Beautiful Guatemala

Beautiful Guatemala
Me with a random field worker. I love the knife!

Monday, August 20, 2012

What Guatemalans Think About Americans


Hey guys!!

It’s hot. Ha we are still here fighting. We had an alright week.......

1. Josué (the blind guy) is progressing!  We only had one investigator at church, which was kind of a bummer. But Hermano Josué is progressing and happy. It has been a really cool experience teaching him. Every time we teach him, he says or explains something in a way that teaches me something new, cool right? He came to church for the second time and liked it, and we’ve been talking a lot with him about baptism, hopefully in September he'll be getting baptized! We know that there are still lots of obstacles before this point, but we are hopeful. I can’t remember if I explained, but Josué has less than a year of being blind. Here in Guatemala, lots of people have diabetes and no one gets it treated, and so lots of bad things happen, and one thing that diabetes can cause is blindness. So it’s a new thing for him and it must be really really sad for him. But he is a guy full of faith and always so grateful for the blessings that he has. You know how usually people with handicaps are more sensitive in other senses? Well even though Josué can’t see at church and doesn’t know what’s going on in that respect, he can feel that it’s the right place to be. He loves being at church and feeling the good feelings there are at church. So cool.

2. I can’t think of anything else to tell y’all, so I’m going to take a sec to explain what people in Guatemala think of Americans, because I bet that’s something that y’all have wondered.  Everyone in Guatemala (including my comp) thinks that America is this magical land where we all just sit on the couch all day and watch TV and don’t ever do anything productive. We eat instant soup and hamburgers every day, and we all have servants that do all the cleaning. We’ve never worked; the church pays us to go on missions and pays all our expenses. Oh and mom, they think we can’t cook anything -- how do you feel about that? Ha, it gets a little annoying sometimes because, seriously? I’m a productive person, working and studying and very very busy. On Sunday we were eating lunch with a partial member family, and they were shocked when I said I liked cooking and insisted over and over that all the food we eat in America is bought ready-made. FALSE! I explain that my mom loves cooking and cooks every single day, and that I like cooking too, and they like kind of believe me. They’re also shocked to find out that we don’t have servants, that for the past 4 years I lived away from my family paying my own food and rent, that I’ve had some sort of job for years. Ugh. And it’s even more annoying when my comp is like agreeing with them about all that. Ha. But yea, that’s what everyone thinks about me here in Guatemala. Awesome!

Well that’s pretty much all I got for today. We had kind of a slow week and were a little bummed, but we are just going to have to do everything a little better. I know that the church is true and I am so grateful for the Gospel of Jesus Christ that lets us repent and try again. Thanks for all your support and have a great week!!

Love,
Hermana Gilland

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