I'm in the Jungle!

I got a change to PETEN!

Peten is out of the capital and in straight up jungle! Seriously, it’s the prettiest place I have ever seen. Tecal and all the sweet ruins are in this area! All of the cool pictures you see of Guatemala are of this place My area is called Sayaxche. it is really sweet and supposedly one of the best areas in Peten. All the areas in Peten are HUGE! my area reaches the Mexican border. It’s like size of the whole capital almost. The one bad thing about this area is that it’s very hot and humid. On average it’s about 90 degrees and 90 percent humidity. haha so I’m going to be sweating a lot this change! but my comp is elder España, he is way sweet and a really hard worker, They just baptized a family of 5 last week. He says now that they don’t really have any good investigators so we are going to have to contact and work really hard these first couple weeks.

Oh my gosh I cant even begin to tell you how excited I am to be in Peten and out of the capital. My house is pretty cool, but kind of ghetto, we dont have any thing to wash our dishes except a pipe out side pocking out of the wall, and our shower is also a pipe sticking out of a wall, but its really hot here so I don’t even care if its cold water. we live with the district leader and his comp, both gringos...which kinda stinks because I want to work on my spanish and it will be hard with two gringos.

Let me tell you how I got here! First we get on a big tour bus and its really sweet! it had tvs, reclining chairs, air conditioning, and there weren’t very many people in there so we got to have a spot all to our selfs, haha but the ride was 10 hours long! but we came up as a group of six so we just talked all the way up there and slept. then we get to Peten at like 10:00 at night and we go and sleep at the zone leaders house, then in the morning we get up and me and my comp get in a micro bus and take a 3 hour ride to this river, load up all my bags on this boat and we have to cross this river to get to Sayaxche, it wasnt very big tho. then we walked with all my suit cases like a half mile to the house. haha I literally sweating from head to toe and it was like 9:00 in the morning.

My area is very green and jungley, but luckily there aren’t any mountains, its pretty flat, but the scenery is absolutely amazing!!!, I wish you guys could see it!

Oh and my companion says that there are wild monkeys here, and every one gives you coconuts because they grow every where around here, and there’s some big snakes :) so I’m so stoked to see some actual wild life! well family I’m doing better then ever right now! my stomach problems went away too ( thanks to Mckell's chinese stuff ) love you all and I know this church is true :)

Love, Elder Toolson

Bits and Pieces of May and June

Bits ad Pieces May and June

This week we had interviews with President, zone conference, then two really big service projects that lasted 5 hours in the after noon. Our first service project we went to a warehouse and packaged food all day, then we played ultimate Frisbee. Our second project was on Sunday in the afternoon it rained really hard that morning and a house was going to get crushed by a mountain of dirt so 50 people had to go and remove all the dirt by their house. No lie when I say mud came up to almost the middle of my shines, my shoes got ruined and I was covered in mud! But we really did save this house from getting destroyed so I didn’t even care

So last week I got to eat at Pizza Hut and KFC all in one week and its never tasted so good!!! haha its funny how here, Pizza Hut is amazing and some of the best pizza I have ever had but then in the states its like the worst pizza, I enjoyed every bite of it let me tell you!

Ok, so the other day we were teaching an investigator who lives on a little farm on a hill so when we teach him we sit on buckets, right side up, and we taught him for like 30 min and I was thinking dang my foot fell sleep from sitting on this thing, so I get up to shake off my sleeping foot and it turns out that it wasn’t just my foot but literally my entire right leg, and I dont know if you guys know how it feels to have an entire leg that fell asleep! It was like being paralyzed, so when I stood up and couldn’t use my whole leg I start to fall and tried to catch my self...yep didn’t work and I fell straight on my butt, hard, and it was all muddy and I’m pretty sure there was some cow urine mixed in there with it, haha so I felt like a total tard, and they both just sat there and laughed at me, and the worst part is i just had to sit there for a little bit because my leg had to get some feeling in it before I tried to get up again!! :)

This Sunday was actually kinda cool, we were teaching a kid named Rony the plan of salvation and he understood it all and liked it (which is rare) and after I asked him if he knew if this church was true,( I usually don’t asked that by the way), Rony just started crying and said this was the church that he has been looking for his whole life and it was amazing! so I asked if he’d want to get baptized but he has to ask his parents first, even tho he’s 22.

