First Baptism

Elder Layton with 2 companions in the Guatemala CCM

All right this week was kinda insane. Hmmm where to start. Well how about here. I got my first baptismal date! And like Briana it's on the 15th of December. 

Her name is Hermana Consuelo and her husband was a member before he died. We have been teaching and she always comes to church. We taught her about the temple and eternal families and after that she really wanted to be baptized. 

I'm not actually doing it but my comp. I also think we'll have maybe three more this month but I guess we'll see. I'm way excited for it. 

We contacted a lot this week and didn't have any success. Most everyone here is either Catholic or Evangelico. Basically everyone believes in God but we don't get in to teach a lot of lessons. We do have a good amount of investigators so we still teach a lot of lessons to them. 

We're not sure if this was taken in Guatemala City or in Zacapa

OK what else this week. Oh yeah don't freak out mom or anything but I got pretty sick haha. It was kinda fun. OK well not at the time. I kinda threw up in the streets of Zacapa. It was actually pretty funny. I think a bunch of people thought I was drunk...Oh well we can find them later and teach them the Word of Wisdom. Well that was Saturday and I'm almost better now. I still don´t have an appetite but oh well I'm fine. 

I swear mom if you write the First Presidency or something about this just cause I told you you won't ever hear good stuff again. 

OK well Sunday was good too. It was testimony meeting and I think our investigators really liked it. Oh yeah and I had to lead the music. It really wouldn't t have been that bad but there isn't a piano or anything so I had to sing the first part of the song by myself to the whole congregation!! Well by whole congregation I mean like 50 people but still. Ugh it was worse then the throwing up... OK maybe not. Well I survived believe it or not. Did I ever tell you our Bishop is only about 25 years old_ Yeah it's weird but he's a really cool guy. He's about as tall as dad and knows a little English. Yep fun fun...what else.

Eric's Fish Dinner with Rice, Tomatoes/Cucumbers and Lime

Oh the food here is actually pretty good. Nothing is too weird and actually it's not way different. The weirdest thing was the fish which there is a picture of. I was actually really really good but still had everything on it. Other then that we just eat chicken beans rice and eggs. Oh yeah and the only thing I hate is the cheese here, blech. (I think he's talking about a hard, dry white cheese called cotija. If that's what it is, he'll learn to love it. MMMMMM!) 

Also Dad I eat Pan Dulce all the time. It's great. That and Pan Galleta. Yummy. But really the food isn't as different as I thought it was going to be. And here's the lame thing. The only time I tried to eat something American I think that´s what made me sick. I had cereal and milk and I think the milk was bad or something which is weird cause it was the first time I had opened it. Maybe cause they never refrigerate it something happened. Well I don´t know, I'm kinda scared to eat more of it cause I have a ton...

That's awesome Curtis was in the Christmas parade. I laughed really hard at his picture in the uniform though. No offense to you Curtis I just remember how much I hated those uniforms. Glad to hear the store is going well and Dad's doing good too. OK well I got nothing else...Thanks for the letters everyone.

Our Modern Day J Golden Kimball

A lifted picture from another mishy blog of the Guatemalan MTC

So here´s the the thing. Our Pdays are today so I´m usually going to write Saturdays. I guess they just let us email on Monday last week cause we didn´t have a pday thanks to General Conference. So yeah thanks for writing me! Nah just kidding, esta bien.

This past week was crazy fast. I´ve almost been here for two weeks. Crazy right?! This next Tuesday they let us out of the MTC to go out into the city. I will go on splits with a Latino and we have to place Book of Mormons! It is going to be awesome. We get to go tracting and stuff too for like four hours I think. Definitely couldn´t do that in Provo. It´s going to be hard but at least I´ll have a Latino with me to help out. Without one I think I would die. Next time we go it will just be me and Elder Steed though. That should be interesting. 

