Hola Familia!
It´s so awesome to hear from you guys, I love reading emails! For
one, it´s all in English, which is nice! My district has a goal that
whenever we are wearing ties, we have to speak in Spanish. It´s
helping me learn a lot, but I go to bed with a nice headache every
night. I don´t even know where to begin...
Okay, I know where to start. Montezuma´s revenge came with a swift
and fiery vengeance. I learned the hard way not to force anything
while sitting in class. I´ll leave it at that. The food here is way
good, but my stomach doesn´t always agree. We get to eat a lot, but
i´m still adjusting to the culture of eating the largest meal during
lunch and eating a smaller portion for dinner. It kinda throws me off
ha.
I´m learning a lot of spanish, but I sometimes feel inadequate when
I´m talking with my companion. Elder Frodsham is a Spanish
Dictionary, it´s awesome. As jealous as I am, I´m twice as grateful.
He´s a huge blessing.
I´ve taught a few times in Spanish now and it gets easier every time.
The teachers here are really helpful and they´re good at understanding
spanglish haha.
I went through the temple this morning (we get to go every week on P
Day) and it was awesome. Although it was all in spanish, i still
learned a lot and was able to understand quite a bit. It was a great
experience. A few of the Latinos in our Zone were going through for
the first time, and it was really cool to be there with them.
I´m already forgetting how to say some things in English. It´s weird
how that happens so quickly. I feel like I´m entering a limbo where
I´m not proficient in Spanish, but no longer able to remember
everything in English.
My birthday was pretty low key, i didn´t want to tell anyone about it,
but my companion remembered at the end of the day. I had mentioned it
to him three days before. And my district sang happy birthday and
what not. It was nice.
The schedule here isn´t quite as strict as Provo. I wake up at 6 and
work out, then go to gym. After gym we shower and have a quick
breakfast and then personal study time. then we have four hours of
instruction before lunch. After lunch we have companionship study and
three hours of TAD (personal) time. Then dinner and four more hours
of instruction. We have a snack time at 8. It´s awesome.
My district is way cool. We have three hermanas (sisters), who are
funny. And then all the elders are soooo awesome and down to earth.
I love being in class with them, it´s a good time. My teachers are
great too. They´re both from Guatemala City. Hermano Mendez served a
mission in El Salvador and Hermana De Moran served in Honduras.
The Guatemalan mail is run by the Canadian government, so apparently
it´s pretty reliable. And you can send one package per year without
paying anything, but after that I guess they get kind of expensive.
In three weeks we get to go to the market and spend a day in the city.
That will be so nice. As much as I love this CCM (MTC), it´s a bit
cramped. We do get to leave to go to the temple and la casa de CRE
(where we practice teaching), but those are all right next to each
other.
Every Friday and Saturday we get to go contacting at the temple and on
the street by the temple and CCM. It´s really cool. The people at
the temple are always so nice and so excited to talk to us. Saturday,
we talked to a group of construction workers who were on their way to
lunch, but they didn´t want to talk to a bunch of gringos haha.
For devotionals we watch recordings of devotionals from the Provo MTC.
Sometimes we get an area authority, but that hasn´t happened yet.
This week we watched a talk by Elder Holland, and it was awesome. It
was about making our companionships more devine and making the Holy
Ghost the third member of our companionship. It was really inciteful
and powerful. He talked about how the Spirit enables us to speak with
the tongue of angels and cause the earth to tremble. It was intense.
Elder Frodsham and I have been working on making the Spirit our senior
companion. it´s difficult, but possible, and effective.
I only have three minutes left. It´s pouring right now. The city is
beautiful. From my window I have a view of the temple and the
mountains/jungle. It´s amazing. The people in the city are very
poor. Today a man tried to sell me replica watches and pens,
explaining that he was very hungry and needed help. I had no money on
me, but it was so hard to tell him no. It was an eye opening
experience. Haley, I´ve been thinking a lot about you this week, I
hope you feel better! Work hard!
Mom and dad, thanks for your emails and advice. I´ll be obedient to
all the rules and stay safe. I heard a story this week about gunshots
being fired in the street the week before we came. It was a crazy
night i guess.
This is a marvelous work and I´m so excited to share the gospel! The
people of Guatemala are amazing! I love you guys!
Love,
Elder Austin Tyler