OK, I will start with last week: We worked really hard, especially with our new and old investigators. so this week at church 7 investigators showed up and had an amazing time! then on Sunday me and my companion went back to visit them and we set 3 fetchas for next week!!! a mom and her daughter, then a 22 year old kid, and seriously they will all be sweet members. We really ended the change amazing! but one of the bad parts is.....me and my companion had changes. haha so two new elders will show up this week and just get 3 baptisms, guess I am a sower, just not a reaper :)

The busses are running again!

"I don't know if it's poisonous.."

Mom looked it up, it's a "coffee" snake. they are really small and eat worms and bugs and are common pets in Guatemala. :)

What’s up family?!

To answer some of your questions, all is well in Guatemala now. The bridge is fixed and all the buses are getting through. They actually fixed it really fast, ha just poured some dirt and packed it over all the water, but its been working all week!

Yes I saw the pictures of the sink hole in the city, that thing is so big, and it’s like a perfect circle. It hasn’t really rained too much, about every other day for an hour or two, but clouds are always here, it will be bright sunny then literally 30 minutes later its covered in clouds again!

I thought that maybe with all the destruction in Guat. that it would make the people more humble, like you said mom, but it didn’t. It didn’t really do too much in this area. The people actually don’t even talk about it much., I even try to bring it up all the time and they just say a couple words about it. The only thing they want to talk about is the big sink hole thing. Maybe volcanoes and hurricanes are normal around here!

This week we went on changes with some priests in my ward, thinking it was going to be for one lesson or maybe two, but my companion told me that it was going to be for like 4 hours, which kinda scared me because I’m used to starting off the lessons and asking a whole bunch of questions and all that stuff, so I thought it would be pretty awkward, especially when I don't understand the question or something. I'm not gonna lie it turned out really well, we taught 5 lessons to all investigators and the kid I was with ( oscar) was actually a really good help and pulled out great scripture references and helped me understand some of the questions in spanish better. The Lord really helped me out and I understood a lot more then I usually do. At the end of the day me and my comp ended up with 13 lessons all together!!! so it was definitely a success. We might do it again this week so we will see what happens.

And mom, about drinking coke to get rid of parasites, remember another one of those different rules I told you about that this President has? well he said "your not allowed to drink cola or pepsi at all" and being the obedient elder that I am, I’m just going to have to live with all the parasites. Today me and my comp are going to Pizza Hut for the first time, and pizza hut here is literally a restaurant with waiters and menus and everything. so I'm pretty excited to go eat there cause every one says its really good :)

Hey this week I finished D&C and the pearl of great price. I never realized how amazing D&C was. I loved every page of it and learned so much about our church that I didn’t know before! Now my task is to read the mission library then the New Testament. but that might take me while because I’m going to read the mission library in English AND Spanish, except for Jesus the Christ cause that book is so long.

oh and I totally caught my first snake this week. it wasn't very big, only about 8 inches long and pretty skinny. but it was all red with a black head and black spots on its back. I don't know if it is a dangerous kind but I picked it up and it didn’t do anything so I just played with it and chased my comp around cause he's a huge girl about snakes.

I am loving my area and companion and mission so much more with every day. Its weird cause some days I'm like freakin out because the language is so hard and I cant speak it well, and its rainy and gloomy, but then the next day I'm like so excited to go talk to people about the gospel and I have all this confidence and loving life!. But don’t worry the bad days are getting fewer and fewer every week. and they don’t really even last the whole day so that’s good.

I have really felt the hand of the Lord in my mission more then I have ever before, I can literally tell and see all the things that he has helped me with. It’s amazing what the mission can do for you :) well family I love you so much and hope your having fun this summer in that good old Arizona heat!

Love, Elder Toolson

Sink Holes , Hurricanes and Volcanoes! What a Month!

A giant sink hole in down town Guatemala City.

Between the rain, flooding and ruptured water/sewage lines, these things will happen :)

Handfuls of Volcanic ash. I will be sending you some soon!

Never a dull moment in Guatemala!

No busses due to major flooding during hurricane.

OOPS No Buss for You!

What’s up friends and familia?!

This week as you probably know, was way crazy here in Guat! Let me start off by saying this entire week I saw the sun once. It was cloudy, windy and rainy all week.

