Smilin' next to Opra and the Queen

Yeah, our baptism was really cool. I really like doing them in the river. This week was too short because we had a meeting in Se'Nauq' with President Watts. It was a great week though. We are just looking for families to teach, but its been a little hard 'cause the men are harvesting crops right now. So yesterday, I wish I was filming because we were walking, and there were kids shooting their sling-shoots across a gorge at a Pepsi bottle. I just walked up to them and asked to see their sling-shot. A kid handed it to me and I nailed the Pepsi bottle on the first shot, said good bye and walked away. These kids were shocked. It was hilarious. Yesterday was super muddy and rainy. It is the rainy season, but I don't mind. I love getting dirty. I slept in a hammock in San Fransisco (our other ghost branch) last night. It was a little cold. I'm excited for General Conference this week. It will be good. That's cool Taylor ate dinner with you guys, Sorry, I was trying to send more pictures but they aren't going through.... oh well..
Have a great week!
Love, AaRoN

Baptisms!

Yes, I did have my baptisms, thank you. They went super well! Everyone showed up like two hours late (which is totally fine). I gave a little talk about the Holy Ghost and my Branch President spoke as well. Then we went down to the river, because there is no baptismal font in the church. It was sick. I baptized the father -Victor Manuel Caal and my comp baptized the mom -Matilde Ical Ical. The three daughters wanted Elder Gutierres (who was there before us) to baptize them. It was sick. It was my comp's first time baptizing, and he did great. I'm glad everyone is staying busy with school and work and stuff. Um.. I don't really know what else is new... Yesterday I hit my 22 month mark... Today for p-day we didn't do anything 'cause there wasn't any power until just barely, but we just ate food and played cards... I love this place, it is incredible. I'm glad we still have a pink oven, haha. Thanks for the pictures. The pictures I'm sending you are of the family we baptized, Elder Smith, Elder Gutierres, and I in the river, the pond that is right next to the church and what I wake up to every morning, and a hike I went on last week early in the morning.
Enjoy. Have a great week!
Love, Aaron

And a walking soul

How's da hood mom? Sorry, I would add a question mark after that but the entire row of numbers isn't working, so just periods and commas today. So... I forgot to tell you what we did last week. We went spelunking, or cave diving. We went in Se Amay where there is this super huge cave that is supposedly like fifty miles long, but we just went into it as far as the elders knew. It was pretty cool, unlike other caves where you have to stick to a trail and you can't touch anything, but here no. We just went all over the place and caught huge crabs which we later cooked and ate. We found like a natural xylophone, (I'm sorry I have no idea how to spell that,) but that was really cool. We could just bang on it. I'm sorry, this is probably sounding all very dangerous but let me assure you that it wasn't. So don't worry, we are careful. Anyways, the crabs were good. My comp's mom wants to call you or something. I don't know if you're down with that, but maybe I'll just give here your e-mail. Ummm... we are lucky the pictures I'm loading will work. The first picture is me next to a huge bull that wanted to drink my dough water. The next is my area, (an amazing mystical land that I love,) and the last is my comp and I right after crawling out of some really tight dirty caves or guecos haha. I would like to acknowledge that yesterday was a very sad day for many due to what happened ten years ago, however for the Guatemalans it was a weird day because of the elections. We were not allowed to work "cause sometimes there are riots during elections, but nothing happened here. I think a guy named Otto Perrez won, but I actually still don't know. We had to walk really far 'cause there were no trucks to get around, but it was o.k... minus the rain, haha. There were only nine people in church and they were all kids 'cause all the adults went to vote, so we just did Sacrament Meeting and I talked about the Word of Wisdom, and the Branch President's daughter bore her testimony. After that we just colored for Sunday School. It was fine. This is going to be a really good week! We have a family that is going to get baptized, and so I get to do a division with Elder Dilworth till Friday, 'cause that's the only day that there are trucks. It's going to be really fun. Today we just played some soccer and hiked up a mountain to watch the sunrise but it was cloudy. Thank you for buying my ski pass. I am stoked Dad and Adam got a pass, exclamation point. I can't wait to go skiing. I am going to be taking tons of pictures in my new area, don't worry. I will be taking pictures of all the normal stuff as well as the beautiful stuff. Right now I am making a verb chart in Qeqchi and English and Qeqchi and Spanish for the mission... it's going to be big. Anyways, have a super great fantastic week. kk. love Aaron

Come a room, boy; Boy do you hear?

Dear family, I am doing GREAT! My new area is XYA'AL LI HUX (shtee AL lee hoosh). That means the juice of a sharpening stone in Q'eqchi'. I am so Stoked. I'm in the sickest area in the whole mission. It is so far away from everything. It takes three and a half hours to get to the nearest town (Se'Nauq') by truck. It is nothing less than a journey every week to get to district meeting and a place that we can use internet. There is not power in XYA'AL LI HUX, except a school and our house. We live next to the church in a missionary house built by the church, so we have a solar panel (It got finished like a week ago), so basically I live in the nicest house I have lived in during my entire mission. My companion is awesome! He's Elder Dallin Smith. He is really funny. He's really new in the mission, and he is from Virginia so he speaks with an awesome accent. He kind of looks like JOEL MORGAN, like his face. My area is awesome though. The people are so awesome! They always invite us to eat with them, and our fast and testimony meeting was awesome. Tons of people bore their testimonies. A lady asked for some money for medicine during church, and I was amazed to see that everyone gave her at least like a quet and then everyone went running to the branch president's office to pay their tithing. Its really different up here. The people are really nice and don't say terrible things to us. The only thing that they do differently is all the little kids ask our names like a billion times a day. It doesn't bother me at all compared to what I was being asked before in all my other areas. I really hope I get to finish my mission in this area. That is too bad about Bob, I remember him, but like you said he's with his parents and Grandpa Adams. Peter and Laura's house is four times older than I am. Sounds like it was built well. I'll have to go visit them and their dog. Well, I'm trying to send you some pictures but... the internet here is just terrible. It isn't loading anything, and it takes forever to do anything, so sorry. That's just how it's going to be for a while. Have a good week, and make sure you have got my ski pass for me. K, thanks <3
-AARON

