poco poco

I don't think I'm going to have a lot of time to write, mostly because I had 7 e-mails to read. Thank you everybody for those! And thank you madre, I got three of the biggest, bestest e-mails I've ever gotten in my life. It's amazing to hear that Jared is going to Guatemala! My mind was pretty much blown when you said that. About as much as when you said he was going to temple square. I was really confused by that. (Jared's mom was mad (but not the real kind of mad) that Jared made them wait until Emerson got off work to open his call, so she created a “fake call” where he was called to serve at temple square with the tabernacle choir through the language of music. He totally believed it for the first half of the letter, then figured out they had tricked him. It was pretty hilarious, if I do say so myself.) Tell him to study Spanish. Mostly so he doesn't have to suffer in the MTC. They force feed you Spanish all day in that place. Speaking of that, is he going to the MTC in Guatemala? I've heard that they close it some times of the year when there isn't a lot of people going out because it's so tiny. There are some perks to going to the Mexico MTC, like keeping your camera and having more free time than just P-day. But that wouldn't be as cool. 

It's different being here in Guatemala. It's third world for sure. I'll try to send some pictures next week. The area I'm in now, my first one, they just cleaned out. They had disobedient missionaries or something. So my trainer and I got put here starting from pretty much nothing. Also my trainer doesn't speak English, so that's a lot of fun. My Spanish is doing really good though. For less than two months, it's pretty freaking amazing. And it's improved a lot hearing it 24/7 with the whole comprehending what people are saying.

A lot of the houses are kind of like a house with no roof that has a house with a roof inside. There are a lot of little shops in the doors of what would be a house. It's kind of hard to explain. I'll have to send you some pictures of that too. A lot of them sell tortillas. Homemade tortillas are really common here.

One of my proudest moments so far was that I talked with a member about his avocado tree. I understood pretty much all of what he said except for the Spanish word for avocado. I had my Spanish dictionary with me so I pulled it out so we could look up what the word was. He pointed to a word. I read it. The word in English was “patient.” I was confused for a little while wondering what he meant by “patient tree.” We figured out it was wrong pretty quick, but just thought that was kind of funny. I know the word for tree because when I tell people I'm from Oregon and they have no idea what or where that is, I just tell them it's a lot like here but all the trees are pine or “pino” not to be confused with “pina” that's a pineapple.

As far as the whole missionary work thing is going, I'd say pretty good all things considered (and there is a lot to consider.) I'm pretty lost a lot of the time. It would probably help if I spoke better Spanish. I just follow my companion, smile real big and teach what I can. The Spanish will come I'm sure. The members always say “poco poco” which translates directly to “little little.” But judging by the context I'm pretty sure it means “little by little.” They also tell me Spanish is easy... like a lot. It's a lot easier when you've spoke it since birth. But honestly, it's coming just fine. It'll just take a little time. Poco poco. I love the times of the week when we're with the district and I can speak English. The weird thing is there are words I miss having. Like I wish there was a direct translation for the word “get,” or more then one way to say “yes.” In Spanish all I got is “si.” In English we have “yes, yeah, yep,” etc.

Also I should mention we have some investigators now. Some of them even committed to a baptism date. They're really cool people, even if I can't talk very well with them. I'd tell you more about that but I'm out of time. I miss and love you all. Talk to you next week. 

Elder Jarvie