Estoy feliz que otra vez yo tengo la oportunidad a enviar un correo a cada uno de ustedes esta semana. Hace 2 días yo logré 4 meses en mi misión! Estaba feliz sobre este. haha. Yo averiguo esta semana si mi compañero y yo tenemos cambios o no. Un parte de mi quiere cambios pero el otro parte no quiere cambios. Entonces yo tengo una mixtura de emociones arrita, Pero, yo les diré que pasará en esta semana!
English Translation:
I'm happy again I have the opportunity to send an email to each of you this week. 2 days ago I got four months in my mission! I was happy about this. haha. I find out this week if my companion and I have changes or not. A part of me wants change but the other side does not want changes. Then I have a mixture of emotions right now, but I'll tell you what will happen this week!
This week has been good and bad in the same sense. First the bad part. So we had the family that I was talking about that was progressing with the mom and the 2 daughters. We went to go teach them the other day and we have also tried working with the dad but he works a lot. Anyways, they told us that the dad was actually mad at them and he thought about leaving them all because they are meeting with us and that they went to church on Sunday with us as well. So the dad was mad and we did not want to make any more contentions in the family so we told them that we appreciated their time and being so nice to us but as of right now we are not teaching them anymore. When this happened it felt like a dagger got stabbed into our hearts because we loved this family so much and they were so close to making covenants with the Lord but the dad was not agreeing with them. This was hard for us but I looked at it this way. Maybe since we taught them a lot and they were making right decisions, that they will continue on their own and in the future other missionaries will have the opportunity to baptize them because we have prepared them for the future!
Right now we have been doing a lot of contacting and going door to door to find new people to teach because we were kinda of running low on people to teach. We have found about 5 people who could definitely be positives for baptism so we are planning to work with them and continue to find people along the way as well. We have not had any other baptisms this week but the other 2 elders had a wedding of a couple and a baptism with 4 people getting baptized! It was really cool and glad I got to be there to support them in that!
This week is changes! There are a couple of possibilities that could happen with me and my companion but I am prepared for whatever will happen!
Something kinda gross this week was that one day for lunch we were eating at a member’s house and there was this weird meat that had a yellowish color to it. I asked my companion what type of meat it was and he said that he will tell me after we were done eating it. He was grossed out and could barely eat it but managed to push it down. I ate it without thinking of what it was going to be but when we were done I asked him again and he said that it was liver of cow. I was kinda grossed out by it but it actually wasn't too bad. Haha! It just had a weird texture and color to it. I know it is nothing extremely weird but I am hoping that soon I will have the opportunity to try iguana here! It is a delicacy in this area and people say that it is actually pretty good!
On Saturday we got the chance, us as missionaries and other people in the ward, to go and play soccer at the church and I got schooled! However we played a little of basketball and I was killing it too! Haha! Today for P-day we went to Tecun with our zone and we had a scavenger hunt around all Tecun and man was it tiring but pretty fun at the same time. My team won! No big deal. Something else that is no big deal is that the oldest man in the world who is 118 years old lives here in Guatemala and lives in Coatepeque which is only about 30 minutes away from my area! Dope! Maybe I need to go and visit him to get a picture of him! Haha.
Every single day here it seems like it is getting a little bit hotter. People say that March and April are the hottest months which I am not looking forward too. We actually had a tiny bit of rain the other day and it was the first time that there has been rain here in almost 3 months! It was so nice to just get a little sprinkle of it! I have also had a few conversations with drunk guys because for some reason they always want to talk to me and I hate it. One guy stopped us and we was speaking a little bit of English and said that he has no one to take him home for the night and then he said he had money and told me to take it. I was so confused!!! Usually drunk guys want to take our money, not give us money! How strange! He told me to take his money but I was not going to take it and then he got really, really mad and said that I was with ''them'' and I had no idea who he was talking about! He then was swearing up a storm and so then we just walked away and he was yelling at us. It was little sketchy but man was he a crazy guy! I think that is a first though! A drunk guy trying to give us money! Haha. However the drunk guys are pretty funny when they try to get up and can’t walk or when someone else tries to help them up to walk. Or even better when 2 drunk guys try to help each other up and walk but they can’t! Oh man now that is funny! I know it’s kinda mean and not good for them but it’s our entertainment here as missionaries. I want to help them out but I will not do it because it’s dangerous.