Feels So Good On Da Top

I'm glad you had fun with Rozzi. This week was awesome! Our baptism just went great, and the best part is that everyone contributed. Even this investigator lady was there helping out with the food. The branch bought two huge cakes, I bought some toastadas, and my comp bought the drinks. The members came through on their talks, and there was all the baptismal clothing and everything. The marriage went well also, other than there was a car accident so there was a little delay. Luckily, I told everyone to be ready three hours early. Church was good. It was my last time there because I HAVE A CHANGE!!! Yes, I am super excited. I'm staying in Polochik so I am super stoked. Everything is good! Today we played some soccer against some kids and they just owned us, so we had to pay ("cause we rented a synthetic field) anyways. I think I'm going to finish my mission in the mountains. There are a lot of Elders that have changes in the mountains, so I might go in one of their places. I can't think of any other specific events this week, other than a lot of people were mocking us but that's o. k... These people are mostly in the valley so.. adios wates. Q' Love you all. N-Joy the pics... and school Adam, hahaha - Aaron

PS me llegás vos Adan nice PLUSEER (bracelet)

What Pump It Up

This was hands down the craziest week of my life... first off: on Monday we went to ELESTOR to do divisions with Elder Ch'ulak because we're going to have to do baptisms Saturday. I stayed in Teleman with Elder Chanchavac. In the night, I woke up at like 3 AM, and he was suffocating. Earlier that night,I got down on my knees to pray when I remembered... I need to fill up my water bottle. I went to the other end of the house to fill up my water bottle, then went back to put my bottle in the fridge (which is close to my bed). So I turned on the light and I see Elder Chanchavac on his knees grabbing at my bed and he couldn't say anything. I just saw bile, or a lot of spit, on the floor and then I heard him cough ''agua!'' I grabbed my bottle and threw it to him. He drank it, then whatever was blocking his breathing went away. I have never seen anyone suffocate like that in my life. It took me a while to wake up, and I had no idea what was going on. It was a serious miracle. The next day... my companion couldn't get back from Ch'ulak because the people that were going to get interviewed weren't there... so I called some other missionaries (Elder Dilworth and Elder Asencio), and they came, because on Wednesday we had to take papers out of Panzos and out of Actela (in Santo Domingo) so we had to be two places at once. They came, and we did divisions again and I went to Santo Domiink with E. Dillywacker. When we got to the Tinta (which is in the valley), the people said there were no trucks because the roads were destroyed. So I took my plastic, that I use when it rains ,to cover like the 25 pounds of books that I was going to take to Rosalina and her daughters so my sweat wouldn't destroy them. Then we started to walk... like fifteen minutes into walking, of course it starts to rain... so we walked in the rain up the mountain. When we got to the place where you take legal papers out (kind of like the DMV) nobody was there. We asked where the people were, and some people said that the workers just went to eat. So we went and visited a few people that I knew, and we came back an hour later.. Nobody.. so we are sitting there waiting, and the people around us just told us, ''Oh you can just come back tomorrow..(this was Wednesday, and on Thursday we had interviews in Senahu and zone conference on Friday) I could not wait. I asked some kid if he knew where the person who worked there was. He did, so I asked him if he could show us. We went to a lady's house and I knocked on the door. I asked the lady if she wouldn't mind printing off a paper for me, and told her that we had hiked four hours in the rain to get this paper. She obliged, and we got her paper. We went and talked to Rosalina (the grandma that I baptized in Sacsuha) and Arturo's sister (our investigator, who I also baptized in Sacsuha) and I just unloaded books and pictures. I gave them one of those memory games that you bought me because we always used to play that with them. I also gave them a little money so that they could come to the marriage and baptism this week. Then we visited a few other people and slept on the floor in the church. At 4:30 in the morning, we woke up and hiked down to the Tinta , 6 miles soaked and muddy in the same clothes. But we got the paper, and when we got to Teleman, there was no water, so we couldn't bathe, haha. Then we went to Senahu and we had our interviews. My mission president is awesome! He is so nice and considerate. His wife is also just awesome! She gave the coolest talk in zone conference. Yesterday, our investigators came to church and everything was all set up for the marriage and baptism. What happened today was just another story in and of itself, but basically we had to take the papers of our investigator and his girlfriend to Panzos to set up the wedding, and the mayor's secretary would not do it. He absolutely hates missionaries and told us that he was too busy, and that he wouldn't be able to get married for a month. I was ready to cry because there was no reason that they couldn't do it for us. But then I called a member that was working there, and basically he convinced him to do it for us with a price. I had to buy this obstinate guy a Gatorade and something to eat, so that he would do me the favor!! Some things in this country are so messed up. Anyways, that's all. I don't have any more time, but there are some pictures of my investigator family. The one that is getting baptized this week.. God hears our prayers.
Love, Aaron