This week was a fairly normal week again, not much new. This last Saturday we went to the zoo with Sister Caffaro and the sisters from the other district here in our zone, as they fulfilled their goals of the mission. The zoo was really nice and was fun to go and see all the animals, but it was not as good as the safari, and not anything too special. After the zoo Sister Caffaro had to go but we all decided to go bowling. Bowling was a lot of fun, but it reminded me that I am not the best bowler. I did not win but I also did not come in last.
To finish P-Day I went to go and get my hair cut at the barber shop right next to our house by a one legged man. It made me nervous because I did not know how well of a job he would do, but I did not know where another one was and we did not have a lot of time. Let’s just say I am not going back there again. He did not do a very good job. My sideburns were two different lengths and some hairs were longer than others. Well I took my razor and made my sideburns look a little bit better and took some scissors for the pieces of hair that were still too long and sticking out. It looks better now and does not look horrible but I have learned my lesson, do not get a haircut by a one legged man, he probably cannot balance very well and cut hair. This last week I have also kind of run out of money for spending too much in the month- so I had to be more careful on how I spent my money this last week. I bought some bread (filas de pan frances) and used some PB & J from the office to make PB & J sandwiches one day for lunch and bought a banana too (Q5 lunch). Another day I had cup of noodles and a banana (Q5) lunch and left over PB & J sandwiches. The Dalys bought us lunch one day so I was good there and for the last day I had beans on pan frances and 5 hardboiled eggs (almost like egg salad sandwich with beans) (Q10 lunch). I am back to having money and it was actually nice to have a change of food from all the fast food. It is not as bad as it sounds and I never went hungry or was starving during the day. For the first time in 5 weeks I have had solid poop (probably since I stopped eating only fast food this last week) so that felt good too. I might just make lunches a little more often here in the office to eat something different. Changes are this week and I do not think Elder Baum or I will have changes. We find out tomorrow afternoon and then have to plan how to make changes flow smoothly and how everyone is going to get to their new area. Apparently it is a really busy week but I am not too worried, I think it should not be too bad. Other than that there is nothing else new and things are going great here in Guatemala as the rainy season has started! -- Having the best day of his life, Elder Gruber
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Things this week were not very eventful, not much happened. Little by little we scored some lessons, put some fechas, and saw some miracles in the villa. The biggest challenge is finding people that will listen to us. We can contact all day and walk away with only 9-12 contacts (people who say we can come back and give us their and address) and not enter a single house. We are trying to work more with the members to change this and work in a different way, but so far it has been unsuccessful. We can not get a lot of help from the members. They say they will, they put days to leave with us, but then hours before they cancel or do not hold through with their commitment. It has been a bit annoying especially with our Bishop as he seems to blame everything on us and makes it seem like we are in charge of doing all the work in the ward including passing for all the less actives and visiting members with their assigned home teacher. We do leave with members every now and then to visit less actives or help them in another assignment and then we try scheduling a day for them to leave with us but without success. I think that is by far the hardest challenge here in the villa, working with members. I feel like we are doing our part but just not seeing any of the fruits quite yet. I know it will come I just do not know when.
The rainy season is in full swing. The day has nice weather and then at about 3:30 in the afternoon everyday without fail the rain hits, just as we are leaving the office. I am so glad I have an umbrella and waterproof boots. I have a pair of office shoes and then after the office I throw on my boots for the rain. Generally I stay dry all day so that is fantastic, I hate being soaking wet sitting in a lesson, it is just uncomfortable and makes it harder to feel the spirit ;) We did find a family whose mom is less active, she has a 9 year old girl who is not baptized, and the husband is not baptized either. The mom has great desires to return to church and her daughter really wants to be baptized. The husband is investigating and looks like there is a good chance he could be baptized too, we will just have to wait and see. Maybe baptisms June 25 if the husband gets baptized and if not July 9 after the mom reactivates so we can baptize her daughter. Also doing well here in the office, saving the mission thousands of quetzales. President says the more we save the more he will take us out to lunch (took us to Wendy's this last monday). We also got our monthly report back and we are under budget by 10% so we are doing good and president is really happy with us. I have got the hang of things here and all is well! I am truly having the best day of my life! -- Having the best day of his life, Elder Gruber So this past week nothing much happened. Had a small talent show in the ward, had divisions with the Zone Leaders (Elder Galvan from California and Elder Trochez from Hondurous) in Santa Catarina Pinula. However today we had a road trip as an office. We convinced President to let us go to Tasixco (out side the capital, 1 hour and 45 minutes drive) to go on a "safari." www.autosafarichapin.com .. We baught safari hats and everything to make it that much better. It was cool but it was more like a drive through zoo. We did feed and "pet" a Giraffe and saw lots of cool animals. Other than that nothing really happened this week. Things are great but man have I gotten so tired of fast food. I´ll take my beans and corn tortillas again.
-- Having the best day of his life, Elder Gruber Not much happened this week so this will be a short letter and I am skyping home tomorrow so it will be even shorter.
- Last week we had permission to do a zone P-day so everyone in the zone changed their p-day to Saturday so we could all do something together. We played soccer, had a water balloon fight, and all went to eat. - I fired our taxi guy because he was awful and could not do his job right so I called him into the office and fired him. That was interesting, never thought I would be hiring and firing people on my mission. Did some interviews and we hired a new taxi guy too. - The best day of the week was by far was when we (the office) went to Tony Romas with President, sister Caffaro, and the Dalys for all you can eat ribs. Of course I ate more than everyone and ate the most ribs. The best part was that President (the mission) paid for all of it. Well that is about it for the week. I have a good feel of the office and my new area and am doing great! I have gotten president and his wife to start saying it is the best day of their life and I am going to try and spread it through the mission now that I talk to a lot more missionaries. The Spanish is coming along well too. Just recently though I have been finding more and more bug bites on me and once again I am led to think I have bed bugs or something else so I will be drenching my bed again in protox. That is about it for this week. P.S. Sometimes it really does feel like "The Office" with all that goes on here. -- Having the best day of his life, Elder Gruber So this last week we went to Walmart to buy a couple of things and I got hit with culture shock. Walking into Walmart Ifelt like I was back in the states and it was all so overwhelming. I got a headache and could not think straight. It was very weird. Also went to a mall and they had all the normal shops, it was just like the Bellevue mall or something similar. Very weird to see American stuff and it did not seem like Guatemala to me.
Elder Baum also bought a waffle iron this last week so we have used that a lot making waffles with Nutella and peanut butter and syrup. We also fried chokis (chocolate chip cookies) in pancake batter. I also finally found a Cobanero pepper (the hottest pepper here that members have told me) and ate it last night. Yes it was hot but I did not need milk or water, I could bare it. Made me tear up and my face did get all red but it did not taste good so not something I will do again. In the ward we have 96 members, smallest chapel ever (pictures to come). Highlight of the week: Hitch Hiking in a cop car. Walking home one night at 8:30 I was a little tired and as a cop car passed us I said, in English, "can we have a ride?" I said it jokingly, and did not say it loud and they were not even driving slow but one of the windows were down and the next thing I know they are pulling over. We keep walking and as we come up to the car they tell us to hop in and they would drive us where we needed to go, so we did. It was legendary. They were not members nor did they really speak English so who knows... it was still cool. -- Having the best day of his life, Elder Gruber LOVE YOU ALL!!!! |