1) Paul's Letter 5-31-10
hello....
.....a very interesting week this has been .. yes indeed..
.... we kicked it off with a special permission temple visit for elder loaisiga., his mommy and ward came from the big Nicaragua for a, more or less temple week.. it took them 20 hours in a bus to get here.. the thing was that elder loiasiga was not sealed to his parents.. so this was the chance to get that done and. this was the time to do it cuz they dont have the means to travel back after the mission.. their is a big check of his list.. o yes and i saw and talked to pres martiez from the 70 again.. he was in the temple at the same time.. i got to visit the lccm the mtc here in guat for the first time.. it was random cuz the fool at the gate would not let us in... but where their is a will their is a way!!!!.....elder loaisiga for some reason did a yelling contact.. i guess anything new helps.. but the whole time i couldn't stop laughing .. the contact didn't work.. haha...we were teaching a lesson on a front pourch and a little kid about 2 years old whipped out his john thomas right in front of us and got er done... haha when a man has got to go.. a man has got to go....i had the privilege to sing along with bob marley singing, red wine.. a very inspirational booster for my week!!....in other news..... i felt a tremor again!! they are so weird, if feels like I'm just dizzy when it happens.. haha, this time it was from a volcano 35km away.. . it rained for 3 days strait.. with ashes... kinda dirty.. kinda interesting.. 2 days this week we couldn't leave the house for some never to be know reason... really i have no idea why... so to kill some time i read my little heart out... and through the inspiration of a little quote book, started my own book... called the list.. i have the into and thats about as far as its gonna get for now...moving on.....it rained some more...... no electricity and no running water made for a fairly interesting slash fun night.. dont worry we have buckets and candles.. heheheh.. they called off Church for today.. kinda random.. but their is a first time for everything... ha.. cuz there was no electricity... but.... saber.. the no church situation messed with our stats a little bit....
happy birthday my cousin Rebecca fisher! i love you
Elder Oakey
...................TAKE LUCK...................
2) This letter from Katie will fill in the blanks from Pauls letter:
Below is the news from Katie a missionary in Guatemala City South
This week has definitely been a bit exciting and strange. I guess you´ve ready heard of the natural disasters mom, but I´ll give some details about them. On Wednesday, we spent all afternoon in the office in interviews with President Alvarado. There was an elder there that just had an operation for a brain tumor. He had the operation a week ago and is already up and walking Before the operation he received priesthood blessings. Really the power of the priesthood is true. Miracles happen in our times just as they happened in the times of the Savior. The elder looks as though he is well except for the stitches in his head. On Thursday, we were teaching a member when she told us that one of the volcano's of Guatemala was on the news. We didn´t think much about it until that night when we were leaving a lesson with Carlos. It had been raining most of the day, and when I left the house I opened my umbrella because as far as I knew it was still raining. What was my surprise to feel something crunchy under my feet. My companion soon followed and said, ¨This isn´t rain.¨ I stuck my hand out and something black was falling in it. We realized then that it was volcanic ash. It rained hard volcanic ash for about an hour. When we got home our whole patio was covered in the stuff. We took pictures. I´m sending them along to you. The volcano that erupted is called the Pacaya. We can see it from our area. It´s always sending up smoke, but I guess this time it was a bigger eruption. The next day, we weren´t sure if we would be allowed to leave the house because the area presidency announced that no one was allowed to leave until further notice. However, we received permission, and spent all morning helping people sweep up the volcanic ash and dump it in trash bags. The world was like a giant sandbox. The worst thing is that the sand was wet from all the rain and was difficult to collect. We did the best we could. From our own house alone we collected about three garbage bags full of the sand. In the afternoon that day, we couldn´t continue helping because it started to rain and the wet sand was basically impossible to collect. So we went out to work. On Saturday, in the morning, it was still raining, really hard, but no onesaid anything to us about a tropical storm. We went out to work and wereunder pouring rain all day long. The streets filled with water. Our shoeswere full of wet sand. Nevertheless, we continued. The people were very kind to us this day; we mostly visited less active members due to the miserable conditions. They gave us food and let us in to teach them. Even with
raincoat and umbrella, we were soaked to the skin. We decided at the end of the day to enter half an hour early. We found a message saying that when we got to the house we had to stay in the house because the storm was a hurricane. Shortly afterwards we received several calls saying that sacrament meeting the next day would be canceled. So, yesterday, we didn´t go to church for the first time in my whole mission. The irony is that yesterday it didn´t rain a drop, and we didn´t have permission to go out except between 12pm and 5pm. We spent most of the day in the house. Anyway, here I am well, happy, and safe. There is still lots of sand everywhere, but things seem to be calming down. The sun came out for the first time in a week today. We´ll see if the storms continue this week or if good whether comes.
3) News report and pictures from down in Guatemala and the devastation...
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE64S1A620100530?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews
