This week flew by super fast! We are having a little success I guess. The men in our 3 areas all listen pretty well and want to know more but the women are all like "we have a church blah blah blah" . We could get so much more done without them lol. And its super hard to really teach because most of the people here can't read or write so they only know what their pastors tell them and anything else besides that kinda scares them. But we do have 2 baptisms this coming May so thats a pick me up. We have a goal to have 10 this month so we´ll see how this goes.
How much do you walk each day?
- About 10 or so miles maybe more or less.
Do you stay in the village?
- No we have three areas that are ours..Pueblo Nuevo, Nuevo Palmar, and Las Rosas.
How is church?
We dont have a piano or anything like that so its all vocal really primative and classes are outside underneath the Banana and Mango trees...lol!
Do you understand any of it?
-Its getting easier but its super hard.I'm pretty sure it will take me 6 months to a year before I really understand everything. And its really wierd before my mission when I heard spanish it sounded like giberish but now I cant make it sound like that if I want to. What I know I know and its like I just understand what they're saying.... and I can not know what they re saying... but I do... don"t know its really wierd.
What type of food do the members feed you?
- Lots of rice and chicken and homemade tortillas...and sometimes this drink called Morcaf...so gross and hot...i really miss cold food, drinks, and ICECUBES!!!!! LOL.
Did you get the books I sent to you yet?
-nope i still havent gotten those yet lol but theyll get here when they get here lol!!!
Any cultural experiences to share?
- LOL. Well to see a woman nurse her baby in sacrament or when we´re teaching or when she's just doing whatever is one. 'Ive also see the mothers teach their kids how to pee on sidewalks. And people like to pee wherever whenever lol. And just some other things like that lol. And im soooooo grateful for a full mouth of teath. A lot of people here don't have em lol.
Spiritual experience to share?
- Well the coolest is this....we were asked to come to this guys house to teach, so we did and then the tropical rains came in and it was just complete chaos! And the guy just wanted to fight with us over whether or not the sabbath was on Saturday or Sunday...no spirit there. Then after we were walking around one of our other areas and just felt impressed to knock on this one house...so we did. It turned out to be an amazing lesson! The birds were chirping and the sun was shining and he had a family. Everything was just to perfect, and I just thought it was cool that when we needed to teach there was peace and calm outside. But when we fought it was just chaos outside...
.Another story is this, it gets REALLY hot here so last night me and Burton were going to dunk our heads into one of the local washing pools but I felt that something bad was going to happen so we didn't. I told him how I had that impression and he had the same feeling...whether or not something would have happened had we dunked our heads in the water i don't know...but I'm glad we didn't.
So yeah... thats about it for this week. lol. Keep me updated and I love you all a whole lot!!ç
If you could get like a family picture with everyone and all the new kids in it that'd be cool.
Love you all,
Elder Marquis
Monday, April 26, 2010
Friday, April 23, 2010
1st Letter in the field...
Hey everyone!!!
So I just finished my 1st week here in the field.. so wierd.
We have 2 areas ,PalMar and Pueblo Nuevo..both are pretty cool its what I'd imagine Italy to look like if it were really run down...lol! Alot of the people that we "teach" only have like 3-4 cinderblock walls and tin roof for a house so the fact that I have an actually roof is cool and at least a tile floor. Most of the houses here look like old used garages with busted up cement floor and this one house had a rug so he must be making a lot of money lol!!!
For breakfast its usually powdered milk which isnt so bad if you can get the water cold 1st. At 1st the people were a little cold shoulderish but now its like we are so nice to them that they don't really have a choice but to be nice lol. I haven't even been flipped off in 3 days so thats cool!!! Its so wierd the people that do let us in listen for a little bit and they agree that what were teaching is true and then when we´re done they completely deny it...I'm not sure if they are stubborn or just really retarded!?
But anyways i haven't had a warm shower yet and pretty sure I won't for 2 years lol but at least I have a shower. And for clothes washing we have a little woman do it and she does litterally wash them on a rock. It takes about 4 days to get them back here. And we're going to try to move back to the house where the elders used to live its a lot nicer. Just a little more pricey but the members have a schedule where were fed like everyday so we dont really buy food. And since we have 2 branches to watch over, me and Burton have to split up with the members on Sunday so both can have an elder. We're the only ones here in our area. One church is held in a members home and the other is in a little shack but even still the spirits strong. I'd say the thing that I'm most grateful for down here are fans when you can find one lol!!! We´ve had 2 little earthquakes but that happens when youre surrounded by volcanos lol... The coast is like 2 hours away so we can't really see it.
