YESTERDAY I did not receive a letter, so I sent two emails....

this was the second.

today is the first day since you have been gone where if you had a cell phone there would be 1,000 messages saying, "where are you"? and then a humdinger of a voice message starting with, "I'm about to call the police!"
i'm sure you were doing something this morning - but you know me - i'm restless until I hear from you.  i hope to hear from you soon!! mom

TODAY, I received this response....
ha, this email made me laugh, i can just see you freaking out. we couldn't email yesterday because itf was day fo the dead so it was a holiday. but we will usually email mondays at 10 our time. which is only a hour ahead of you i believe. well i have to get off now, i will talk to you later. i love you guys. bye

AND ANOTHER LETTER:
hey mom,

aw im glad you liked my letter. i love you guys so much and am thankful for you guys so much too. that is neat that grammy gave a talk and of course she would talk about that. and yeah it is better that you supported grammy in that talk.  that is cool that kate and jon are coming, that will be fun for them. and i hope your surgery goes well. let me know how you are doing and when you get back to normal.  yes i am so tired at night i fall right asleep and the morning comes way too fast. it is so fun though and it is a good tired after a long day of work. we ride the buses a lot and i´ll tell you about them in a bit. so i haven't got the package yet but the zls tell me that it is in the office so i'm hoping that is it. but i´ll let you know. and yes send the camera card so i can send my other one home to you. i have quite a bit of pics for you. and the soap here is just bars of soap, and i like the body wash so much better. craig is still in utah in provo and is loving it, he has had 2 baptisms i think already. and yes send me that copy of jon's book as soon as possible. yes i love it when you send pics on the email. it doesn't take too long at all. but you should send me some pics through the mail too so i can have them to hold too. me and elder hardy are doing great. he is such a cool guy and is so smart in the gospel stuff. he is a great trainer and i learn so much from him. we have so much fun. our comedor lady is sick this week so we have to go out to eat this week so that is kind of a bummer cause then we have to pay for it. but yeah. we are in a ward and surprisingly the capilla, (chapel) is huge. it is so nice. i was shocked when i first saw it but when you come to guate i´ll show you it and you´ll be amazed too. we don't get to go to the temple every week and i think it is pretty rare, only if a family is getting sealed, or like once a year we will go. and yes we have laws for certain reasons. it makes us mad here because the people don't really follow the laws too well. but man it makes me appreciate america so much more and for the people who cant stand it i just want to go up to them and tell them to go somewhere else. my appreciation for everything has gone up so much. i miss having all those nice things in life. it is amazing how different it is here but the people are nice and funny but are sometimes very interesting.

alright now about my week.
first off, the slip on shoes, the soles on the inside are busted up, and makes it hard to walk in. i'm thinking of sending them back and you just sending another pair of the tie up hush puppies. they really are annoying so see what the guy at pomeroys says. i don't wear them because they are to uncomfortable to wear and i think its bad for my feel. i got bit by a dog the other day. luckily i was wearing these pants that were cheap and elder hardy gave them to me. it didn't get my skin but it got my pant leg. it was a close one. but it was so funny. we were laughing so hard at that. so anyways about these buses here. apparently this gang here in guate has given bus drivers some money and they never paid it back, and the bus drivers owe about 150 000 quets to them. one day we were walking up and we almost got on this one bus but elder hardy said to walk that day, so we were walking up and once we got up the hill that same bus we almost got on was shot up. some people were injured but no one died. it was scary and it is really sketchy to ride the buses and they all have guards  on them now but pres tells us that they are still safe and we should  still ride them. but they are just like buses that are from school buses. sometimes i think they stole those buses and that is what they use. haha. however i'm pretty sure we were on tv. because the next day the news people were in the area and me and elder hardy went in the background of the cameraman and were contacting, it was so funny. so yesterday was the day of the dead. which is kind of like another thing for halloween except they don't celebrate it they just go to the cemetery and party at the grave site of their loved ones. they are crazy people. anyways the day before they carry this box around that weighs a ton of weight and they carry it around the city and say that they are carrying their sins. they believe that they are being forgiven for them its not even funny. also on sunday we got to give a blessing to this one lady's brother. apparently he was beat up by some americans and was hurt really badly. i felt so bad for him because he could barely move and had some brain damage done to him. we went to his house and gave him a blessing because the lady said that she had faith that we could help him recover. we gave him a good blessing and said according to his faith he can be healed so hopefully he has strong faith and we can witness a miracle. and also i have 2 baptisms lined up already. one is this girl named diana and she is pretty cool. and the other is this guy who is crazy but he is hilarious. we taught him and even though i don't say much he says that he felt something with me and wants me to baptize him. it is really cool and it is a testimony to me that the spirit talks though us. well that is pretty much all the big stuff that has happened this week. i hope all is well at home and that you guys are having a blast. i'm sad that i'm going to not be there for your birthday but know that i´ll be thinking of you. i hope you have a great birthday mom and enjoy it. you are such a great mom and are so loving and you deserve a great birtthday. what a bummer that your knee is down and you can't celebrate it better but i hope that it goes well for you. have a great day and in 2 years, i´ll be there for that birthday. i love you guys all so much and am so thankful for all you do for me. and for the love you show me. well i will talk to you later.

love elder daniel shipley