On Thursday night it was about eight thirty at night, the companion and I were heading home from our last lesson and it starts to rain, and I look at my companion and I'm like "dang this rain is really dirty"...then it keeps getting dirtier and thicker so it finally dawns on me, freak, this isn't rain, it's ash! so we just start sprinting home . It starts raining ash harder and harder and it's making our clothes all black.

We get home and call the Bishop because this just isn't normal! He said a volcano exploded and it is pretty bad, our entire city got covered in it, but not too much lava rock hail like other cities, because luckily my city is pretty far from the volcano. So the next day the whole area was completely blanketed by ash, it looked like it does when it snows except it's a few inches of black, and not so cold!. So all morning we went around asking people if we could help them clean, and let me tell you guys what, ash is not the easiest thing to clean. a little while later 4 other members asked for our help so almost like the whole day we did service. I sure wish I had gloves! I have like 5 blisters on my hands from using a dang broom all day!

The next day it rained ALL day and I was thinking that dang I haven’t seen the sun in so long! On Saturday, no joke the rain did not stop again, it continued to rain harder than the day before, and it wasn’t like a little rain it was pretty dang solid hard. so we knew today is going to be hard doing out tracting because the rain is getting harder and its really windy. I'm not lying when I say that I have never been so wet in my entire life! I was walking up these hills and no lie the water was hitting my shoes and splashing up to my belt! the water was totally over the tops of my feet as we walked. My companion and I just looked at each other smiled and said ´oh the blessings of the mission´ and just kept walking… oh and on top of it, it was the coldest I have been so far, cause usually it doesn’t get cold when it rains. By the time we got home we were soaked from head to toe..literally. I kept seeing the video Sean and Ryan sent of the rain.. of course they sent the video form inside a nice cozy room! hahaha and when I got home I called another group of elders and they were like," dude we are in the middle of a hurricane so we didn’t even work today cause the rain was so crazy!" haha

But dont worry, our hard work paid off, because we worked through the rain and every thing so we got 6 new investigators!, so other then the ridiculous rain it was a great day:)

That night we get a call from the zone leaders and they said that we aren’t suppose to work tomorrow on Sunday and that church is canceled in all of Guatemala because the hurricane is supposed to hit, haha me and my comp had no clue about the hurricane until that night! so I was like freaking out a little because guat isn’t the best built country, and if the rain and wind we had already seen was going to be worse, oh man, we were in trouble! I was so afraid that so many of the houses here would seriously destroyed.

On Sunday we wake up in the morning and I see light in my room, and I am thinking what the heck?!?, I haven’t seen that kind of sun in a while, and I look out side and its a sun shiny beautiful day! . which is so weird because the area president canceled all church in all of Guatemala. No missionary could work, even though it was like the best day of the week by far! oh well, I'm not sure what happened about the hurricane, no one here gets the news paper, so we only go on what we hear from people on the streets. I do know that because of all the rain, a lot of peoples houses were flooded or there walls caved in and stuff. We ended up on Sunday doing service all day long.

THEN, this morning me and my comp go to get on a bus to go do our shopping and there are no buses to be found, which in Guatemala is very rare! so we walk like a mile down this road and we see a bunch of people and policemen so we go over to where they are and the ONLY street that leads out of our little city had fallen down and was washed away by the water...so no cars could come in and no cars could go out! so we had to just sit here all day go shopping at all the little tiendas here, (the little shops in peoples houses) so that wasn’t the coolest thing ever, haha these past couple of days have been a real treat :)

oh , now let me tell you about my little miracle that happened on Wednesday. so my comp was making french fries. He was chopping up potatoes and putting them in a pan full of hot oil. I was pretty cold and the house was really cold so I put my hand over the hot oil pan..pan to heat up you know, but not too close cause I didn’t want the oil to splatter on me and burn me, so I was just chilllin, I mean heating up one of my hands and then all of a sudden a potato explodes and boiling hot oil just explodes up out of the pan and it covers my hand in oil! I totally freak out cause I'm thinking I'm about to have third degree burn and stuff all over my hand, so i rush over to my sink and run my hand under the water and I'm like waiting for the pain to just hit me like a brick. after about 5 seconds later Im like...Where's the pain, oh this is bad, I must have burned it so bad there is no nerve cells so there's no pain, and I look at my hand and seriously nothing was wrong with, it didn’t even feel hot or burn or anything, and my comp comes running over looked at me and was like are you ok, and I showed him my hand he was like ´"dang man how are you not burnt right now?"´ so I dont know what happened there other then my own little miracle becuase, that oil was hot as it could of possibly have been and it did nothing to my hand.

so yeah this week has been really crazy.. and great and crazy.

