Week 10

Oh man, I am tired. It has been a long P-Day and I am pooped. In fact, this whole week, I have been pooped by the end of the day. I guess that is a good thing. :)

First, there is appearantly a new email service that the missionaries are going to be using, it goes something like this:(www.new.myldsmail.net) and I should be switching over to it, but don´t email anything there yet till I email you from it (obviously).

Second, Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaang. Guate is different. The food. The people. The stores. The language. The churches. The homes. Culture shock, man, that is all I can say. I woke up the past 4 days with morning sickness, feeling like I was going to vomit. Our house is small and evem the little things are nothing like America. We had Corn Flakes for breakfast, except the Corn Flakes were funky, the milk was powder in water, and the sugar dissappeared.

I am not going to lie. The mission is hard.

But...

Why should I cry or think my lot is hard? Tis not so, all is well. Why should I think do earn a great reward, if I now shun the fight? Gird up my loins, fresh courage take, my God will never me forsake. And when I'm home, I'll then exclaim: All is well, all is well!

Now for the crazy and good things in my mission. First, MyLdsMail no longer has a timelimit, so the whole 30 min emails are a thing of the past.

My companions name is Elder Fusi. He is Tonghan, from California, and a funny punk... I mean, elder. He helps me out alot, and we are cool.Its good. Here is a story for you:

It was Wednesday, and we met a sister in the ward that was walking home. We were to eat dinner at her house that night, and I found out, her son was not a member. By time we got there that night, she was cooking dinner, and her son was in the back, drunk. After a bit, we went back there and started doing a little bit of teaching. Elder Fusi gave me the lead, and while I was teaching, the investigator son, named Estevan, was throwing curve balls at me. I got a few of them, but when I got to the point where I couldn't answer the questions anymore, I just bore my testimony. The investigator then said that I was beginning to convince him, but in English. He then openned up his desk and pulled out three things: A white bible, a black name tag, and a white name tag. The black name tag said Elder Giron. The white nametag said Hermano Giron. He is a teacher at the CCM down here at Guate. Oh man, was I laughing.

I am not sick yet, but I expect I will be soon. Oh, and Mom, I did get that package. It is a sweet blanket! Pilas (a way they say awesome down here)! At first, I thought I wasn't going to need it, but after the first night I realized I was wrong. It gets chilly down here at night. Thanks for that present! We use the box as a trash can. Nothing goes to waste except for the rice that Fusi burns occasionally.

A little bit more on Fusi. In mission lingo, he is my father, and I am his son. He has been in the area I am now, Las Ilusiones, for about 6 months of his 9. Yeah. Chances are in this next transfer, he is going to be transferred out, and I am going to be the senior comp here. I feel like pulling the Home Alone scream when I think about it.

Probably the hardest thing about the mission right now is understanding people. I don't know words, I don't understand the accent, and I don't understand what they are saying, and it is difficult. It is steadily getting better, but still, not very cool. It will come with time. It is suprisingly hard to remember words that I have studied. I guess that just means I am going to have to change my language study plans to acomidate.

Sleep. Never enough. When I get home, I am probably going to sleep for hours on end.

We listen to some cool music at the dorms. Two of the coolest things we listen to are a guy named Brandon Heaton (kind of christian rock) and a group called Eclipse, a vocal accapella group.

Hot showers? (laughs) Never. Never. Never.

People are poor here guys, but I am sure that that is not a surprise to you all. It is just crazy what we walk into.

Mondays are p-days. Today was pretty awesome. First we went to a chapel or stake center thing and played dodgeball. I got hit in the face twice :P and then got towels and flung water balloons like it was badmittton, and that quickly degraded to elders throwing buckets of water onto people. We then went to a restaurant called Pecos Bills where we had actual, legit, real hamburgers and root beer. Rootbeer is a raaare commodity down here, and this stuff was the bomb!

Oh, and transportation around here goes like this: imagine every type of school bus you have ever seen. Then take that same bus, and paint it red. And there is the mass transportation in Guatemala City. Those and Took-tooks. Took-tooks are like three seater bikes with engines. weird.

In general, all is good here. All I need to do is have faith and perservere.

It was awsome to hear that Danny really liked my letter to him, and that he also wants to email me (finally ;P). The Mission Pres said that I wasnt to send email to my friends though, but I figure that if he just sends them to you guys (my parents) then I can just answer him through these same emails.

I am going to bring my camara next time with my cable and download some of my pics here.

Love you all. I am tired (-.-) zzzzzz

-Elder Hale