Well what happened this week?...Hmmm oh yeah I accidentally cussed in a lesson yesterday! It was a really good lesson and I tried to say something but I left off the first two letters and apparently in Guatemala it´s a really bad word. Ha oops guess I won´t make that mistake again. You should´ve seen my teachers face. I was sooo confused why she looked so surprised but afterwards she told us haha. Other then that nothing special happened since Monday. At least nothing I can remember. 

Desayuno Chapin

We taught a bunch of lessons and ate a bunch of weird food and that´s about it. Oh yeah one thing I do have to say. Good thing I´m here cause  Mom you might be tempted to come find, and kill me. I can´t send pictures from here. I have no idea why. They took all of our cameras and we´re not even allowed to have them except the day before we leave. Yeah kinda weird but I guess it´s for safety so they don´t get stolen by the people that work here. At least that´s what they said. So sorry Mom but I´ll definitely send some as soon as I get out...in 4 and a half weeks. 

I hope everything is going ok at home. Yesterday I got both of dads letters cause even Dear Elders take awhile to get here. So thanks for that they were awesome. I can´t believe you took Curtis to a Oregon game though!!!!!!! Not only that you skipped General Conference to do it! I am disappointed in you. (We ended up staying home, watching conference and we still got to watch the game that night. Eric can stop being disappointed.) Mostly because I wasn´t there to go...but for the conference thing too. I hope it was a good game cause Conference was awesome. I guess you saw it anyways though. A lot of people in my zone now have sisters who are going to go on a mission.

It´s so cool! Some people in my zone by the time they leave will have three people out from their family at the same time! Crazy Utah people and all their kids I guess. Oh yeah there was another thing I wanted to say before I ran out of time. I haven´t had time to write them back but Grandma and Grandpa wrote me awesome letter and just wanted to thank them. I re read them yesterday and I have the most awesome grandparents ever haha. Ok well without a letter to respond to I don´t really know anything else to say. 

But here is this places address in case you didn´t find it already. [Bulevar Vista Hermosa 23-71] [Vista Hermosa 1, Zona 15] [01015 Guatemala City] [Guatemala, C.A.] They say letters take about twelve days to get here so yeah....Ok out of time.

Hope you are all doing well and the house hasn´t fallen apart without me. Good luck Briana and I hope you are enjoying it there. Look for an Elder Brooks and Hermana Longoria. They were in my Provo zone and they left a couple weeks ago for your mission. Ok Got to go bye!

Los Nortes in the Guatemalan MTC

Ok well first off down here in Guatemala is crazy. The whole CCM is only Spanish so I don't understand a thing. Even the keyboards here are different so it´s hard to type. 

This week has been awesome. I feel like I'm learning a lot faster now and think I will be much better off than if I stayed in Provo. This week we actually get to go out street contacting on our own! It should be interesting. 

Yeah Mom the CCM is right in the city and it´s actually in my mission! Today we saw Elders walking past the gates that are in my mission. This city is huge. I can't wait to actually go out into it and place Book of Mormons. 

My favorite part of every day is the soccer here. It´s tons of fun playing with the Latinos. I actually score all the time haha. Everyone calls us Nortes it´s funny. The food is really good but definitely takes some getting used to. There is some mexican type stuff and then also some American food. With some of the things I have to force it down but I guess I better get used to it. Overall the food is really good. 

The schedule here is way more relaxed than Provo too! We have a lot more study time and in a couple weeks they are going to take us to a huge three story market and then to Wendys! I can´t wait haha. 

Hmm I can´t figure out how to start a new paragraph so I´ll just keep typing I guess (we edited his letter and added paragraphs before posting). Conference was crazy good! I got to watch it in English because over half the people here are Nortes. It´s soooo crazy about the age thing now. I never thought that would happen. I bet by the end of my mission there are a lot more than 2 Hermanas in my zone. 

I really liked all the talks. We watched every single one so it was really good. I also liked Elder Holland´s but I would have to say that one of the seventies was my favorite. 

