May 16, 2012

Hello! Happy email day!

It was so great to talk to all of you on Sunday, even if it was a bit choatic with the connection and all that jazz. But I'll have you know that I hung up and we went straight to a lesson, and it hasn't been a distraction, so don't worry about that!

So I'm putting two pictures on here...the first one is of me contacting a bus! We do this with every bus we get on, we go to the front and preach for a little bit, then go by every person on the bus and ask if they want to learn more! I LOVE DOING THIS!!! This was...Monday morning methinks. This is seriously one of the highlights of my life on the mission! The second picture is of me and my Companion, Elder Petersen at Antigua! In front of some giant cross that I'm sure has some sort of significance...I'm not entirely sure what, though.

We had a good week this week! Still working hard, we had two investigators that we thought were pretty chosen give us ¨"the talk" though. One of them talked to their pastor, and the other gave us some crap about always being Catholic, so he will continue being Catholic. It's pretty disheartening when that happens. We're going to keep working with them,  but the Catholic guy was really progressing well and we thought he had a pretty strong testimony of the Restoration, and then he just sprung this on us! We think it's his wife's doing though...she never really liked us.

We had an investigator this week, who is really quite smart. His name is Marcos, and he lives in a really poor part of our area. He is absolutely DEDICATED to the Bible, which is all well and good. We started explaining the fact that Joseph Smith had his vision in 1820. He grabbed his bible, which had a little timeline thing in front explaining when the prophets were, and the main points in what they did. He looked up 1820 BC, and was convinced that Joseph Smith came at about the same time as Joseph of Egypt. We had to explain very tenderly that Joseph  Smith came AFTER Christ. I still don't think he understood.

We got to go to Antigua Guatemala today! It's interesting going to the touristy parts of Guatemala. They had it all nice and clean, with police everywhere and just kind of looked like a normal city! There were a TON of Gringos there, too! Also...a guy walking around with bags of live goldfish trying to sell them. I'm not entirely sure why anyone would buy a goldfish in Guatemala to take it home, but I guess weirder things have happened. Also this week in our area we ran into a college Christian group down here for the Summer. They were STUNNED when we told them that we're here for two whole years! It makes me wonder...what do they think as they drive through Guatemala? Probably the same thing I thought the first time I drove through..."They are so poor! How do people live here?!" But then you kind of realize that people are happy here too! It kind of puts it in perspective as to what you really NEED in this life.

I have a new favorite quote of mine! It is from President Gordon B. Hinckley...enjoy it! "I think of another kind of tragedy we frequently see, that of persons of high aim and low achievement. Their motives are noble. Their proclaimed ambition is praiseworthy. Their capacity is great. But their discipline is weak. They succumb to indolence. Lack of effort robs them of will." Every time I think of that I have no choice but to work harder! I had a bit of revelation the other day, too. Every time I have a bad attitude about whatever thing, I just think to myself...The Lord doesn't want me to have a bad attitude. This is coming straight from Satan. And it works every single time! Want to know how to be happy? Realize that happiness is the Lord's plan!

Well...I love you all a ton! Remember...daily prayer with me at 8 AM, Guatemalan Standard time. (7AM Oregon time!) I set my watch to an alarm so that I NEVER forget! Who's doing it with me?!

Love,
Elder Hopper 2


Cultural thought: They use periods here instead of commas for numbers. So if you wanted to say ten thousan fifty three it would be written like this: 10.053. Weird huh?!