Holly COW!

Ok so yesterday was quite interesting for me. I still haven´t really mastered praying in spanish and I´ve been working on it. Last Sunday they asked Scott to say the opening prayer in sacrament and I have had a feeling they would ask me soon too. So his past week, I´ve been kinda learning and trying to get some words down. So yesterday we sit down and a few mins later they start. So I´m thinking ok, they didn´t ask me this week maybe next week. We have the sacrament and then the bishop get´s up and tells everyone who´s going to speak and such and then he says ¨our bennidiction will be givin by Jessie Dolan¨ he looks at me and so does everyone else!...then he says ¨please.¨ I think the shocked look on my face made him say please. So...I then started preparing a prayer the rest of the metting. I was so nervous! Of course everyone said I did a good job. People are saying that I have a good accent...I just need to get more words down. haha So, I got over that and we went to class. We are going to gospel priciples because it´s a smaller class and she talks slower so it´s easier to understand. We get in there and the teacher asked scott if he would teach the lesson next week with my help! They are starting to get a little too friendly here. I guess it´s good for us. Helps us learn a little bit faster.

Well, we were hoping to go with the Ixcots (ishcaughts sounds like scott with a ish in front) to pick up there son but the father was feeling a lot better and he decided to go so there wasn´t enough room in the car for us. The car ended up having problems on the way there so I guess it was a good thing. They showed us pictures of his before he left and he has changed a lot! He was 35 lb heavier then he is now. Thelma, the mom, says she liked him bigger. ¨no me gusta, no me gusta delgado¨she says. She´s very cute. She likes the chubby cheeks.

We are looking to go to Lake Atitlan this weekend. We have been looking into shuttles or bus ride and we started talking about it to the ixcots and they said it was very expensive, so they are willing to take us down there if we pay for gas. haha They are such an awesome family. So we haven´t decided but we will either leave Thur or Fri and be home Sat night probably, since scott has to teach the lesson on Sun. We are a los looking ino some hikes around here...there are quite a few. See if we can´t loose a few pounds. haha All the pastels....I tell ya. No, I don´t think I´ve gained a lot if any. Scott´s starting to get some love handles, which I don´t mind. haha We will take lot´s of pictures of our adventurs to show you when we get home.

Well, that´s about it this past weekend. Oh scott it still a little bit sick. It´s just a stuffy nose and head pressure which makes you very tired all the time. Pretty much what I had a week ago. He´s getting better though. Well, I will write more later! Adios

Much Better

Well, at lot of things have improved the last few days. A lot of our ichy spots have gone away and I´m feeling a lot better. Scott´s getting a sore throat now and not feeling the best so i guess I gave it to him. Opps. Today we both have splits with the missionaries, that we are looking forward to. Tomorrow we head to Guatemala city to pick up the son from his mission. The family is getting everything ready, painting, cleaning and every dinner and lunch they are talking about. It´s so much fun.

Last night was so much fun! We were invited to dinner from this family in our ward along with there aunt (who is teaching us spanish) and her husband. It was such a wonderful spirit there and they were so happy to have us. After we ate dinne the husband got his guitar out and started singing. It was so awesome! He had such a strong deep voice and it was all in spanish! So awesome. We reorded some so I could remember it. I have a soft spot for deep voices and a guitar. He had a very funny personality too. He was always teasing and he showed us some magic tricks. haha Definitally a good night to remember! Well, till tomorrow!

Chiggers not Jiggers

Well, we looked on the internet to see what exactly these chiggers were...yeah really gross. I'm pretty discusted about the whole thing, but the Elder that told us about the whole Chigger thing, said they burrow in your skin, the i-net said that is just a disbelieve. They actually just bite you and some saliva is injected which is why it iches so much. So...we have been washing everything and taking showers a lot. Scott found some pills that actually help your body get rid of everything faster so he's getting better. I am as well, without the pills. So hoepfully we will get ride of it here soon. We got a little bit scared cause the internet said that it can last up to 50 days! No thank you! (here is a picture of our bedroom)

I'm still dealing with my nose and ear problem. Not getting a whole lot of sleep because of it, but I'm not bed ridden and it's sunny so I'm enjoying the sun!

Scott finally got a call from the elders here and he's going to go on splits with them. We have had a really hard time getting them to work with us. They always say they will call and they never do so it was pretty exciting to finally get a responce from them.

Well, we are still optomistic about this trip that there will still be more great experiences to come. We are still looking into go to a few other places here...no finaly decisions yet. Have a good day!

Still a little bit sick but WAY better!

