October 17, 2011

Part 1:
The bus ride to the mission home was 4 hours on a winding road! One hermana got bus sick, then we had to stay in Xela for 3 days, cooped up in a hotel haha. Trip was fun! Just up up into the mountains.

So I guess here the Mcdonalds and Wendys is the place here that everyone wants to work. Its way nice here! Its a huge building and they are right next to each other. That is not how it is in my area though, haha. But you should look up Cancizaja on google maps, see if you can see my casa! Some people live in like little caves here. Its so crazy! And not that many people have electricity! Its cool! It rains everyday!

What else? The area is great! There is a family in the branch that makes bread, it is so good here! Ask all the questions you have! Deben preguntarme todas cosas quieren saber! Zanrictat! Chickens are everywhere! Haha its funny. there are a lot of elders here from Utah. But a lot went to Alta. This place is fun! We walk a ton. And i need to learn Ciché.

Part 2:
Becirc familia! The first word is ciché, the Mayan dialect here that everyone speaks! Its crazy to hear byt i am trying to learn! All of the women here basically only speak the Mayan dialect but there are some that speak Spanish so I am trying to learn the language. We have some families that are investigators. This area is the most rural part of Guatemala! Cancixaja (con-quish-aha) but its beautiful and I love it!~ Haha we get to shower out of a bucket! And we live in a little shack, the first day it smelled bad because when it rains a lot, some fungi grows under the tables so we had to just clean it up. I have been eating a lot of bread haha but we are in town to buy food! In my area we basically are camping with church clothes on! The people here are amazing, i can speak a lot of spanish i found out. Good thing I have the gift of tongues! I can pretty much understand everyone.

Here there arent enough people for a ward so its just a branch, i taught the lesson in priesthood! The people are so loving here. They offer us food all the time, and arroz con leche, which is rice with milk but its amazing! And yes the bread is really good here!

We have to come in at 6pm because there arent any street lights here at all, and it is pitch black around 630. My companion doesn't speak english haha he is from Hundurus and he is a convert of 9 years. He is 21 and pretty funny, he is like the same height as me. But I will probably be in this area for 6 months because I will probably train after these first 3, my companion has only been out 6 weeks longer than me!

I am in the mountains! It is amazing andd there are dogs everywhere that we have to pretend to throw stuff at so they don't attack. And people walk their cows here, pretty much no one in the area has a car because there are always little trucks smaller than the Ranger that come by and pick people up for their job. That is how we got into town today, the town is about 30 minutes in the little packed truck. There were about 30 people in the back today haha the Guatemalan people aren't claustrophobic at all. But yeah I am learning Spanish really fast because I cant speak any english! And I am trying to learn Ciché (kee-chay) its hard though! I will know it though!

I can't send my memory card home because it will erase all the pictures so i'm going to do it from here! And make a CD of all of them. What else? No sé, but I am loving it and the people are amazing, oh yeah we get to go fishing and service is we get to use machettis and chop down corn fields! There is corn everwhere! I dont have a lot of pictures of this area but this next week I will have more pictures. I have a lot from the MTC. Oh and also we didng get to leave the city Xela to go to our mission for 3 days and were stuck in the hotel.  because of the hurricane in Mexico, there were a bunch of rads wiped out and it rained non stop for like 4 days here, but none of the roads in my area were taken out! So its all good. But thats probably beacuse there arent roads in my area, just dirt.

We walk a lot here. One house is like an our and a half away on foot, but after a half an hour we got a ride from the guy in the truck, I taught them a little English, a lot of people want to learn it! Haha its funny! But my spanish has improved a ton in this one week! I can communicate with everyone! Its great!

We do have a toilet that flushes but the first 2 days it was clogged or broken haha so we used the neighbors, ten minutes away haha. Our hourse is little and there isnt really room for very much stuff! But its cozy, its only really cold here at nights. During the day it is perfect! The kids here are so strong and they know how to survive on their own! The kids start working here with their families in the fields when they are like 3 years old!

But this area is hard I guess, before my companion came here, there werent baptisms for 7 years, but we have a couple of families that should be baptized. we have about 10 investigators now, so we should be having baptisms! The president is way nice! He said that I am going to be a good missionary because he has the gift of discernment! I am excited to be here! my district is pretty cool, I dont really know them all yet but I will. Right now I am in the city Momos. We come here for Pday which usually is Monday. We almost didnt have it today. Oh and dearelders take about 3 weeks to get to me because we are so far away! It is cray! So letters might even be faster, well probably the same. But I will try and send some pictures here, it might be hard. But we will see. You will have to wait until next week though because I didn't bring my cord to the camera because I thought i only needed the memory cards. But it sounds like you are doing a lot of good at home! I miss you guys a lot! Love you!

Elder Carter