I’m so glad to hear that dad and Chase’s talk went really well, so wish I could have been there! Chad, you and Dyl should have spoke, (Monstars rule!) You both need more practice before you come out here! I gotta say I'll take Guat over AZ for the next two years.. you should too! hahaha no serioiusly, let me know what I have to say or do to help cuz i'm kind of a retard when it comes to motivation. I know you feel it from me too, always have. The love is here in the service, I wouldn't want to be anywhere else. I am seeing some crazy shiz I'm not going to lie, it's not easy, but it's so cool. Love you like bro's i love my mission and Im so glad that I have the opportunity to serve the lord in Guatemala! I love you guys so much and pray for you every day, hope all is well and all are safe, love you !

Love, Elder Toolson

May 24th, 2010

What's up friends and family!

I had another great week this week! We set two baptisms appointments with so I’m way excited to see if they progress. We worked hard and got a lot done, I am glad I get to stay this time to see these thru to baptism.

Changes were today and me and my comp are staying together for another change so that’s good because he knows the area and so we can just keep going, but bad because he’s getting really annoyed with me for always being on his case. I keep threatening him with a smack down, and then try to guilt him into doing what is right. I think this next change will be really good though.

This week I had a very humbling experience . I was sitting in a recent converts house teaching them about eternal families and it started to rain very hard. Every one has metal roofs here, so the rain is Loud!!, and as we were teaching I see all this water just flooding in to their house so of course I freak out asking what we need to do to fix it and they just looked at me and laughed and said its normal and we can just go into the other room, so we go into the other room...like 5 feet away cause there house is very small, and we start teaching them again and then more water starts pouring in and we are all sitting on the bed. All their stuff is just soaked and they just sat there like they didn’t care, so I asked them if it was normal and they said yeah and they will just take a broom and sweep out all the water tomorrow, then they asked us to leave because they did not want our stuff to get all wet. When I got home it hit me how different these people live. And they don’t complain. I mean in the states that would never happen even in the ghettos, and here its like normal. its so sad and humbling for me to see the most sweet and nice who have so little and they don't whine about it.

Oh and here's another weird experience. We went up to teach this kid on the very top of this huge hill and right when we get up there this other little kid is carrying a baby cow on a string and just dragging it, so I asked him what happened and he said it died like 30 min ago, and he was dragging it to throw it over the hill, so I asked him if he needed help, and he said yeah so I carry the dang thing over to the edge and he tells me to throw it over the hill because he cant do it, so I look at him and smile, then I start just spinning in circles as fast as I can, doing my best shot put at the Olympics imitation, and no lie I seriously chucked that cow like 50 yards!, I felt kind of bad but it was dead so that's not so bad right!? the little kid was really impressed.

I cant believe that the Gilbert temple will be finished right when I get home! that's so cool. I can’t wait to go there. I love the temple.

well not much has happened this week other then setting baptisms, so I will talk to you guys later! love you guys so much and hope you all are doing amazing! I know this church is true and the Book of Mormon is the true word of God, there's no other place I would rather be right now then Guatemala!

Love, Elder Toolson

May 17, 2010

Can't touch that!

What’s up Family and Friends!!

This week went really good actually, I sat my comp down and told him straight up that he can’t take naps any more and we have to leave on time and we are going to work our butts off this week. and he said ok...he seemed a little annoyed because I said it but I don’t care at this point. But hey, what do you know? we totally set two people with fetchas and got like 105 percent of our goals!

This week is the last week on my second change, and for you people that don’t know this, next change will mark my 6 month mark which means that I will have officially finished one fourth of my whole mission! haha Which is really weird and cool, the only bad part that I can think of is that my spanish still sucks, so that is a huge disappointment. It is coming along and I just keep telling myself that every one goes through it which means I have to go through as well. I am talking better and more in flow but I still have a so much spanish to learn.

