Get Like Me

Hey Aaron, look at you! Another year older... and another year closer to death. Thanks for that blurb about Cody and the pics. It's good to see familiar faces. Speaking of which I went to Senahu yesterday, and so I rode on a bus for four hours with Elder Jeff Goodwin (who went to Bountiful High) and we met up with Elder Jared Fadel (also went to Bountiful High).
So I was just hanging out with a bunch of B towners yesterday. The other pictures are of us at Elestor at the lake. That meal you made for the missionaries sounds delicious. All the meals I eat generally lead to scandalous buu jaja. YES ADAM! great job. Just be sure not to listen to all the crap you are going to get from everyone. Nice work on the car, Dad. Nice work on walking to church Grandma (on time too !) ). Nice work Tom Cruz. Summer sounds just like it should be: rope swings and concerts. Congratulations on beina a CNA Ben, and also being made of money. My birthday was just great, even though my companion was the only person who wished me happy birthday... after he asked me what the date was... anyways K'ekchi yoo chi wuluk. The past week's been kind of hard 'cause I kicked the wall in my sleep entonces me lastimé mi dedo del pie, but other than that I'm just wandering around and drinking really nasty corn drink (however a lot less now that I'm getting incredibly good at pouring it in my comp's cup while he´s not looking, praying, what ever). If nothing else, I´m getting super sneaky and good about not drinking all the puke drink, probable sickness inflicting drink, chicken foot, nasty throw up, kill me, you're too poor to be giving me this disgusting stuff. But it´s so cool here 'cause it's so different. People are just as lazy, but there aren´t as much haters here. One day we were at this guy's house, and the daughter wanted to show me her pet scorpion that she was keeping in a huge empty gel bottle. I couldn´t really see it 'cause there were leaves in the way, so the dad (not wearing a shirt) picked it up with his bare hands and let it crawl all over his naked body and I was freaking out. It was really cool. I decided that here in the chik every parent just has one pare of clothing for every two kids. You see one kid wearing a shirt and nothing else and then you see his brother just wearing shorts and nothing else, and when they have to wash their one set of clothing they´re both the naked kids, jaja. What else?... I killed a scorpian last night in the church... I talked to a girl who spoke Spanish, French and English fluently, just barely... Let me know if you get the pictures, k? I was writting you yesterday, but we had to leave 'cause it started to rain like crazy, and there was no signal. I didn´t get your package yet, but I will next week cause we have zone conference and Interviews. So have a GREAT WEEK! THANKS FOR WHATEVER YOU SENT ME!!!! CHERIL ERIB´ NAKATINRA

Pull up the curtains 'cause the show just arrived. Sit down in your seats, you're just on time.

Wow mom (palindrome)-- A word, phrase, verse, or sentence that reads the same backward or forward. For example: A man, a plan, a canal, Panama! Or WOW MOM. Eleven O'clock, haha. Well Adam and Ben are just giving you crap 'cause you're more popular than them. (I wrote to tell Aaron how Ben was giving me a bad time because my friends, Colleen and Michelle, stayed to visit until 11:00 a few nights ago.) So, last week there were some marks in my shadow's butter that he left out, and then the next day there was a hole in his new loaf of bread and half his bread was eaten. So the next day we found the mouse in my suitcase and we tried to catch it but it got away. The next day we found a tarantula the size of my hand in the sacrament room. The next day we caught the mouse and fed it to the tarantula that we caught the day before. It was funny! We also ran out of food last night so we caught a crab that I saw in a river on the way home and cooked it up and ate it. I´m having fun. There are bugs and animals everywhere, and my mission just turned into a hike. We hike everywhere. There are no paved roads, It's just a ton of muddy paths, and the houses here are made out of bamboo. Every person we go visit gives us a nasty corn drink that makes me want to puke. A lukewarm, soupy, mashed corn mess in my mouth mmm.. I poured mine in a hole yesterday while the lady wasn't looking. Also, people don´t really like to wear clothes here very much. There are naked kids running all over the place. My comp and I were teaching this family, and this lady just took her shirt off just because it was hot. I bet one out of two kids wear pants here. The mountains are beautiful, and the roads are long and muddy. Just about every type of tree grows here. It's weird. It's like temperate, but it has tropical trees everywhere mixed in so there will be a field of lemon trees next to pine trees. Well, thank you for whatever you sent me for my birthday in advance. Muy agradecido, oh y mi compañero ya lo tuve. Fuimos compañeros en la MTC. Have an EXCELLENT WEEK <3 ARN

