Week 8

¡Hola Familia y Amigos!

This week was pretty weird. Yesterday the power went out, so when we got home, it was pitch black inside our house. Elder Franco somehow had a candle, but no fosforos, or matches (I think that’s how it’s spelled.) Luckily, we were able to get a match from a church member and light the candle. 

This week I had to sign a couple things to finish legalizing my passport, so we had to travel three hours back to the capital to get it signed, which was kind of annoying, because it threw off our plans for two days. When we got to the capital, it was FREEZING. I didn’t realize how much I’ve acclimated to the warm weather here. We stayed with the secretaries that night, and I could not sleep because of how cold it was. The next morning, a group of people went by the apartment with a bunch of drums and brass instruments, and bombas (anything explosive, like a firecracker) at 5AM. At 7AM, we went to the mission office, where I met up with 3 other people from my group at the CCM. Apparently they all have sinks (remember that I have a pila instead of a sink in my apartment in Zacapa), so I don’t know how we managed to miss out on that. The passport affirmation, which should have taken maybe an hour at most, took 4 hours because Elder Busker and his companion came super late from Puerto Barrio, which is on the east coast of Guatemala. 

It rained really hard for 2 days, and then stopped. It made the river impossible to cross and we had to go 20 minutes around to visit Mario and Eva instead of 2 minutes across.

Also, we have 2 more investigators who want to get baptized! Guillermo Ramos is about 50 years old and spends his time either out with his cows by the river, or in one of his two houses. We haven’t found his second house yet. He gave us directions, but the directions here are more like descriptions. An example of detailed directions would be: "I live in that part (point) of the city, in the grey house, seven houses down."

Rafael's wife also accepted the baptismal invitation. She lives out in Frutillo in one big house. Kevin, Danilo, and Rafael's family all live together, so it’s really noisy all the time. While we were teaching them yesterday, two dogs started fighting outside, so Maria grabs a bucket of water and chucks it on them. It worked, but it was kind of strange to witness.

Elder Franco is a fairly quiet fellow. He’s learning English pretty slowly, and I’m teaching him as much as I can.  From my group in the CCM, I’m alone here in Zacapa. The language is slowly coming, too. I’m learning to pick individual words and the general concept out of a sentence, but I still don’t understand specific meanings. I’m able to get across what I’m trying to say, though.  A good set of scriptures describes the way it is right now: Jeremiah 1:6-8. This has given me a bit of comfort as I’ve been working.

I love you guys! Thank you for all the support you give me! I promise I’ll have pictures for you next time!

-- 

Elder Jeffrey Reed