First off...these keyboards in this beat up old internet cafe are IMPOSSIBLE to write on, so sorry.
Hello! How is everyone?! I never know how to start these letters home, so excuse the awkwardness.
We had a good week this week! Like I said, coming into this area we are kind of cleaning up the mess that the last missionaries left us. We were incredibly blessed this week and were able to have 28 lessons! But most of those were first lessons with people who weren't really interested at all. You know how people always said that baptisms fall in your lap in Central America? That's a lie. But every single day I'm loving missionary life more and more, and Elder Petersen and I are starting to see the blessings for all of our work! We had 5 investigators at church on Sunday! Fast and testimony meeting is...scary. We found this family last Sunday. The dad was sitting in his doorway (Which is the thing to do here in Guatemala) and we contacted him and went straight in and taught him the first lesson! He asked us to come back and give the same lesson when his wife and kid were there, and of course we accepted! So we did, and they made the commitment to come to church with us, and this crazy thing happened...they did! They actually showed up an HOUR early! So we gave them a tour of the church, and sat there in awkward silence until the other ward FINALLY got out of sacrament meeting a half hour late! Then we showed them to their seats, and went to get other investigators! (This story is going somewhere, I promise.) So Sacrament meeting started, and I sat by the dad. His name is Juan Carlos, by the way. He was asking me questions about the sacrament, if he can take it, etc. Then when the testimonies started he was like, "Can anyone get up there and speak?" I said yes. Mistake. I probably should have explained to him what a testimony IS...only two or three minutes, share what you know to be true, etc. He decided it would be a great idea to get up and speak himself! HE WAS UP THERE FOR FIFTEEN MINUTES. And he was PREACHING! I mean...straight evangelical walking around the stand, hallelujah type preaching. It was a disaster. But hopefully from that disaster will come a few souls unto Christ.......
We have an investigator named Pablo. He's probably 75 years old. Pablo has parkinsons. He didn't show up for his cita (cita=appointment en español.). Want to know the first thing that came to my mind? I'll tell you! "I knew that was a shaky cita!" Rim shot!
We had another opportunity to contact busses yesterday! I love doing that! Also, it's a good way to contact, because people feel less bad saying no to you on a bus, so generally the addresses we get on the busses are pretty solid contacts!
So this last Saturday we got the opportunity to do some service with our Stake here in Amatitlán. We went to remodel a pediatric wing of a Children's hospital! It was a pretty cool experience. But the Hospital was...frightening. Imagine something off a horror film from the 50's, and that's about it. I hope I don't get sick while I'm here. But it looked a lot better when we got done! And the really cool thing is that there was NATIONAL news coverage there! The Stake president was all over national, and local news! And the church got some awesome publicity! THEN it was on the FRONT PAGE of the Sunday newspaper! And...check this out...yours truly is smack dab in the middle of the picture! Painting a wall! Yeah! Now everyone thinks Mormons are gringo red heads! I sent a copy of it home, along with a few other things! Be excited! Also, if you can get a spanish speaker to the house I bet you can find it on Guatemalan news!
We've had a problem with bugs since I got here. We're missing a few slats on windows, so bugs just waltz on in in the middle of the night! I counted one morning and I had EIGHTY TWO bug bites! And I'm certain I missed some of them! But we fixed the problem last night. Bug repellent is magical.
We have a cocinara who makes lunch for us every day. A few days ago we had chicken and rice and tortillas (If we go a day without tortillas I'm convinced it's be a sign of the end of the world) along with some lemonade and a treat! Two little bags of jello for each of us! So we got all ready to eat (We eat back at our house, because she doesn't normally have another man in her house) and we poured our lemonade, and got our jello bags all ready...there were ants floating in our lemonade, and a dead mosquito in my comp's jello. So we wrote a poem. It goes as such:
Ants in my lemonade
Mosquitoes in my jello
You thought it would be easy
You thought it would be mellow
But now you see the truth of things
So don't just stop and stare
Smile, give thanks, and don't forget
To drink it with a prayer.
*Snap snap snap snap snap*
Anyways...that's enough of that. Everything is good here. Elder Petersen and I are working REALLY hard, walking REALLY fast, and contacting EVERYONE we see! I love it! The work is finally showing signs of picking up, and we're hoping to get a few baptisms in in the month of May! The goal for the mission is 204 this month...so we need all the prayers we can get! Don't forget that we pray as a mission every morning at 8:00! I would love for everyone there to pray at 7:00!
Love you guys!
Much love,
Elder Hopper 2
P.S...cultural fact: People here point with their lips instead of their fingers...like they're kissing the air! It's odd....
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