Week 31: Changes, Companions and Mac n' Cheese

Well not much has happened again-just busy.

Tuesday of last week we did devisions with the ZLs. I went to Teleman with an Elder from Florida named Elder Waters. He's gone now-left for the capital yesterday. He's going home. While we were on divisions he expressed his desires to hunt in Colorado. He wants to come hunt in Colorado. While we were on divisions we saw two drunk guys try and fight. We just stood there and stared it was absolutely hilarious. They were just slapping each other and falling over hahahahaha!! I was cracking up. They didnt even do anything cuz they were too drunk so they couldnt hurt each other.

Thursday we found out that my companion had a change. Elder Flores left yesterday at four to go to Coban to his new area. It was pretty sad. The people become very good friends here. Especially the members. Right now I'm in Teleman again waiting for news about who my new companion will be. From the way things are looking its going to be Elder Vasquez who only has about six more weeks than I do in the mission. This change is gonna be a change of lots of rapid learning. Or else! I'm finally getting a good foundation. Elder Legua and Elder Schone didnt have changes so I will see them every monday still. :)

Change conference is always on Mondays. They only tell us who is leaving the week before so we have time to pack. Here in the Polochic they tell us two days before everyone else. But the official changes dont happen until monday. So right now I'm kinda in a limbo. I'm with Elder Schone and Elder Vasquez. And last night I stayed in the zls house with Elder Vasquez. It's way random but someones gotta hold down the fort I guess. We're kinda the center of things and running things right now. It's strange. Don't know if I'm ready for alot of responsibility.

I havent heard anything from Grady or Brenton. They need to write me! And I need Ethan Churchs and Jordan Geddes emails if you can obtain them. (big word). I wanna see where they are and if they're where other missionaries live that I know here.

I'm glad to hear that the work plans are falling into place slowly but surely. Read Mosiah 7:33. (Pretty sure thats it.) Please pray and fast. I'm worried and I shouldnt be. Don't worry though. I wont get distracted but I just need to know my family is safe :)

So, I'm thinking you should do all in your power to get every book that James E. Talmage has ever written. The man is a genious and once, Albert Einstein was asked how he felt being the smartest man in the world. His reply was -"I dont know-ask Talmage"!

I found a book here in the zls house called Articles of Faith. It might have been included in the missionary reference library when dad was out but its not now. It talks about the Book of Mormon and other doctrines so bluntly and powerfully. I would like you to read it. He's a great writer and has a ton of knowledge.

Thank you for the recipe! I'll see what I can do. I can get the ingredients the only thing is measuring them haha. We dont have measuring cups or anything so I'll see what I can think of :)

Although I love getting packages please dont send anymore. I have what I need :) I love you all. Please save the money and take care of everything there. I can handle it here :)

I'm not on facebook. Megan gets on and accepts friend requests or whatever else I have.

I miss you-each and every one. Soon you should get some mail from me that you'll really like!!!!

Take care. I will include more details when I have them, as for now I gotta go wait and relax while we wait for changes. Zl's houses rock as they have good food. MAC AND CHEESE BABY!!

TAY
(Elder Larsen)