The spanish is super hard ..like its a lot harder to make it out here. Like it feels like the spanish I did have got lost lol. I'm not really sure how to study for it. Everyone says the best way to learn is to speak it but its hard to speak what you dont know lol. But its awesome that I got Burton as a companion. If I didn't have someone that spoke english I honestly don't know what I'd do. English missions would be so nice right now lol but it will be nice to have spanish when I do get it down. So yeah the mission is really hot but I'm getting a foothold on it lol. I hope you all are doing ok and keep me updated with everything. Im going to go play some Fútbal now.
Love you guys alot, Elder Marquis
So I just finished my 1st week here in the field.. so wierd.
We have 2 areas ,PalMar and Pueblo Nuevo..both are pretty cool its what I'd imagine Italy to look like if it were really run down...lol! Alot of the people that we "teach" only have like 3-4 cinderblock walls and tin roof for a house so the fact that I have an actually roof is cool and at least a tile floor. Most of the houses here look like old used garages with busted up cement floor and this one house had a rug so he must be making a lot of money lol!!!
For breakfast its usually powdered milk which isnt so bad if you can get the water cold 1st. At 1st the people were a little cold shoulderish but now its like we are so nice to them that they don't really have a choice but to be nice lol. I haven't even been flipped off in 3 days so thats cool!!! Its so wierd the people that do let us in listen for a little bit and they agree that what were teaching is true and then when we´re done they completely deny it...I'm not sure if they are stubborn or just really retarded!?
But anyways i haven't had a warm shower yet and pretty sure I won't for 2 years lol but at least I have a shower. And for clothes washing we have a little woman do it and she does litterally wash them on a rock. It takes about 4 days to get them back here. And we're going to try to move back to the house where the elders used to live its a lot nicer. Just a little more pricey but the members have a schedule where were fed like everyday so we dont really buy food. And since we have 2 branches to watch over, me and Burton have to split up with the members on Sunday so both can have an elder. We're the only ones here in our area. One church is held in a members home and the other is in a little shack but even still the spirits strong. I'd say the thing that I'm most grateful for down here are fans when you can find one lol!!! We´ve had 2 little earthquakes but that happens when youre surrounded by volcanos lol... The coast is like 2 hours away so we can't really see it.
The spanish is super hard ..like its a lot harder to make it out here. Like it feels like the spanish I did have got lost lol. I'm not really sure how to study for it. Everyone says the best way to learn is to speak it but its hard to speak what you dont know lol. But its awesome that I got Burton as a companion. If I didn't have someone that spoke english I honestly don't know what I'd do. English missions would be so nice right now lol but it will be nice to have spanish when I do get it down. So yeah the mission is really hot but I'm getting a foothold on it lol. I hope you all are doing ok and keep me updated with everything. Im going to go play some Fútbal now.
Love you guys alot, Elder Marquis
Excert letter-CCM
Ok so first off conference for missionarys is like our Superbowl lol a lot of fun!!! Thats so crazy that theres actually a life going on outside of this little building!!! Oh yeah, do you remember the picture of the people in front of the Guatemala City temple ... well I'm pretty sure that we got to talk to those people so had the camera panned over a few more feet I might have been on conference lol. The temple is like 50 yards from my room lol!!! Thank you sooooooo much for the package!! I am going to be killing that stuff for like 6 months...there was a lot lol!!!
One of the 70 that spoke at conference came here right before and talked to us so that was cool seeing him on tv after shaking his hand and stuff!!! It's going to be so cool when the temple down here is finished and the prophet comes down!!!!
If you could, find out where Will´s mission is that would be cool. And just some fun info.. if you' ve ever seen the malibu drink comercials with music blasting and people dancing on the bus....thats how the busses are down here...so fun!!! They pack us in there tighter than if we were charging the boarder lol!!!! And yeah im leaving Tuesday morning so if thats the 13th then yeah I'm leaving then!!!
Well family love you lots and can't wait to hear from you all again and see those litte chitlens running around lol!!!! See ya in 1 year and 21 months lol!!!!! or 90-something weeks lol, I like counting by weeks lol and I really want to grow a goatee now lol!!!!! BYE!!!!!
