Going somewhere new tomorrow! The adventure continues!

So it turns out I do have changes tomorrow. I will be leaving my dearly beloved Villa Nueva and going somewhere else. I have met a lot of people that I will miss a lot, and have learned so much. Tomorrow morning I will go with my companion to a big church about 45 minutes away, and all of the missionaries that have changes will be there. Then they say a bunch of stuff and then read off the names of the new companionships and where they will be. After that I go with my new companion to our new area and get back to work. In anticipation of disappearing from civilization, I bought a pair of combat boots yesterday for 240 quetzals. There are some pretty intense areas in our mission, and while it´s possible I stay here close to the capital, it is also very possible I will go to the mountains, which supposedly eat shoes for breakfast... Anyways, all is good, I´m still alive and well.  

The other day I talked to a guy from Toronto, Canada, which was pretty cool. And I heard for the first time what automatic gunfire sounds like. I had been asking my companion how you can tell the difference between gun shots and the fireworks which the kids set off all day every day. Luckily it was just some guy target shooting in his backyard, but it is a very unmistakable sound...

 You asked about how we handle our finances. We pay all of our bills and buy our groceries and everything. They give us between 2000 and 2500 quetzals every month,(about $250-$300 dollars) and if you run out, tough luck. Fortunately I have learned to be super... I don´t remember the word... uhh.. like not spending money. (frugal?) I bought some real boots yesterday, but only had to use 40 quetzals from my debit card, the rest was money I had saved.

There are lots of days when all of our plans fall through, but you just go visit other people, or go knock doors. With all of the standards of excellence we have here in our mission, we don´t have time to have nothing to do. As far as cooking, I took our cheap little stove apart and sort of fixed it. It is now an unfused direct connection to the wall socket, but until we get a new one it has worked well. The cinnamon rolls turned out awesome, if you could send me a very simple recipe for frosting it would be great! I also made a calzone that turned out pretty good.

Elder Rice

 



Picture from our día blanco last Sunday

Picture of our baptisms for that day, with our ward mission leader. We gave him the privilege of baptizing our investigators, because he does an awesome job as the mission leader

The Family Cisnero. One of the families I will miss the most. The entire family, except the dad, are all members and as soon as the dad has his passport to get married, he is getting baptized too

Got yeast?

 I got this recipe for bread, to make like pizza or cinnamon rolls or egg McMuffins or whatever from another Elder here.  I bought everything that I needed to make it, but as hard as I looked I couldn´t find yeast. Other Elders have told me that they do sell it here, but I guess I´ll have to look more. So I went ahead and just made the bread without the yeast, or ¨Unleavened Bread¨... or as my companion called it “Jewish Bread”. So I have been making Jewish pizza, Jewish cinnamon rolls, Jewish calzones, etc. Sadly, our little electric stove gave up the ghost the other day... and our microwave bit the dust several weeks ago... so we have a whole bunch of food in the house and no way too cook it! It’s great. L I have been learning how to cook, actually pretty well I think. 

We have transfers on the 30th of October. Nobody knows for sure yet, but it’s looking like I will be transferred, as I have been in the zone longer than anybody else. Who knows... We found a family the Saturday before last and taught them and everything and then the next day they came to church! Which is pretty unusual! Anyways, they are getting baptized this Sunday, and we married them last Saturday. It was pretty crazy to know them for like three days and organize their marriage. They already have 3 kids and have lived together for 10 years.

 Love, Elder Rice

 

A picture of the couple we married signing away their lives into matricidio

The newlyweds and their kids

Jewish (unleavened) cinnamon rolls

Pics from the zoo!

Still working hard and doing good stuff here in Guatemala! Coming up on changes again, and since I have been here for 3 changes already, I think I will be moving to another area L I have come to love so many people here in my area and will be super sad to leave. But I am also super excited to see more parts of the country. More than likely I will be going either to the mountains, where it’s really cold and super intense leg work outs from all the hills, or to the coast, where it is incredibly hot and humid.

We went to the zoo last week. It was a super normal experience. I never really got too much joy out of going to the zoo... Anyways, photos were sent to my beloved mother to post online J

Also, we bought a gallon of homemade ice cream the other day... for about 4 dollars. Ya´ll should be jealous.

I bought boots yesterday. They are great, and only 20 dollars, more or less. I’m going to use them until the end of this change and if they still work well buy another pair. The Ecco Tracks that I brought still have some life in them, but not much, so I am going to save them until my last change and absolutely murder them, then wear them on the way home, and bronze them when I get back! J

Love, Elder Rice

Apparently things are AWESOME!

I sent pictures last week instead of a letter. I know you were all super worried that I didn´t write and all. J

 Glad to hear all is well at home! We have had a lot of baptisms, and all of the pictures where I am dressed in white I baptized at least one person. It’s pretty awesome. We do a ton of tracting door to door and talking to random people. We have to talk to at least 35 people every day, and invite them to learn more about the gospel.

The rain is going to quit supposedly pretty soon. Our umbrellas got destroyed like a month or two ago, so we just walk around completely open…but completely soaked.. It’s awesome! J

 General Conference was pretty awesome too! They had it on a projector here in the chapel, voiced over in Spanish, but all of the North American missionaries watched it in another room live streamed over the internet. We watched all 10 hours. Conference weekend here is affectionately called P-day weekend, as we pretty much just hang out with our whole zone in the chapel all day. Between sessions we left to bring more people to watch the next one, or else teach lessons to investigators that came and are staying for the next one. That was pretty much the highlight of the week. I got like 10 pages of notes from the conference, and I only wrote things that I could use in missionary work. There was so much stuff said! This was the first conference that I didn´t fall asleep-and watched all of the sessions. It was awesome! (check out lds.org if you'd like to know more about what general conference is)

 Tomorrow we are going to the zoo with our zone. It is going to be super cool! I wanted to go play soccer on a big synthetic field with the zone, and we were going to go do that, but then somebody changed their vote to go to the zoo instead. It´s all good, as long as it doesn´t rain too much it will be super awesome.

I am coming up on 6 months, and nobody refers to me as the new elder anymore. In fact, I have been in the zone longer than almost everyone else. I love my mission, and I am trying my best to make the most of it. I have learned that sometimes people pass through really hard times, but hard work, preparation, and planning will always bring great satisfaction.

Lots of love,

Elder Rice

 

 

Not much written, but he sent some pics

We get to have the weekend to watch all of the sessions of General Conference, and then P-day Monday. Whoop! https://www.lds.org/general-conference/watch?lang=eng

I don’t know about the call home for Christmas yet, I have heard it’s through Skype, but I’m not sure. Prepare some talking points and questions and stuff! Ideas for  Christmas... socks maybe J the nice strong kind. I really like these ones with the bright colored toes, because they never get mixed up in the laundry with my companion. A pair or two more of these sweet pants that we got at the LDS missionary store. A Portland Timbers soccer jersey, long or short sleeve, size medium... And maybe some candy. White or normal chocolate, skittles, Reeses pieces, etc. But I can get candy here, so maybe not. Anyways, some ideas there.

That's super awesome about Jared and Andrea being in the newspaper!

Here's some pictures- I can´t see what they are though, so I pretty much just sent a bunch of random ones...

Family we baptised

My companion and I...being awesome

My comp at our apartment- there's some pics of me on the wall if you look close!

Lake Amatitlan on a P-Day visit. Beautiful!

Check out my tan line!

Family Baptism

Internet time is over, back to work!

Love you lots, Collin