6/23 New Mission

It's Official. I'm in the Guatemala Coban Mission.
Here's my new Address:

Elder Hyrum J Clark

Apartado Postal #34
3ra Calle 2-02 Zona 3
Coban AV 16001

Guatemala, C.A. Mision Coban

6/20 I'm on a mission!

Wow..

   I'm on a mission! I think I realized it when I ran out of money 2 weeks before I am supposed to be reimbursed. Things are interesting. They tell me that I should be fine next month it's only cause the first month you have to pay the rent from your food fund and the next month they reimburse you and you use that for your rent. but yeah.. things are starting to kick in.



People I played ball with today

   I'm doing better at Spanish.. that's about the only thing. My memory still is on the frits and I'm getting blisters on my feet daily. I'm enjoying the change but I wont lie I'm suffering a bit too. I'm just trying to keep my head up and my feet moving. I honestly can't think of all the things I wanted to say.

   I'm in an internet café here that's pretty legit! Like seriously I walked in and its a 20 (or so ) year old guy with a ton of computers and hardware for sale and it's just pretty much like a programmer's oasis in Guatemala. I could see Sean having a store like this.. Gosh I could see myself owning a store like this and LOVING it!



My Comp cutting down a tree with a machete

   I've seen some crazy stuff here! Guatemala is a new adventure every day! Today I played futbol and basket ball with a huge group of members/investigators/random  people off the street that we invited (See Picture).. it was fun!

   I've definitely been working.. I've chopped down trees with machetes and I found out
that's how they cut the grass here too! yup.. I've spent my fair share of time cutting grass with machetes and I fear I have plenty more time left in my mission for more.

   If my English is horrible it's cause it is.. I can't speak it either. my comp  wanted my to pray in English and half ended up being Spanish.. I think in Spanish and I dream in Spanish.. it's all broken bad Spanish but my English is pretty bad as well. It's even harder while I'm typing cause it's a Spanish computer and all the words I type in English are underlined in red so I have NO idea if I'm spelling Anything correctly.

   I'm honestly just rambling now.. I can't think of what to say.. I guess I could tell you that I have a baptism scheduled for this Saturday and another for next.. but I can't think of anything cool that's you'd care to know. I ate French fries again! that was fun! 

   Well I have a headache.. I think I'm done for the day.

 

 That is my "chapel".. I think it's just a meeting house though.. that's all there is,  that one room for everything.

 

 

Yours fortunately,

  ---Elder Hyrum Clark

 

 

6/10 Mi Grupo at the CCM

Mi Grupo at the CCM  Hyrum is third from the left, second row up from the bottom.

Sisters at the CCM with us

6/10 Positivity!.. sorta?

  Okay.. so I REALLY REALLY R E A L L Y want to talk about how much I Hat- .. Strongly dislike P-days but I'm going to try and keep this positive.. Cause I need to be more positive in all my dealings! :)

   I had my first "small rain" here.. I'd really hate to see what they call a flash flood! Basically it went like this.. Drip, POUR, Electric storm, alien invasion, dead cow, drip. Yup that about sums up my first rain storm here.

   Something really cute I saw this week was this little girl.. we were visiting a family and their daughter (I think like 5-6) was wearing a dress that was clearly 3 sizes too small and she was sucking the flavor off a candy wrapper.. now I know it's sad she only had a candy wrapper to suck on but she had the biggest smile on her face and I thought it was so cute.. until it was me sucking the flavor off my bag of chips cause I didn't have enough money to buy more food for the week. I'm sorry Little girl... I feel for you.

   I've decided that I don't like living with men.. they're kind of immature. you'd think cause they're elders they'd be okay but.. nah not really.. they're still teenagers inside. I really hope I'm not like that.. at least not all the time.

   Let's see if I can do Español..

