Email from Aug 10

Literally, in the office, I have nothing to do these days. Literally, like nothing. I just kind of show up to the office just so I'm not home alone. Everybody else has stuff to do but me. It's hard. I just sit around and try to keep myself occupied. So, I'm going through my memories and old pictures and deleting some stuff and organizing other stuff. Today, I got to the point of boredom where I decided to clean the office. I took out the trash, vacuumed the carpet, and generally organized the place up. You know I'm bored when I voluntarily clean. I guess me puse las pilas this change and got way ahead of schedule. But I can't not come into the office because I can't be home alone.

I've never been wetter than I was on Saturday. In about 5 minutes, I got soaked to the bone. Literally. We walked into a home of an appointment we had with a family to teach. When we got up to left, we literally were wading in the pool of water that came off of us during the lesson. It didn't stop raining all day. The thing is, here in the capital, when it starts to rain, it gets cold. So my companion and I were shiverring as we were talking to people. We had a good day, just really cold and really wet. But, I got some medicine for free from a member that owns a little tienda to prevent getting sick. Also, a warm shower upon arriving home is a missionaries best friend. God definitely blesses us after the trials, that's for sure. We just have to prove ourselves at times.

Monday was an amazing day. Instead of doing exercises, we had to do a special assignment for the mission. It consisted of us dressing up in all the tradicional fabric/clothes that we could find to look like the indigenous people here in Guate. Everybody got their costume ready and we went to take pictures. Here are a couple of results.

This is the whole district. We found us a cornfield and took a nice picture.

That's me and the assistants. I really like how this one turned out even though nobody was in it. just a test shot, but it's cool.

Monday afternoon, Elder Clouse and I left to run some errands. (Yea, leaving the office!!) We decided to go to TacoBell for lunch. TacoBell never goes well with me, but that's fine. It was quite tasty. Then we went to a Home Depot type of store, then Office Depot, then to PriceSmart which is just like Costco/Sams Club. It's where you find American Brand food and everything. It's a magical place for us. It was my first time going and I just bought a bunch of stuff to make sandwiches for lunch. It's sad when a missionary gets so excited about going to a Costco that he has to put it in his letter home. But, así es la vida de un misionero gringo en Guatemala.

That night, we had a lesson in the house of the Stake President, a Family Home Evening. The Stake President invited 3 people to his house. A brother of a recent convert and two of his children. It was fantastic. We just kind of showed up, felt the spirit, ate dinner, then left. I love when church leaders open up their house for Family Home Evenings, invite the missionaries, invite friends, teach the lesson, then provide food. It just makes a missionary happy. [Dad, do it! :)]. The likeliness of the people accepting the message and progressing towards baptism is incredibly high. Not 100%, but close!

--Elder Hunt