Newbies in La Tinta

Clean dishes

Date:  April 21, 2014

Area:  La Tinta, Guatemala

Companion:  Elder Cummings from Idaho

Week 18

Not necessarily newbies in La Tinta, but new to the area, out of the four Elders that are stationed in La Tinta, three were moved out and replaced, not me. I get to endure the rest of the summer here. Bring it on, but Elder Bobadilla is a great guy and we`re working well.

So, here`s the dirt, I guess, for my new companion Elder Cummings, he`s a great guy and knows Spanish a little bit better than I do and so we teach in Spanish well. Kekchi on the other hand he doesn`t know at all and I don`t actually know enough to teach a full lesson, so I`m really finding out how much I know of Kekchi and striving to learn more as fast as possible so that we can open more doors for us and for people who only speak Kekchi.

Elder Cummings

My new companion is also pretty quiet. I`m a quiet guy and such, but he`s even quieter than I. Elder Cummings is from Boise Idaho and he likes singing, he has three sisters and one of them is on a mission in Chile. He is in the same group as Elder Glover so about seven months in total on his mission.

So, I`ve taken upon myself most of the responsibility now because I know the area and such and have needed to take more of the responsibility as consequence to the change. It`s been a little bit stressful, but I`m doing well and learning how to take charge more, all in all it should help me become a better missionary.

On Thursday we did a lot of tracting I guess.... Tracting in my mind is knocking on doors, so we do more or less the equivalent here, but we found people who seem interested in learning more and we`ll see how much more they want to continue learning this coming week as we teach them past one visit.

It`s been raining a little more recently and so it`s been slightly cooler, still hot though, but the end of summer is approaching and I`m not sure what to expect in the coming rain other than rain.

We don`t have any baptismal dates and the people I felt like we could ask to baptism we tried to visit but they weren`t home, so that kind of sucked, but through it we did find some of our new people, by following little kids and by following spiritual promptings.

Friday we hiked up Palomar, it`s an area up in the mountains that is about a 45 minute hike to do some service, we were told that we were going to build a house, once we got up there we didn`t really have anyone who know how to fully do it, but we did help with cutting some bamboo sticks and cutting them into the same size and carrying them to the house area to eventually be used as walls. I even tried some cocoa, they say it is the cocoa they make chocolate out of, but it was yellow and had slimy white seeds inside, it tasted fruity and pretty good.

Helping build a bamboo house

I`m pretty excited for this coming week as we are going to start teaching new people and that brings hopes of asking people to be baptized and helping them come closer to Christ. As our goal isn`t baptism, it is more eternal, we help people come unto Christ, it just so happens that a good way to do that is baptism.

No mail this week, but I should be receiving it fairly soon, if not this coming week, the next week. Always love receiving letters.

A little about the other two Elders in La Tinta.  Elder Bobadilla and Elder Lopez are in the other part of La Tinta, Elder Bobadilla is our district leader and he pretty cool, he`s from Peru, and his companion is new in the mission and is from Mexico.

Elder Bobadilla

Elder Hill will continue to be one of my zone leaders.  I`d be very excited to have Elder Hill as my companion, I love that guy, he`s tall and hard working.

 Although I want to leave La Tinta to go to the mountains, it`s great here and I do look forward to being here for six more weeks. My Kekchi is being tested a lot more because I`m the one who has to do all the speaking in Kekchi untill Elder Cummings learns some.

Really with semana santa, it was celebrated, but we didn`t have too much of a part in anything that happened around here, really it just felt to me that shops closed down for a couple of days, we continued to have a good amount of appointments.

We did enjoy some Easter sweet tarts.

About that package, the poptarts made it perfectly, the chocolates were melted, but I have a fridge for that so no worries.

Keep it cool,

Elder Norte.

PLEASE WRITE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Please do not use nick names on letters or packages. They have to go to the mission home and then be forwarded on. If you have a nick name on the letter it may never make it to him. THANKS

Send mail to:

Elder Jered North
Guatemala Cobán Mission
Apartado Postal #34
3ra Calle 2-02, Zona 3 Cobán AV 16001
Guatemala, Central America

It costs $1.15 to mail a letter to him. You can use regular envelops and stamps just make sure they equal $1.15. If it weights more than a regular letter you should take it to the post office to have it weighed.

OR

Use Dear Elder (www.dearelder.com) its Free to my mission. Just got todearelder.com, create an accountand it will track the letters you sendso you can go back and view them.On the drop down menu just put inGuatemala Cobán Mission and thenaddress it to Elder Jered North.They get mailed out once a week.This will be the best way to contact me since I don't have that much time on e-mail each week.