Tamales

Well, another week here in Guatemala.  Interesting week.  But, before anything else, let me tell you about my mission president.  I keep forgetting.  He came about 2 weeks ago and he's ready to get going.  The second day he was here, he had interviews with everybody in our zone.  It was a quick little interview but it was really nice to be able to get to know him and his wife.  They're super excited and you can tell that they really love us.  It was hard to tell much about them because the interview was only 5 minutes with each one of them.  But, I do know they're going to be great and Sister Watts had already told President Watts all about me.  Man, she has got some an awkwardly long handshake/handhold.  Ha-ha.

Let’s see, what are some things I can tell you about life in Guatemala?  Well, it's hottttttt!  And it rains a ton.  As you can see from the picture of my boots, there's lots of mud.  The pictures of the buildings is a part of my area.  The hill is a little bit of Santa Faz, the poorest part of our area.  The houses in the pictures are made of cement but a lot of the houses our just sheet metal.  Pretty sketchy.  Let’s see, the other pictures... Wiener!  There's a less active family with this wiener dog named Canela or Cinnamon in English.  She hates me and I'm super surprised that she let me hold her.  The other cool pet of a member family is the iguana.  I didn't hold it but it was pretty cool.  We went to a member's house, the Rodriguez family, and made tamales.  Those are all the pictures of the food.  The meat....... Chicken feet..... SWEET!  Ha-ha.  They weren't bad.  It was a little bit gross that there were flies buzzing all over them while we were putting them in our tamales.  What was worse though was the water that we boiled them.  It was black and had chunks of food in it, and the worst, a worm.  Bleh!  But, they tasted good and everything was cooked.  And we had to eat it.  It was a lot of fun to get to make something and we also have been teaching their family and trying to get some of their kids back to church.  Also, they're helping us teach an investigator couple, Diego and Indira Perez. 

As for our Mamita, I wish!  No mamita for us.  We cook everything ourselves.  We have a lot of spaghetti, beans, rice, and corn flakes.  Sometimes for dinner at 9:00 we just eat jalapenos with tortillas.  Those never have settled well in my stomach.  Last night I got a little fancy with the spices and made some onion rings.  Oh my goo'ness, oh, my goo'ness.  Sooooo good.  The other missionaries really liked me for that last night.  All and all I'm eating pretty well.  Every once in awhile we'll get a pizza.  We do have a lady in the Zone Leader´s area that washes our clothes sometimes.  The thing is that when she washes them they come back full of fleas.  Kind of gross.  I try to keep it under control with Permethrin.  They only start to bite when I go out into the sun.  I think they just get a little annoyed with me.  After a little while they get used to it and leave me alone pretty much for the rest of the day.  =)

We haven’t seen too much animals since I've been here.  We did however see some monsterous rats today.  They're like the size of cats and there is this river where everybody dumps their garbage where they like to hang out.  Some of the members and investigators have smaller rats in their houses too.  So nasty.  We have been doing a lot of service lately.  On Saturday we went to the clinic and did a stake service project of cleaning up around the building.  I machetied the grass for 4 and a half hours straight.  Needless to say, I'm got a bit burnt and some huge blisters on my hands.  But it did feel good to serve.  Right after that we went over to the Peña family.  We were over there helping them from 2:30 to about 8:30.  That was the picture of us with shovels.  They have a son coming home from the mission tomorrow and were trying to turn all their dirt floors into cement before he gets home.  We first had to move everything out and then dig up the hard dirt and pack it down and then mix all the cement and smooth it out.  Pretty long process but it looks great.  I worked so hard that day and by the end smelled horrible.  Oh well, it was great.  Their family is like the strongest family in the ward, but they have one problem.  Their mom is completely inactive.  2 of their kids didn’t come from the father of the family.  It's so sad because everybody is so great and she doesn’t have anything to do with the church.  We've been working so hard with them to try and get her active over these past 5 weeks.  Finally last night, she asked my companion and me if we could start teaching her as if she were a new investigator.  She wants to go to church again, learn how to study the scriptures and eventually go to the temple with her husband.  Man, super awesome.  I'm so excited for this family and hope we can really help them out. 

Things with my companion are ok.  I think he may have put on a good show for me the first couple weeks, working really hard and doing everything right.  Now, he just doesn't seem to have much of a drive to do anything.  Last week we didn’t leave the house until 6:00 one night.  That wasn’t the greatest and our stats of really fallen.  I think it’s been about 2 weeks since we studied together and sometimes it's hard.  I guess all I can do is keep studying hard and helping him out, encouraging him every day.  It's kind of like i have turned out to be the trainer.  But it's fine.  I think this week will be better.  We found out that our area in Santa Faz is about 3 times bigger than we thought.  Also, this area hasn’t had missionaries visit in about 3 years.  So, the field is white and we're going to start spending at least 2 hours a day there contacting trying to find some new people.  I feel so good about this new little bit of area and hope it leads to some success and some souls in the Iglesia. 

I'm glad to have my Heavenly Father with me every step of the way.  Sometimes its hard but other times it's fantastic.  Oh yes, 5 new investigators came to church last Sunday and we're thinking that 2 of them are ready to make a date for baptism.  We just have a really hard time getting in to teach because they’re all women and we can’t get into the house unless we have a member male with us.  So hopefully we get in this week and help them progress a little more.  All in all, things are going good.  I know if I keep working hard and trying new ways to find and teach people, the Lord will provide a way for those prepared to receive the truth. 

Well, it's that time.  Have a great week.  I'm always praying for your success and progression.  Always remember what's truly important.  Love you guys

Love,
Elder Lloyd