Hello everyone! Well, Scott hasn´t gotten sick yet and I´m feeling better. Yesterday I felt really good and got a good nights rest sat night. Then right before bed on sun night my nose started running and I got all congested again and didn´t sleep hardly at all....so I went back a little bit but it´s way better then fevers and chills. I feel like I´m getting better though.

This week has some pretty exciting things happening. On Sunday we were invited to a lady´s house for dinner on Wed. Also the sister missionaries are finnaly read to go on ¨splints¨ (they just had transfers so they have a few greenies) and so I set up times for Thurs and Sun evening to go with them. The Fri after noon we will go with the Ixcot family to pick up there son from the mission in Guatemala city, spend the night there with there family and come home later Sat. So...very excited. The whole family is SO excited to see there brother and son. Reminds me of when Drew came home from his mission.

We are starting to look into some other trips and things. We still really want to go to Lake Atitlan and Antigua. The family is going to take us to the coast to this amusment park, they say similar to six flags....but I doubt it here. We´ll have to see. So...we only have 3 more sunday´s here and we want to go a few more places. So, we will let you know when we do.

As far as weather it´s been pretty rainy. It was nice and sunny thing morning and then it started raining. Reminds me a lot of Oregon actually. Not really knowing what the weather will be like. During the day it doesn´t rain very long, but at night it sure does. Just about every morning though it´s sunny and bright till later in the day. So it´s still nice weather, just not hot. I doubt I will get a tan while I´m here. Oh well.

We both just found out that right after this trip we will be going to Virginia as well. We leave Aug 19th and come home the 25th. So we get to go on another vacation. Maybe I´ll get a tan there...! Last night with the family was really fun. We played this game in spanish. We lost cause you have to know vocabulary...it helped us learn some but it doesn´t help at the moment..haha. We got the whole family playing and joking. Fun memories! Well, not a whole lot else going on...I will try to write more tomorrow. Adios!

Sick again...

Hello everyone. Well, I´m sorry I didn´t write yesterday I was pretty sick. The father got a fever and then next day my ears and throat hurt. Along with a fever later on that day. So I was in bed almost all day. Pretty weak too. I´m feeling a little bit better today, not completely myself though. Oh and we talked to some people about what our little red spots that ich a lot would be. They think that we got what they call ¨Jiggers¨. It´s a little bug that crawls in your skin and dies. So it was probably Tikal trip. We thought that we were just allergic so something in the water or poison ivy, but it´s not going away with any alergy medicine. So....now how you make it heal faster is we are rubbing alcohol on the red spots to kill the bug faster and then putting anti-ich cream all over. Scott it worse then I am. He´s got it all over his back, legs, and arms. I just have a little on my elbows and ankles. So...A few unexciting experiences but then again it´s an experience!

Well, not a whole lot else going on other then being sick and sleeping a lot. I hope scott doesn´t get it. He´s a really bad sick person. He complains a lot. haha Well, that´s the update and I will let you know on Monday what´s happening. Adios!

Another day here...

Hello everybody. Well yesterday we went and saw Harry Potter, the new one. Except it was in spanish so I don´t know how much of it I actually got. Here to go to the theater it´s Q25.00 which is around $3.20 but last night it was a two for one. So it was even cheeper and why not go see it. I can say I´ve seen it...I´m just not sure what exactly it was about... :) Oh and also we went to Hiper Piez which is like a mall here. I have put a picture of what they call monopoly. haha I thought it was pretty funny. Oh and here is a picture of how much pasturized cheese is here. Everyone eats the homemade kind in a corn husk. I like the cheese here actually! So the exchange rate it $1.00 is Q7.66. So for Q50.00 1 lb of cheese is $6.52. That´s a lot for just one pound. Nuts is even more. It´s like Q70.00 per one little can.

Scott and I decided to get a few little kid games and things to help us learn more spanish. For me, my mind has finaly excepted spanish and I´m understanding it a lot better and as of right now can speak it better. I´m not perfect...but better then I was. Scott feels like the opposite. He went with Enoc (the son off his mission) to work today and try and speak more spanish to people. He wanted to know more then he does now. We tried looking into some volenteer work and we haven´t really found anything yet. I will keep looking though. I haven´t been very sucessful in finding a cooking class to go to. They don´t really have them here because you are just supposed to learn if from your mom...and our mom we live with already has 3 daughters she´s trying to teach. So...I´ve gotten some pretty good ideas on food though. As far as salsa classes go....we haven´t gone yet. They are all in bars and we haven´t worked up to courage to go.