Stop, Drop, Kaboom

'Sup? So, yes, I am in the greenest place ever! The church that I live in (one of the only buildings within miles of where I'm at) looks totally misplaced on the mountain. My area is just mountains. I have to walk for like an hour and a half to most of the houses. It's super hot here, but it's soooo cool. Someone is sending me their boots from the capitol, so I don't die out here. My camera broke the day I got here. The screen is just always white. NEVER BUY OLYMPUS, but don't buy me a new one 'cause it still takes pictures. I'm going to buy a new one next week. I'm doing good, even though K'ekchi is insane and it sounds more like German than Spanish. Let me know if you got my pictures ok. Tell Adam that it's the Snake River or nothin', 'cause the Green River doesn't even have rapids and it's freezing, and it's time you could be wake boarding in Flaming Gorge, but that's cool! I'm jealous... and hot. It is so bloody hot here. There is sweat running into my eyes, and things are blurry on top of this ghetto computer that I'm using. People are so nice here (to the point of turning off the world cup to listen to us sing). Kids are super cute here and they love to feel my arms ('cause I have hairy arms). Anyways, I'm out. Have a great week in B-town for me. AdHoward

I got money in the bank and I really wanna thank all those fans I wanna thank

So the craziest thing happened the other day. We taught this girl, with a member, the first lession last Monday (some 16 year old). Then the member family that we taught her with, invited us to lunch on Saturday. The girl (Carmen) came over after we ate, and so we asked her if we could teach her again. The lession went really well. Everything was really good until it started to rain and we had to go. (My shadow had earlier bought and broke one of those ´´push button umbrellas´´ (the handle broke off)). So everyone stood up to say goodbye to us except for Carmen. My shadow was trying to fix the handle to his umbrella. The dad of the family asked Primo, ´´What's wrong with your umbrella?´´ My comp replied, ´´Oh, it´s just because it´s a Guatamalen crap product. ´´ So as he says this, he hits the umbrella and the center rod (thin, light, 1 foot piece of metal) shoots. It nails Carmen in the face. I almost died! He shot our investigator in the face. Everyone was freaking out. There was blood... It didn´t stop bleeding for a while. The rod hit her right below her nose and above her upper lip. Previously a flawless face, she now has a perfect imprint of the end of Elder Primo´s umbrella. I don´t think she will ever be baptized in this life 'cause the missionaries are trying to kill her. (She would have lost her eye if it would have hit it.) So Primo can talk to her in the spirit world. We both had a change, haha. Desués cuatro horas en bus llegué a coban y me dormí allá con un montón de misioneros era bien chafa porq´ tenia q´ dormir con elder vargas y elder turik en la misma cama pero no podía entónces me puse en el suelo y ya me dormí mejor. esta mañana me fui a las siete en taxi a un estación de mícrobus y de alla me fui a la tinta (un ciudad bien pequeña) pero todo vía me falta viaje porq´ tengo q´ ir hasta Santa Domingo mi nuevo área. q´ chilero el viaje fuimos por un busque se llama el busque nubioso, pasamos por cuatro ríos y aborrita tengo (dos q´ tres) nuevo companero aunq´ ya nos conocimos (este majé parry) ójala q´ no entiendan por q´ por eso podrían entender lo q´ estará pasando conmigo por un montóm de tiempo hasta q´ pueda hablar aca. será bien duro ya sé epecíalmente por q´ mi sombria no puede hablar el idioma pero al la vez estoy en un lugar más bonito q´ he visto durante todo mi vida. por eso estoy tratando de disfrutar mi misión más y aprender (porq´ hay q´ aprender cuando esté en un lugar q´ no se puede comprender para nada sin hacerlo) pues ya pasó el tiempo pero les extraño mucho a todos
les quiero, su hijo, Aaron

And that's whats up!

(Doug wrote to Aaron in Spanish this week. Aaron may have written the end of this letter in Spanish for Doug. For those who can't read Spanish, it basically says that Aaron is in a new and very beautiful area. He says it is the most beautiful place he has ever seen in his life. (And he has been to Hawaii). He is now speaking a new dialect, and he and his companion do not know it, yet. He knows it will be hard, but he has been wanting this. He knew his companion before he was transferred. For those of you who know Spanish, you can tell I don't know it very well. Gina

Shake me 'til you wake me from this bad dream

I don't feel bad that I´m not receiving packages ('cause it´s not like anyone else is), so it's better not making the others feel bad. The most fun thing I did this week was drag my shadow around my area and work. We ate lunch as a zone today at Little Caesars and Elder Carlson and I split a pizza. Being in the middle of a mall plaza I dared Elder Carlson to pray out loud standing, and in English; he did it. Everyone is watching the world cup, and 68 of the 400+ members in my ward came to church yesterday. Elder Mays is a nice person. I barely know him, but he´s in my group. Happy Father's Day, Dad. The holidays are all mixed up down here so I have no idea when it was ¿Sunday? but whatever. I´m writing you a letter. Well, have an excellent week. Sorry I don´t have anything cool to tell you. ARN