We have two fake investigators now whom we teach, Ana and Mario. We switch who we teach everyday and Elder Flygare and I tear it up with the lessons. They're all in Spanish which makes it hard of course but we got both Ana and Mario to commit to baptism on the first lesson. Now obviously they just work here but the other companionships didn't get baptism commitments so we're on the ball.
The Latinos and the North Americans who had been here for six weeks already left yesterday. We packed 88 people into a a bedroom for six people last night and sang as loud as we could to send them off. All four of our roommates left yesterday and I already miss them. Latinos are hilarious because what would be considered rude in America is just normal in Spanish Speaking countries. The Latinos who just left called me "Estruden" or something which, after a laborious translation process, we figured out was the name of the fat caterpillar/butterfly from A Bug's Life. With the limited english they know they also called me "Fat Worm". Now obviously if you called someone that in America it would be offensive but they just think its normal because calling someone fat isn't mean. They also call Elder Flygare Dumbo (although they say it more like Doom-Boh) because of his large ears.
I had a lesson with a two Latinas the other day and I was acting as their investigator. They were teaching me about the Book of Mormon and how it contained the fullness of the Gospel and everything we needed to know about our purpose in life and how to get back to our Father in heaven was in that book. They said they weren't selling the book but wanted to know how much I would pay for it, knowing how much valuable information it contained. Now, mind you, I'm trying to listen and figure out what they're saying at the same time and then they ask me how much I would be willing to pay for it and I'm like "Okay well they're not going to understand dollars so I have to tell them in Quetzales" and then I realized I was taking to long to think so I blurted out 50 quetzales, thinking that that sounded reasonable. So, posing as an investigator I said that the most I would be willing to pay to have all of the knowledge I needed on this earth, the maximum amount I would pay to have all the answers I needed for my eternal salvation, was about $6.50. They were laughing so hard because it had been so serious up to that point and I just totally goofed up haha.
Today we went to the temple which was cool and then to the local supermarket to stock up on whatever we needed. Things here like wallets and woven bags and hacky sacks and stuff are super cheap. I can buy handmade leather wallets that say "Guatemala" all over them with cool designs and stuff for like 8 quetzales which is like a little over a dollar. Hackysacks are a dollar too. When we go to the big local market we can haggle and get soccer jerseys for like 10 bucks, thats in like two weeks though. Let me know if you want me to look for something for you.
The city is actually really nice, I don't know if I mentioned that in my last email. We don't get to see a lot of it but outside our windows there's a lot of tall residential buildings and stuff. On the mountain/large hill that's like a mile away from us there's like a bunch of big apartment complexes that look awesome and they're like in the middle of the jungle because there's not an excessive amount of development on the mountain thing. You see a lot of Audis and Mercedes and 2015 cars and stuff driving around but you also see a decent amount of crappy cars too.
Walking to the temple and the market is super fun because you just say good morning to everyone. Mostly everyone is friendly, one time a guy wanted to practice his English with us which was funny. According to a Latino from Nicaragua who I talked to, most people in Central America make around like $400 a month but if they speak English they make around $600 a month, no joke. So tons of people here want to learn English and most people in the City seem to understand English pretty well because most of the building signs and stuff are in English.
You see other weird stuff too while you're walking around. They have security guys everywhere in our area because I guess that's just a more common job or something and they carry around pistol grip shotguns. The cops here have military rifles and stuff too.
Let's see, what else happened. Oh, we had an Elder get sent home last week because he punched his companion in the face so that was interesting, he came here on the plane with us too. Several other Elders almost got sent home too because they kept their cameras and when the other Elder got sent home he reported them for having cameras. They got asked to turn their cameras in and when they turned them in they had pictures on them of what looked like weird Satanic rituals. Now, what was really going on was that they were periodically meeting as a "Jedi Counsel" and would put a blanket over themselves and turned on flashlights and wrote in their journals and talked about what they were praying for and stuff. But rules are super serious here and the MTC Pres had to send their Jedi Counsel pictures to the First Presidency to see if they needed to get sent home. Our MTC President is serious about stuff.
I see Dick and Jennifer every Sunday which is cool. Jennifer is in charge of my district meeting class and Dick is usually in my ward and he gives devotionals and stuff. Two days ago they showed me a picture of Wes leaving for his mission.
Keep the mail coming, I love to hear from you all!
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