Guatemala City South

hey mom, im so glad to hear you got the package, that was pretty
quickly. but then again, the man who runs the mail here is slow, so in
america it must be quicker. ha. i hope the ipod gets here safely. im
dying for music. ha and thats funny that you thought you got flashed
by those cameras. were you speeding? ha, that is really cool that
travis had a nice reception. im glad everything is working out for
him.  and yes i am so thankful for bishop cook
and how he prepared me for my mission. he taught me some very
valuable things and i know that i grew a little better because of
what he taught me.    wow those sound like good talks. i hope that when i
give my homecoming talk i can do a really good job and share some
really spiritual experiences. one thing that i have learned here is
that god does love all of us and that he really does want to protect
us, but as our doctor says, god cannot protect stupid people. if we
arent willing to do what he says and be obiedient then he cant help
us. thats why he gives us commandments and revelations through
prophets so that we can be safe. so i know what i have to do to be
safe i just have to follow those and be obedient. so apparently our
passports and visas go into a safe at the mission home and that way we
dont lose them and get in trouble. so i think they are safe for now
but we will find out. i meet my mission president tomorrow and then we
have interviews and orientation. then wednesday i meet my trainer and
go to work, i cannot wait, i am so excited to go into the campo.
(field) its going to be so fun, and i hope that i have a really good
trainer. i am not sure about the letter situation yet but i will find
out soon. i think my pday will be on mondays but idk yet. we have not
got our debit cards yet so i dont know what the story is on that, i
think we get them tomorrow. i havent used the blankets yet but im not
sure if i will have to, im sure i might if it was in the packet. and
yeah i havent used the bug spray yet but we havent been outside yet,
im sure ill be using it alot more over the next 2 years now. and im so
glad to hear that you knee is doing better. that is such great news.
ha now i need to start directing my prayers at dad for his pains. ha,
well i hope you both get better and feel better.

ok now i have some things/ideas that i thought of and some questions.
first off one of the kids got ranch corn nuts in a package and i
forgot how much i loved those so if you could send some that would be
cool. and its a bit of a stretch but i miss hot chetoes so much. ha,
also this one kid had this genius idea, when ever his family has
family reunions, they record everyone in the family on a casset tape
and send it to him for him to listen to. i think that is a really neat
idea and that would be cool to do that too. also i thought you said
somewhere you were sending me a book from jon. i havent got it yet or
did i just make this up in my head, ha, but yeah. now some stories
from this last week. so on saturday we had a salon general with my
friend hermano flores and we were able to teach the latinos some
english and help them practice. they are supposed to learn english as
part of what preach my gospel says and it kind of gave them an idea of
what were going through learning spanish. english is hard to explain
but it was really fun. For our fake teaching we teach at this place
called casa De Cre, our instructor recorded us the first night we were
here and then the last time. it was amazing to see how much we have
grown over these past few weeks. and then at the plaza this last week.
i did amazing, i was terrified becasue they paired me up with a new
north american he was really cool, and i did really well. we ended up
getting 8 people who wanted the missionaries and handed out like 13
pamphlets. i got this idea too that everyone from home should put
their testimony in spanish in a blue book of mormon and send it here
so i can pass it out to people and they can have some testimony book
of mormons here in guatemala from america. just an idea though. and
one last story then ill email later. president steimle shared this
story yesterday. he said before we came to this earth we were all
rejoicing and excited to go to earth and be in a family with the gospel. but
some of our brothers were crying and were sad because they werent. but
in heaven we promised them that we would find them and that we would
make sure that they found the church. as missionaries we are living up
to that promise and we are finding our brothers who we promised we
would find up in heaven. that was really cool and made me really
excited to get out into the field and get going on my work. well i
will talk to you later. i love you all so much

love elder shipley