Excert from letter=CCM
Alright so its Tuesday right now and since we have more latinos coming tomorrow we have to write today. But this past week has been so action packed! To start off on monday and Tuesday we got to go back to the plaza and contact which was so cool. There were a lot of really cool people but one in particular was awesome...he was a young man, probably 23, or so but he seemed really interested in the gospel and something else really cool was that he spoke 20 different languages!!! He was speaking quiché, keché, english, spanish, russian, it was so cool!! Yesterday was the 1st batch of latinos here which was really sad. But tommorrow we get to train a whole bunch of new ones which will be awesome!!! Today since they were gone Presidente Stimlie let us go to the local markets and go shopping! It was so much fun!"!! Its like the entire city is packed into that one area, so crazy! It was really cool because they have stuff here for $4 that would cost like $60 in the states, lol!!! After that we got to go to this place up North that had a life size geographical map of Guatemala and from the looks of it im going to be in the mountains no matter where i go, so Excited to get started!!!! Then something really cool!! I got to eat Wendy`s!!! I was so happy!!! Its like 75 - 80 every day all year long here so it was really nice to get a frosty, lol!!! Then we went to some museums where they had a bunch of old mayan (Nephite, Lamanite) statues, rocks, pictographs, and other stuff it was so cool!!! And then came back and played some Fútbal, im really getting adicted to it lol! And I found a little artifact down here that I thought you all would like to have so I sent it...it should be there within the next week or so, its so cool!!! lol, The cooks here feed us way too much though, and its all carbs lol im pretty sure that I´ve put on at least 10 more pounds!!!
Reading both spanish and english together is so good!! Thats what I started doing when I got here and the more you read the less you need the english. Some pointers to learning . 1. You should cary a little card with you everywhere and when you want to learn a new word in spanish, write it down and try and use it a lot. 2. when you learn a new word, use it, leche is milk, wrong, leche is leche, you have to completely erase milk from your vocab! 3. Finish the BOM in spanish, I promise if you do, your spanish willl quadrupal!! I miss you guys so much and cant wait to talk to you more!! Something cool to know is that im starting to get dark hahahahahahaha!!!! Have fun in the snow, lol!!!
Reading both spanish and english together is so good!! Thats what I started doing when I got here and the more you read the less you need the english. Some pointers to learning . 1. You should cary a little card with you everywhere and when you want to learn a new word in spanish, write it down and try and use it a lot. 2. when you learn a new word, use it, leche is milk, wrong, leche is leche, you have to completely erase milk from your vocab! 3. Finish the BOM in spanish, I promise if you do, your spanish willl quadrupal!! I miss you guys so much and cant wait to talk to you more!! Something cool to know is that im starting to get dark hahahahahahaha!!!! Have fun in the snow, lol!!!
Excert from one of Brandon's letters- CCM
Any spiritual experiences to share?
- There are a few, most of which come from talking to the people in the park. Its not like anything I've ever felt before. I really do care for these people. We were contacting this one business man who was trying to blow us off and then an 80 year old man in a wheelchair rolled up and started asking us what we were doing. We told him that we had a message from God about eternal families and how there is a purpose to this life, and he began crying...it was so crazy I've never had so much love for a random stranger and it felt so good to know that I have the answers to questions that this man has been looking for his whole life. Before we left I gave him a Libro de Mormón and told him to read 3 Nefi capitulo 11 and he said he would and couldnt wait for the misionieros to come to his home!!!!
- There are a few, most of which come from talking to the people in the park. Its not like anything I've ever felt before. I really do care for these people. We were contacting this one business man who was trying to blow us off and then an 80 year old man in a wheelchair rolled up and started asking us what we were doing. We told him that we had a message from God about eternal families and how there is a purpose to this life, and he began crying...it was so crazy I've never had so much love for a random stranger and it felt so good to know that I have the answers to questions that this man has been looking for his whole life. Before we left I gave him a Libro de Mormón and told him to read 3 Nefi capitulo 11 and he said he would and couldnt wait for the misionieros to come to his home!!!!
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Welcome to Brandon's Mission Blog!!
To get this started I am just going to post some of the pictures I have received so far. I will add a few excerpts from Brandon's letters. Later I will organize them...but for now, enjoy!!
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