   Esta es un poca cosas en español.. son no mucho porque yo no puedo hablar mucho.. pues yo puedo pero no MUY mucho. Yo tengo una casa bien y yo le amo mucho porque es grande y yo tengo mi propio baño! Si! pero yo no tengo mucho (pressure) en mi baño y es dispacio (Slow?). Tal vez yo tengo cosas bien para comer pero tal vez no. Hoy yo creo que yo como la carne de un vaca.. y no la carne bien pero la carne de la.. colona? yo no se in español.. pero fue no MUY mal.. solo un poco estranga.

   It's weird.. I often times prefer my own cooking to the cooking of the people here.. but luckily we don't really eat at members houses much.. the few times I have it's just been beans which is fine with me cause I LOVE beans! they're at the top of my list of foods here.. right underneath Mexican food (They don't have that much here). OH! I had French fries the other day! I just about screamed like a little girl when I saw them! (We go to an hermanas house every day for lunch and we pay her for the food). Yup they're still my favorite food! My comp leaned over to me and said "Quere cambiar mi papas por su pollo?" (Want to switch my fries for your chicken?) I was totally down and agreed before he finished speaking!  ..."Broma!"... (Broma is the Latino way to say "Psych!")

   I don't have anymore time but I hope that was a good letter to you all. 

Yours fortunately,

 

          ---Elder Hyrum Clark

p.s. I still hope for letters every day.. but I have no Idea when I'll get them cause they come from the office.. I think MAYBE I'll get them next week when I go on the Zone Activity.

6/4 Photos- Leaving the CCM



The CCM





My Temp Comps Elder Brown and Elder Hoagland

Me and two of the coolest guys in my mission: Elder Lancaster (Middle) and Pulu (Right) Elder Lancaster will be in the Guatemala City East Mission and Elder Pulu will be in the Guatemala Coban Mission with me.

The Capital Building in Guatemala City

The Bus Ride out to Guatemala City North Mission!

Me and My Papa (first comp) Elder Bonilla, In Sayaxche

6/4 Bienvenidos a Sayaxche!

Well hello y'all,

   I got put out in the field.. literally it was a field.. well.. actually they dropped me off at the edge of a river and I had to pay a random stranger to take me and my luggage across to where the city and my comp were. I love it here in Sayaxche (sigh-axe-SHAY) and even though its about 100deg. here I'm holding up my own. 

   They're splitting the mission the end of this month and its going to be "Guatemala City East" and "Coban" missions. Guatemala City East is all literally in Guatemala city which is basically a GIANT Stockton but with only Latinos.. (wait that doesn't make sense.. that's all Stockton has anyways.) and the Coban Mission is basically anything that isn't city.. and far from city. If you couldn't tell by the name of my city, I'm in the Coban Mission area so there is little chance I'll make it to a big city.. I'm actually really happy for this cause I DO NOT like the city here. Plus Coban has all the Q'ueqchi areas so I have a WAY bigger chance of learning it too! 

   I'm in the Peten Zone.. this is where a lot of the Mayan ruins are supposedly.. I think we MIGHT get to see them but I'm not sure.

 

   My bus ride out here was fun.. I got off a bus and got my first area assignment.. got on a bus.. got off a bus and on to a bigger bus.. stayed on that bus for 12 hrs (Until 11pm) got off the bus and slept.. got on a microbus (a minivan with 30 people) and spent 2hrs on that and THAT is when they dropped me off at the edge of the river.

   I lucked out cause they started me out in an area with mostly Spanish.. I definitely need to learn Spanish before I start on Q'ueqchi too much. I'm not sure how I'm going to learn anything though cause my memory span has shortened WAY down! Like literally when people speak here I'll understand the words as they're speaking them... but by the time they're done speaking I only remember the last word they said. So it's YAY that I can understand way more Spanish in 5 days but it really stinks cause I have no idea how to reply to people's questions RIGHT after they've asked them.. I don't know if that makes sense.

