So last Wednesday I got on a bus and headed out to my mission! It´s been a crazy week. We got to a chapel where the entire mission along with the president and his wife were waiting for us. Normally, we would´ve spent a night in the mission home, had an interview with the president, and had a few spiritual devotionals and stuff. But since we were a day late, we got there, the president gave a quick talk, and then we got our trainers and were sent on our way!
My trainer is Elder Sanchez from Honduras. He´s super cool! He´s been a pretty good trainer so far. He speaks only a little English, but we´re able to communicate well enough, so that´s good!
Our area is awesome! (Dylan is serving in Cotepeque, Quetzaltenango). There are so many members here that help us so much. One lady gives us food every day, another washes our clothes, another irons our clothes, and the rest are super nice and helpful as well! We are very well supported here, and all of the missionaries told me I have one of the best areas in the mission. So I´m very blessed!
Our living conditions aren´t exactly ideal...the first couple days culture shock was kind of just punching me in the face over and over. Haha but I´m getting used to it! There are a lot of bugs in our apartment, it´s really dirty, and we only have water every other day. So every other day we shower with a bucket of water! Haha that sounds horrible, but it really isn´t so bad. I don´t mind it so much! And the bugs seem to leave us alone while we´re sleeping, so that´s nice of them. Lol.
We have a few really awesome investigators! They are all really cool, but I want to tell you about one in particular. He´s an 8 year old boy named Jasinto. We were walking home one night, and he just ran up to us and said he wants to be baptized! So that was easy. Haha he´s only 8 years old, but he reads the Bible and loves to talk about God. His family goes to an Evangelical church, but he doesn´t think it´s true. The kid is a genius. He knows more about the gospel than I do. He wants to be baptized and then be a missionary so bad. He almost started crying when we told him he´d have to wait until he was 18 to go on a mission. I love this kid! So he´s definitely going to be baptized and probably be a prophet someday.
We have two baptisms scheduled for Saturday! So I´m way excited about that. One of them is for a 22 year old guy who just showed up at church yesterday. No one knew who he was, but he said he´s been to the church a few times and he knows a ton! We taught him the Restoration, and he readily accepted everything we taught. It was pretty great. Sooo there´s two baptisms this week that literally just fell into our laps. #BLESSED. Hopefully no problems come up with him!
Speaking of little kids, Guatemalan kids are literally the cutest things ever. Let me tell ya, nothing is cuter than a little Guatemalan child running up to you yelling your name to give you a hug.
They´re so cute! My first week here was also the primary program. That was also the best thing I´ve ever seen. I get to play the piano in sacrament meeting! So that´s fun.
They´re so cute! My first week here was also the primary program. That was also the best thing I´ve ever seen. I get to play the piano in sacrament meeting! So that´s fun.
My Spanish is really coming along well! For a couple days I kind of thought they taught me the wrong language in the MTC. Haha but I´m getting the hang of it! I can understand about ninety percent of what is said to me, and I can always form a response, it just takes me a minute sometimes. But I´m learning!
People here are really poor...it´s so different for me to see. Most houses are only one or two rooms, and often they just have dirt floors. But the people are so happy! It´s made me realize how much I took for granted everything I had back home, and how unimportant material things are for happiness.
This week has been kind of tough! I would say the most frustrating thing for me is the disobedience of other missionaries. I feel like our mission is more disobedient than most...for example, my companion is currently watching music videos on YouTube next to me. Haha the missionaries here are great, and they really are great missionaries, obedience just isn´t super important to them, and it´s something that´s really important to me. I think we´re doing well in this mission, but not nearly as well as we could be. I´m not really sure how to fix it...but I want to! So hopefully that can change!
There´s so much more I could tell you all about, but I think I´ll call it good for the week. I love this work! I´m not nearly as good of a missionary as I could or should be, but I´m so excited to continue on working! The church is true!
Love you all!!!
Elder Thomas
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