Week 1: Buzz Cut

Josh's 1st Week Email

Wednesday:  A lot of missionaries were on my flight.  The flight was pretty amazing, the sunset was awesome.  When we arrived in Guatemala, we had to take a bus to the MTC and the traffic here is crazy.  It makes Utah look like nothing!  Guatemala is beautiful and so colorful.  We arrived in the morning, we did not get to sleep that much.  We had interviews, room checks, and identification checks.  Before we got our picture taken, they grabbed some of us and went to a room.  We went in and basically had to get a buzz cut.  I'm still kind of mad about that as well as others, but oh well.  We then had lessons for Spanish all day and a workshop at the end on rules.  I learned as much Spanish in a couple hours then I did in 6 months at school.  Food here is really good, lots of variety and fruit with every meal.  I got my companion who is Elder Money.

Thursday:  We finally got to sleep and went to the temple after study. The temple is so beautiful. But it took about 4 and a half hours!  We got to do some of it in Spanish which was really cool. We are told to learn so much Spanish in the next three weeks. We speak all the time and it's still hard to understand. We had great lessons and we have to memorize so much. 

Friday-- Last night was kind of hard, but this morning we got to workout and play sports which was much needed! We played basketball the whole time. We had a lot more language lessons and, let me say, we have a ton of things to memorize. We got taught how to say our testimonies, prayers, and inviting others in Spanish. We are practicing teaching lessons and teaching investigators. Elder Money and I were able to teach our first lesson tonight and it didn't go that well, but it was awesome because the spirit kind of helps you speak in Spanish. It has been stressful, but I'm getting through it. We try talking Spanish all day and it is really hard.

Saturday-- We did a lot of Spanish study and focused on memorizing the baptismal invitation. We had our second lesson with Fernando and it did not go as well as the first but we got the point over to him. it is just so frustrating to know what to say but we can't do anything because we do not know the language that well yet. but I am learning a lot. 

Sunday-- We had two hour study time because we are fasting.  Then we had district meetings and went to priesthood and then had sacrament meeting in Spanish which was really cool. We watched two great videos at the end of the day.

Monday-- Today we played volleyball, then had a big meeting afterwards. Hermano Gomez, our teacher, is awesome, he is so chill and funny. We teach him English and he teaches us Spanish. We gave our investigator the Book of Mormon tonight and it felt really good. Elder Saxton one of my roommates was sick and he asked our room for a priesthood blessing.  It was such a cool experience and you could feel the spirit so strong. Now he is all better and not sick at all. 

Tuesday-- We did kind of the same stuff we do everyday, but tonight we had a general authority from the 70 come and talk to us. It was in Spanish but we had headphones for English and it was really really cool. It has been really good and my district is super cool and they make everything better.  I just cant wait to get into the field and know the language more.  I'm sorry for the spelling and stuff, the computers here suck, and are in Spanish, haha.