around to different parts of the city. This morning we went to a "relief map" of Guatemala. Apparently it took 16 years for them to make because they rode horses around the whole country to survey it and get everything exactly right. I guess they made it quite a while back though. One of the leaders gave us a big lecture on places that the Book of Mormon could have possibly taken place and we got to look at it on the map. Then we went to the mercado and got to go shopping and learn how to barter with the people. Some of them wouldn't really barter with me though. I did get a cool scarf though! Then we went to a museum that's hooked to a huge mall. The mall is like 3-4 stories tall and looks exactly like an American mall.  Except in Spanish. The museum was alright and had some cool artifacts but it wasn't very big.

I’m super excited for Christmas down here because we’re the mission president’s last full group so they’re going to do some really fun stuff with us.  And it’s Christmas so we get to do even more cool stuff!  I love you all!!!!!!!!

Spanish, Parks, and the Temple

The language is coming slowly but it gets better every day. This next Monday and Tuesday the Latinos and the old North Americans are leaving the CCM so it's just going to be us newer Americans for a day or so. We get to go to the market and I'm way excited to go and shop and be with the people. Two days ago on Monday morning they took us to a park (we rode a bus, by the way the buses were super crowded with all of us in them and the other people who needed to ride it too, they all just crowd on, it was kind of fun!) and in the park we were teamed up with our Latino companiona and we went contacting for an hour and fifteen minutes.  It was so much fun even though I didn't understand the people. They all talk fast. I was able to mostly understand the conversations but I couldn't really contribute to them.  None of the North Amercians were able to do much on this trip but we'll be going again in a few weeks and then it will just be our regular companion.

My Latino companion is Hermana Garcia and she is so little and cute! I've gotten some pictures with her so if someday I can send them you can see what she looks like.

We've gotten to go to the temple the last two weeks. The first week we were in an English session and did the veil with English but this morning we went through a Spanish session. They gave us headsets for English translation but I chose not to use it. Then I did the veil with Spanish which was hard.

Our mission president's wife meets with us every Sunday for a meeting about out in the field. It's so much fun to meet with her because we get to speak complete English in her amazing apartment. Her name's Hermana Steimle. I love her so much! She's so nice and her mission ends just after we leave the CCM (MTC).

I just found out that it is faster to send letters to my mission instead of to the MTC so send any further letters to my mission address:

Rebecka Leona Nielsen
Guatemala Guatemala City North Mission
5° Avenida 5-55, edificio Euro Plaza
Torrel, Nivel 12 Oficina 1202B, Zona 14
Guatemala City
Guatemala
Telephone: 502 2385-3386

(Make sure you put the telephone # on it for packages.)

If you sent letters to the MTC, I’ll still get them, just a little later than if they get sent to my mission. Anyways I love you all!

Guatemala MTC - Fruit, Beans, and Volcanoes

The food here is amazing!!!! I'm still getting used to the beans but we eat a lot of bread and fruit and meat and potatoes and it's just good! I will not be able to eat fruit when I get back because it is so amazing here!! They also have juice and it really is from fruit! It is so, so, so good!!!!!!!!! I love it. My favorite fruit is the pineapple!

So far it hasn't been way warm here. It's still winter for them and it's cold right now. The elders turn on the air conditioning in our room so we freeze. At 6:45 in the morning we have gym and we have to go outside and it's kind of cold.  We don't get to go outside very often so we don't see the sun much.

Our teachers are really good. They're from Guatemala and they learned English either on their mission or from their American companions. It's really awesome! I've a harder time adjusting here than I did in Provo but it’s coming.

Guatemala from what we can see looks like California. There really are volcanoes here! I'm getting really excited to go to the field but I need the time here for the language.

I don't know what I want for Christmas. They did tell us if people send us stuff to send it by UPS, Fedex, or there was one other, not by regular mail, it won't get here for a really long time if you go by normal mail. Also send the stuff already open because if it comes ´´new´´ then we have to pay taxes on it. Dear Elder, send it to the Guatemala MTC. We only receive the letters once a week though.  The Dear Elder letters come through the pouch service, but you don’t have to pay any postage that way.  Love you!!!

Provo MTC Pictures

This is my district in the Provo MTC in front of the Provo Temple.

From left to right: Me, Hermana Cohill (front), Hermana Walden (back), Hermana Madsen, Elder Moore, Elder Verhagen, Elder Hogge, Elder Chappell.

My and my companion - Hermana Walden