We should get the call this Saturday whether we get a change or not, and I sure hope that my companion doesn’t get changed because I do not know the members very well or my area very well which is not good at all if I have to be in charge. I finally figured out why I don’t know my area as much as I knew my other one, it;s because I had elder Letner telling me in English about all the members and so I knew all about them, and where they lived and stuff, but now I cant really talk to my companion very well so I don’t know anything about the members. I just hope that either we both stay or I get a change because if he gets a change its gonna be a rough third change for me!

All is well, the Lord will provide and I know he will help me out with my area. Nothing has really happened this week thats story worthy, but we did have a cookie/ movie morning today! My district leader calls me up and says at 10:00 that we are going to the church to watch the life of Gordan B. Hinckly and the Testaments and I have to bring my cookie mixes that you sent haha so that was amazing because I haven't had a real good cookie in a while, and they all loved it and say to tell you thanks mother. So thanks for those mom!

oh and I want to give a shout out to mis amigos and I want to tell them how much I love them, and tell Chad and Dylan to write me because I want to hear about there lives! And tell them I love them more then a fat kid loves cake! And they better be doing what ever it takes to get their butts on a mission because I will have to lay a serious smack down on them if they are slackin!

I love you and hope every one is doing really well, the Church is true!

Love, Elder Toolson

April 26, 2010

Go Gringo!

Soup

April 26^th, 2010

What’s up Family?

I miss you, and this week was another good week! the weather was amazing, it rained only once for an hour then the whole week it was just barley cloudy so it covered the sun and had a little breeze, I loved it, because when it’s not cloudy it’s so freakin hot! One day it rained, and right after the sun came out and seriously it was the most humid it has ever been! I was sweating bullets, that was a hard day This week all together was good, we found a lot of new investigators, around 20 which is the best I have ever done, but now the challenge is to see if they will want to see us again and we can invite them to be church. This area is hard but at the same time has a lot of potential so we will see how it goes this coming week.

For p days in my new area so far i have done nothing, the first week was the transfer so i didn’t do anything, the second week we went to the capital because my companion had to do something for his credit card. This week I went to the area office and had to sign a paper for my passport. Last week every one played dodge ball, haha and yes I still eat taco bell but this week since I was like in the middle of the city we went to KFC, which is way better here than in the states let me tell you!

Oh I have a story for you guys...so we have this lesson with this inactive member and we get there and they are killing chickens so they can sell them and make this weird chicken soup. You know the kind you always hear about with the feat still in it. They were taking the chickens and slitting their throats, then boiling them, then plucking the feathers and all that jazz. My companion was l freaking out and saying how nasty it was, then the member asked him to do one and he was like ´no way that’s nasty´. Then he turns to me and was like `hey gringo wanna try` haha so I said why not that sounds fun!. So he takes this chicken and stuffs it’s head down a construction cone until only its head is popping out and he hands me the knife and says to have at it. I’m freaking out (inside), because I don’t have a clue what I’m doing and this chicken is wigging out so I grab its head and yank down on it so it cant move and just start cutting and before I knew it I just chopped the chickens head right off....haha I wasn’t supposed to do that, only cut it’s throat. I think he was kind of mad but that’s what he gets for letting a gringo do it any way!!

Fam, I’m doing mighty fine and it’s only getting better for me. The Lord has blessed me with so much, so I’m going to work my butt off for Him. ..And yes, I’m doing the Book of Mormon thing, I”m on page 80 and I made a goal to myself to finish the promise by may 25, which is really hard let me tell you! but I WILL do it. I love you!

Love, Elder Toolson

I hate the rain!

Typical Guatemalan Dog..Not a huge fan. Creepy looking and mean!

From here to there

Let it rain!

Much greener here than my last area

Hey family!

Another great week. we really worked hard and we ended up with 12 new investigators. we have had two fetchas with these really sweet girls. When ever they see us they ask for us to teach them and they loved going to church this week which was a good thing. This week has really boosted my confidence because we have worked really hard and had a lot of success.

I have come to realize that I hate the rain! The rain makes me want to go sleep and do nothing, all it’s done this week is rain!...and no I didn’t slip down the stairs again or anything! They say that for the next two months it is the stormy season so that stinks for me! I’m just going to have to get it out of my head and keep working harder.

