¿Que es le avi de guatemala?, Week 3

Hola famila! I'm glad you are all having fun in Texas and on the road trip. I've been praying for your safety. Mail came on Mon, took it 2-3 weeks to get here from the states so if you haven't sent me something already please don't send anything to this mission home 'cause I won't get it before i leave and then it will be lost for who knows how long. (snail mail I mean not dear elders) I got your dear elders last Thursday. Soooo I learned so much this week, but I'm going to have to snail mail it to you because I don't have much time. We are the oldest group of NAs now my comps are both the coordinating sisters and I am the music coordinator. I think that is kind of funny because both of my comps are more musically inclined than me. One of them plays like 5 instruments. What that basically means is that I am in charge of putting together musical numbers for Sundays and Tuesdays. # of our elders (of 7) have decided to move up into a more advanced level. They'll have the last three weeks as a part of a Latino district. they'll be with the Latinos all the time and it will be great for them because they already get the grammar and haven't really learned much in our class because they already knew so much from school. That means that we'll only have 7 total in our district and so we have to move class rooms tonight. Today we had our trip out of the ccm and tomorrow we get to go to the temple again. On our trip out we went and saw the relief map, (look it up on line if you can) it is a geographic 3d HUGE map of Guatemala. It was built in 1905 so it doesn't have the boarder between Guatemala and Belize. Then we went to the Mercado Central where I got stuff for yall I also am going to try to snail mail home a couple of quetzel bills. (but not the stuff right now) then after the Mercado central we went to a museum and a mall (they are joined) where I had McDonalds and we toured the museum. The museum was small but cool. It is dug under one of the mounds. There are more than 200,000 ancient ruins throughout Guatemala and southern Mexico. Many of them are still buried because they are fragile and are able to be preserved if they remail buried, but they dug under one and you can see what they found under and be under the mound. Oh the mounds cover pyramids, and these pyramids are believed to be ancient burial sites because they find skeletons at the bottom. Anyway it was great to be out for a while. It would have been even greater if I hadn't gotten a migraine today, but I took meds and wore my sunglasses and I was good. It did make it difficult to understand what people were saying though. I kept having to turn to my comps and ask, '¿what did they day?' My comps were really good about it though. Ok so some of the great things I learned 1 there are 2 great reasons to go to church 1st and most important is to renew your covenants with god. and 2 is to edify other people. I learned and I believe it is true, if you go with those two purposes in mind you will never sit through a boring Sunday school, relief society, priesthood or sacrament meeting. also there are 4 great parts to a talk 1- a principle or doctrine 2- a story, or example, 3- a challenge to live the principle or doctrine and 4 a testimony of the truthfulness of that principle or doctrine. We also had a great object lesson about the gospel and how the gospel helps change lives. Well not much more time, but if you have the chance I was told about this site on LDS.org that has like a google earth. You should totally try to find it and look at the geography of this area. It is really amazing. When we were at the relief map´our guide said there is one mountain in Guatemala that gets snow(for like 3 days out of the year) he said so maybe you can visit there if you ever miss snow(I told him I wouldn't be here and he said there are no mountains that high in Belize) Love ya'll Be safe and have fun.

