Chimaltenago

Well this week rocked! I AM IN THE MOUNTAINS! In a place called CHIMALTENANGO. I will tell you the five greatest things about being in the mountains.

1. I have fifty five mosquito bites on just my arms... not counting the ones on my legs.

2. BUCKET SHOWERS.

3. The clothes that they wear here. It’s called corte and it is the coolest thing I have ever seen. They hardly even speak Spanish here... it is time to learn a new language.

4. Who needs cars when you’ve got horses and cows? They rock.

5. Or perhaps the Amish colony that we live next too. They are called Mennonites. They have been here for over 20 years. All Americans. All Amish and they have the greatest bakery. It is actually way cool and we live right next door. I might be taking up a new hobby soon.... just saying.

MY comp is the BEST. Her name is Hermana Merrell and wouldn’t you just like to know that she went to BYU Idaho and that we have a bunch of friends in common. We are basically the same person and have so much fun together. I am really loving it and I now get to do divisions with 13 companionships and so that means 3 times a week. But I am going back to Antigua today to do divisions and I am so excited!!!

We have seen so many miracles. This past Sunday we went to church to find 2 guys that are not members that came with their wives who are members. We hadn’t even visited them and they just came to church. They were so excited to when we asked them if we could visit them. That night we went and one of them told us that he had a baptismal date like 11 years ago but then he just decided to not get baptized with his family. When we asked him to be baptized he said, ¨Yes and I am not going to use ANY excuses this time.¨ We both left with like our jaws touching the floor.

That same day we were walking... or I should say running... when my companion just stopped and said, we need to go down this alley. So we went down there and we could feel like someone there needed to talk to us, we just didn’t know who. We knocked on a door and out left a lady and like 7 kids. She said that we could share something with her but there was like a ton of music and we asked if she could turn it down. She said that there were like four drunk guys in there who she said were the dads of the kids she was taking care of. She said it would be better if we could leave the house with the kids so they didn’t have to see their dads like that. Anyway,. we started to share with her when her drunk husband started to leave the house. We usually have to get out of there but we had a feeling that we should invite him. We started to sing ¨I Stand all Amazed¨ and he just started weeping like a little boy. He told us that he had been baptized with his whole family 8 years ago and that it was the happiest time of his life. He then just started to talk about all of the spiritual experiences that he had had and ended with ¨I’d give anything to feel that happiness again.¨ It was incredible. Really, when you look at stuff like that you realize that what you are going through is NOTHING.

For the funny moment of the week... I face planted it running across the freeway. The good news is... at least my Book of Mormon flew out of my hand and made it safely across without me.

Love you all.

Ame