Called to Serve: First week in Guatamala (Week 10)

wow, so i am finally here…holy cow. So i’ll just start off from the beginning. when we got to guat we went to the mission pres house and its in a really nice part of the capital. actually, its really the only nice part ha, ha, but it is in a big apartment building and what not. the assistants to the pres picked us up at the airport by the way. we then sat around like forever in the house and heard like directions for everything in the mission. i had a really hard time staying up because we were on the flight all night. by around noon time the pres got to the house. he is a really nice guy it seems like. it seems like he really cares about the missionaries and his wife is a real sweet heart. she is really nice and friendly as well. after being lectured for what seemed like all day we all loaded up in a circa 1945 bus and headed over to a zone called Almeda. the pres told us that it is the most dangerous part of all of central america. i was kinda scared to be honest. we get to the zone leaders house and then went on splits with some missionaries from that zone...sketchy soooo sketchy. but it was fun just being a missionary in this huge dangerous city. we taught a couple of members and a few investigators. really cool but i didn't really say much because i couldn't understand anything haha. we then spent the night at that house in alemada and when i say we i mean the guys who came down from the mtc in utah together. the next morning we got up and all headed back to the mission home for more directions and thats when we found out our zones. my first area is........san jose peten. i am all the way up at the top of the country right above the lake and man is it paradise. holy freak, it is so nice i will send you some pics cause it is so beautiful. san jose is a small little town on a hill. the entire town is on a hill. 1 of the only down sides is that we are hiking up hills all day. these are not small hills either they are like 55 degrees steep and its like you cant stand straight up because you might fall backwards if that makes any sense. the only other down side is it is by far the hottest part of my mission which is just my luck. the temperature gets up to about 120 with 100 percent humidity. the average during the months i am here are about 95-105 every day. i am going to die ha ha. the few days i have been here have been really nice though like 80 so it sucks knowing it is going to be 100 with 100 percent humidity every day in the near future. ok, so how i got here. it must have been Thursday night that me and a couple other people including elder champagne loaded up into a taxi and headed to the sketchiest place i have ever seen. i mean their were like dead people lying on the ground and drunks everywhere. thats where we went to get on the bus to go to peten. peten is the name of the zone i am in and its the name of the part of the county i am in right now. the bus ride was pretty terrible...10 hours on a bus to get up here...holy cow. when we finally got here it was like 8 in the moring and we left to catch the bus at like 9 the night before. the zone leaders picked us up at the bus stop and took us to their house. about 2 hours later my new companions got there...i am in a 3 companionship. elder bonilla is my trainer and is from honduras and my other comp is elder ortega from el salvador. elder bonilla is the man and is super nice and patient with my spanish. elder ortega i don't think can understand anything i say and i can't understand anything he says either. he talks with an accent where he doesn't say any s's so i can't understand anything he says. elder bonilla speaks a little, little, little bit of english. i have to talk in spanish all the time. it is good because i will learn faster but it is so frustrating. i really have no idea what we are doing ever or what is going on. i went to the store with them that first to buy things and they were speaking in spanish telling me what to get and i was like what the freak is going on and what did i get myself into. so after like 30 minutes of the most confusing conversations of my life i bought my stuff and left with them to go to our house. our house is at the top of a hill and is overlooking the lake which is spectacular. the house is the size of our kitchen and there is only 2 beds so i have been sleeping on a cot until we move this wednesday to a bigger house. the bathroom is also in the bedroom so it always reeks in there ha, ha. the house views from everywhere in san jose are incredible. google isla de flores in guat on google images and you can see where i am right now and then google san jose peten guat to see where my house is and where i spend all day. so the house is small but the view is awesome!! my comps are both really great but only speak spanish. yesterday was sunday and i met all the people in the ward. of course, i couldn't really understand them or anything. i can speak a little Spanish but i can never understand what they are saying to me. well, not ever but most of the time. its great though, they seem nice i think, ha,ha. the church building itself is really nice as well. the past couple of days we have been doing a lot of teaching with members and investigators. it can be hard teaching investigators because at 5:30 we have to have a member with us when we are walking around or we have to go back to our house. that is a mission rule. i think its just because it can be dangerous at night. the area i am in though isn't really dangerous at all. I'm loving it though i am having so much fun. it is just like i thought it would be. we hitchhike everywhere when we go out of the town which is also so much fun. we just load up in the back of a truck bed and go. on the way to church a member picked us up and we just hopped in the back. we picked up like 7 more people so we had like 10 people in the back of the truck and it was hilarious. teaching is great too. i know a lot of Spanish for teaching the gospel but my Spanish needs help for everything else. i can understand what is going on in the lessons also because i know a lot of gospel vocab. like i said though. the mission is awesome! i love all you guys and miss you of course, but it is awesome out here. today is my first pday in the field and we started the day off by playing soccer in the town across the lake with the zl's and some other missionaries. it was awesome and of course i am raw...probably the best out of all the gringos but the Latinos, wow, they can play. after soccer we went to pizza hut. ha,ha, finally some american food. we have beans and eggs for dinner every night. for lunch we go to a members house by our house that cooks lunch for us everyday for 15 quats. she does our laundry as well for 120 quats a month. she is great though and you can tell that she loves the missinonaries. i am loving it out here and miss you guys. i am going to try to send you some pics of the mission righ now. oh and go niners i heard they won and are in the super bowl with the ravens...holy cow harbowl... thats awsome!! you guys have to email what is going on with the fam of course also because that is how you keep in touch with me so email me. love you guys, you are the best. hope cold california is treating you well. love you all!

This is a picture of a volcano from out the window of the the plane. oh and there are volcanoes everywhere you go

This is me with a machete in alemeda where i spent my first night

Me walking up the hill to my house in san jose. look at how beautiful it is. Its just a lake surrounded by jungle

We walk on roads like this every day

Birds like this everywhere. Like i said we are in a jungle so there are a bunch of crazy animals everywhere and there are spiders the size of your entire hand haha its nuts.

Elder Ortega and I

This is our entire house it consists of that tiny tiny kitchen in the left and then 2 beds on the right with the bathroom in the middle. oh and cold showers of course haha.