Food in America is better in almost every way (taste wise, and parasite wise).

We had a lot this week with meetings. Out of the whole week we probably only got about 2 day’s worth of proselyting. Every other day we were taking buses to get to Reu for training meetings and interviews. On Saturday and Sunday we stayed at the church all day because of conference. With the new "speak your language" for conference, It was super cool to switch between the English and Spanish channels so we heard the speaker and not the translator. I felt the exact same way about the conference talks, like something is about to happen, I am not sure if it is going to be the church or the world that will change though (probably both, like an action/reaction between the views of the world and the views of the church). Some people watch it at home, but for the most part people go to the building to watch it. From what I have gathered, most people just don’t watch it.  It is the coolest thing to watch conference with just the missionaries from our zone. We took a room and a T.V. so we could watch it in English, but most of our zone doesn’t know English so it was just 6 of us in a room. It was pretty great. This week for our interviews, they fed us from a place called Pollo Tampero. It is basically the KFC of Guatemala and is super popular here. The thing about it though is that it usually gets Gringos pretty sick the first time they eat it, and that is exactly what happened to me. Because of this, I had the unique experience of throwing up in the back of an overly crowded bus for a few hours. The rain here is starting to stop, we have had a few days of no rain, but, like right now, it is raining pretty hard. It is cool because you can hear it hit the top of the metal roofs. It is getting a lot colder in the night, and getting colder faster when night comes around, but it feels like it is getting warmer in the mornings, around mid day, so I always just carry my jacket with me. It is definitely getting colder here, and the spiders know it too. There are so many spiders in our house... so many. we kill one and two more show up. you have to kill them here though because if you just kick them out (literally) they immediately run back in. You can play spider futból here using the door. It is like when you do something bad to Frost, you can call him and he will just return like nothing happened. I have some good news and bad news from this week too. Good news: when getting a ride home from conference, the driver offered us some chocolate kisses, which was lo mejor. Bad news: I ATE MY LAST CHOCOLATE KISS THIS WEEK. We got some investigators to go to conference this week, and they all really enjoyed it. I did too. For Christmas, food is a good thing to have because if I have stuff, I have to take it around with me for the rest of my mission. I have been super craving peanut butter (creamy) and for some reason gummy bears. What I really want is just some spending money so I can buy things, like shirts, ties (they styles of ties here are really cool, a suit , you can get a really nice tailored suit with the Guatemalan flag on the inside for really cheap. Like 600 quetzals or like $80), I also want to get these scripture cases where some one gets wool and uses a wood burner to make pictures on it. I can choose the pictures for it too. I know money isn’t that fun to give though.

Oh and, hey we have the keys to the church so we can cook. Do you have a cookie, brownie, or any of your great and easy recipe we can have so we can make some sweets?

Haha, that is awesome. Joey always has girls on him, he just doesn’t like people knowing, and usually because he doesn’t like them back (at least not as much as they like him)

The trek you are planning sounds great.  I have no idea what ideas would be best.  I have never been on one so I would not what to expect or what makes one good or bad. I think going through the struggles would make it cool, but I think there would be a lot of people who would disagree with me on that. It is weird that will be taking place right before I get home and you are already working on it. 

I have gotten emails from everyone in the family.  Erika emails me pretty frequently (basically weekly), I got an email last week from Erin McNally, and then we have a group email that contains me, Alec, Travis, Travis, Jorge, Chase, and Robert.

I really like your weekly updates things because I get to stay up with what is going on at home. It is nice when you add spiritual things too, it is all my life consists of now.  When I get home it is going to be like culture shock all over again because of how much will change during my mission. 

PS- Those cookies look so good! Besides Mexican food,  the food in America is better in almost every way (taste wise, and parasite wise).

Love, Bret

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