November 10, 2014
Hola from Salcaja, Guatemala!!! It has been such a crazy week, I can’t believe I’m here in central america spreading the gospel. I took a van from the MTC in Guatemala City up 4 hours to Quetzaltenango!! It was awesome, I saw some huge volcanoes where the clouds high in the sky only reach halfway up them!! My president, president Smith is amazing. He is such a great guy, so is his wife Hermana Smith. My companion is Latino, his name is Elder Agirre from Guatemala City, he has been out for 16 months now and he is almost fluent in English which is a huge blessing. He has been a huge help to me in learning the language and getting to know the people. My area is kind of a city, but very small. There are little tiendas and markets EVERYWHERE. Apparently Salcaja is the corte capital of Guatemala, which is like the native tribal colorful dresses that the natives where. I am currently having some ties made from it, it looks so sweet!!! We are teaching a couple lessons a day, and constantly we are talking with people and with families. One member that keeps giving us contacts her name is CIndy. She has two nieces that she watches every day, they are probably the cutest kids i have ever seen, they are 6 and 8, and everytime i see them they always give me a huge hug. No one in the city can pronounce McLeod, so they all call me Elder Nube or Elder McNube, in spanish cloud is Nube, so now i am Elder Nube to the little children, and Elder McNuggets to my companion. My companion is literally the best, his is currently the district leader and he is super funny. Yesterday I taught him how to juggle, and then he taught me how to do some soccer juggling with my feet........ which i am terrible at. He also brought some american music with him, it is all uplifting don’t worry, but it was nice this morning to wake up to Josh Grobbin You Raise Me Up. Everything here is very poor, all the houses are stacked or are within a tiny little corridor or hallway between buildings. One family we taught, their whole house was one room with a plain concrete floor and around them was piles and piles and piles of shucked and unshucked corn, haha it was a really different site. We went in and my companion and I had a contest to see who could shuck corn the fastest, I don’t know how i won but i did. Tonight we are setting a baptism date with them, they might be our first baptism, so far they have told us they know what we are teaching is true, they can feel it in their hearts.
Hola from Salcaja, Guatemala!!! It has been such a crazy week, I can’t believe I’m here in central america spreading the gospel. I took a van from the MTC in Guatemala City up 4 hours to Quetzaltenango!! It was awesome, I saw some huge volcanoes where the clouds high in the sky only reach halfway up them!! My president, president Smith is amazing. He is such a great guy, so is his wife Hermana Smith. My companion is Latino, his name is Elder Agirre from Guatemala City, he has been out for 16 months now and he is almost fluent in English which is a huge blessing. He has been a huge help to me in learning the language and getting to know the people. My area is kind of a city, but very small. There are little tiendas and markets EVERYWHERE. Apparently Salcaja is the corte capital of Guatemala, which is like the native tribal colorful dresses that the natives where. I am currently having some ties made from it, it looks so sweet!!! We are teaching a couple lessons a day, and constantly we are talking with people and with families. One member that keeps giving us contacts her name is CIndy. She has two nieces that she watches every day, they are probably the cutest kids i have ever seen, they are 6 and 8, and everytime i see them they always give me a huge hug. No one in the city can pronounce McLeod, so they all call me Elder Nube or Elder McNube, in spanish cloud is Nube, so now i am Elder Nube to the little children, and Elder McNuggets to my companion. My companion is literally the best, his is currently the district leader and he is super funny. Yesterday I taught him how to juggle, and then he taught me how to do some soccer juggling with my feet........ which i am terrible at. He also brought some american music with him, it is all uplifting don’t worry, but it was nice this morning to wake up to Josh Grobbin You Raise Me Up. Everything here is very poor, all the houses are stacked or are within a tiny little corridor or hallway between buildings. One family we taught, their whole house was one room with a plain concrete floor and around them was piles and piles and piles of shucked and unshucked corn, haha it was a really different site. We went in and my companion and I had a contest to see who could shuck corn the fastest, I don’t know how i won but i did. Tonight we are setting a baptism date with them, they might be our first baptism, so far they have told us they know what we are teaching is true, they can feel it in their hearts.
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| Elder McNube & Elder Aqirre |
Last night our faucet in our kitchen broke and water was shooting everywhere, it took us like 10 minutes to figure out how to stop it, but eventually we got it fixed and we were laughing about it forever. In my pictures I included my first night when we went to the market and got veggies and then the butcher and got meat and then the bakery and got tortillas and shells, and then we had taco night!! Authentic style! Also are some of the pictures from the mtc since I couldn’t use my camera or upload pictures there, here they are.
So far the work is progressing, but it is slow going. There are 4000 people in Salcaja, 480 are members, but almost 100 are active. We do a lot of reactivation down here, baptisms are rare, but I know that my companion and I can break the standard!! In 4 days my spanish has really improved, but it still needs work. I cant wait until i am fluent, hopefully that day comes soon. The church is true, the work that missionaries do is true, and I know that the gift of tongues is true. Thank you all for your support, my P day is every monday so that is when the weekly emails will be sent out. I love you all, have a good week!!
Elder McLeod
PS. I have really come to appreciate members that give the missionaries referals, PLEASE this week try to make it your goal to give the missionaries in your area at least 1 contact, it makes all the difference!!
