Letter #9 - Las Brilliantes, Guatemala

well hello again family,

first of all i would just like to say HOLY CRAP!!!!!!! you all are doing so much, asia, family reunions, youth conferences, tennis camps, ER trips, scout camp. those crazy summers were always so fun, but being here is just as wonderful!!  being here i am still busy, but in a very different way.  i never go far, but i walk, sweat, teach the gospel, and try and speak spanish all day every day.  this week i have focused a lot on one thing: leaving it all here.  last week in the emails, what i found was two emails telling me how amazing scott holmes´ homecoming was and how he talked about how he left it all in the field.  as i left the little internet cafe where i write, i thought a lot about this and decided that i need to do the same thing.  i am proud to say that this week i left it all in the field.  we worked so hard all day every day.  we taught great lessons, found a lot of people, and brought a great investigator to church.  i am still frustrated with my inability to express myself and understand what people are saying to me, but everyday i feel like my spanish gets just a little bit better, and i am hoping that by the time i am done with being trained (7 more weeks) i will feel great about my español.

this week we had a really cool experience finding and teaching a family.  we have a pretty small area and just about everyone is a member or very much against the church, or at least already has an opinion about the church, making it very difficult to teach them and have them being open to learning more.  one day we were walking near the edge of our area trying to find a house that we were told were talking to the previous missionaries.  we missed the turn for the house and before we knew it were by this beautiful field/forest thing.  i just wanted to turn around and find the house, but my companion said that we needed to talk to the family that was living in the field. so we did.  we found jose and lesvia.  they are super poor and have one little niño but are talking with us now.  the first time we taught them lesvia seemed really positive and committed to baptism, but jose was super quiet and seemed like he wanted nothing to do with us.  we returned a couple times for lesvia, and then the third time we went jose finally opened up and it was amazing to see the progress he is making! we are hoping to baptize them at the end of the month. 

soooooo i think that's it for this week..... JUST KIDDING THIS WEEK I BAPTIZED MY FIRST PERSON!!!!! so i guess i should tell you what happened.... i kinda feel like this is cheating, because i didnt teach her but, my comp is district leader so we occasionally go help out the hermanas in our district and so we went and taught this 12 year old girl named esperanza.  then on saturday we went back up there for the baptismal interview which my comp has to do, at the end of the interview he asked who she wanted to baptize her and she said me!! so that night we went to her baptism and i dunked her 3 times.......... for those of you who are confused, in our church we baptize all by immersion and the one baptizing says a prayer prior to the person going under the water; if anything isnt done exactly right it is redone.  so when i got in the water all i was thinking is ¨dont mess up¨ and then i did twice, both times her feet came out of the water as the rest of her went under but i finally got it.  attached is a photo of me the girl i baptized and the hermanas that taught her.  i look like a giant haha, and for some reason latinos dont smile in pictures...

so now i think that is everything.   i miss and love you all.  hope all is well.

elder meyer