Ka´r´u yookin? (What am I doing?)

House in La Tinta, they pretty much all look this way.

Date:  February 3, 2014
Area:  La Tinta, Guatemala
Companion:  Elder Aguero from Peru
Week 7

Well I'll tell you what I'm doing.  I'm preaching the gospel to people in Guatemala.

Honestly, this week wasn't too exciting.  I have things I can say which will probably seem a lot more exciting to you guys.  I will also answer the questions I have recieved.

Church is in both languages really, but mostly in Spanish.  La Tinta has a pretty large ward, about fifty members or so I think.

Spanish and Kekchi are pretty different although Kekchi borrows some words from Spanish.

The two investigators that I really want to mention are K****, and the C**** family.  K**** is fifteen years old and is really very timid.  She reminds me of Ceaira and she is following through on commitments.  The C**** family is actually really recent, although I have a hard time understanding them as they mostly speak in Kekchi, I'm able to say what I want in Spanish and either they understand me or someone else translates for me.  We invited them to baptism yesterday, of which they accepted.  If all goes well they will be baptized the 22nd of February.

I wear my boots the most.  My shoes I trade off every three days.  So, three days in one set, then three days in the other.

I have not bought a machete yet, but we do have one in my apartment.

The rubber boots are not necessary for me to have here in La Tinta.  I'm sure I'm probably going to need them at some other time in my mission.

It doesn't rain that much right now, maybe once a week.

La Tinta is fairly small and doesn't have a lot of fast food.  There is a chicken place and that's about it.

Sadly I have not received any letters out in my mission yet.  I'm not even sure how I'm supposed to receive them.  Hopefully I'll find out some time this week.  When I went to the mission home I did get the package from the ward that they sent for Christmas.  We don't get mail through any type of mail box.  We get them through what I hear is a pouch system through the mission home.  So hopefully at zone meetings I will get mail.  I have one coming up this week.

We have electricity in our house.  It is pretty dim inside though because we only have one light.  The power has only gone out once so far and that was only for about an hour.  So it seems to be pretty reliable thus far.  We do have plumbing.  Cold showers though, our shower head doesn't spray that much so we turn it on about ten minutes before we shower and it fills up a bucket and we use that.

We eat mostly eggs, rice, and tortillas.  We do get fed by members and when we do that is pretty much what they feed us.

So, my studies in Spanish consist of reading in Spanish and learning the words I don't already know.  Where as pretty much all my free time I spend in my grammar book of Kekchi, learning as fast as I can.  I hope to actually start speaking a little bit of it this week.

I will be getting a badge in Kekchi!  Hopefully at the zone meeting this week.  Those that speak Kekchi usually know Spanish, there are areas where it is only Kekchi, but in La Tinta, Spanish is the main language.  Kekchi is part of the school curriculum.  I will mostly just wear my Kekchi badge.

We did quite a bit more walking this week as we visited some of the farther areas in our area, which

La Tinta from up on the Mountain

include part of the adjacent mountain.  So we did some hiking, I at least got to take a fantastic picture of La Tinta.  The C**** family live in one of these areas.  I also want to comment on the stars at night...which I am slightly disappointed with, there's less stars than I thought there would be.  Oh well.

Honestly there's not much else to report about this week... I continue to write in my journal daily and that will be great in helping me retell some things when I get back.

Walking around the town, pedestrians do not have the right of way, EVER.  If you want to be a driver here, you've got to actually be pretty gutsy, or at least the drivers here are pretty gutsy and kind of crazy.  So you can pretty much walk anywhere on the street you want but you make way for cars.  Imagine that.

Next week I'll actually bring my journal while I'm writing so that I can write a bit in more detail.  I've restarted reading through the Book of Mormon, but this time in Spanish.  I have gotten to First Nephi 3.  Yay!

Thank you all for the updates, I love reading them and hope to read more.

- Elder Norte