Week 2 Report - Guatemala MTC

Last week Joseph emailed as soon as he was online and then composed his email for friends at the end, and was kinda rushed as he tried to collect his thoughts for that. Today he did that first and then started to write us. No personal photos this week, he said the MTC President, "President Hill said we could send pictures but then he found out that they like mess up the computers or something so we can't until we get out of the MTC." So no more pictures until August. It's ok, we'll get through this!  He was able to forward this photo that they took of the new missionaries the day he arrived. Two weeks done, we're a third of the way there.

Two photos, Joseph is in the first picture, middle row, 3rd in on the left side - close up:

His companion Elder Mendez is same row, 2nd over on the right side. Other than that, no clue who any of these Elders of Israel are. Here is another picture of more missionaries that I'm assuming arrived that same day.

From Elder Wride:
Subject:     Week 2 - Taumaturgo

Heylo!! So last weeks email was kind of all over the place and random. Sorry about that. But now you know kinda what my journal entries are like. I also wrote it at the end of our email time instead of the beginning and was really rushed. 

Anyways the topic was Its a Great Day to be a Missionary! (except in spanish) which is a phrase the MTC President (Pres Hill) told us to say every time things start to get hard because it's so true! It's a great day to be a missionary. Taumaturgo is a word he said not a lot of people know in spanish but that it means miracle worker which is also what we're doing as missionaries! We're gonna be working miracles in peoples lives and I'm so excited to finally get out of the MTC and teach some guatemaltecos. The fact that I feel trapped in here is probably the hardest part right now. The food is great, my district is great and Elder Mendez is really funny but I'm counting down the days until I get to go out and actually do this thing. I think it's especially hard since my mission is literally right outside the CCM gates (and past the armed guards). 

But that brings me to one of the biggest highlights of the week. I got to leave the CCM to go to the migration office!!!! Ahh it was so nice to go outside and I felt a little bit like Rapunzel. All we did was sign some papers at the Guatemalan migration office and come back but I needed it. It was also weird because we had to wake up at like 5:45 to get ready because the van that took us there left at 6:30 and we had to get a bag with a little breakfast in it at 6-6:20. Anyways so that was fun to have a bit of a change in routine since things are very scheduled around here. 

Elder Mendez is really funny, and patient with me because he's always waiting for me. A story that shows both of these is I was finishing my dinner earlier this week and he had already eaten his, so had most everyone else, so we were one of the last people at the table and he said in his Morgan Freeman voice, which is actually pretty good, "And that is why they never left the cafeteria that night. Some believe they are still there to this day." Hahaha I thought it was really funny and he has a lot of those little subtle humor things. 

So yeah things are good. Life is good. But I cannot wait until I get to actually get out in the mission and actually apply all this stuff we're learning. But it's good and there is definitely a lot to learn here. 

We watched the Testaments and a devotional by David A Bednar on Sunday and it was so cool! The Devotional was when he debuted the song One by One which I got to play in Lyceum. So I'd encourage all of you to go to 3 Nephi and find all of the times it says one by one and think about it in the light of the Atonement and how Christ is far more concerned about the one. He cares about the individual. And that's our job as missionaries is to find the one out there who needs the gospel. 

Remember to read and pray every day!