Original Message -----
From: Austin Tyler
To: KURT TYLER
Sent: Wednesday, August 18, 2010 1:23 PM
Subject: Re: :)
Hola Familia! This keyboard is a little different than american ones, but i get to email today! I only get twenty minutes though, so ill try to type fast. this place is amazing. I wish they had sent me here for nine weeks instead of 3 weeks at provo. actually i dunno about that because my teachers in provo were amazing. the mtc in guatemala is intense. there are armed guards keeping watch and everything. and the fence is like ten feet high. its so awesome. i dont know how to make separate paragraphs... frustrating. last night we were in the miama airport (it did not end up haivng a mcdonalds) and there were about twenty of us that were at the gate for the guatemala city flight. we had a two hour delay, which was lame. but while we were all sitting there talking, a jamaican lady approached me and was looking at my name tag. she was holding an ensign haha! her eyes got all big and she started talking to me in broken english. she was a member of the church and she said that as she was reading her ensign, she looked up and saw us. she said she felt an overwhelming spirit and said she had to come talk to us. she was on her way to atlanta and she said she felt really lucky to have seen such a big group of us before she left. she almost got emotional and thanked us for serving as missionaries. it was so awesome. on the plane, i sat next to a one legged latino and he was really funny. i did my best to talk with him in spanish, and we had some good conversations. his son (one of five sons) had been to the church, i dunno if the son was a member, but this man i talked to was familiar with the church. He himself is Catholic. we talked about futbol, the weather in guatemala, work, school, our families, and funny things we saw people do on the plane. i really held my own as far as holding a conversation in spanish. halfway through the flight, he handed me a business card and wrote his cell phone number on it. i dont know if it his address on the card though, because it says the last name is johnson, which isnt a latino name. but i want to write him a letter and thank him for talking to me and give him a pass a long card or something. when we were about to land i looked out the window of the plane and saw the city. there was a random soccer field in the middle of nowhere (at 10:30 at night) and it was full of people playing soccer. it was really cool. we landed and went through customs and everything. i wasnt given one of the two sheets of paper we needed for customs, so i explained that when i got to the desk. the man at the desk said 'youre with these guys right?' ( he was pointing at the other missionaries). I said yes. he giggled and said just go. haha they didnt care about any sort of regulation. it was hilarious. oh and then that tall elder that almost missed his flight and almost left his luggage in security, he lost his passport haha! but they let him through after awhile. the mtc is right across from the temple, and my window has a perfect view of it. my new companion is named elder frodsham, and hes awesome. he isnt fluent, but his spanish is much better than mine. so thats exciting. im in the Enos district and all four of us from my provo district are in my new one, so thats really cool too. there are only about 100 missionaries here right now, but this is the largest group of north american missionaries the guatemala mtc has ever seen. my spanish is much more advanced than most of the american elders, but i have the latinos to keep me humble :) when we landed last night it was pouring rain, and its raining again right now. its about 70 degrees and very humid. all of the guatemalans who are familiar with retalhuleu keep telling me that retal is very hot haha. great. its really green everywhere and the city has some really poor areas (from what i could see from the bus). its interesting, there were a TON of farmacies that we saw on our way from the airport last night. but there were tons of american stores, like chuck e cheese and random places like that. ill write a letter explaining more when i get the chance. theyre kicking me off now, so i gotta go. thanks for your emails and letters! love you all! Love, Elder Austin Tyler
