Elder Tanner Hopkins: Week 9: Serving in Villa Canales

Thursday, June 30, 2011

Week 9: Serving in Villa Canales

Elder Hopkins in front of the Guatemala MTC (CCM)

June 30 – First email from the Field in Guatemala !

well I'm sitting here in a computer cafe in Guatemala, for the first time. I'm actually out in the field now. I'm in an area called Villa Canales¨. Its really nice actually. I'm kind of out in the countryside, even though its technically a capital zone, but the Guatemalans don't consider it the capital. There's massive hills, like the foothills, but more defined, and covered with big trees. I live near a large sugar can field as well. Theres a random skinny white horse that just walks around the little town looking for grass to eat. And there are lots of wandering dogs of course. Our little house is pretty nice, apparently its one of the nicer houses in the whole mission. And we have warm water! So I'm happy about that.
My companion is Elder Euteinier from Las Vegas. He's a pretty nice guy, we taught a lesson last night already so that was good. I'm already tired, this is going to be a tiring two years but that will be good for me a guess. I never received the 2nd package at the Guatemala MTC, so hopefully it didn't get lost in the mail or anything. So, I never received the last two packages, only the first one, so i didn't get any letters or photos of my friends at Grad yet. I don't know what happened to it. Now that I am in the field, here in my mission, the mail gets delivered twice every six weeks. and sometimes, like during a change, the two times are in the same week, so sometimes its a while, so i don't know when I will get anything in the mail, but thats alright, there's a postal strike anyways.
So , to answer your question about us teaching in the big square during the rain in my last email, so you can picture it, yes that is the square that i was in. The one with the big fountain. That square isn't actually in my mission though. I was on the right of the man and elder moon on the left. We were towards the big old looking building by the fountain, on kind of the left side.

Question – did you three plan the funny faces in the Guatemala MTC group picture – Answer - ummm you were right about the picture, we planned it, all the older north americans were supposed to do a funny face. That sucks about the mail strike. hopefully it will end soon.

(We told Tanner his friend won Wipeout Canada) - thats sweeeett I wish I was there when it aired!

Attached are some pictures since I've been in Guatemala some of at the Temple, eating Mcdonalds in that mall 3 weeks ago, and some of my house.. oh yea, as of now theres a rule that no missionaries can drink caffeine, so unless that changes it looks like i wont be drinkin dr pepper for 2 years, so don't bother sending me any. but in the ccm we went out cuz Elder Moon had to have an ingrown toenail operation, so while we were out we did find dr pepper, so i was able to drink one last one the morning before i came to the field. There is a boy here in the mission from Magrath, and another Elder whose brother is the brother in law to my friend Brooke in Raymond or something. When I was contacting the other day i say the latina version of Jill Clark. it was kinda funny. This mission seems like a pretty sweet mission. I'm glad that I have the chance to be here for 2 years. The spanish is still coming. poco a poco, but soon enough ill be able to communicate better. Last night in the lesson I was able to bear my testimony and stuff but for the most part I was trying to figure out exactly what the investigator was saying. His name is Alfredo. My area just doubled in size i guess because two missionaries got transferred somewhere else so we now have twice the area and twice the number of investigators and twice as many of referrals we need to contact. and i guess we have 87 referral cards or something right now so we have a big load on our hands. At least we will always have something we need to do.
Today isn't my pday but i didn't get to email this week yet with moving out into the field, so all the new Elders got to email today. Normally I will be emailing on mondays.
oh ya and usually i will have 45 minutes to be emailing you cuz for the first 15 minutes i have to email the President. just to give you a heads up.

well i gotta go. talk to you on monday. love you all. -tanner