If we lived in the days of Christopher Columbus, I would have told you guys that i found the edge of the world.

It is nice to know Christine that you got an early start on your nesting for when I get home, but I still have a lot of time in front of me so don't worry too much. This week was hard but came with a lot of undeserved success. We had very little lessons this week, but the lessons we did have came with much success. it was a very bitter week for dats but very successful for the area. weird how that worked out. Thursday I ended up getting sick and am in the hospital right now... SIKE! I am fine. hahah I did get sick, but it only lasted for a few hours. I also did divisions for the first time when i stayed in my area with the District Leader. I was the first time that has ever happened in my mission because usually the district leader is my companion (that is actuall a lie, it happend one time in the previous change). It was cool though because the District Leader was my old companion, so I was with an old companion the whole day. we also have changes this week so I will know if I have changes tomorrow. anything could happen because I am more or less still in my first area, the president is talking to my companion about him training, and the stake president is asking for Hermanas in the area that I am (I guess we are not cutting it (I don't blame him though, the Hermanas are awesome)). For P-Day we went to a river in a volcano, it was super cool, but we came on a bad day and it was super foggy so we couldn't see much. Dad would have loved it though and I would love to go here with him. Since it was foggy you actually couldn't see anything, but still cool.  If we lived in the days of Christopher Columbus, I would have told you guys that i found the edge of the world. there was two feet of water outward and then nothing. Nothing below the water, above it, or up high in the skies. it was super cool. I took pictures, but we got back so late that I don't have time to attempt to upload them. so once again, I have failed you guys with an even more boring letter for the blog. But the work continues. Love you all and I am thankful for your  support and prayers.

I find that we just need to be super direct with them (almost uncomfortably direct)

My first Zone Leader was called to be an assistant and he came to visit the zone this week to help out. It was cool seeing him again and he laughed when he saw that I was still in the zone. This week was the week of the carnival and the rain started this week so it was a very slow week for us and not much happened. I have been eating a lot of churros lately, but the churros here are nothing like how they are made in the U.S. we also had a stake activity. Basically groups of people through-out the stake prepared things and presented them. The stake president asked the missionaries to prepare something so we made a dance and danced for the stake. I also found a sweet chess hat in a paca. the work here is pretty slow right now. We have investigators that will get baptized, but still won’t get married. We also have other that will read the Book of Mormon (and they know it is true), but they won’t go to church and it is hard to talk to them because the appointments with them always fall. I find that we just need to be super direct with them (almost uncomfortably direct) so they give enough attention to what we are saying so they understand why it is important that we come back to talk to them. This area has really been a learning process for me. I will try to upload the pictures and videos of the activity. I don’t know if the computer could handle a video though. We also have our stake conference this week too, so I am excited about this Sunday. Our Stake President can speak well and he is super smart. I also heard that he is super rich too. He is the director of a university here in San Marcos and he really likes chess, but I can’t get someone to go with me to play him (he has invited me many times to play him).

The good news about the fair being in town is now I can buy churros every day

Hi!  it was so good to talk to you and the family and to my mom's family too. This week was kinda hard because we have the fair in town and it is mother’s day. A lot of people are not in their house because of it or at least just don’t feel as talkative. I went on divisions with the zone leaders this week too. I went with Elder Merrill to San Pedro. Elder Merrill is (NOT) a Gringo (he makes it very clear to anyone who calls him one) because he is from Canada and not the US. I asked him a lot of questions about Canada though. It was funny, we did companion study in the morning and he was telling me about a scripture that says how America is the blessed land. He then told me that when the Book of Mormon mentions America, it is not just talking about the United States.
 I am also noticing a pattern about my area. We will find someone new to teach and put an appointment to return, but when we return someone new is there and the other person is not. We then talk to them and put an appointment. When we return someone new is there. Basically we end up finding a bunch of new people to teach but are never able to teach them twice. It always has me leaving the house asking myself questions like ¿How many people live in this house? When we contact though, the people a more direct and tell us no and close the door right away on us, which in all truthfulness I am grateful for. It is a little discouraging, but it saves a lot of time because no we don’t have an investigator that avoids us and we can use are time in other places because after we can get a second lesson, we are like salesmen, we don’t leave you alone after the first time that you say no to us.
 The good news about the fair being in town is now I can buy churros every day. it is pretty great.

 Thanks for the birthday shout outs and Happy Mother’s Day to you and to the rest of those Moms that are out there. I hope you squeezed every last thing you guys could out of you’re the kids.Robert is going to Paraguay (90% sure) or Uraguay (10% sure), but I know it is one of those two.

 It was good to talk to Joey, the connection was great (it was actually the best of all the connections that I did last night). I am glad that the Stake President gave us more time so I could talk to him; it has been while since I have been able to talk to him one on one like that.

This week was filled with good and bad days.

While my comp is getting attacked I am playing checkers!

Fire Truck selfie!

This week we had another meeting with the mission president and the mission. After, I did divisions with the district leader (my old companion) so I stayed in San Antonio with Elder Puckett, a gringo from Springfield, Utah. It was really cool to go back to the other side of San Antonio and see old members and investigators. They all made fun of me because they heard I was only in chamac. This week was filled with good and bad days. We had investigators that really progressed, and some that really fell. It is always a super bummer when someone you were teaching falls. We also had people that told us that they were not ready for baptism, they wanted to know more. We explained to them that we only need faith and repentance before we can be baptized. Knowledge is not faith. They then became super excited and told us to come back so we can talk to their husbands and they can get married and then be baptized. It was pretty cool. We also went to our mission leaders house and I played the mom at checkers and her three kids attacked my companion. It was really funny; I will send the pictures later. We also talked to some members to get the skype ready for this Sunday. I love Spanish because I find that I end up just joking around when I speak it. That’s why I love the members. Rarely can I joke around with an investigator before I can gain a lot of confidence from them, but with the members, that’s all we do. It’s great. We also had a scavenger hunt today Grings Vs. Latinos. The Latino team ran around and they made the scavenger hunt so we knew we were doomed to loose. Guatemala is a great place for a scavenger hunt because it is filled with pacas. A paca is small store where they buy trash bags of stuff and they don’t know what is inside. They then sell the stuff, but the stuff they get is things you would buy at a thrift store or a garage sale. you can find almost anything because of pacas. Anyways, we got pictures of everything in the list and we returned back already knowing that we lost. we compared pictures and it turned out that one of the things we had to find was a sign that says "welcome to San Pedro, Saquetepéquez" the Latino team ended up taking the picture of the other side that said "happy travelings from San Pedro, Saquetepéquez" We won because of that and they then had to buy all of us icecream. Well, see you Sunday.  I can’t wait. 

Bret