LATEST LETTER FROM HERMANA RILEY, OCTOBER 7TH.
HELLO LOVED ONES!
My first week out in the field has been wonderful!! I love it here so much! I am so grateful to have already known the language, it makes it that much easier, the people here are nice and listen to us. The downside is that here they´re not very committed which is hard, and they seem to be busy all the time or they are not use to making appointments so its hard to visit them because they never set a fixed time, every time we visit them happens to be by chance, but somehow we fill our days by visiting people. Also another thing here which is very common we find couples don't get married but live together, they`ve been together for years and have kids! its strange, no entiendo (I don't get it) that's why this 19 year old girl is here, to teach this mature couples about doing things the right way (hahaha) imagine that!.
I love my trainer, she is the bomb! she is so kind! we get along really well, She is fun too, we are a good team! My district is cool too, have a good district leader he is nice. a kid named elder brown from my district in the ccm is also in my district here, which is cool, nice to see a familiar face.
To answer your question: Yeah we have agua salvavidas (5 gallon bottled water) our apartment came with a dispensor thingy, we have two bottles, they are 15 quetz each, not bad! i drink that and use that for brushing my teeth. I found out that we can have actual backpacks here, it's allowed, in fact recommended especially up here in Peten, so i bought one today, because the one strap bothers me after a long period of time. Here we are pretty taken care of, a member lady does our laundry and we pay her 120 Q a month (18 dollars), we make our own breakfast, and for lunch (the main meal of the day) we go to a member's house, her name is hna. blanca, holy cow, she serves so much food, the first time we ate there she gave us a mountain of rice,and then the next day it was a whole mountain plate of sphagetti, i never finish it, it is way too much for me, now she gives me a little less, but i still get so full, because of that we don't eat dinner becuase we are never that hungry, but we have little snacks just in case. the members here are so nice, they help us A LOT this past week we have had at least someone come with us EVERY night.
It has rained a couple times during the day, i never bring my umbrella just my rain jacket, that suffices, the first time my comp had hers, the rain wasn't too bad, there was one day we were proselyting, and we contacted this woman and taught her inside her home, when all of the sudden HOLY GUACAMOLE! it started getting cloudy and thundering, and then it started down pouring!! REALLY HARD!! people let me tell you, the thing was, the houses have tin roofs so it gets SO loud and noisy, we had to yell while teaching in order to hear, then we stopped and just sat quietly for a bit to see if it would stop, well.... It didn't! and i was praying that it would. We just started back up again, eventually it slowed down to where we didn't have to yell so loud, but it was crazy. Here you never know when it is going to rain (we don't have the weather channel) hahaha, so i just fold up my jacket and stick it in my bag, and i now bring my waterproof bag with me, its been helpful.
This weekend was general conference, i got to watch it in english which was nice, there was air conditioning and it was so refreshing! I learned a lot of good stuff, the sad part was we called everyone of our investigators and contacts to come, but no one did, except for one for the priesthood session and he went sunday morning too, he is " bien pilas" (very sharp). his name is jose alberto, an older man like 40, he is smart and we have great lessons with him. so yeah the frustrating part was i heard so many good things that wouldve helped our investigators but they weren't there.... triste (sad), oh well, hopefully they will come to church this weekend.
so i have to tell a story of a miracle we had this past week. my companion and I were tracting (knocking on doors), it was so hot out and i forgot my bottle so we went to a store and got some water, while walking down a street, my companion decided to go to this gate door and knocks, a little girl comes out so we introduced ourselves, then a 16 year old comes by, she lets us in, we walked into her house, it is a very humble home, even less so than the ones here, it was kind of sad. We started teaching this teenager her name is Estrella (which means Star), cute girl. My companion started saying, that we were guided here, and that we met her for a reason, that she is a Daughter of God, and that she can be an example to her family, and overcome these challenges she is facing ( her father is an alcoholic, never around, and mean, from what i could understand, and her mom left to the states with a sibling, so abandoning them, she is there with her Grandma and cousins) I could feel the spirit SO STRONG and Estrella started to cry, I know we were lead there to meet her. She has accepted baptism, and now we just got to teach her, towards the end of the conversation her Grandma came out for prayer and her cousins as well (because we were going to pray for them for their health), I gave the prayer. afterwards the Grandma was crying and Estrella too, I know they felt the influence of the Spirit, it was a sweet moment! i really love this girl, and i know she has a bright future, i can feel it!
The area here is good, i dont really know how to describe it, it`s decently developed, got your stores or tiendas and stuff. hhmmm i will have to think of stuff for what i want for christmas and birthday. i will get back to you on that
things are great here i love it! i have my camera now, so will send pictures, but the internet is soooooo sloooow, it takes forever to upload the pictures but I'll send some and i hope to send a letter!
with much much much love!!!!!
hna. Riley
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