Email 28 March 2011

Beloved people back home :)
Things are going well here as usual! You guys??? If not good, you better change that... Anyways... This might be a little shorter than normal. Not much time today.
So this week, Shaw and I had some pretty good success. We have been finding a lot of people, which is cool. The only question is if they will progress into one of the "Prioridad 1", as we call them here. We are sure hoping to have baptisms soon!
First off, the McDonald’s trip last week was pretty good :) I just got chicken nuggets and fries and a Sprite and to top it all off, an Oreo McFlury in remembrance of you mom ;) haha. It was good overall. McDonalds definitely isn’t the best Birthday dinner, but I’ll put up with it for now I guess haha.
Back to the families that we have found... One is awesome. They are in Ixtahuacán. Both of the parents are orphans, so the only family they have is each other and their two kids. Pretty unique situation, but very cool people! They invited Shaw and me to spend the night at their other house in Xela if we ever need too haha. They actually know a lot about the church too because the dad has seen quite a few different specials on the BYU channel. And, they fed us dinner. We love them to say the least...
Side note - I saw chickens have sex for the first time.
I had a good couple drunk stories haha. On Saturday, as Market Day was finishing, Shaw and I left to work in Ical. On our walk there, a drunken guy started walking with me and talking to me in "English" (they never actually know English). I taught him just about every lesson possible in a matter of 5 minutes... As he was saying bye, he slipped on a bottle and fell straight on his back hahaha. Shaw and I walked away in complete laughter, while he laid there still saying bye and everything. It was great. Just up the road, we grabbed a truck to go up Ical (didn’t walk it because we didn’t have a lot of time... We were late). We stood on the back bumper as usual ;) (it is safe....ish haha). There were 3 drunks in the bed of the truck. As we went up the mountain they were all trying to talk to me. They don’t talk to Shaw which is really weird and not fair. Every time we hit a bump in the road, they would fall in the back of the truck. They slipped throughout the entire ride up. It was hilarious... haha. As soon as we got to the church in Ical, they were starting Mutual. They asked us a lot of questions about things they didn’t understand in the Bible of what they were studying... One of them was about the word "orgías", or orgies in English. Yeah, didn’t know what to do right there haha. It was hilarious.
Something interesting that happened that neither Shaw, nor I was aware of: 2 earthquakes. Some people told us about them and we were just like--what??? We didn’t feel those haha. They happened Saturday night at like Midnight I guess. They were like 5.3s or something. I was pretty upset I didn’t feel them haha. That would have been awesome.
That was my week... Shaw and I started a Tiky Can collection. We have them stacked to our ceiling. I continue to see Fireflies everywhere. I’m still in love with them...
I hope everything is going well for everyone! I miss you all and love you all soooo very much :) Have a great week everyone...
Con cariño,
Elder D.R. Bitner

Information found from Mom -

Most important Earthquake Data:
Magnitude : 5.9
UTC Time : Sunday, March 27, 2011 at 06:21:01 UTC
Local time at epicenter : Sunday, March 27, 2011 at 12:21:01 AM at epicenter
Depth (Hypocenter) : 86.8 km
Send an “earthquake experience report” for this earthquake
Geo-location(s) :
49 km (30 miles) S of Tapachula, Chiapas, Mexico
98 km (60 miles) WSW of Quetzaltenango, Guatemala
133 km (82 miles) SW of Huehuetenango, Guatemala