Week 12 – August 17 – Tons of pictures!

Hola,

I hope you all had a nice week! And a great summer. I’ve decided I really like being a missionary, but I really miss being home. SO MANY missionaries in my zone are leaving this transfer or the next couple so everyone is constantly talking about going home which makes it hard to not think about home. An Elder from the States and I were discussing earlier in the week if serving foreign makes the homesickness aspect easier or harder. It’s easier in the fact that almost nothing here reminds me of home and a lot of missionaries here are from Latin America so we don’t have that in common to make us more homesick. However, it’s harder because some days things seem so foreign here and I just want a cheeseburger, but alas…the things I always took for granted before my mission. Anywho I honestly am super excited to be serving here in Guatemala. It’s fun getting to know a knew cultural and language.

For example, the other day we were contacting houses and a woman told us she didn’t have time to listed to us because she had to…ummm how do I put this delicately? Well ut I felt like I was getting back to my Seattle roots and learning where food really comes from. Plus it was a great, “here I am in Guatemala” kind of moment.

Our ward mission leader informed us that our already huge area is bigger than we thought. So this week we have been exploring the new parts of our area, San Ignacio and el Tunal. Both areas are pretty far out of the main city area and we found lots of new investigators there!

Our investigator’s with baptismal dates, Astrid and Lazaro are doing well! Astrid is younger that 18 so her date isn’t until the 19th of September, but Lazaro’s is the 29th of August. He wants to wait and be baptized with her. If he is baptized on the 29th he can be ordained and baptize her which would be awesome, but we’re waiting to see what he decides.

Transfers are so weird. We have 2 weeks left of this transfer and then who knows what will happen. I have decided I ned to work as if I will never have transfers, but be ready for anything. Everyone says “every transfer is crazy” which seems to be the case. Basically my entire life could change with one phone call. Oh the mission life.

Humbling thing I realized this week: practically all the missionaries here and members of the branch here are converts. Many have only a few years to be members and know 10x more about the gospel than I do. Their testimonies are SO strong and I just really admire how dedicated they are the church. Many are the only members of their families and have made really serious sacrifices for the gospel. It gives me hope that the people I am teaching can one day become really strong, powerful members of the church and do a lot of good.

I am in a fairly developed city in Guatemala, but it’s just made me realized how many privilleges I have received growing up in the US. There are many things I have always taken for granted: having drinkable water in my home, being comfortable flying in an airplane, being able to read & write, being able to speak English, my US citizenship, being able to attend college, being able to go to the doctor & dentist on a regular basis, among many other things. Many of these things I did nothing to earn, rather I just have been very fortunate. Look for the blessings in your life and how you can use them to help others. God needs us to be the answer to others’ prayers.

Fun story: We got stuck in the POURING rain earlier this week so we ran to a bus stop and naturally starting singing christmas hymns in Spanish.

Sorry if this is boring, short and not very spiritual. Let me know what you want me to write about! But I am sending more pictures so hopefully that will make up for it!

Love you all!

Hermana Scruggs