Letter from Guatemala

We got two WONDERFUL emails from Guatemala on Tuesday. He started one, then continued in the second one. Here is the text of both:

Family and Friends,I just have to start off by saying that Guatemala is the place for me! I have loved it from the minute that our plane touched the ground. The food, the people, the climate... everything!Well that plane ride was not as long as I thought. Only about 6 hours in total. It went by really really fast. We are in the same time as Utah time right now so that is good.So the MTC (or CCM, as it is called in Spanish) here is amazing. If I ever expressed that I liked the Provo MTC, I was wrong. haha. This place is amazing. It is just so personal and everything is in the same building. I would probably get sick of being in the same building except everyday we get to go to this place called Casa de CRE which is around the block accross the street from the temple. Here we teach the teachers lessons and they act as potential investigators. They had a set up like this in Provo, but I love this one so much better. Now, it is still far from the REAL deal but It is way more realistic than is Provo. The temple is amazing and is so close. I see it out the window everytime I climb the stairs in the MTC.The food here is wonderful. Very fresh veggies and fruits with really good meats and potatoes and such. It is a lot like the food in Mexico with a Guatemalan twist. We have had hamburgers, hot dogs, fettucini alfredo, burritos, carne asada, tacos, pancakes, eggs(the best eggs ever), and lots of other stuff. They have a peanut butter and jelly table set up at lunch and they tell us to get our fix of peanut butter now because there isnt much in the field.Elder Davis is still my companion and I am really happy about that. He is so hard working and we are really growing strong together. We are getting pretty good at the lessons (In spanish, of course).Well heres the deal. I have to log out right now and log back in and I will have another 15 minutes to right.. so for now, TO BE CONTINUED

Elder Goodman

PART TWO:

Once again,I LOVE GUATEMALA! Ok so as I was saying, Elder Davis is my companion and I love it. We are really getting close. So the picture that was sent with my district is totally wrong. Right after they snapped the photo, we got all changed up. So we have 6 Hermanas and 6 Elders in my district. So weird. I havnt decided how I feel about it. On one hand, it is great because I love having girls around and they are a bit more mature and more hard working so they definately keep us on task, yet they all have really good senses of humor and we have a good time. On the hand, it is weird. We cant be to casual with them and we always have to be really polite (I know, right? j-k) and also, they are really pretty and I dont necessarily want to have to look at pretty girls all day now that they are banned from my life for 2 years. No, truthfully, it is great.There are 6 Elders to a room here and so in my room there is Elder Davis and I and 4 Elders Native to Central America. We really lucked out with that. We get to speak spanish a lot and we are getting really close to the Latinos. The language is going great. I pretty much understand everything. As long as they dont say it too fast. I just have to tell them to speak slower. Speaking is a bit harder. It is so much easier to read a good novel than to write one. But it is going well. It is weird because this keyboard is a spanish keyboard so that is the reason that there are no apostraphes in this email. Because I dont know where to find them.What else? I dont know, just know that this is where I am supposed to be. Oh, so Dearelder.com is probably not the most efficient way to get me information. Just email me. There is a 2-3 week delay and it isnt very exciting reading a letter that is out of date, but anything is great. Send pictures! I just realized that i didnt bring any pictures from life back home with me. Everyone has pictures to show but I dont...(frownyface cuz i dont know how to make one here) Well I dont have time to right everyone individually and I am sorry for that but I did get all of your emails. And also, Im not able to email twice during my pday anymore (frown) but at least I have email at all (happy face... if only I could find the colon button... oh, there it it :) :( there!haha) Oh, and the videos dont show up in the email.Anyways, it was great hearing about everyones lives (keep it coming) it was great hearing about Ari and Monica and Carter and life in Show Low. Oh, and Im actually not the stand out tall person here. There are two others Elders from the US that are as tall as me. So that is good. We will see how it is in the field Oh, and I cant email friends but I can recieve them.Elder Goodman

DON'T YOU JUST LOVE THE ENTHUSIASM THAT JUMPS OFF THE PAGE?! ( :