Greetings from sunny winter guatemala, Week 2

So this week has been pretty good so far, well kind of. Sunday I was sick and missed all of the meetings on Sunday, luckily here at this MTC my comps were able to go to all but church itself. I took medication received a priesthood blessing and slept most of the day and I am feeling much better, although when I was planning with my comps I thought...Oh happy birthday Ben, so HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY BEN!!!!. The temple opened up yesterday. So we got to go to the temple here in Guatemala. It is a really small temple. Yesterday was also our ´day in the park´. The 3 week NAs and our latin comps all boarded a bus and headed to a park in downtown Guatemala city. We spent about 2 and a half hours contacting with out latin comps. I said, hello, and pretended like I understood what was being said, and when Hna Bernardez looked at me I testified that I knew the church of Jesus Christ was again on the earth and that families can be together forever. We got 5 references, with was about average.There were some of the missionaries that found awesome investigators, ours might have been, but i didn't understand them so who knows. Entonces this is the last week for the latinos and the first group of North Americans. When they leave next Tues my group of NAs gets to go on a tour of the city and go shopping in the mall. I don{t know what I´ll buy. but I am excited for it. I think our pday will be on next Tuesday because of that. Tomorrow we teach our last lesson in English. Whew! Teaching in English is so easy. I never thought I´d say that but really it is. Its a lot harder to express your thoughts and feelings in a language you don´t really know. I asked a Hna here to cut my hair she cut it yesterday. Its about 3 inches shorter now. I just had her remove the layers, because they were starting to look frizzy. This week we had a lesson on the Christlike attributes(ch 6 in PMG) we split up and each taught an attribute. One of the groups of elders gave an excellent lesson on Hope. They said ´hope is the anchor of the soul´ another one said ít is because of hope that we have an eternal perspective. it is that hope that helps us realize that the troubles and difficulties that we encounter are really only a small blip in the eternal scheme of things. It is that hope that helps us realize how pointless some avenues of escape are.´ he said more about some of his friends back home who try to escape from their problems through alcohol and partying all night and sleeping all day. He said The eternal perspective that hope gives him helped him realize that the end of this life for all of us is the same, and that it is what he chooses to do with time he has between now and death that really can make a difference in someones earthly life and in their eternal life. He said hope and faith have given him a direction and a perspective on life. I thought yes that is why I am here. We have hope. we have a purpose, and I know how we can have joy in this life and in the next. Through living the gospel, through internalizing the gospel so we become Christlike in all that we are. When we are Christlike, we have joy. I only have another 3 weeks here It is amazing how time flies. I still feel like I don{t know any more than I did when I came but I understand more and more Spanish, especially when they enunciate and speak slowly. Yesterday we had devotional and had a speaker from the area 70 come. he told me I´ll be in ELS for the temple dedication (in April) and I´ll get a new mission pres too (in July) Love yall Got to go Mem

Guatemala CCM (MTC), week 1

Hola family!
OK so real fast the business end of stuff. If you send me a letter or a package(not through pouch) don´t put Hermana or the CCM or any of those words that are affiliated with Mormons and missionaries or I won{t get it. The weather here is so nice! it is amazing! we have had a cold day a couple of times and it was like oh i might need a sweater. Most of the time it is warmer than it ever gets there in the summer. My Latino comp is way cool and is very patient with me. Some days I don{t do to bad at Spanish and some days its horrible and I don{t understand a word that they say. Yesterday was like that it was frustrating. Today we only have p-day until lunch because the temple is closed. But when the temple opens back up we´ll get to go twice that week. Today I went shopping(kind of) the CCM has some people come in and set up their tables with some stuff they sell (like bags and scripture cases etc) I got a scripture case and a bag. If you happen to be sending a package to me, I´d appreciate some more peds(those little socks) with the rubber on the back and some more normal socks for exercise. I realized I really don{t have enough socks. I get to do my laundry on Thurs. We only have 2 washers and dryers for all the hnas so we take turns on different days doing our laundry and my day is Thurs between 1145 and 2. The food here is really good. its all different than how we cook in America but all very yummy. The only thing i don{t like is the milk. Boys if you think your milk is bad at least it is just pasteurized. This stuff is irradiated. and I´d rather have pasteurized any day. this has a metallic flavor to it that is rather unpleasant. It almost makes me sick in fact. But the yogurt is good so its not like I don't get dairy. We´ve had some very interesting things. but its been really yummy. Every day we have some kind of juice. Sometimes it is like papaya juice, somedays like cantaloupe juice, sometimes watermelon juice. Today we had strawberry juice. it was like drinking strawberry jam. I thought of you dad. The juice is soo good, but I really need to start drinking the water instead because they put so much sugar in the juices. Oh did I say that the juice is real juice like just juiced juice. SOOOOO yummy. It was great to talk to you all when I called. I need to go so I can read the letters you wrote.
Love ya. Mem

Hola from Guatemala

Hola familia!
We arrived in Guatemala this am at 6 their time. The flight from LAX to Guatemala was about 4.5 hours and we arrived very tired. We unpacked our bags, and ate breakfast, and then had an orientation to the CCM. It is even smaller than I thought. It sounds like their goal is to make it as big as I thought but right now the only missionaries that are trained in the CCM are the Latinos going to CA and the NA Elders serving in Guatemala and the Hermanas serving in CA. The buildings currently have a capacity of about 50 missionaries. The goal is to have all the missionaries that are being sent to CA come to the Guatemala MTC, but right now that isn't logical. The temple is right next to the Mission home, and we can go on our p-days but the temple is closed for the next two weeks for cleaning and maintenance. We will go when it opens again.

We have a new district. All of the Elders that Hna Atkisson traveled down with and then the three Hnas. We will also have a Latino companion. We will be with our companions the gringo hnas for classes, but gym and meals we will spend with our Latino comps. We haven't been told yet who it will be.

