Hello Everyone!
I am having the time of my life out here! I´m in Huehuetenango, and my area is called La Viña. It's not very big but there's lots of work here!
Ah, so everything the past week has been an adventure. First the bus ride from Guatemala City to Xela. Solo. Yeah it was a party. I got dropped off at the bus station and handed my ticket and that was it! I was on my own! The bus was supposedly like a Greyhound, but it was the nastiest Greyhound I've ever seen. 4 hours to Xela and halfway there my bladder was about to pop. We passed the waters of Mormon which was beautiful but I could hardly appreciate it because I was in so much pain! 5 minutes later we pulled off at a random bus stop in some little city for a 10 minute break and I found this ¨sanitary¨ station that you had to pay 2 quetz to use. Scariest place I've ever been basically. I was so nervous about those jumping worms someone told me about. Anyhow, somehow I survived and made it to Xela and got a couple contacts on the way!
I stayed at the mission home for a night and met my new companion, Hermana Lucha! She is awesome! She´s a Latina from El Salvador and we´re pretty much twins in a lot of ways. She´s tall, especially for a Latina, with super curly hair and she can´t keep anything organized either! We joke around all day long and it's a blast. Pres Bautista and his wife are great too. They´re brand new, barely a month out here, and from what I have heard they are awesome!
The next day Hermana Lucha and I got on a bus to Huehue (say wayway) which is about 2 and a half hours out from Xela. It's in the middle of a bunch of mountains and is beautiful. Today is the first day that its been cold and it's only barely because it's raining. Our house is really big, 3 stories with the terrace, but it's bare and full of spiders and potato bugs. Not the big tarantulas, just a million little ones all over the ceiling and walls. If you can believe it I´m totally used to them already. Today we get to wash clothes by hand! We have a wash thing built into the house which is nice.
So, my first night out the Mission President challenged me to commit at least one person to do something. We went out to go teach this old man who owns a little shop here. His name is Carlos. It was like I was back in Mozambique. It's so similar here. I know it's not as poor, but in some places it really is. I don't know if it is just because of the weather and the streets and types of houses, but I feel like I´m there again. It has really helped me not to have any culture shock. I think I surprised my companion because she was trying to play everything down and tell me I could get someone to wash my clothes and watching out for me with the crazy traffic and all and I didn't have a problem with any of it! It just feels like Maputo again.
Anyways, back to my first lesson with Carlos, we taught the plan of salvation and it went well. I committed him to pray but I don't think he was ready because the next time we went to see him he hid in the back of his shop and wouldn't come out...
Thursday was my first official real day out as a proselyting missionary and it was so much fun! I still have a hard time with conversational Spanish but with the gospel stuff I´m doing pretty good so I haven't been very nervous. It definitely helps having a trainer to jump in though. My Spanish is getting a lot better! I´m almost at the same level that I am with Portuguese, it's just hard when people have odd accents and speak really fast (which unfortunately is the case with a lot of people here).
We found this little lady named Angelina to teach. Her daughter is 10 and somehow is a member, but nobody else in her family is. They live in a cinder block tiny house with dirt floors and they have no water. We taught the first lesson to her using super basic Spanish because her first language is some other dialect and she can't read. She has a 2 year old named Orlando and a little baby girl about a month old. Everything was filthy and there were chickens pecking at our feet inside the house while we taught. First experience with fleas!
We have like 7 new investigators in the past few days and most of them want to get baptized! The problem is, 5 of them need to get married before they can. Nobody here is married! And it's 5 separate couples! They all live with less active members... So I will most likely end up planning and attending about as many weddings as I do baptisms.
I eat lunch with different members everyday but we do our own breakfast and dinner. It is interesting since we don't have much to cook with or money to buy food with. I´m finding lots of different ways to eat re-fried beans and eggs... try a bean and banana sandwich! It's actually really good! Bean and egg sandwich... plain bean tortillas... egg tacos... and yeah... We´re gonna try to make no bakes today! We don't have an oven and only one electric stove thingamajig. It's a real party! I love it!
I love you all!
Hermana Battaglia
ps I'll send pics next monday!
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