5 months (week 13)

hey family, i loved getting your letters as always. i’m always a little self conscious about reading them because i always laugh out loud and all the people look at me like i am crazy. mom, its great to hear that you are having a good time down in vegas with your sisters. its crazy, i talk to the people down here all of the time about the importance of family and how god blessed us with a family to learn and to have incredibly fun times. your being in vegas with your sisters is a perfect example of that and i feel the same way about my family that i have been blessed with. the masters finish sounded awesome and i can’t believe it was a year ago i was watching it at alex helegans house. its always great to hear from you guys and i love you all so much.

ok, so this past week was crazy. i finally finished my training as a missionary which is 12 weeks. so i am done with training which also means i have 3 hours of study a day instead of 4….4 is just too long ha, ha. i just finished my second change and also hit 5 months on sunday. man is time flying. yea, so this week was a little crazy. the reason i am writing you today and not monday is because i had to go down to the cap and sign some papers for my visa as well as have an interview with the president. my comp had done some things that were against the rules so i had to talk to the pres about that monday as well. i can promise you i didn’t break the rules and i am doing just fine. i left to go down to the cap on sunday night and we hitchhiked down to santa eleana to catch a bus to the cap. the bus left at 9 and we didn’t get to the cap until 6 the next morning. the bus ride was good going down though because i sat next to another gringo and a friend, elder hill, so i just talked to him and slept for like 6 hours. so the bus ride down there was pretty easy. when i got to the cap the assistants sent a couple of taxis for us and we headed to the area office. the area office is the headquarters for the church for all of central america. from there we got on another bus and went to the immigration office to sign the paper for my visa. such a pain to go all the way to the cap to just sign one paper that takes like 5 mins. but its all good because i also got to talk with the pres and his wife a lot too. so yea, after signing the visa paper i headed to the mission office to talk with the pres. the interview went well and i absolutely love president watts he really is the greatest and i could talk all day with him. i also talked with hermana watts for like an hour. i took my family pictures down to the cap and was showing them to some other missionaries when hermana watts said she wanted to look at them too and she asked me to tell her about every picture. that was fine by me because i can talk about you guys forever and tambein i could talk with hermana watts forever. hermana watts is like my 2nd mother. this is no joke that woman is a saint. i have never felt such warmth around somebody other than my own family. she makes me feel so special and she has such a kind heart. yea, so that’s why i didn’t email you yesterday because i wasn’t here in peten. oh, i almost forgot, elder lloyd, who is one of the assistants to the pres gave me a suit. he found a ralph lauren suit at a paca and thought i would look good in it so he just gave it to me. it fits just about perfect too. that’s perfect because my other suit is falling apart. im really sad about that but it just can’t handle guat ha, ha. i was really happy about that and i have a couple pictures of me trying it on that i’ll send too. so after waiting around forever the assistants sent us by taxi back to the fronte norte bus station to wait for another bus to take us back to peten. the bus ride back was ruff and i mean really ruff. we got on the bus at 5 and i just had 1 other person with me. the bus they put us on was terrible too and the air conditioning wasn’t working for like 6 hours of the ride. after about 3 hours of being on the bus i felt sick…sick to my stomach. i didn’t know what sickness it was but i needed to use a bathroom but the next stop was not for 7 hours, the bus stop in santa elena. the bus was hot, i was sick, and the seats didn’t recline so i was in heck. it was really hard and i even let my attitude get a little negative. that doesn’t happen very often ha, ha. yea, so i didn’t sleep at all, i was hot, and i was sick to my stomach. i won’t go into details about my stomach but lets just say it wasn’t pretty when i finally got to a bathroom. the one good part about the bus ride is that i was sitting next to a little guat man and so i talked with him for probably 4 hours. yea, all in spanish. i could understand everything he was saying too and miraculously it seemed like he could understand me. that was a real confidence builder because i was actually not feeling that good about my spanish before leaving to the cap. i just figure i can understand just about everything now as long as i really listen and i can talk pretty well. it was really fun talking to that man. of course, i told him why i was there and about my mission. i told him about jose smith and gave him a restoration pamplet. he says he wants to talk to the missionaries more so i would say that it was a success. it really is just the best being a missionary and telling people about the lords church. oh freak, i forgot we had a baptism on saturday with the son of the family we baptized a couple of weeks back. the dad didn’t end up baptizing him because he wanted my comp to do it. i was a little disappointing his dad couldn’t baptize him but its all good because he still got baptized. i forgot my camera this week so i will send you the pics next week. another fun week here in guat. oh yea, i’m getting a new comp but i don’t know who but i am staying in my same area and my old comp is going somewhere else. i loved hearing from you guys and love and miss you. remember to always pray as a family and your personal prayers.

love elder call

this is my new suit looks good huh

love you guys