Week 30: Freezing, Turkey & Kekchi

1) Why the new email? What happened?
The church had google turn the myldsmail.net into a gmail format which makes it much faster and much more efficient. You dont have to worry about lost emails now:)
2) Are you sleeping at night?
Not much. I'm trying to figure out why. It has been absolutely freezing the last couple weeks.
3) How is your companionship going?
Great! We've finally found the groove. We know each others senses of humor and get along great now. And we can teach! Well he can, I can bare my testimony- haha.
4) Do you need us to pray for anyone this week?
Pablo. He's less active and if he reactivates his family will have like 5 baptisms :)
5) Anything special happen this week?
No, not really. This week was really really slow. We did have an investigator come to church and he's awesome! Pilas-we say here. Very interested and very different- as in he has a different perspective.
6) Best part of your week?
We went way up into the mountains-so high we almost touched the clouds. That was cool and I got good pics too.
8) What happened in church this week?
Not much. It was normal. My companion gave a talk. He can barely speak the language so I'm not expecting tons of progress in my language but im putting in the effort. :)
9) Can you teach a lesson yet in Kekchi? Can you read the language yet?
Not really, but I still can recognize the words and everything I need to understand it. Speaking it is a whole different story unfortunately.
10) When did you send the package to us? Still not here. :(
The post office guy called us and said it didnt send. He said it costs 300 quetzales instead of the 120 he charged me. I'll save it until I can send it :)
11) How much longer until changes?
We hear who has a change this Thursday. This is the last week of this change.
12) We heard about your split with Elder Schone. How did it go?
We went to a couple appts in spanish and thats all we could really do. We tried contacting a lady and it really did not work out too well. She just stared at us and spoke the more difficult words in response. She didnt try and simplify it for us. haha- so we left.
13) More pictures of the monkey incident? Do you have one with you holding it? I got the one with Elder Schone holding it.
I'll try and send it.
14) What all do you do on your P-Day?
We go to latinta, use internet do district meeting, buy food and leave.
15) Are you eating any MEAT? What kinds? Just Caldo and do you know how to make it?
No, I dont wanna learn either. The american soup we eat is much better. I'm eating lots of eggs. Not much meat but im working on it.
16) Anything you would like to tell Brenton before he goes into the MTC? I gave him your new email address. :)
Stick in there! It's gonna be dang hard. The language will kill you at first. But then when its all over you're gonna look back and see that there was absolutely nothing to worry about. Just study hard and pray even harder. You're in the hollow of His hand. He'll carry what you cant. Love you. Take care. Write me!
17) Favorite scripture this week? Spiritual moment?
Well I was looking at the facsimile no. 2 from the book of abraham. The number seven in the image and its explanation are very interesting. Read the exp. turn the image upside down and see if you recognize anything drawn there. :)

Congratulations to Justin and Kelley! Tell them for me and try and send pics of the little guy.

I am picking up the package today to save it until I can send again.

Apparently there are alot of old statues of people in the mountains above my area and the old people here guard them and dont let people take them or the "mountains will fall". I wanna come back and see them.

What is the name of the grinding stones that the native americans use? I seemed to have forgotten it wrestling with the three languages in my head. Mano and matate? I dont remember, but thats how they grind corn here.

Hey, I was thinkng the other day and for some reason Gary Groome came to my mind. I wonder how he's doing. Does he know I am on my mission? For some reason he really made an impression on me as a very faithful and spiritual man. I like to think that I'm dealing with "mountain people" such as him.

Yesterday a turkey started trying to attack me cuz I whistled really loud at it. So I started fighting with it/messing with it. Im gonna go back and take a video of it for you guys. It was hilarious.

Other than that, nothing is going on here. We have plans to go on long trips this week to a place called Moca which is way far away. I'll let you know how it goes. This is gonna be an interesting week.

I'm so glad you got the job! Now all thats left is for dad to impress the bigwigs. Which he can do! What does that job consist of anyway? Supervision or doing it all yourself? Should you take the bar exams for plumbing and everything to just get it under your belt?

I dont know. Being here gives me alot of time to think about things.

I miss you all and love you so much!

Say hi to everyone for me!! Tell them to write me and tell me how things are going!

Love,

Elder Larsen (TAY)

PS The crosses are in front of some creepy weird cave thing. Pretty cool picture though huh? I have a couple more from it. You guys will like this memory card!

Week 29: Butter, Birds & Life in the Polochic

Hi All!
Nana sent that much money for my mission? Holy cow. What all is going on back home?

Yes im being obedient. I promised, so I am. I obey. And I'm doing fine :) Dont worry. Unfortunately many missionaries do stupid stuff like that. They don't see the bigger picture.

Thank you for the package. I havent gotten mail since the zone conference. Which was a couple weeks ago. That part I dont like about here. But someday it will get to me.

This last week alot happened. First the branch president held a huge party thing for his son. They were ordaining him to a preist but he had people come hours and hours to be there. Had the missionaries share some thoughts. Then he talked for about an hour or so before they did the ordination. We were late getting into the house.

