Elder Tadje in Guatemala

Sun salutations from your favorite two canches down here in Chimaltenango!!  We're surviving, thriving, and WE GOT A FRIDGE!!! Some random guy names Tobias called us at 4:30 in the morning and said he was outside with a fridge, and we now have cold food!! I bought one apple to put in it- we don't have any bleach to wash it so we couldn't eat it, but it felt good to have a fridge with something in it all week. This weekend was probably my favorite on my mission so far- so full of miracles! I can honestly say that I don't know if I've ever felt this happy!! First off, on Sunday Jeremy Garcia got baptized!!! I actually felt kinda bad about that- the whole reason we didn't do it last week was because he wanted to do it in the stake center with hot water. We didn't realize that the water still comes out cold, but gets run through a system to heat it up. So it takes a few hours to get warm. We filled the font 20 min. before the baptism...Haha. We went dow...

Ayoooo, How's life back in the 801? Ok first of all I wanna clear up some confusion about what exactly we're doing- opening an area can mean a lot of different things. Usually it's what they also call a white wash, where the 2 missionaries who are in the area are pulled out and 2 new ones are put in, with only the carpeta (or area book) to rely on to find your way around. That's what happened to us, but the missionaries were pulled out a year ago. This area (barrio/ward) just hasn't had missionaries assigned to it. We have an awesome chapel, and the ward members are just as amazing!  Because of the special Guatemala broadcast we didn't have church in our building, but we were finally able to get to know them! They are all super excited to finally have missionaries here again, and we want to start working with them a lot. There are miracles with the members! Jeremy Castro Garcia didn't end up getting baptized on Sunday... He wanted to do it in the st...

HOLA! The kindness of the people here continues to amaze me. The other day we were walking down the street, and crossed to the other side to contact a family. They were walking out of church and the dad had on a tie with a wiener dog wrapping around it- really strange! So  started out the conversation by saying, "Hey, nice tie!" He immediately said, "You like it? Here, it's yours!" and started pulling it off from around his neck. I tried to tell him that I didn't want to take his tie, but he just said that he has lots of ties and doesn't need that one. They ended up not wanting anything to do with the church, but he gave me the clothes right off his neck because I said I liked it. There is a special feeling here in Guatemala that I've never felt anywhere else. The people in general are amazing, and the members even more so! Some of the strongest and most faithful members I've met here. Two of the converts from El Bilbao are Victoria and ...

HEYYOOOOO- Welcome to week 19 where the tall blonde gringo is actually completely lost in Guatemala!!!!! Haha, so Monday we had changes!!!! I got transferred to an area in the mountains called Chimeltenango, and my Comp is Elder Campbell from Arizona!!!! He's a gringo that was in the MTC with me. He just left his training too, so we're both senior comps. We're opening the area of Chimal 2-opening the area basically means they drop both of us in here from different areas, and we have no idea what to expect!!! Haha we still aren't completely sure where we live!!! We don't know anybody, where anything is, and there haven't been missionaries here for a year. Also, no one has lived in our house for a year.  It has two desks, two beds that we built and a bookshelf. But other than that, nothing!! Haha no fridge, no food, no Books of Mormon, no lesson pamphlets, no dishes, no anything!! It's been a fun few days trying to figure stuff out!!!...

Hola!  There is a lot of wisdom here on the coast, especially from our investigators. I’ve gotten a lot of life advice. We’re teaching a man right now named Fernando Israel. He can barely walk, and can’t use his left hand. But one day we saw him about a mile and a half from his house at a park. (Cement pad with benches in front of a massive catholic church?) We asked him why he was so far away from his house and he told us that he always leaves at least once a day so his friends know he’s not dead. So you HEARD him- if you haven’t left your house yet for the day, at least go outside. People could think you’ve died if you don’t . It’s cool to see the differences in all of the people we teach. Israel has a ton of faith and basically only talks about the Lord. He lives in a small garage by himself, and told us he doesn’t need a TV or phone or anything because he has his Bible, Hymn book and now Book of Mormon. When we teach him we need to make sure we’re completely straight f...