A full transfer complete in the field

Elder North with a chicken

LOTS of bananas

Date:  March 3, 2014

Area:  La Tinta, Guatemala

Companion:  Elder Aguero from Peru

Week:  11

As the title says I have completed a transfer in the field, which is six weeks. As predicted I´m staying here with Elder Aguero for six weeks more, but I did get notice that Elder Gubler is going to Péten with Elder Margaritis, a little strange as he´s halfway through his training and Péten´s not that close to Tactic.

It was pretty funny for me because Elder Aguero spent a bit of time calling other missionaries asking if they had gotten their change yet and seeing where they´re going.

I´ve been listening to some of the Devotionals on my Ipod, and they´re really awesome, one of note is about how God cares about our mind and how we can love him with all our mind, as it says we need to love him with all our heart, might, mind and strength. So go memorize a scripture or something to engage your mind more fully in the gospel.

Lizard

A new change in our imediate area here though is that our district got cut in half and now there´s another district, called district La Tinta, of which my companion is leader of. So we´ll see how that plays out. I also took note that our district and our whole zone of Polochic does not have any sister missionaries, I have been told there have been some, but before I was here, so it´s not an Elder exclusive place to go, well... It is right now, but we´ll see in six weeks when the next changes happen. 

So about our week. Not much I must say, but we did find quite a bit of new people which we should be starting to teach, but a problem with four families we have now.... They´re not married.... They've been living together for years and have children, but are not married, now that needs to change before they can be baptized, so I´m getting to learn how to deal with that problem a little more.

We have one date for baptism and that´s for Amarani, she was going to be baptized on the 8th of March, but we haven´t been able to find her and teach her recently or she´s been busy, so we have moved it to the 22nd, with luck and a bit of help I believe she´ll be ready. In fact I know she´ll be ready. She just needs to come to church and read and pray.

I've been cooking a little more, pancakes and stuff, our little dispensa has some good stuff, even peanut butter, I hear there´s also a little store in Téleman that sells stuff from the states, like pop tarts. Sounds like good living.

Anyone else think he is mission some good ol US type foods a little bit.  :)

We of course did more walking and stuff. I had divisions with the other group in La Tinta, because La Tinta is in two areas, I work in La tinta 2, so I got to see a different way of teaching, which was pretty neat.  Elder Centena is who I went on divisions with this week, he uses True to the Faith to teach, it´s a dictionary of gospel topics, so I´ll be using that more. We worked in my area.

We've been eating pretty well this week, like the pictures I sent of the fish. It´s not that common here and that was a fantastic meal, and that fish head did not go to waste, I ate what I could of that, even the eyes. Good stuff.  It is probably the strangest thing I've eaten so far. I do here there´s some other weirder things to eat here, but I haven't really encountered them.

And now to answer a few questions.

Fish Dinner

Now Mom has been asking me about my companion, he´s from Lima Peru, he has six siblings, one is out on a mission in chile.

We study an hour together on gospel principles and then an hour with language.

We teach more in Spanish. probably 70 percent in spanish.

There´s not really any strange customs, more of just living with what´s here, you do greet everyone and you ask for permission to enter in a house or place, but that´s common courtesy of course. Most people don't have doors and even if they do they are usually left open.  So we do have our ways of greeting and getting peoples attention. Kind of a Yoohoo type thing.

We pay rent, 500 qetzales and laundry is 120 qetz. we get about 1800 qetz for a month, about 250 dollars. Which is mostly spent on travel, internet and groceries.  Internet costs one quetzal for every ten minutes. So not much.

Stuff we are not allowed to drink. Energy drinks and stuff like Mountain dew and the like, not that there is mountain dew here, there is big cola, which is coca cola but with caffeine, other than that, just be careful of what you eat and how it´s prepared.

After Dinner

Oh, and I do now know what one hundred percent humidity is.... I guess it´s what I have.... kind like very humid, like when you get out of a hot shower... Not that I would know what a hot shower is anymore.... Or air conditioning. I saw the pictures of Bryen while he was in his place, he has an oven and a full fridge and supposedly a washer and dryer!  I typically take my "shower" at night instead of the morning.  It is cold but it is worth it to wash off the dirt and sweat.

Thanks all for your support and thank you for the updates on life back at home, it´s great to know stuff. Until next week.

I must go now.

Nakatinra. (I love you, because there´s probably not a translator thing for Kekchi)

Also, you would be proud of my journal, I write everyday, and in pretty good detail.

- Elder Norte

If you can write to Elder North he would love to hear form you.  You can do it through dearelder.com or to his addrss.  All mail take 3-6 weeks to get to him.  Letters go to one address and packages to another.  All his addresses are on his blog at elderjernorth.blogspot.com