Thats great about dad getting the job. It' ll probably be really weird to have a 9 to 5 job again haha. that should be funny.

BTW the mandarines straight of the trees and the fresh pineaples are absolutely amazing. mmmmmmm. Sorry about the spelling. This keyboard is horrible.

Well another baptism got postponed. Her name was irlanda-the pregnant girl. She had her baby and according to the qeqchi beliefs she cant leave her bed for forty one days or she'll probably die (i have no idea). She went into labor at three in the morning this last week. So her dad, being a qeqchi man, threw her on his wheelbarrow and wheeled her an hour and a half to la tinta. Poor guy. Life is tough here.

A bird pooped on my shoulder this last week!

I have real butter now! Not only did I bring some from coban but we did a secret santa gift exchange and the sister missionary who had me gave me butter and peanut butter. mmmm I'm livin large now. haha. Now instead of pancakes and french toast with margarine- its the same. Except with butter. :)

The other day we were walking down the trail and saw a pacmal on a tree (big lizard-10 inches long maybe). So we started throwing rocks at it trying to knock it off. Then an old man came down the trail and asked what we were doing. We pointed the lizard out to him and he promptly started picking things up to huck at it. He couldnt hit it so he just walked right up to it and nailed it with a rock. It was hilarious haha. Just a little old man!

This last week we were in a house after a lesson and the lady told us to stay a little longer. We thought she was gonna give us food but after all the evangelist members from the local church arrived and the pastor we realized something else was up. Well about 20 people entered the house and shut and locked the door behind them. Then they started to do their crazy cult stuff. Screaming, yelling, crying. It scared the crap out of me. It lasted about an hour or so. A few times during it I honestly felt like crying. Not from fear but from the disrespect shown towards my Father in Heaven and my older brother Jesus. As soon as it ended we asked if we could sing our own hymns. Then we contacted everyone in the house and respectfully invited them to church. That felt way good. And after, everyone wanted to hear more hymns so we told them to come to church and/or someday we'd come to their houses and sing.

Everyone here likes pop rocks you sent. Alot!

QUESTIONS:

1) Dad says he's trying to narrow down your location. We know you are north of the river, but are you east or west of Senahu?
Senahu is right on the other side of the mountains from me. Towards the polochic river.
2) Did you get any letters this week or your CD?
Got the one from you and austin. I forgot i had it from the zone conference. Nothing else at all though.
3) Are you cooking three meals a day? Were you able to use the rice and pasta mixes I sent?
Yes i am. And yes thank you. They were delicious. :)
4) Any new investigators this week? How about your baptism? Everything going ok?
A couple. The work is really slow. We are brainstoriming about what the problem could be. Satan sure is working very hard against us.
5) What did you do for service this week? Remember President Monsons talk about, "And what did you do for someone today?"
Service as in preaching the gospel or physical service?
6) How is the language learning this week?
It's rough. Testifying, praying and sharing a little more every time i get the chance. It's way hard but its coming.
7) Do you have district meetings and zone conferences?
Yep. Every pday we have district meetings. Zone conferences are every change.
8) When is the next change? Do you expect to move?
Nope I'm probably staying. Its in two weeks.
9) How is Elder Legua, Schone and your companion?
Theyre all good and healthy.
10) What season is it there? How is the weather?
The same. There arent really any seasons. It's been rainy and foggy. I'd send pictures but the internet is slow.
11) Any new foods/illnesses?
Nope
12) The hiking boots I found are dark and are Nike. Those the right ones?
Yep them is it
13) Cool things that happened this week?
see above :)
14) Best/Worst part of your week?
Worst is the cult thing. Best, when we left the cult thing.
15) Do you know we love you sooooo much?
Yes, what about you? Do you know?
16) Low top socks? Moisture wicking?
I dont need socks. But if you send some send huge ones like my football socks for the rubber boots. I have low topped moisture wicking ones.

I love you and miss you!!!!
Elder Tayler Larsen