Heyson and Ema. Such a hard goodbye. They are like my little brothers!!
Victor and Jasmin.
Amy's investigator sent her with a bunch of her old clothes to say goodbye.
HAHAHA SOOO FUNNY. Good lookinnn right!?
Hermana Mimi, our old cook and her family and Arjona. Arjona is the one in the middle next to me.
Our lime tree out the front door.
"My beautiful area."
Hermana Vasquez
Hermana Vasquez, Morgan and Moroni (a guy from her last area)
What cute pictures. I hope they love school (I sent first day of school photos to her!). Ashley is going to have arms of steeeeel from the crutches. Hope they are loving every second. K embarrassing question, Ashley is going to be in 8th or 9th grade? and Jeremy in 10th? Thats so embarrassing. But time flies on the mission and i dont even know how old i am! haha
Ok so first things first. I will admit i have been homesick. Homesick for Proyectos and Alamedsas. For my old area. It was a hard few days saying good bye to everyone. I wont tell you about everything. Just a few. The paca family, Tommys family, gave me a necklace. This really pretty heart necklace with diamonds It was really sweet. They hunted us down in proyectos to see if we could go visit them for a bit before i left. Then gave my this necklace all crying.
With Heyson. Hardest goodbye. He is like my little brother. Since he doesnt live in our area i called him tuesday morning before he left for school to see if he could come to proyectos so we could visit him. He said he didnt think he could make it. When i told him i was leaving and thats why i wanted him to come he said he would come right after school without a doubt. As he walked up to us he was crying. He told me he had been crying ever since i calle dhim that morning. All through school. We both cried all through the lesson. Judge me. But i cant tell you how hard it really is to say goodbye to the people you love and have grown to know in very special ways. He is very special for me.
I didnt get to see marisol and angel cause they live a little farther but i called them tuesday night and as i told htem i was leaving marisol just started to bawl. Literally bawl. She couldnt even talk to her. Angel just kept asking me who he needed to call to ask for permission for me to stay just until their baptism. They were both so so sad. Ah, it was a very hard couple of days. It was hard for me to leave. Even Hermana Zamacona, it was hard for me to leave her. I really love her. She is like a sister to me. But i am glad she is who is staying in proyectos. She will take care of the people!!
Marisol, Angel will be married the 30 and baptized the 31 with tommy on the 31.
Well now that ive left Amatitlan, I am here on top of the world. Literally up here in the mountains a million miles away from EVERYONE!! My area is called San Lucas Toliman and our district is caled Aguas de Mormon. Lake Atitlan is right here in my area and it is beautiful. Lake Atitlan is what we expect to be the Waters of Mormon. This area is so peaceful. I literally have never been in an area so tranquil. I dont know if thats a word but i mean peaceful. The people here area amazing. Most of them dont have lights. Dont have water. They have to walk to the lake to get water. The people live shoeless basically. Well the majority. Every day i get to hike the mountain to go find our investigators. Literally, its like mountain hiking each day. I LOVE IT. Spencer, you would literally love it here. I have no doubt of that!!! The one thing that surprised me is that i have a warm shower. Warm is relatively speaking. I have had a freezing cold shower for the past forever. Since January its been a cooooollllld shower. But now its warm. But now i feel guilty because the people here hardly every have water to even shower.
It is definitely different here. The people are very distinct. The majority speak katchikel...i dont know how you spell it....so i might learn a few new words in that language, but they do speak spanish as well. There is a pair of elders here in my district however that have to learn a new language...they will bei in their area pretty much the whole mission because the people in their area speak this weird language that isnt even written. Which is way cool. The people here all wear their typical guatemalan clothing. Its called Tipica. It is so cool. I am sitting here listening to the people speak katchikel....ahahaha and dont understand a word But it is such a beautiful place. I am in love for real already.
The little kids are the best. We enter the little villages and they come runnninggg! They love my hair. They touch it and smell it and then say, "yup, smells like curly hair!" hahah i dont really know what curly hair smells like but its cute. I have never had a problem with the mission rules, but one i wish i could change is about hugging and holding the kids. We cant hug the little boys, but we cant hold any kids. I just want to hug and hold them all. I literally just love them so much!!
The other day we went to lunch. The lady brought out this plate full of rice and this weird looking meat or veggie. I couldn't tell what ti was...it had like 3 layers...fat, meat, and hair...or something like it! Turns out it was cow stomach....i think...i dont even know...but it was disgusting. I ate some...gave the rest to the dog when we left the house without anyone seeing. My companion and i did detective work to get it to the dog. It was awful. but it did eat some of it. You would be proud!!
I get to play the piano every sunday here. I am super excited for that. I will tell you about one investigator. I dont really know many people still. My companion doesn't really know the area very well or the members or the investigators...i feel like we are kind of starting from scratch here...but there is this one little girl Angelica. She is 13. She is in church every week and this week her dad finally gave her permission to be baptized. So we are planning for this weekend. We shall see. She lives in this small village san juan. We have the main part which is san lucas, then like 8 little villages that are a part of the area. Some like 45 minues away, and others closer. So we go to those regularly.
It rained here the other day...it hadnt rained here in the mountains for a long time apparently...well when it rains it pours. aka a river of water up to my knees that we were walking in. In the mud...because its just mud streets...hahaha we were laughing the whole time!! it was quite fun. It is really cold here though.. Like way cold. During the day its ok, but during the morning and the night it is way cold. But is is beautiful here. The people are wonderful.... I love them so much already!!
I finished the Book of Mormon..all the way through in spanish my last day in alamedas. What an incredible book. I know without a doubt that the book is true. That it answers the questions that we have in life. The spirit teaches through the book fo mromon. I know without a doubt that as we read it, we come to know Christ better. READ IT ALL. I just started again. Lets all do it together!
LOVE YOU ALL!!
HERMANA OLIPHANT
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