Oh and yesterday we got out leather covers in leather with church pictures carved on them! So cool. I can´t wait to use them. We both got one for our BOM and one for the bible. So that´s exciting.

Well, I don´t know what we have planned for today but what ever it is...we will let you know tomorrow!

Worst trip EVER!

Well, I wish I could saw it was an awesome trip. I´ve had a few bad traveling trips before but this one was the worst. It was bad organization, a bad bus, and people who lied to us. Everything they told us that was going to happen never did. We were supposed to have the police with us the whole trip because it´s dangerous to travel at night, people get robbed and killed all the time. Yeah, no police. Um...we were late leaving everytime so it made everything else worse and made it so that we got to sleep two nights in a row in a bus, wet, tired and hot. We are both very glad it´s over! We did take some awesome pictures though. We are done with the school and how badly organized it is. We will have to tell you the story when we get home. It´s WAY to long and you don´t want to hear bad stuff.

On a different note we think scott got poison ivy or some type of allergic reaction to something. So we are trying to figure out what´s going on with him. We did go through a lot of jungles and go into some water that we weren´t able to take a shower for about 20+ hours after, so it could be a few things. It´s just red and ichy so nothing too serious.

Well we are more the RELIEVED to be home and with the ixcots. They really make this trip fun. We are just going to get back into the normal swing of things again. I´m not sure if we will be going with the Ixcot´s to pick up there son from his mission. It´s in a couple of weeks. WE only have a month left. CRAZY! WEll, I need to get going. Enjoy your summer!

We Are Leaving To Tonight!

Hello everyone! Well weare packing up and getting ready to leave. We leave at 9 o´clock tonight and travel all night long to Coban area. The next day we will be rafting on this AWESOME river that has the underwater caves. I wil try to write while we are there...but honestly we will be traveling a lot! We are only going rafting for like 3 hours then we are back in the bus for 5 hours to Flores. Spend the nigh then go to Tikal so 3-4 hours then back in the bus for 7 hours down to Antiqua. Stay there for 4 hours then take a 4.5 hour trip back to Xela. We get in around 10. So it´s a lot of traveling but it´s cheep and atleast we get to see the places then not. Later on we will be going to Lake Atitlan for a weekend, not quite sure when that will be...we´ll let you know.

Our mother here is really giving scott a hard time about eating sugar. It´s so funny. Scott has told them that he´s a nutritionist (half true) and so they are always asking questions about health and excercise. When ever scott eats a cookie or candy she´s always saying ¨no more scott¨Last night they were wondering about excercising, so scott brought out his jump-rope and I got some really cool movies and pictures. We really have a lot of fun with this family. We even got the mom and dad to jump-rope. Don´t worry, I got a video! They aren´t very coordinated here.

Well, I forgot to put some pictures on to m camera to download so I´m sorry I don´t have any picures up, I will put some up when we get back. Well, We will take lot´s of pictures and show you a few, haha. I hope everyone is still doing good. Adios!

The Day Before We Leave

Well, we are still enjoying life. It´s a little bit weird since we are not going to school. We are not quite sure what to do. We are taking classes from a lady in the ward but she has a lot of health problems so she can only teach us from 3-5. So we have the mornings to do what ever we want.

Oh, I have to tell you. So there is this bakery that only opens on Tue and Fri. They make really good donuts (they are our weakness right now) and they make these mapel donuts put most of the time when we go they are already gone. So Scott wanted to get up early and go. So we did. When we got there there was only 1 left and we were like 4 in line. Scott was having some anxiety that someone was going to take it. I wish you could have been there. All he could think about was the donut and some one was going to take it before him. hahaha And people wonder why we don´t have children yet...I already have one!

It´s really crazy here how early this family get´s up. We are talking 4:30 in the morning. seminary starts at 5 and our mother teaches the class. There is a construction guy that comes at 5:30 in the morning and starts pounding on the ceiling. We don´t get very much sleep once 5:30 hits. I will start taking more pictures of the family since they are so much fun. The 11 boy is very cute and he talks really fast. Oh the other really funny thing about the family. They don´t want TV except at 9:00 at night. They will stop everything to watch Dragon BallZ. It´s is absoutally hillarious. The boy put Harry Potter 4 on they all of the sudden his watch alarm went off and he went to the other TV to watch the TV show. I don´t get it, but hey, every family has there little things they like. Oh, and half way through Harry Potter, the kid asked us if we wanted nachos. We said sure. So he left to the store bought some chips, like flavored (doritos, ect.) and put it all in a bowl and then squized fresh lime juice all over it. Then we were supposed to eat it...so that´s there nachos.

