Email 8 November 2011

Hey,

So as you realized, I didn’t get on yesterday. (Note from Mom: When I didn’t hear from him I got on the internet and searched Guatemala and saw that they were electing their President and fired off an email asking if they had been locked in because of the election - it was a close election.) They changed our P-Day to today... And yes it was because of the elections. Sunday we weren’t allowed to even leave the house. Yesterday they just didn’t want us traveling for various reasons. Mainly just in case there was protesting or something. But today I’m in Quiche and all is fine government wise.
I have some pretty big news this week... Yesterday I got a phone call from Elder Lewis, the assistant, telling me and my comp that we had changes. Nice right? They are closing Cunen for the time being... My comp will be going to Xela to be with the old assistant because Elder King (my La Viña buddy) is now the new assistant. I will be going to Totonicapan supposedly. They are supposed to put me in a trio there until changes, but my Zone Leader is in a trio right now too, so we are going to try and work something out so I can just stay with him these next 2 weeks until actual changes. Yesterday we spent the entire day saying bye to the members. I guess I never realized how much I love Cunen. Last night as this little 5 year old girl gave me a hug goodbye, I cried for the first time on my mission. I was so sad... She caught us leaving the church this morning and ran up to give me one last hug....I almost lost it again. That place will always be special to me. It was really hard to say goodbye to everyone.
Anyways, about the rest of the week... We had Dia de Los Santos. That was a pointless day. Every single person in Guatemala basically just spent the entire day in the cemetery. We didn’t get a whole lot done, then again not a whole lot was done ever in Cunen, and for that they are closing it. It did happen to be Mom's birthday though. Happy birthday again mother :) Westenskow's mom's birthday was the 31st actually, so we went and celebrated, Tuesday for lunch. We went and ate at the only restaurant in Cunen. Surprisingly it was pretty good! I was a little hesitant with the bacon bit on my chicken, but I still haven’t gotten sick so high five :) That day we did visit Alvaro the "Bible Basher". He is a lost cause... We didn’t plan on visiting him ever again for various reasons, and now we definitely won’t have to. Still can’t believe I’m not going back there... Doesn’t feel real.
Wednesday we had our Zone Meeting. On the way back to Cunen from that we ended up riding the bus with 8 white people... 3 were girls from Israel. They spoke Hebrew and English. That was rather strange... 2 were a couple of guys from England and Belgium. And the other 3 were 2 guys and a girl from Australia. It was so weird haha. I talked to the British guy and one of the Australians a lot though. They were hilarious. They just asked me a lot of questions about the life as a missionary. As you can imagine, they weren’t the biggest supporters...but we did have a nice little talk. The British guy said a lot of funny thing actually haha.
But yeah, that has been my week. Not much else to even mention because I’m not going to be in Cunen anymore. A new adventure awaits me... We'll see if I end up in Toto tomorrow. You guys won’t know till next week. I’m really hoping I can just stay here for two weeks because I don’t want to be in a Trio, but we will see.
I hope all is going well back home. I miss everyone dearly. I love you guys :) Have a great week!
Love,
Elder Bitner
PS- Otto Perez won President here. I was rooting for him... He is a very intense guy. It is going to be interesting to see what happens!