Los Olivos, Guatemala

This week went by really fast. And slow. Each day is slow and then you look back and it flew by.

This week we didn`t teach as much. Not many people were home but hopefully this week we'll do better. School started today so hopefully that will mean that people are at home more. The language is getting better every week. I can tell a difference every week in how much I understand. Hopefully soon I'll be able to talk more. My companion has been helping me with saying things correctly because some things are similar and others are different between the languages.

Guatemala is really nice. The area Los Olivos is a good area but like I said a little big. Not horrible but sometimes when you're walking up the hill you think man, really.

There was one day this week that we couldn't go out and work because my companion was throwing up and her stomach hurt so I was really bored. I ended up washing some of my laundry (we do it my hand at the house), watching The Testaments, and reading, and eating. My companion has been sick almost the whole time that I've been with her. She says that I've been poisoning her and that's why she's sick. She's had diarrhea and her stomach hurts and she was throwing up that one day. I think she's starting to get better though.

Today we got our shower fixed! It was exciting! Up til now we've been using a bucket and warming the water with a light bulb thing and then scooping up some water and dumping it over ourselves for a shower. It's actually not too bad to shower this way. You use a lot less water.

Guess what? We have three dates for baptisms right now!!! We got one of them to attend church yesterday and one of them we just barely commited last night. The other has a hard time because her parents are split and with school starting she needed clothes and stuff and they each buy different stuff for her so she couldn't attend yesterday but hopefully this week!! We're also hoping to commit a family with two people that can be baptized this week. My companion said that this is really good for this area because she was here for three months before me for her training in the field and they didn't have any people with dates and no baptisms so we're pretty excited!!!!

I'm doing really good. I've had some blisters :( but they're healing now! :) And I'm really starting to feel better about the language. I still don't understand a lot but it's getting better.

I love you!!!!! I hope everything goes well for you this week!!

Pictures

Ok hopefully here are some pictures. Our district in Provo with the two different teachers.

My companions in the CCM first is Hermana Garcia and Hermana Alcorraz.

Hermanas Sanchez and Aldana

Me with Santa Claus at Christmas.

Hermana Ayala one of my teachers who is the one of the best people in the world.

And last is my district which hopefully you can see everyone!

Hope things are going good! Love you all!!!!!

First Week in the Field

I'm doing good here. The mission field is different and in a lot of ways better. My new companion is Hermana Ramos. She's really nice and we work hard. Our area is Los Olivos. We're in the Esperanza (Hope) zone. And I'm in the Santa Elena district. We only have 4 people (including us) in our district. We're also the only Hermanas in our zone. There used to be two more hermanas but I guess our area isn't big enough or something. Our area is big! My first day we walked all over all of it and I have been so tired this week.

Our mission president is awesome and I really like his wife. She's so funny. She holds your hand. When  we first got to the mission home both the mission president and his wife took us individually to have interviews and I thought it was really funny because she took my hand like a little child and led me to where we were going to talk. And then I got to watch all of the elders hold her hand too which was really funny because some of them were like macho boys that are in the military. It was hilarious for me!!

There are a lot of really nice people here. They're all really accepting and all ask me where I'm from? How long I've been here? Then they ask how my Spanish is after I tell how long I've been here. Then I do a lot of sitting and trying to understand a little bit of what they're saying. Luckily I have the Lord on my side in lessons otherwise I'd really be in trouble. So far we have one person with a baptismal date but the biggest problem here is that the people won't go to church. They have a lot of less active members because they won't go to church. They've even had people attend church enough times to be baptized and then they go inactive because they know the church is true but they won't go.

Oh yeah I forgot to say that my companion is a newbie too. Well she has two months in the field which is your training time. By a rule you're with your trainer for 2 transfers, 12 weeks, and they have a new training program that they're using that helps train you in the mission so that when your 12 weeks are over you should be prepared enough to be a trainer and that's what happened with me. She's really good though. We spend a lot of time studying because I'm a newbie and I need to learn the language and I need to learn how to teach but our lessons go pretty well. I'm doing pretty good on not having fear to talk to people but I still have some.

Today our zone got together and played sports. We played dodgeball which was awesome and a lot of fun.  I've been so tired. I thought I would sleep better at night than I have. I slept pretty good but the last couple of nights I've woken up a lot and last night I had a really bad dream that we were in a lesson and Hermana Ramos was saying something and then turned to me to say something and I had no idea what she said and I tried to explain to her that I didn't know what was happening and she just kept looking at me like why aren't you teaching. It was terrible!!

The food is really good here. I haven't had any problems with any of the food here except for guacamole which I still don't like. This week I ate some grilled cheese sandwiches that were so good!!! (I made them) Our apartment is nice and we walk a lot!!!

I haven't had too hard of a time communicating with my companion which is good. I can tell a difference though that she still is kind of green. It's all good though. We're all learning. We don't really make many appointments here. I think we're supposed to try and make appointments but where this last week was all messed up we mostly just had people that we would try to visit.

I'm doing good. Love you all!!!!

Here I go!

I know it's crazy! I leave tomorrow morning at 8am and then we go to the mission house which is only like twenty minutes away and have training for the field for the whole day. I'm excited and a little nervous. This last week was different and we had a lot of time for studying and asking questions.

We took down the Christmas decorations on Saturday morning for our service project and it was really weird because they've been up almost the whole time that we've been here because they went up the Saturday after we got here and they went down the Saturday before we left.

President and Hermana Steimle are amazing. I love them so much. I love how personal this MTC is because we got to talk with them and they got to know us better than they would at the other MTC. It was kind of hard transition for me when I got here for the first week and then things were good and then it was a little hard again when the change came with the other people switching out. Now it's finally my turn. We just said goodbye to three elders from our district that were going to El Salvador and one of the old Norteamericano girls because she was going to Nicaragua. It was good but I'm going to miss them. Luckily it's our turn tomorrow morning so we can finally get this goodbye part done for another six weeks. Time feels like it's gone slow but fast at the same time. I can remember the time that I've gone through but I can't believe that it's already time to go out, it's January, and it's 2012!!! Happy New Year!!

I feel ready to go out. We've gotten alot of good advice for when we go out to the field. They showed us a clip from Facing Giants today I don't know if you remember but they're doing the thing where they carry someone on their backs and just on their hands and knees like they're charging. Then they carry them a certain distance. The coach has him blindfolded and he carries the guy all the way across the field because he's just supposed to give his best and they push until he goes all the way. This is what we are to do. We think that maybe we might be able to reach the 50 yard line but if we push, ignore ourselves, and just focus on what the Lord tells us then we will accomplish so much more than we could ever imagine.

Love you! Here I go! :)

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!!!!!!!!