The members here are really cool, they love church and always have al ot of questions for us and they give us a lot of references too, which I love. We got 7 references this week which is good. oh and guess what!? the freaking suitcase came! holy cow you guys must really love me cause that thing was packed full of goodies! Thank you so so so much for that, and tell the Wardrops and Hancocks thanks too for me, I love them! haha I think I will be set for snacks for the next 6 months!

Last week when we were going home from using the internet we went to get on a bus and it was packed full so they said to just jump on top, it had a rack on it so don’t worry. We were thinking that this would be cooler, and should be fun, so this bus goes flying off because it’s full to the top and it doesn’t need to stop for any one else. There are wires hanging from the streets missing us by inches, the trees are hitting the bus on top and it was so scary, iI loved it!!!! You know me and roller coasters, it was like a real life death defying roller coaster! it takes about one hour to get home from the city part where we shop.

my new area is more farm land, there are a lot of chickens, cows and horses that just walk around town eat all day its pretty cool. the area is pretty big so I do a lot of walking but the hills are not as bad so that is good. This area is usually hot, but it is the rainy season so its actually like really good weather besides the whole rain part.

My apartment is way cool, it’s just me and my companion, we have a really nice shower and the shower head is set up high so I don’t have to bend over. We have a little work out place so that’s cool.. My new district is really awesome, they are all hard workers and do wha’ts right. My zone is alright, I don’t really know any one, but elder Jennings who is from Mesa and went to Mt View. He’s amazing, I like to talk to him. I’m almost done with the Book of Mormon, just another two days maybe!

ok well I gotta go fam, I love you so much and hope all goes well and don’t worry about me I’m doing fine over here!

La Lyenda Uno

Elder Garcia, my new companion from Honduras

Hola familia!

This past week was pretty good, we worked really hard and we got a baptism date!! haha Then, what do you know??...I gotta a change! , yep, I got it this morning. My com is a latino and he is way cool and I hear he is a hard worker so that makes me feel so good you have no idea. I’m about an hour away from my last area and it is way different. its kind of weird. this area is called La Lyenda Uno and its about 6 times bigger then my last area so i will be doing a lot of walking. haha so pretty much this change will be by far the hardest part of my whole mission cause now I actually have to speak Spanish! and walk alot. this area is a hard area too but I dont care cause i am bound and determined to get a baptism this change! All is well, my companions name is Elder Garcia and he is from Honduras.

It’s been raining, we ran into our house at the end of the night and I slipped going down the stairs again! haha i swear it’s the shoes, except this time was way worse, i slipped so hard that my legs flew out and my tail bone just smashed the end of the stair, then I tried to save my self with my elbows and totally nailed those, then my back smashed the stairs too. My tail bone still hurts a week later but my bruises went away on my elbow and my back is finally, haha yeah I’m retarded.

since I was leaving and it was Fast Sunday I went up there and bore my testimony...haha my first time during sacrament meeting and it was in Spanish. it was weird because I really grew to love the people so when I went up there I actually started to cry a little, ha so I just stood at the pulpit for a good 20 seconds to stop then I was good. Because if I would have cried they for sure wouldn’t have understood me! After church and lunch we went out working again and we got that date set with a guy named carlos, he is super cool and I’m bummed I won’t be there for the baptism. hahaah poor Elder Letner! This whole he was saying that he was going to get a change because he has been in this area for so long, so he was trying to teach me the streets and he was so happy to leave the area., I told him if he didn’t get a change I would laugh at him, so Saturday night comes around when every one gets there changes and we are sitting there waiting and the zone leader came out and said only me and elder shone are getting changed and the look on elder Letner’s face was just horrible, and the worst part is he didn’t even say anything, and I felt really bad so I didn’t make fun of him...until the next day of course! but yeah elder Letner has been out for one year now and has only been in two areas which were both really bad by the way.

How the heck are you guys doing to Hawaii?, you guys are just living the life now that your baby is out of the house!

Well, I’m not gonna lie this new area feels so weird to me...its kind of strange because I have never felt this way, not when I went to the mtc or got to Guatemala. I think its like hitting me how different it is, how real, especially now that I have a Latino companion so I have to speak more Spanish and he’s from a whole different country. Don’t worry about me though, I’m going to love no matter what! I am so excited to go out and work another new area! oh and tell Stacy thanks for trying, it probably wont come but he was nice enough to try. I didn’t think they would let him travel around my old area, it’s too dangerous for tourists.

