This has been a really cool past couple days. I dunno if you guys got to watch it on the byu channel but the cultural night on saturday was way cool. my favorite part is that most of the outfits, at least the ones the girls were wearing, are clothes that people here wear all the time. cortes, the hand woven super colorful skirt wraps, are the typical clothing that the indigenous people here wear. and in the dance that had the horse race stuff with the guys in the red and white striped pants, the white and purple rainbowish shirts, and the straw hats... thats what so many men wear in huehue in my last area. they look like rainbow pirates or cowboys haha but they´re way proud of it. its not looked down on here at all haha it just sets apart the more traditional people here. also the very last dance was the one that my stake that i´m in now put on cuz the temple is in our stake boundaries. and that song that they played is the city´s hymn or something like that. its called la luna de xelaju and its about the moon here. they say the moon here is different from anywhere else and i have to admit its beautiful. its much bigger and brighter here, almost too bright to see the man in the moon (here they say its a rabbit in the moon haha). its like a giant silver plate in the sky. i love going up on our roof sometimes at night.. or early in the morning to run. you can see the temple, all the mountains around us, the giant volcano thats by us, and all the sky. the clouds here are incredible and they´re all sorts of colors first thing in the morning and at sunset.
also yesterday was a great day. we got to be at all three sessions of the temple dedication! we didnt get to be inside, it was just at our stake center, but still! it was such a great experience for us. i know that not many people get to have such an incredible opportunity as having a temple dedication during their mission. we´ve seen so many miracles already. we got to listen to pres uchtdorf, elder anderson, and a few from the seventy speak. the spirit was so strong and i just want to go to the temple all the time now! i dont think we´ll get to go through very often but i´m still so excited that we´ll be able to at least once or twice...
so none of our baptisms happened this last week... i think it was just a little too quick. but we have 4 planned for the end of this month! and others who we´re trying to get ready for then too! a lot of our appointments fell through this week... like on wednesday it was dia del diablo (devil´s day) so we couldnt go out. everybody makes these big scarecrow-dummy type things that look like the devil, then line the streets with them and light them on fire. we had a good view from our roof! but yeah we still had some really great lessons and cool experiences. also i´ve learned some way cool stories about some of the members here. some of them are seriously some of the strongest members i´ve ever met. especially this family ordońez. hno ordońez´s is one of 9 kids. every single one served a mission. then his parents served a proselyting mission. they collected soda cans off the street for a few years and filled their house with them, floor to ceiling, even up in the rafters, till they could barely walk through the house. then they cashed them all in and had enough money to pay for their entire mission. they didnt tell anyone, not even their family, until the week before they left. they didnt want to be a burden to their kids and have them try to give them money. then they served a full on proselyting mission for 18 months in the guatemala south mission. 6 months after they got home, she died. straight to exaltation i think haha. then hna ordońez´s mom is this little old lady who wears corte and doesnt speak any english, but she travels to salt lake every 6 months for general conference. i´m gonna try to figure out a way for her to take some stuff up to you guys for me next conference :) yeah anyhow the whole family is solid. they both are RMs, temple workers now in the new temple, and traveled every month to work in the temple in guatemala city before. i love them :) i really love the people here and i´m so stoked to be in this mission. i´m not the most impressed with a lot of the elders in this mission haha, but i really love the people and the members. these really are descendants of the lamanites and they´re flourishing like a desert rose, like prophesied :) i love you all and i´m so excited for ryan´s mission papers and to find out where he´s going!! ok so real quick, we can talk the 24th or 25th, i´m thinking 25th. but you guys decide what time and all that. anytime from like 1pm and on, cuz church goes till noon. but let me know next week and i´ll figure out the phone stuff and all! k i love you and cant wait to talk to you! thanks for everything!
love kailey
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