The MTC here is so beautiful. And it is marvelously warm and humid. Because it is winter there is a nice cool breeze, and the temp is about 70 today. We studied outside this afternoon for comp study. It is so fun to hear all the sounds of this place, none of them are familiar to me. It is so pretty.

The CCM is behind gates and fences. You cant really see what is on the other side of the fence. As the fence goes around some parts it has that barbed wire stuff across the top. Most of the time we´ll be in the CCM but on the 8th I get to go out to go with the Mission President´s wife and one of the Hnas.

Our classes will all be in Spanish. And the MTC Pres said that we will have two types of meetings. Those meetings dedicated to us learning the gospel and the doctrine, and those will be in English and meetings dedicated to us learning the language and those will be in Spanish. He said that unless it is a grammar principle to not be really worried if we don´t understand what is being said. (HA I found the ´ ok sorry about my poor punctuation and my run on paragraphs. It is a Spanish keyboard and I can´t figure out how to make a new paragraph.)

Most of the missionaries here are either new like us or have been here for three weeks. I´m a bit concerned because we´re supposed to be teaching in Spanish this week and I don´t feel like I can communicate the message in Spanish. I have so much work to do.

The MTC president´s wife was kind enough to get the MTC pres to let Hna Newren and I to have an hour nap this morning. It makes studying easier if your eyes aren´t blurry and they don´t keep trying to close. It was very nice to be able to take a nap, and I´m pretty sure I´ll sleep pretty well tonight as well. Pray for me to be able to remember what I study so I can learn how to teach the gospel and communicate in this language.

Sorry my message is so disjointed.

We´ve had two meals so far and the food is sooo good. Flavors like I don´t normally have, but it is soo good. We had eggs this morning that were scrambled and had some kind of red pepper in them and I don´t know what else but they were really really yummy. If I could communicate what I thought I´d have asked the ladies in the Cafeteria what they put it in. But even if I could have asked, what they would have answered probably wouldn´t have make sense.

This is such a pretty place. The building is made of so much rich looking wood.

I don't have much more time, so I´ll just say it was wonderful to be able to talk to you all and I love and miss you.
Mem

Note from the editor: I took the liberty of making paragraphs, so that I could read it better... Hope none of the rest of you mind! ;) To get the full flavor of Mem's email, imagine it as all one paragraph...
Anybody know where the "enter" key is on a Spanish keyboard is?

MTC, week 3

Hola familia!

This week in the MTC has been great. I feel like I am starting to understand what people are saying to me when they speak in Spanish. I usually catch about every 3rd or 4th word. Sometimes its enough to be able to get what their talking about, sometimes the key words I don't understand. I'm getting really good at the dictionary though.

We taught the 2nd lesson (the POS) this week . It went really well. Pretty soon we'll have to teach in Spanish and I'm a little concerned about that. I don't feel like I know enough vocab to be able to teach the gospel in Spanish.

I'm excited to head to Guatemala today, and am excited to be able to see Hermana Atkisson, We sent her off last night. She was scheduled to fly out with 9 elders. Hna Newren told the elders to look after her. We aren't sure if we'll be comps in Guatemala.

Thanks for the socks Dani! My district was like, socks? Your sister sent you socks? They don't know that socks are a great gift. They work well in my shoes that mom sent me. My sketchers they slide off my heel. My other socks have a rubber grippy thingy on the heel that helps them stay on. And thanks for the notebook. Hno Pepper told us to write down words we don't know in a notebook. I have one, but I'm sure it will be full by the time we get through the Guatemala MTC.

I snail mailed a letter home last p-day I hope it got there. It has my Guatemala address.

JIC the package address is
Hermana Memorie Allen
Bulevar Vista Hermosa 23-71
Vista Hermosa I, Zona 15
01015 Guatemala City
Guatemala C.A.

and pouch is
Hermana Memorie Allen
Guatemala MTC
POB 30150 Salt Lake City UT
84130-0150

The letter had some specifics about how to use pouch.

I love you all and I miss you.
Got to go, Love you all so much.

Love Mem


Note from Dani:
The specifiecs about how to use pouch are outlined here:
Pouch mail

Basically, write on one sheet of paper, on one side only, fold it into thirds, "Use two pieces of tape or two sticker tabs on the top to secure it, not more than one inch from each side, but do not seal the ends."
And address it as if it were an envelope. Like this:

See the return label in the upper left and the address in the center? The stamp goes in the upper right corner.
:)