I love you fam, be safe and choose the right!

Love Elder Toolson

This is the Place

Welcome to Guatemala

This would be considered the third street over on the right passed the one on the left. Got it?

YO YO YO!

The guys

The Kitchen

The Weight Set

And Sponge Bob..What more could I want?

March 17th, 2010

March 17^th, 2010

Mom’s note: K.C. is my third child to go on a mission. After Ryan got home I realized how much was not told to moms. Evidently some moms worry too much and are too delicate to hear the realities of a third world mission . That is not me. I made my boys promise not to hold back on my account, because if I don’t know the particulars, how am I supposed to direct my prayers! If I have enough faith to send my boys on a mission, then I better have enough faith that they will be protected.

Well one more week down!

I will start off with my area, I’m still in the capital. I’m in zone 18, it is like one of the most scariest places in Guatemala. It’s really ghetto, and is really small, its like 2 square miles., haha dad you would like it, it’s like mini hikes all day long because we are always constantly going up and down hills. Another name for my area is Paraiso Dos, or Alameda. It is around an hour and half from the airport so i might be able to see Stacy Brimhall. If he comes, he will have to ask my mission president.

In my area 3 people have died from gangs about half mile away from me, so its pretty normal to hear gun shots at night, that is why our curfew is 8:00 and not 9:00. But dont worry I feel safe and use the spirit to guide me at all times.

Lucky for me I have one of the nicest houses in our mission except the ap´s, its two stories with 3 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms. I love it! haha We even have a man made weight set so i work out every morning, nothing heavy but enough to sustain some muscle. I have lost some weight here but not much. The six elders in our house are hilarious. Half are latin, and make me laugh even though I have no clue what there saying haha.

I am eating really good actually, almost too good. I have only ate at two members houses so far. The first time they bought us these tortillas filled with cheese covered in salsa which were amazing and the second time they made us beans mixed with rice and some eggs which was also good. Other then that I make my own food. This last week i ate like a king! I had spaghetti, eggs, tacos, fajitas, these home made pizza pockets, and ham and egg sandwiches and a bunch of other stuff! so i haven’t really experienced the real guat food yet. I think the milk here makes me have b.u, I had it so bad one morning that we couldn’t even go out. I felt bad because we had people to see but my stomach was going to explode! After lunch I was fine so that was good. oh and since my area is like really dangerous I cant really take many pictures. We cant let other people see our cameras unless they are members so i have only taken like 20 pics

One funny thing about Guatemala that I never knew for some reason is that they burn everything here, some areas that just pile up huge piles of trash and set it on fire, it smells so bad because there are dead dogs and all kinds of nasty crap.

President Torres wants us to make a "go bag" because of the earthquake in Chili. Evidently, Guatemala has like a 90 percent chance of getting an earthquake too so that is kind of scary, and one of the quorum of the 70 came down last year and said soon as Guatemala has 6 missions in it, there will be a major catastrophe and we are splitting our missions in like a couple months so we will have six pretty soon.....haha so its very likely I will be in a big earth quake or something. Bing it!

Friday we had a bad day again where every body was canceling or just not there so we contacted for no joke 4 hours...longest day of my life, then my companion ask me where I wanted to go knock and I told him I didn’t know the area so I didn’t care. All of sudden I felt inspired to go up this little hill to this little house that sat all by its self and my comp was complaining because his legs are so much shorter than mine, but I made him go because he asked me where to go and I was inspired! We met this guy named Kevin and he invited us in immediately and we taught him the whole first lesson and he really liked and he wants us to go back tomorrow!! I’m so excited.

Another thing that is cool is that the area I am in is an area that is low in baptizing and making and reaching it’s goals. This week we made 87 percent of our goals and my companion said that is the highest he has gotten in 4 months!, we have 9 new investigators this week so im excited to see what happens with them!!

The language is going a little better and I am teaching a little more but im still not progressing as much as I want too. This week I am going to push my self harder to learn the language because I hate just sitting there with a big fake smile on my face not knowing what they are talking about!! I think it may take me longer then most people to learn the language but I have peace with it and i don’t get to frustrated. I’m just going with the flow and trying my hardest! So far the mission is good, nothing too bad and the days aren’t too hard but it definitely makes me work my butt off, and it feels good to come home and be really tired.

