Email 28 May 2012

Whoa, Another month gone...which means 22 months on this thingy-ma-jigger. Great times and long days. Very worth it in the end though. It is really weird being the "old guy" in the mission and having to give a lot of advice and what not. Feels cool, but at the same time it is hard. You never want to say something that would ruin the future of someone's mission. Chances are, that I only say things that do just that. My bad. Life is good though.
Not too much news, but a goodish week. On Thursday, our branch had an activity for "Mother's Day". They did it a little late, but at least they did something. Pretty impressed. It was my first activity since being here! and... probably my last. The youth were put in charge of it. It was basically just a Talent Show of sorts. Heard lots of good music haha. It was cool though because we got a few investigators there. It allowed people to have the opportunity to invite friends and what not.
 Friday I got what I hope is my last haircut in Guatemala. I’m really trying to not cut it here again...that way Becky can cut when I get home.
We found quite a bit of new people to teach this past week. The 2 best are the same two people that showed up to church last week and this week. Mike...(just a random guy we talked to in the street), and Belinda (the wife of a less active). Hopefully we can create some magic up in that :)
So Saturday, we got our "prize" for doing the 40 contacts the week before. We traveled down to Xela and had a small little conference with President Bautista. Then we watched a movie. We saw "Tangled". It killed all of us... All we all want to do now is go home and hang out with the ladies, but we can’t. Yet... haha. I still need to see it at home though because we watched it in Spanish here. Afterwards we ate lasagna though. Delicious.
Best part of it all, I got the package! and the cuff links were inside the Skittles. High five for that. I’m a fan. After all that we got permission to run over to Walmart. I got 3 Dr Peppers and 2 Mountain Dews. Awesome purchases...
Over the weekend we had 2 deaths here in Nahualá. The father of a member and the daughter of the other. Saturday we went and visited the guy who had the father die. We saw his casket open...weird. While we were there, we received a lot of attention from everyone. They fed us and talked to us a ton. We were really respected by lots of non-members. Pretty cool. Sunday morning we followed the procession thing. In the states everyone drives behind the hearse...here, everyone walks behind the pick-up. You can see the difference, but means the same. It wasn’t as sad as the other death though. This guy I became good friends with when I was covering the other ward too had his 3 month old daughter die Sunday morning. She wasn’t sick at all and was perfectly fine. No one understands what happened. Especially him... He just kept telling me Sunday Afternoon when I went to visit him that he hated life. It was so sad. Seeing the little coffin on this tiny table just made me want to cry. Held it in though. Just hope I was able to give him some words of comfort. I’m not a fan of little kid deaths. Those are terrible in every single way possible...

That has been the week though. Anyways, I hope is going well for everyone back there. Things are going just fine for me for now. No problems lately, so I’m happy :) Please, have a good week everyone! Do some good...and...smile big! Love, Elder Bitner

Following the Pickup

Cemetary

Puppies born in our backyard