  
Oh yeah by the way I'm doing good on my Spanish! I'm able to almost completely communicate with my Mexican Comp. It's almost harder to understand his English than his Spanish. He had me pray in Spanish one night and I kept accidentally switching to Spanish in the middle of the prayer. wait.. that doesn't make any sense.. ah.. I mean he had me pray in ENGLISH. Anyways the point is I'm losing my English vocab faster than I'm gaining my Spanish one. Luckily God has allowed me to remember MOST of it for when I email home!

   For fun I like to stop walking for a bit and count how many drips of sweat fall from my arm in 60secs.. so far my record is 10.

   I know exactly 0 people within a 1hr radius that speak English so you all don't have to worry about me being immersed in the language.

5/21 Siete diaz mas!!!

This is my last week here in the CCM and I'm so excited to get out there with the other missionaries and find out how easy all of this hard work I've been doing really was. I continue to grow so much and I'll tell you there is nothing I've ever done to help me grow as much as this has. I can hold most of a conversation in spanish and I can understand about 80% of what I read (Depending on the reading) so I feel I'm not doing horrible. I love the language and I am continually impressed by how much I actually know in the language.

   I Memorized the baptimal question and the first vision in español and I'm working on DyC 4 now. I've gotten to the point where I struggle almost as much with english now as I do with speaking spanish as you might be able to tell with my spelling getting worse and my sentances not making as much sense.'

   This week has been full of fun and adventure.. not so much that it's distracting me from studies but for instance the other day our whole lunch group (Almost all the elders and a few Hermanas) tried this spicy sauce.. (I found out later it's called Devil's Blood and I think its one of the spiciest sauces) needless to say I saw faces turn very red and people instantly burst into tears. I guess all those years of loving hot sauce paid off though cause I was one of 2 people that didn't shed a single tear! It tastes horrible but it's definitely the spiciest thing I've tasted. (I found it doesn't burn as much if you hold the sauce in you mouth and let it dilute with saliva before you swallow and burn out your throat and stomach.. it also helps make it not so spicy... after.)

   I'm groing awesome with my companion and I'll let you know my favorite thing about him is that when he notices anyone not finish their potatoes he'll tell them "Hey Elder Clark want's your potatoes" (Which of course I always do) and gets them for me! Way cool and definitly HIGH on the scoring points list!

   I've gone through one or 4 trials this last week but I'll just say that they don't last vewry long.. I've almost got this whole going to the Lord thing down pat and usually I'm up and chrreful in an hour or two.. needless to say theres nothing I can't do anymore.. except eat hamburgers.

   So I've been hering a few things from back home.. but basically those few things add up to not much so a letter here and there might be nice.. I've only recieved two in the past 5 weeks as compared to my other district members getting like 5 a week. I thought with all my friends I'd at least have 3 by now (Shameless asking for letters). Come on.. it's not that hard and I PROMISE you if you don't write me I'll never write you back! (cause I don't have any of your addresses). Entonces Hermanos y Hermanas.. Nesecite escribir una carta para me! it's as simple as that!

   I've learned more about my mission by speaking with the latinos.. all I can say is I hope when my mission splits next month that I'm in the Coban mission.. I WANT to learn Q'equchi! Plus they say that's where all the action happens and more of that machete weilding action. Don't worry I'll be carefull.. not that I'll probably get one (If I do trust me you'll know... that'll be big news in my life!)

   I'm realizing more everyday how much I miss the little things.. and how much I can figure out how to get along without them. I mean just last night I fixed my sandles with a bottle cap! it's ghetto and it's awesome!

 

I miss you all but not as much as you hope I would. I think about lot's of you but not in a way that makes me wish I was home.. I wouldn't give up this mission for the world! I love it so freaking much!

 

 Keep up the good luck and don't be afraid to pray for the Lord to bless me with more of the language.. I'd love to learn it even faster! Thanks Grandma Clark for the gift! I love you!

Yours fortunately,

 

          ---Elder Hyrum Clark