Elder Tadje in Guatemala

Hola from Santa Lucia! Its seems like every conversation here is a guessing game. If there is anything you want to know you've literally gotta play 20 questions to figure it out, and if you have answers from more than one person, you've gotta decide who you believe. We passed by the house (by passed by I mean searched in the jungle of San Judas for 45 min to find) of an investigator named Juventino. We got inside and his 5 year old son said he was at work. His 50 year old brother said he had left the day before on a vacation to the capital. His 60 year old aunt said he had just left on an errand and would be back soon. Who would you believe? It ended up being the 5 year old! We met with Juventino, or Tino in the front area while he held his massive 4 foot tall goose named Pancho who would honk whenever you said his name, and every once in awhile go crazy and attack the closest ankles.  Day by day I feel like I am becoming more and more Chapin. It's like Paul says i...

Hola Amigas, In Chapin (Guatemalan) culture there is absolutely no concept of time. If we say "Ok, you wanted to have your baptism before church so you can be confirmed during sacrament meeting, you'll be here by 6:45 so we can start right at 7:00, right?" They'll say, "Oh, yeah, of course! Fijo." Then be 45 minutes late for 8:00 church. One of our investigators had a job interview, so not a lot of free time. Our ZL's told us they'd be at the church at 6:30 to interview him. They got there at 7:45. It's ok though- it's teaching me patience! This week has also taught me how to deal with stress. Saturday we had the wedding of Marcelo Munuz to his wife Aura. She's a member, he's not. (wasn't) We've spent all week trying to take out their documents. But Renap- the place to do it- is like everything else government related here. It doesn't work. So I had to take them to Siquinala (the 2nd rainiest place in the world) while...

Hola! So this has been a crazy week! We almost got robbed! Haha we were in front of Rodolfo's house and a drunk guy walked up to us. "Hey, Give me your money. I see your wallet. Give me your money." Without saying a word to the guy we opened Rodolfo's gate and walked in. When I turned around to close the gate the guy was pointing at us and said "Ah man. Well, I will get you next time!" Then he walked off without a problem. 😊  We finally moved!! The apartment across the street had a for rent sign. Business deals are so much easier in Guatemala. We called the guy and said we were interested and made an appointment with our zone leaders this morning. They were late and the owner had to leave, but we told him we wanted it so he gave us the keys and said we could move in whenever we wanted! We called in our district to help us, and Stuardo Dardon- a convert of about 6 months, who is an absolute stud. He told us he couldn't believe we'd been livi...

Ahhhh la vida every night when I get back home and try to write in my journal, I could start with 'holy cow I'm exhausted' or even 'wow, just when I thought I could never feel more tired, today happened.' And every time would be completely accurate. Hahaha but por sacrificios se dan bendiciones, va?! (through sacrifices blessings are given) But this week was absolutely incredible!!!! My new comp is from Cali AND SPEAKS PERFECT ENGLISH!!!!!! I was kinda worried about that and how my Spanish would progress if I had that fallback, but having him has actually helped my Spanish a ton!!!  Being able to speak in English and have someone else that's learning too has really kind of helped everything to click. I can pretty much say whatever I want to say now, and when there's words I don't know I can work around it. I'm also getting to the point of being able to understand almost everything that is said!!!! (knock on all the wood I can find) So for everyone l...

What a crazy and wonderful week this has been! Guatemala is such an interesting place. There are always 80 year old men with their machetes and straps over their head to carry their bundles of fire wood. We were walking down the road about a half mile above the church and passed a man like that on the other side of the street. We shouted across ,"Ay Hermanito, Buenas!!" He looked back at us with a big toothless grin and shouted "Jovenous! Jose Smith!!" We started laughing and shouted back "We've got everything ready for your baptism next week!" He gave us a big thumbs up and another grin, then turned and kept walking. For everyone we meet like him, we find others who shout "No one's home" when we knock, or "We're all Catholics!" before we can even say anything.  This week Elder Petronilo and I were blessed to be able to baptize Hermans Jose Rivera, Maria Luisa and Anahi Contreras. We found Maria on the last dirt road ...