I like p days because we go out to eat for lunch. Today we had Taco Bell which is really good!

I love you so much and just know that I am doing fine over here. I’m actually starting to like it a lot already...except this dumb language!

Love, Elder Toolson

Day of Arrival in Guatemala

These are all the boys who came out with K.C.

Ahhh.

I stole these pictures from the Guatemala City North Mission blog. Thanks, Sister Torres!

Hello From Guatemala!

President and Sister Torres

Elder Letner

March 2010

Hola from Guatemala!

Let me tell you about my whole week. We get to Guatemala at 9:00 p.m. The president and his wife and the AP elders pick us up in this cool looking bus. They feed us Burger King on the bus then take us to the CCM (Guatemalan MTC) We sleep there for the night. We wake up at 5:00 am the next morning and we get assigned a trainer for the day. my trainer for the day was elder Letner. we go with them all that day and we go tracking and just do regular missionary stuff all day. mind you they told us when we went with them that we could only bring a grocery bag of clothes cause we were sleeping with them that night. so that day was really weird cause i didn’t know if elder Letner was my real comp or not. I had to teach parts of lessons and I met the bishop and I met some cool families and stuff. It was a lot better then I thought it would be. then after that long day we ate spaghetti :) that was a relief for me. then the next day we have to go back and we woke up at 4:00 a.m. because we had to take a dumb bus all the way back to the presidents house. We get to the presidents house and there are l24 of us. Sister Torres made taco salad stuff and that was really good, then she gave a big talk about safety and what to do and not to do. President Torres spoke to us about some missionary stuff and who our new companions were, and yes, I am with elder Letner. We were the only ones who stayed together.

Get this, elder Letner is actually from Arizona. In fact, he is from Higley! i think that’s why we stayed together or maybe because he’s only about 5 feet 6 inches and about 120, he is pretty small. Maybe I need to look big beside him. Haha. He is a pretty cool kid but we are like complete opposites, he likes video games and has a weird sense of humor and I’m pretty sure we don’t get each other. It’s all good though because he might think I’m weird too J I’m just so glad I didn’t get some tool. Letner went to Higley high but he didn’t know any one that I knew.. so the rest of the week went pretty well. the days went really fast except Saturday. That day was horrible because seriously, all of our lessons fell through and so we just contacted people for 5 hours. it sucked. On the bright side there is this family who I really like, named the Chigue family and they sell donuts so every time we go over there they give us like 4 donuts! I love it :) the language is bad for me or I’m so bad at it and it really bothers me here. Since my companion is a gringo he always talks to me in English so I never speak spanish except sometimes during lessons and contacting which is a problem because I don’t know much enough Spanish except my testimony,. Anyway, this week my goal is to speak as much spanish as I can, in lessons and everything, every one tells me that your 2nd companion is always Latin, so i don’t want some Latin elder taking advantage. So hopefully the language gets better. Over all this week has been pretty fun.

I’m not going to lie. We have some strange rules here like: no playing basketball or soccer (instead we actually we play dodge ball). no drinking coke or pepsi...and thats like all the Guatemalans drink here, and constantly offer us. Other missions they say that is what kills the parasites. Oh well. We no longer have cooks so we have to cook all our own meals, and we have less money then usual. yeah I’m kinda bugged, but I’ll get over it easy enough. So far every night we have spaghetti haha dad would love it, I got really lucky and live with 2 other companionships so we have a big nice house..for Guatemala at least. I like all the people in my house, they are really funny. The zone leaders are way tight, one of them elder Lopez is a like a really good cook and he cooks our food sometimes and he’s amazing.

Oh and next time you send me a package some of the stuff I want is candy like starburst sour patch kids and gushers and other stuff and haha peanut butter! well family I love you so much and I really didn’t think I would ever miss you this much, ha my eyes are getting all teary right now just thinking about all you. haha only 22 months left right!? and dad i have been using your saying "today is the best day of my life" it has helped a lot cause it is hard out here. Well just know that all is fine with me Sorry, I’m pretty sure I’m missing a lot of details.

I love and miss you guys so much!!!!!

Love Elder Toolson