March 10, 2012

Hey things are going great. I'm supposed to tell you all to start
sending mail to the mission home, but I don't really know that address
so mom maybe you could look that up and I will try to find it. Also
after this week send dear elders to the GCN mission home. It sounds
like life is busy as usual over there and it sounds like you all had a
good stake conference. Jake I wish I could be there to see your play.
And I'm glad youre doing good in your schoolwork. The weather is nice
down here it's like summer each day except Utah is hotter. My favorite
food here is the guacamole. We got to go to the city last Tuesday and
we saw this huge map of Guatemala and it had all the mountains
sticking up and everything. It was probably about the size of a small
baseball field and I got to see my area. Theres not really that many
mountains and my whole area is jungle and it has hundreds of mayan
temples and ruins. Then we got to go to the central market. It was in
the main part of town where the president of guatemala lives. It had
lots of old spanish and european architechture and it was really cool.
The central market was neat too. I spent like $4 and got a few
souvenirs. And we have not been to the zoo yet but we always hear the
story of the guy that got eaten by a lion (halfway eaten). Emily I am
so jealous I have always wanted to go snowshoeing. And cross country
skiing is way fun too. There are tacos here but they are all soft.
When you were a bear did you win or did you lose in your fight? haha I
want you to mail me letters and I always love your drawings. And I got
to lead the music in sacrament meeting last sunday! cool huh!
It sounds like things are going
great over there. I'm quite excited to go to the field in about 16
days! There are 4 elders going to my mission. Me and elder Story are
from Ogden and elder Hatch and elder Montoya are form Nevada. We got a
new group of missionaries this week. They were given the choice to go
to Provo for three weeks and learn no spanish there and then come here
or they could come strait from home. Its about half and half. Then
there are all the latinos that make up about 70% of us. They always
come straight from home. There are no hermanas as far as I know in my
mission. I heard they don't send north american hermanas to my mission.
My district leader is elder Quintanilla he is the ONLY latino here
that doesn't speak fluent spanish, and there are ten of us in the
district. My companion got called to be the AP so I get to follow him
around everywhere. I haven't given a talk yet but I have led the music
in sacrament meeting. What they do in the MTCs is everyone prepares a
talk and the branch president selects someone from each district to
speak. But he doesn't say who is speaking until about 30 seconds
before. I wish I could send pictures but I will be able to in about 3
weeks. I am definitely getting better and better at my spanish. I
talked to a couple missionaries who were coming home from their
missions and they were staying the night at the CCM and I got to have
a nice 30 minute conversation with them in spanish. So it is
definitely coming and I feel like I will be prepared in a couple
weeks. My favorite part of the day is personal study. Its great to be
able to start off the day feeling the spirit and I wouldn't give that
time up for anything. It is very important to study the scriptures and
I would challenge each of you reading to make it a part of every one
of your days. I don't have any more time but I hope to hear from you
all. You can send my dear elders this week to the guate CCM. Hope to
hear from you!