Week 5

Hey everyone I am having a good time  in the CCM. I can't wait to get out in the field and start doing some real missionary work. It feels like I am trapped in spiritual prison here. Ha Ha 

 The language is coming pretty good I think. I have been working hard to finish the BOM here. I am at page 450 today and I'm trying to finish it before I leave. It is such an amazing book. I love it. I am about a 100 pages into the Spanish BOM and hope to finish it a month into the field. I leave from the MTC next Tuesday at 4 am so that will be fun. I have started to wake up at 5:30 with Elder. Newman from my district and we read the BOM and the Spanish BOM until 6:30. He is good guy. Both of our comps are kind of lazy and don't follow rules so we try to do stuff with each other more often.  With Spanish we had an area authority come and speak to us in Spanish and I understood about 80 percent of what he was saying. It is still hard to respond sometimes, but I know that in the field I will continue to grow and progress in Spanish. 

I got the package the other day it was awesome! Thank you so much for it. I can't wait to open up some of the presents on my birthday and Christmas. I wasn't allowed to go say hi to her when she dropped it off but one of the administrators gave me a hug from her so that was funny. He is a really strict man and he was so awkard giving me a hug. 

I'm glad Jaden is sticking up what his beliefs because it never stops. Even in the CCM there are times you have to leave someones room to stop a conversation. I hope Elle has lots of fun playing basketball and tennis and hopefully MG can win a few more games. 

Today a lot of people had to go to the immigration office and sign papers so I have a new companion for the day. His name is Elder Alldredge from my district. He’s in the picture with me. 
That's about it for whats going on. 

I wont get next Pday but I might get to email saturday or monday. I love you all and I hope you having a good time at home. See you soon.

My sweet friend Tanna and Ian’s supervisor 

Week 4

Hey guys,

Things are going good over here. I am having a blast being the older guys in the MTC. I made a goal to help all the new guys with anything they needed so that has been a super cool experience for me. We got to go outside last week on Friday to contact people. Me and my companion got 3 names, phone numbers, and addresses to give to the missionaries in this mission. People are so much more polite here. Even if they aren't interested they will stop ylisten to what you have to say. I love it. We only go to contact for about and hour but we are going out this next week I think too. I don't have any pictures to send home this week because we can only take pictures on P-day and we are emailing first thing in the morning. My language is progressing slowly and the teacher said if I didn't learn anymore Spanish I would still do fine in the field. So that was nice to hear because I was pretty worried about it. The food here is great, but my body still doesn't like it. haha. The new guys are super cool and I kinda know one of them already from cali. The other one is from Indiana and is super fun to play basketball with. I'm excited and nervous to go out and preach the gospel. The leccions es going great pero I still am having trouble with translating the way I want to. I know all the material just not todos the words. So we are doing okay. I love you all and I hope that you guys are doing well at home. See you soon.

Ps 

I got to give someone a blessing this week so that was super cool. I was a super spiritual experince for me. Right after I finished the blessing I started to read my scriptures and had a feeling to flip to a random page. I flipped to D&C 75:10-12 and I had prayed before the blessings and It felt so personal to me. Its was a really nice experience for me to have.

Week 3

First Guatemala haircut

I have my P-Day today because all the new missionaries are coming tomorrow. We got to go to the zoo today and see all these super cool monkeys and tigers and stuff. After the Zoo we went to a market and got to barter for stuff we wanted. A good rule of thumb is that you can get about forty percent off whatever price they give you. After we went to the market we stopped at Wendy's for lunch/dinner. Also sorry if my emails are a little messed up the keyboard is different here. I am loving it here and me and my companion have been trying to step it up here, We are starting to understand people for just about anything, but the hard part is responding with the right forms of word and also the correct tense. I have been slowly reading El Libro De Mormon and I will probably be about a fourth of the way done when I leave the MTC and I am hoping to finish the BOM before I leave. You guys would not believe how tinny some of the people are here. You walk by them and you have to look down to see them. Elle is about the height of the average woman I saw at the zoo today. As the days go here they are starting to go by faster and faster. It is so amazing to feel the spirit almost every second. I have been established as the McGiver and the district prankster. Its a lot of fun and I have a great group of guys in my district. I hope that all you guys are doing well and I hope I get a wedding announcement from Chase soon. Love you and I'll see you soon.

Temple trip with my district 

Zoo Trip with my District 

My scores from the market. 

Week 2

It's going good this week!  

 It's really hard to not be able to speak the language as good as I want because I know how to answer any question I'm asked and I can teach all the lessons as well. I just can't translate into Spanish all the way some times so it is super frustrating. That is awesome that Getchell beat Arlington. I wish they would have done it when I was playing.

Guatemala temple in the distance. This is from the mtc library window. 

 It is not super crazy eventful here because you cant really go anywhere. Its like spiritual prison we joke. Later today we get to visit the temple which is super awesome and next week we get to visit the zoo and a local market place. My district is super cool here at the CCM. They are all super good people. My and my companion are not the best fit but we have been trying our hardest to get along so that we can have the spirit with us when we teach. Our district leader is Elder.Newman he is a super laid back and super understanding.

I hope that by next week I'll be speaking better Spanish but for now I'm doing alright. 

Love you guys and I hope that you remember your brother and son isn't dead so don't take all of his super cool stuff.  (jaden is wearing his hawaiian shirt as we read this)