SEMANA SANTA

This week in Coban:

I'm really liking Coban, teaching here is really pushing me out of my comfort zone and challenging me in a new way, all in all it is a good experience. The people here are very deep into their beliefs and they don't want to leave the traditions of their fathers, sometimes they harden their hearts and we find a lot of rejection, when we are contacting people they won't let us past their doorway, we just leave them with a short message ( standing outside) When they do let us in we do a happy dance (mentally) our hearts are full of joy and can't help to feel that they are the chosen ones. but it's not too bad, we always have members that accompany us. I'm still getting to know the ward, our goal is to gain their confidence let them know that we are here to serve and help them.

We as missionaries are sharing the video "Because he lives" , I love that video so much, I could watch it over and over, I feel the Spirit every time I watch it with the people and I hope they feel it too, we had a somewhat successful week even though it was Easter, it was a lot better than the Christmas I had in San Benito where it was all dead and hardly anyone received us, I mean it was pretty similar here but we somehow managed more lessons.

The highlight of my week was General Conference, I love it! so much spiritual insight and advice for life, talks about the FAMILY that's all they talked about! i learned a lot about what I am going to do with my future self, and a little bit of things to improve here on the mission. But I couldn't believe it, it was talk after talk about the family, which is really good, because we really do need to focus more on that, especially in this world! I too loved elder Jeffrey R. Hollands talk, it was AMAZING!!! and Uchtdorfs, I just loved them all haha

Here is a bit of culture for you:

As we all know, it was Semana Santa (Holy week) it is HUGE here in Guatemala, there were a lot of processions but I hardly saw them, on friday there were a lot of hand made rugs on the streets but I mean people spent Thursday night making them from a lot of saw dust, vegetation, flowers etc. It was super cool! and then during the day a procession would pass and walk over the hand made rugs and pretty much destroy it because they are not permanent. To give you an idea of what a procession is...basically it is a huge float being carried on the shoulders of men with an image of Jesus (statue) on the float. At one point they stopped and made a switch with women so now the women were carrying it, they also had a smaller float that children were carrying. The people that carry the floats have to pay about 20 dollars to have the privilege, some believe that their sins will be forgiven after they carry the float. I don't want to imagine how much that thing weighed, it was huge!

(EDITORS NOTE: to illustrate the Semana Santa traditions, I found this photos

 on the internet ~  Mom.)

This is a float with a Jesus statue in the center.

A hand made rug on the street ready for the procession

(This street dog thinks he is "all that") lol

This particular rug is made out of colored saw dust.

Another version of a hand made rug

made out of pine needles, fruits and vegetables.

On good Friday a member invited us to eat with them, and we had some traditional food from Coban, it was good! it was also someone's birthday in the family so we had cake, and it had fondant! which reminded me of you mommy smile emoticon it was delicious.

Tonight the missionaries are doing a noche de hogar (family home evening) with him, but I won't be there because I'm writing to you guys, due to my traveling smile emoticon
speaking of which! I went to the capital today, left at 4 in the morning and arrived at like 9, a worker of the church picked us up, I wanted to go to the distribution center but it is closed on mondays, (always my luck).... so he dropped us off at the dentist they fixed my retainer in like 3 minutes it was super fast, and the best part it was free, after everyone was done (there were only four of us) we went to the relief map to kill some time, because the other missionaries haven't gone, I enjoy adventure and seeing things again, I was able to give them a mini tour and history of the place hahaha ( I feel like an expert now) afterwards the man picked us up and dropped us off at central norte, where the busses are, we bought our tickets and we went to go eat lunch,and we left at 2 and got here at 6, so it was a productive day, a trip to the capital, even though we weren't able to do a whole lot, I wouldn't call it a day lost.
So I keep drinking shuko (dirty) water, I can't help it, the only thing I can help is clean it a little bit with my biocyde! and say a little prayer, so far I haven't had any problems, if there was ever a time I needed to pray more fervently for my food (and water) is now, grin emoticon I can't afford to get sick, the work must go on.

Well I love you family very dearly, hugs and kisses to everyone! 

Love you guys super super much!!!!!!
Hermana Riley

CHAPIN WORDS OF THE WEEK:

"Chapin" colloquial word for everything and everyone from Guatemala.

"Shuko" = Dirty