Sister Moore in Guatemala: Sweating In Coatapeque

Well, good news, winter is over! bad news, summer has begun.... and it won't end until NEXT SEPTEMBER. Oh my gosh. I thought I hated the rain but wow now I realize it was a nice refresher everyday. We just sweat all day long here. Literally by 10:15 am I'm like did I really just shower two hours ago? It feels like I just went swimming! But, I'll learn to love it... right? Pray for me?

This week seriously FLEW by. I cant believe it's already over. It still feels like last Monday! But here we are, time is flying by and I just gotta run with it! This week we had a lot of cool things happen.

We learned how to make Papusas!

Papusas cooking on the stove

Finished product

We had an activity in our ward this week, we worked super hard on it and it just didn't go as planned. But we just roll with the punches here so it ended up being super great! That is something I am learning from my sweet comp, Hermana Fusi, she just rolls with everything! We are stuck here for an hour, hey no big deal let's become best friends with everyone here!

pie eating contest at our activity

Just live life to the fullest as it comes to you. So at our activity we ended up just playing basketball and volleyball with the people that came but wow, people came! And they stayed! We had almost 50 people there! That's almost as much as sacrament meeting here, so that was a small miracle!

That's my Bishop on the left. He reminds me of Uncle Darin

So we are playing volleyball when all of a sudden I turn around and a FAMILY I don't know walks in. What the what? So we go up and turns out we had invited one of their sons to the activity just randomly in the street one day... so the whole family came! AHHHHHHHHH. So we contacted them yesterday and now we are teaching them! They rock! So yeah the activity was a total success, because we got a family out of it! I'm still baffled! :) It doesn't matter that it didn't go according to plan, everyone had fun! I'm really learning how to let go here in the mission! Getting all Hawaii like Tim, hahaha!

Oh and a funny note, that family that we found at the activity... turns out I had talked to her before! When we got to their house, according to their directions, it just happened to be the first door I had ever knocked on here in the mission. I'm not kidding! Things are coming full circle here in Coatepeque! Haha and funny thing, the street they live on has a grafitied wall that says "death wish". You can imagine how excited I was to go down my first street contacting on my first day. I just laugh at it now! Nothing scares me!

Another thing we did this week was do an area attack in another ward in our zone! All the missionaries showed up at their chapel at 6 am on Wednesday and then we had breakfast and then we received our "new companions"! They had a bunch of youth from their ward come to do divisions with us!

So we were assigned this joven named Browlio! This kid is pilas! That means super smart! We contacted up a storm and even picked up another companion on the way! He is a recent convert! We had a great day with them! :) I'm so excited for the people heading out on missions! I heard that Natalie Bullough just got her mission call to Quetzaltenango Guatemala! Wow!!!!!!!! That sweet girl has always impressed me so much! I'm so excited for her!!!!!

SO I'm a little sick, I stayed in another hermana's house for divisions and it was super humid and moldy, and I'm blaming that on my sickness. I have this great cough that just gets worse when I'm in the street or contacting. It's really great. Good thing Guatemala has no laws for eco friendly fumes, theres so much crap in the air! But I'm slowly but surely getting rid of this tos, that's cough.

This week we had lunch with the sweetest woman. So humble, so much love for us and the Savior! I adore this sweet woman! She's a little one, my comp got a hilar pic of me and her. She comes up to me rib cage, no joke.

Proof that I'm a giant out here!

They like begged us to come over for lunch. They have nothing, but they helped us! So sweet! I need to learn to be more like them, just so willing to serve! I love sweet Hermana Alisia!

Editor's note: So I enlarged the picture above to get a good look at a typical Guatemala kitchen and noticed a little friend crawling up the cabinet below the green pot. I emailed Erica about it and she responded that yes, it was a cockroach and "Welcome to my life....morning, midday and night!"

She wants us to come back again before I have transfers, I'm so excited! I wanted to make them something special! It's just her and her grand daughter that live there. The rest of their family died! So sad; but they are so strong!

Our relief society is doing classes on how to make cakes and we participated this week! So fun! I learned how to make cakes with my hands, no beaters necessary. So funny being covered in dough up to my elbows!

And what a workout! But it was fun! And I learned how to make a yummy cake! Next week I'm teaching them how to make cinnamon rolls! :) I'm way excited!

In terms of p-day activities today.... I went SHOPPING. In a real deal mall. In a store like Forever 21! Ah I about died! Then we ate in a food court. Oh my goodness. People.... appreciate fast food for me. I only eat cereal and yogurt here. and tortillas. and chicken. hahaha But I miss me some Cafe Rio sweet pork salad! :) Oh and this morning I washed ALL of my clothes. yep. all of it. It took two hours and now my knuckles are raw. Everyone, go give your washing machine a hug! A BIG HUG! I'll never complain about doing laundry again. :)

I actually wrote some letters today so if your lucky, look for a letter in your mailbox in like..... 6 months! :) By the way, I love receiving letters, so write me! :) I'll write back! :) Who knows if it'll ever get there but here's hoping!

So funny thing that happened this week: I am famous for my rain boots in this town. HA! We contacted a family the other day and it had been raining just a little and they let us in. But in a few minutes they asked me where my rain boots were. Now understand that I've never met these people before... they were like yeah your big green botas! HA! They said they've seen me around town in them and they were always so fascinated by them! Well yeah they are the size of their youngest child! hahahaha. That cracked me up. But I think they like them because they always ask me where I bought them!