A great week in Panca.
Still a lot of work and teaching a lot as well. This week was another checkpoint for me to see how far my Spanish has come. It has progressed so well. At first, like every missionary I thought it would take me 6-7 months to be able to speak Spanish. But now 2 months in, I look back at when I started and think how shocked myself would be if it could see how far I've come already. I am really grateful for how fast I've picked it up.
I'll skip to Thursday because the other days were days you can hear about in every other missionary's email. Work, study, teach. But Thursday, we walked to San José, which is about a mountain and a half over so like a 50 minute walk. Luckily, a tuk-tuk passed us so we took that and shaved off 20 mins. But after visiting less actives and teaching them, we were walking back to Panca and there was this kid and his grandma sitting outside of their house. We had just passed the house when I thought to say something to them. So I turned around and contacted--and every five seconds another person would walk out of the house to see who we were until there were like 16 people outside this house. At first they were shocked to see a gringo at their house, 2nd they were shocked I could speak Spanish. And then the best part was that I started talking in k'iche' to the grandma that only speaks k'iche', and they all lost it. It was like a celebrity was at their house all the way in San José. They asked me to take pictures with every single one of them, hold their baby (I asked if it was ok first), take pictures with the baby, talk in k'iche' with them. It was wild. We spent like 30 minutes with this family answering questions about me. The dad of the family is hilarious and was making jokes the whole time. He couldn't believe he was speaking k'iche' to a gringo in his home, it was funny. We set up a time to meet with them again, so I'm excited to see how the next visit goes haha.
Friday, normal as well. But Saturday, we found this awesome family who lives like 30 mins away. I honestly have no idea where they live. We just walk and look for whatever paths we can find. You know if there is a house at the end of it by whether or not there are spider webs in the path. If there are, that means nobody uses this path, so there isn't a house. Plus after a little, you can tell where the perfect spots between trees are for spiders to set up shop. My head has brushed so many spider webs lately, it's horrible. I'll look back and a 2-inch spider is crawling away from where my head brushed its web. It's scary. But this family was saying how there is hunger for food, water, and the truth. We wanted so bad to teach him right there and flip open to Amos 8: 11-12 and talk about the apostasy and how we have the restored gospel again, but he said he didn't have time and to come back Tuesday. So we are hopeful about them.
Sunday, we walked and visited so many families and had lessons with them. We had the Second Counselor of the mission and the District President of Panca in church this week, so they came to visit families with us. The second counselor has a nice new truck, so it was nice to be on the back of that and not in a janky flete. Some of these families live around three hours away walking. They are in literally the middle of nowhere. The best part was we were at our last appointment, but it was only me my comp and two Hermana leaders in the branch because they were showing us how to get to this house. Without them, it's impossible. But as we got to the house, the guy came out and was so drunk. Could barely stand up. He wouldn't let us speak much because he just kept blabbering about who knows what. But at one point, he walked up to me face to face, super close, and pointed right at me and said some words I couldn't understand, and I just started dying laughing. I couldn't help it. The way he was trying so hard to stand up and get his message across was too much for me. It was a scene. His family was very nice though and we invited them to come back to church. But that event was hilarious. There are so many drunk guys here that just sleep in the road or wherever. We pass them all the time just passed out with a bottle in their hands.
Overall, I'm doing really well. A lot of times I'll think of how lucky I am to be in Guatemala. Ever since I was little, I've wanted to serve a hard mission exactly like what I'm doing right now. Even though dragging a suitcase and killing spiders isn't very fun, it's exactly what I want to be doing right now. It makes the trails and long days so much better. This is exactly what I need to be doing and where I need to be. I am seriously so so grateful for everything I have and wouldn't change a thing. Maybe less spiders, but I'll deal with it. I am so grateful for the scriptures and how much my testimony has grown from them. I love reading them and seeing how much strength can come to us when we put the gospel in front of personal or worldly things. All throughout Alma are stories of wars and fighting, but whoever was more righteous and turned to Heavenly Father to strengthen them usually won the fights. It's the same with us today, if we will put the gospel as number one and Jesus Christ first in our lives, we will be happier, strengthened, and prosper in the land like they did.
Excited to receive some birthday emails tomorrow so don't let me down haha. Love you all and thankful for everyone of you.
- Elder Copeland
Pics of the Week
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