Guatemala City South

hey mom, wow sounds like a lot has happened there this past week. as for brother banner, i will organize that this week and have it sent next Monday, or maybe tomorrow. i think i might be going to the office with the zone leader tomorrow but not sure yet so we will see. i will most likely just put all the stuff in the small suitcase i have and if you want you can send me a big suitcase to keep here, that way i have more room for stuff. (Oh great) just an idea. but make sure you send me a memory card because I'm sending both of mine home so i wont have one here for about a week. but they are full to the brim. about 800 pics. Not too much happened this past week but i will give you kind of a brief summary of the week. it was a hard week because here it is a week called semana santa. it pretty much is where everyone who lives in the capital pretty much leaves. our area was a ghost town this past week. no one was home, no one was in the streets, the people who were here want absolutely nothing to do with us. so that was a bummer. we did happen to work with president alvarado about 2 days of the week and he came to church with us on Sunday, it was really neat and he got a lot of things in the ward fixed that we couldn't get done but he took care of business.

Monday all we did was play soccer and in the night time we watched the movie Charlie with a family for their family home evening. it was also my 8 months celebration so we ate quite a bit with that family. it was sweet.

Tuesday we tried visiting some members since all of our investigadors are gone and we had a lot of family home evenings that day. that night me and my comp bought dominoes because i completed 8 months and he completed 15 months on wednesday. so we celebrated that night. oh and you know how you talked about that one kid elder oakey and his blog. well he is in my zone, so i took a picture with him and he is going to put my pic on his and i said you would put me and him on my blog. ha but yeah he is a really cool kid and we are good buds here. but that is pretty much our Tuesday.


Wednesday we went and visited an investigador and we were teaching her a lot about the gospel of Jesus Christ. it was really cool and we put a fecha with her afterwords to be baptized and she accepted. she is a really cool girl who has about 25 years and has a child, she is getting a divorce and it is really sad. we also found out there is a good chance she may leave by the end of this week so that will be a bummer but hopefully not. anyways after that we also learned that president came to our area this day but we didn't know about it. he came and he was meeting with a returned missionary and talking to them and all then that is when he met and talked with this one girl who i didn't know was an investigator and he put a fecha with her to be baptized and told her that he would baptize her. ha it was a huge shock to us because we had no idea that he came and that he did that but then we found out from some members and then the assistants told us. (Thursday one of the zone leaders came and he did the interview for this girl but there were some serious stuff that sometimes the district leader or zone leader don't have the authority to do, so that is why president came on Sunday to church so that he could interview her and she passed so she will be baptized this next Saturday. and confirmed on Sunday. how cool is that though mom. you were made a member on the first of may and this girl too will become a member of the church the exact same day as you. that is really neat. I'm going to have to tell her that.) So continuing on with Wednesday were just visiting some more members and we had dinner with a family that they are really cool. the guy knows a little English but I'm helping him learn a little bit more. also i don't know if you know this but this week we are starting an English class where i will be teaching here. I'm a little nervous but we will see how it goes. haha.

Thursday was that interview, and before that we cleaned our house so it looks perfect now. ha also we took our microwave apart and your probably going to puke at this, but there were about 200 crock roaches in there. it was so gross. we killed so many and they were just everywhere. but at least now our house is absolutely immaculate. the apartment we live in is within a house and the room is pretty much the same size as your room and my room put together. but in there is our beds, bathroom, and kitchen. haha so it is a little cramped but it´ll do. haha.

Friday, Saturday and Sunday, I'm combining these days because we couldn't do too much these days. I was incredibly sick and at one point I thought I was going to die. I had a horrible fever of about 103 and never have I missed home more. We visited a member who is the closest thing I have to you mom and she took care of me. ha, but other than that I just pretty much stayed home took pills and slept. it was horrible. I had the worst headache too and I had just no energy. I think I had no energy because we have been working out pretty hard here. but still it was just awful. Sunday in church president Alvarado was with us and he told me I didn't look good at all. but after church I asked my comp for a blessing and by some miracle I got better right after that. well not immediately but pretty quickly, I learned two lessons after that: 1) to never wait for a blessing. and 2) the power of the priesthood.

We're heading out of here. sorry the letter was short and boring today but i'll try to get on later today so i can write again. ha, nothing to exciting happened this week. but i hope all is well with you guys and i love you all so much and can't wait to talk to you guys. talk to you later

love elder daniel shipley


Elder Shipley

Starting the day w/ exercise in Guatemala.