This week there has been a few times when we showed the video/movie to our investigators of the Restoration and the life of Joseph Smith. I have come to love it and it is so powerful as well as every time we watch it I feel the spirit and gain a stronger testimony about Joseph Smith and The Book of Mormon and this church as well! The same is in almost every lesson that we teach. However when we teach about the restoration of the gospel I always feel in my heart that the things we are teaching are true. How can people not believe that these things are true?! Seeing in the eyes of other people as they are learning about how the chruch was restored through Joseph Smith is awesome. They either almost believe it instantly and seem that it could have happened or that they find it really weird but come to believe it a little more. It is definitely my favorite lesson to teach to others.
There has been many things that I have learned here on the misson already and I know that there will be so much more that I will learn as well. However something that I have learned and taken to heart is that..... getting up early is even harder on a mission. Oh man its hard! Especially for us because we get up at around 6am to go to the gym and I have realized that the nights seem so much shorter too. It is harder to get up on a mission then when I had to get up even earlier (5am) for seminary in high school. Haha. Don’t know why but that is just the way it is I guess!
This Saturday though we have about 2 baptisms lined up with these 2 kids who are named Henry and Fredy. They are 12 and 8 and their parents are less active members. However they have been coming to church for almost 1 month now so not less active anymore I guess haha. But this Saturday we have talked with them and they want to be baptized and the parents said yes and the dad is going to be the one who will have the opportunity to baptize his 2 sons. When he heard that he could do this he was incredibly excited and they knew that it was going to be something special for the family. We are all excited for their baptisms this Saturday. Kinda funny how we have only had baptisms with little kids but we are planning to have baptisms with families and adults soon because the ward here needs it!
My favorite thing about the people here so far is how generous they all are (most of the time). Whenever we meet someone at their house for the first time, most of the time they will invite us in and will talk to us and we give them a lesson. Almost always as well they will give us something to drink. Whether it is water or some other kind of drink and most of the time it is good....I have also learned that if you say you want "Agua'' this means soda here. And if you want actual water you need to say that you want ''Agua Pura''. Kinda strange but its whatever! However I have also realized that people are really afraid to do anything new in their lives because almost always when we ask someone to pray at the beginning or end of lesson they smile and say oh one of you can. Sometimes too it takes like 5 minutes to get them to pray or if it is not worth it, it is my comp and I that pray but man I just want to say "Just Pray!" I guess I am not in their shoes though so I don't know how different it is.
Us as missionaries we are really cheap too. We will look for the cheapest cereal to buy and if a place is within walking distance we will walk if not, then we will try to walk anyways. To travel from city to city we try to hitch-hike and ask every single pickup for a ride. Usually every other 5 pickups will give us a ride, this way we don't have to pay for busses. If we ride busses, I like to ride on the door of the bus holding onto a rod and I am hanging out the door. This way I can get some fresh air and more wind because it’s so hot. That is Guatemala for you though!
Well just want to say that I love you all and I hope that everything is going great for every one of you! Life here is going good and still going strong! Love you and miss you all so much! Stay Sweet!
Love,
Elder Kahl
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Me and Elder Ramos before a baptism.
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| Escaping across the river to Mexico! Haha! Not really, but Mexico is just across the river. |
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| These are the vans the drive people from city to city. Finding one was part of our scavenger hunt. |
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| These are what the police drive here. All they have are trucks. |
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| This is my bed – not too bad. |
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This is a picture of my desk. Our place is actually pretty nice compared to how a lot of missionaries here live!
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