May 29, 2012

Hello dearest family!

We have had an excellent week this week! It is Elder Petersen's last week in the mission field, so he wanted to go out with a bang! So...this week we pushed ourselves and had THIRTY SIX lessons! Only four of them were with members, but we're not going to talk about that! THIRTY SIX! AND a wedding and three baptisms! I have some pictures of the wedding, and baptism that I'm going to try and stick on here, but the computer isn't being too friendly with me right now...I wish dad were here! Wide open middle finger and all!

But the wedding went well! It was...quite stressful! We had paid a lawyer to show up at 10:00 and perform the wedding. He is a member of the Church, and it was going to be all pretty and nice! But...typical Guatemalan culture...10:00 rolled around, and neither the bride, nor the lawyer were there! AH! So...we just waited! About five minutes later Sister Abrego showed, but the lawyer still wasnt there! So...we (because we're missionaries) took the time to teach them the last lesson they needed to be baptized! We only took about ten minutes for that, and the lawyer STILL hadn't shown! Finally around 10:35 this guy comes waltzing in like he owned the place! Gah! I was so annoyed! So we got the thing under way, and it had to be nice and fast because we still had to do the baptismal interviews, and the family had to be somewhere! What a way to have a wedding, huh?! So we had the Baptism the day after, and that was really good! Even better than the wedding, in my opinion! Elder Petersen and I sang, and I baptized the dad and the little girl! Oh...by the way, this is our preacher man who we're talking about. The guy who got up in fast and testimony meeting and preached for about 15 minutes. We're going to have to remind him this Sunday that that's not entirel apprpriate...But I'm not worried! He's a good man!

Yesterday for P day we went to the capitol (outside of our mission! Gasp!) to go to the mission office so that Elder Petersen could have his exit interview! It was a fun little adventure! Whenever we get on busses it's an adventure! But it took us about an hour and a half to get there, and when we got there we went to Pizza Hut! An interesting thing about this country is that ANYTHING American is REALLY nice! This pizza hut wasn't like your normal pizza hut! They greeted us at the door and sat us at a table, then had a waitress bring over the 20 page menu that they have! And the atmosphere was super chic and cool...kind of a mix between a sports bar and a nice sit down restaurant. (By the way...the Heat and the Celtics in the NBA playoffs?!?! What is that!!?!? Booooo Lebron James! (I wasn't watching on purpose, I promise...but it was kind of hard to miss it!)) But then we got to go to the mission office and I got all sorts of letters! I love letters! I'm still getting letters from Brazil, too, which is kind of fun! I got a letter from Bishop, too, which I really enjoyed!

Abrupt end to story.

We are teaching a family, the Hernandez family. They remind me a lot of Grandma and Grandpa Inman, actually. Every time we go over there we are practically guaranteed a nice little refreshment, and they just treat us like their grandkids! Also Hermano Hernandez speaks a little English, which is fun. Anyways...Hermano Hndz. is in LOVE with the Bible, which is awesome! But he is really closed to the idea of any more scriture. Hermana Hndz. LOVES the church. She loves the Book of Mormon, she loves the idea of Prophets, she loves it all! So last week we went to visit them and we decided that we should share with them 2 Nephi 29! That's the chapter that basically says you're not too bright if you think the Lord would only give us one book of scripture. When we got to verse 6, which says: Thou fool, that shall say: A ^aBible, we have got a Bible, and we need no more Bible. Have ye obtained a Bible save it were by the Jews? Sister Hndz. read the word "fool," and stopped, looked over her glasses to her husband, just stared at him for a second, then kept reading! Ha! It was so awesome! I don't know how much of an effect it had, though, because he still didn't come to church. But we're totally going to baptize her this month!

You know...I really don't notice the fact that everyone down here is Latino. Race has never ever bothered me in the least bit. In fact, it's a lot of fun! I never notice that everyone is brown, but every once in awhile...I notice that I'm white. Last week we were walking along a road right next to a school, and the school let out. All of the parents were waiting for their kids, and there were kids running out of the school! Almost every single one of the kids stopped as soon as they saw me, and their jaws just gaped open. At that point I realized...wow...I'm really different here, huh? I LOVE IT! I love making faces at little kids who are staring at me when their parents aren't looking, and asking them how weird it is to see a "Pelirojo," or a "Phosphorito." Gah it's a big ole ball of fun.

Tomorrow Elder Petersen and I will be finishing up the Book of Mormon. I read something that I really liked this week! It's in Mormon Chapter 8:38. I love how blunt Moroni is here! It's like he's asking us, "HOW CAN YOU BE SO STUPID?!?!" He's so heartbroken because he's watching the people, the culture, the country that he loves self destruct because of one thing: Pride! I think it's an awesome example to us! We need to be HUMBLE! I love how clear cut it is here, too! We have one of two choices. We can either be eternally happy, or we can be eternally miserable. I choose to be eternally happy! It has struck me really hard over the past three months or so how much of a choice it is where we go after this life! We aren't judged when we get to heaven, we are currently judging ourselves! Right NOW. TODAY you are choosing where you want to go after this life! And WE GET TO CHOOSE! So...let's not be ashamed to take upon us the name of Christ! Because, frankly, the Celestial kingdom won't really be the Celestial kingdom without every single one of my family members! I want to hang out with each and every one of you guys when we pass on from this world. That's heaven to me!

This week we have changes! I have to say...changes are a LOT of fun! Elder Petersen is heading home, so I'll be getting a new companion...probably a Latino, so my spanish should skyrocket! At least I hope so! I'm a little nervous, but mostly excited to be the one who knows the area, the investigators, the ward and all that jazz! Elder Tays, an Elder in my District will be training, so we get a new Elder who is even greener than me! Should be fun to give him a hard time. It should be a Gringo, too. There are three Latinos coming in and something like 18 Gringos! I'm excited to see what happens! I'll tell you all about it next week!

I love you guys a ton!

Love you love you!
Love,
Elder Hopper 2