I can´t remember his name. I'm so happy to hear about Romney! That´s hilarious!  Obama's best thing last time were the debates and looks like Romney has a good shot maybe. We don't really talk politics in the CCM and so I'm a little deprived and definitely like the updates so thanks. 

The weather here is awesome. Every day it´s a perfect temperature and it really hasn't rained that much. Yesterday we got our first big rain but even that only lasted about fifteen minutes. I kinda wished it lasted longer cause I didn't get to go in it. 

The one thing that is kinda lame here are the rooms. There are six people per room and only two closets. There aren't any desks and every person just gets one small drawer. So I pretty much just live out of my suitcase. We have a shower in our room but it´s tiny and we always have to hurry cause it´s only one shower per six people. We can´t drink tap water so it´s a pain to brush my teeth cause we have to go get other water. Hmmm oh yeah and we can never touch the floor with our bare feet or we'll get a weird fungus thing! It´s fun! Don't get me wrong I still really like it here and in three weeks we might be able to move to better rooms.

When we got here they completely reassigned companions and I got...the same one. Whatever though he´s cool and we'll have a fun last five weeks. Yeah only five more weeks here! Well that´s kinda a lot but it´s going by fast. I can't wait to get out and actually have my own apartment and start teaching real people. Well just about out of time.

Hope my email made sense even though I can barely type. I'll see you guys in two years! Well hey actually less.

Awesome Firesides and Cafeteria Food

I'm not exactly sure where to start. This week has been so long but at the same time it has been really good. All of the days kind of blend together because I'm just in class the whole time. 

We taught lessons this week and they seemed to go ok. Spanish is hard but I'm hoping it will come better in Guatemala. I only have a week left here! It's crazy! I got my travel plans a while ago and we fly to LA and then down to Guatemala. I can't wait. 

We had some awesome classes and some really awesome firesides. The one we had last night was amazing. He taught us all about our purpose and what the point of being here is. I'm so happy I'm here!

Today we went to the temple again and it was really good. I realized a few things I had never before. Even though it was kind of hard to stay awake I managed. The sleep schedule here isn't as nice as the one I had at home but hey after I write this I get to go take a nap! 

P-days are great. Usually I just read and this morning I finished the book Our Search for Happiness. It is an amazing book! I couldn't stop reading haha. I might read it again but I might just read Jesus the Christ instead. It's long so I guess I better get started. Our Search for Happiness is one I wish I would've known about before my mission. I could've used some of the stuff in it to explain to my friends what we believe. 

Tomorrow we have a devotional by another General Authority. Last week was a man from the seventy...I can't remember his name but he was incredible. Rumors are going around that we are due to have an apostle or one of the "Big 3" soon. I'm not so sure but I would love that.

Ok I'm just having a hard time remembering everything this week cause it all seems like one day. The food is well...Lets just say I'll be happy to get to Guatemala where they say it's amazing. 

In the cafeteria I ran into Jared George a couple times! I haven't seen him in forever. I also keep seeing him around campus so that's pretty cool. I love the yard signs you put out! I bet they all win just cause of them. 

Is Curtis liking band? He better be playing first trumpet in Winds by this point! It has already been a week. Also thanks Briana for the package! I liked the watermelon candy haha.

Well I guess that's all I have time for. I can't think of anything else. All my days seem kinda the same except P-days and Sundays. I hope all you guys are doing well and just by the way I kinda keep forgetting to take pictures. I never have my camera with me so sorry. I'll try to get some before I leave next to the map and stuff. 

Well I love you guys and miss you! I know the Church is true and the Book of Mormon was restored by Joesph Smith. I'm so happy to be here and can't wait to go out into the field and get working. This might be my last e-mail from here cause next Monday I might have an orientation thing before I leave but I'll call from the airport if you're lucky! Ha just kidding I will...Probably. Alright bye.