Week 4: First week at the Guatemala MTC

Hola Familia!

Yes i cant believe i have been here for a week. its been pretty good. some of the Latinos are so so sweet. i love them. i didn't know what I'd feel when i got here but they're so sweet. there's this little guy, Elder Salvatierra who always just laughing and talking in Spanish to me and elder moon, cuz he knows no English, but we can kind of understand what hes saying. he's sweet.

Also there's this elder from Nicaraugua, Elder Rojas, who knows Ryder Neilson. He was serving in his area. he says that Ryder's spanish was "Super Bien." Hopefully my Spanish can be that good too.

I've been speaking more Spanish here but still feel like i don't know that much. i taught an entire first lesson in Spanish (broken Spanish) and they could understand what i was saying even though it may have not been grammatically correct. i felt good about that. actually I've taught 3 full lessons in Spanish since I've been here, only practices but still. Its tough to remember everything, i really need to be working on vocabulary every second of every day. a lot of the grammar is tricky to remember too. i just need to remember that I've only been learning Spanish for 4 weeks now. i still have 5 before i enter the field, and then like 90 weeks to improve as I'm out in the field. i tell myself that even if it takes me 20 months to learn Spanish, and i only baptize one family at the end of it, my mission will still be worth it because i will have helped bring one whole family to accept the gospel and be baptized. hopefully this wont be the case, but it helps me when I'm feeling hopeless.

So today, on p-days, people come to the ccm and sell stuff, like soaps, bags, scripture cases etc. there's some really cool stuff. i bought a super cool bag, similar to that shoulder bag i bought at mr. mac, but its brown and like striped kinda like a poncho, you know what i'm talking about. and they have a lot of cool cloth shoulder bags. i want to send you guys some of that stuff! you would love it. its been interesting trying all this new food every meal. some is really good, some isn't that great. but as long as it doesn't make you sick, its good.

I get to go to the temple later today, apparently it's super small inside. from me room i can see it, along with the massive hills in the background. i can't wait till i can get out and just explore this country. it looks so nice. i have "latino exchange companions" that i sit with every meal and at big meetings. it been helping me learn more Spanish. Stephen's so lucky he gets the fast track and gets to go to chile so soon.

As for what you said about the rain... it hasn't actually rained here much. just one day it started pouring for like a half hour, then it cleared up and everything was dry like a half hour later. i've really enjoyed being companions with elder moon thus far. we get along great. oh also about the socks, just send me black socks. not the really thin kind though. i think i have some in my drawer that say "PE" on them. socks that are that thickness are the best.

LOVE YOU ALL SO SO MUCH!
LOVE, Elder Hopkins.

Is this his view?  Image from lds.org