The food at this house is SO much better. We had stuffed Zuchini for lunch. Way good. Lunch is the main meal here and we dont eat dinner until norally 8:30-9 at night then they go straight to bed...not the best, but hey it´s how they do it here.

Well I´ve been on the internet long enough. I hope this is still interesting. I added some pictures if you hadn´t noticed. I added some even into June. I hope you like em! Adios

We´ve moved and it´s WONDEFUL.

Well, we have moved and it´s absolutelly wonderful. Everything is so much better. We moved in on Sat around 11:00 and from them started right in with things. The family had a birthday in the family so we went to the party, plaed with a bunch of little kids, ate really good food, and talked to every one in spanish. I´m starting to get it more. This family have 6 kids total 5 are still living at home, the youngest is 11, but he´s as small as Zephriam at 9. He´s got a lot of personality to him too. He hangs around scott and I a lot. The 6th kid is on his mission right now and will be coming home in about 2 weeks. So that will be really fun to see. The food with this family is also TONS better then the other house. And it´s less then half the price with the same things. So we are quite settled in and happy with the change that we have done.

This Thursday we are heading to Tikal and a bunch of other places. We are pretty excited. The weather here has pretty much been the same, over cast put hot about every other day. Which is nice. Just don´t expect a tan girl when I get back. I try...but it´s hard here.

Well, that´s about it. There is a lot going on now and I´m learning 5 times faster since the family is actually talking to us. They have 3 girls around my age so they like to talk to me, it´s really fast, but atleast someone other then scott is talking to me in spanish. Well, I hope everyone is still doing good. I will write more tomorrow

1 more day..

Well, We only have one more day at the school and 1 more night at the house we live at so we shall live. haha We don´t know when we will be moving on Sat but it will be a nice change.

Last night for the 4th of July we went to this resturant, $4.00 for this HUGE chicken burito. It was really good! I couldn´t finish mine...but of course scott had to show me up so he ate all of his and mine. I took pictures..don´t worry. I will put them up when I can. This resturant is really nice. It takes a little while to get the food cause they don´t premake it but it´s worth the wait. They normally have Futbol playing. Scott likes that.

Not a whole lot else going on. More changes will happen this weekend. My spanish is improving surprising as it is with my teacher this week...but it is coming together a little bit better.

Well, I hope all is well with everyone. Have a good day.

Two weeks here!

WOW I can´t believe it´s been two weeks. School for me is pretty hard this week. I really don´t like my teacher. I don´t feel like she is teaching me anything. She has me write a lot of verb conjugation while she sits there and brushes her hair and goes to the bathroom. But oh well. The days are very long with her. Last week didn´t seem this long cause I was talking and learning the whole time. It sure sounds like I´m complaining a lot and I´m sorry. Let´s just say the change will be good next week. :)

Other then that though on Mon we went with the missionaries to Central Park. They know some people that give good discounts to them so we got a few shirts and things. Then we headed with them to the mission office. Here they have these covers for your scriptures in leather that this guy puts church pictures on the fron and back for only 15 dollars. So we looked at some of the pictures and we are going to get some real leather scripture covers. I´m excited I really like ém. We will have to show you.

Oh, this sat we have set up a time to meet with this physical therapist in our ward here that works with little kids and we are going to get see if we can´t help them on sat morning. I´m not quite sure what will we do...if it´s just talking to them or actually massaging them. Either way it should be fun.

Well, We will write more either tomorrow or the next day. We are still having fun even though there are a few things we don´t like. I hope you are also enjoying yourselves in the beautiful summer weather.

We are moving on Sat.

Hola everybody. We are starting another week of school. It´s almost been 2 weeks. It´s so crazy. It doesn´t seem like that long. We have done so much that time isn´t going very fast.

Well we have good news. On sunday we talked to the Ixcot family and they said that since they have 3 girls they will put them in one room and we will be able to have our own bathroom and room with them. We are very excited. We are getting quite tired of where we are. Oh and they are able-will to have us for the whole time that we are here. They said they are even willing to teach us and take us to work with them and just get us to start talking more. We are both very excited.

We have mixed feeling about the family we live with. We feel that our family is very cheep towards us. The family never eats with us, 8and when they do they watch TV) and we have the same meals over and over. For lunch and dinner is the exact same thing, not the best when the food wasn´t good the first time around. I understand not having money or making something big and then just eating it for a while, but even the other people in the family will sit down later and eat something different. I dunno. It´s not terrible, just not the best situation.

The picture is of our bathroom that we got to share with 7 people. Fun huh. Enough complaning. It will change soon. Well, I need to get going. adios