Week 4: Construction and Combustion

To say this week was slow would be...

...well, it would be an understatement.

I mean, not much happened besides having my room flooded, hearing a bomb go off and running from the temple during a flash flood.

Yeah, I owe an explanation after that.

The CCM of Guatemala has been under construction since December of last year, it´s a 9-month long complete overhaul of the entire interior. In due time the rooms will be nicer, the classrooms updated and the bathrooms....will in working condition. But our group of missionaries are the ones that get to suffer through all the construction and reap none of the benefits. Case in point: Elder Long and I walk into our room on Wednesday afternoon and see a thin sheen of water glazing the tile floor. During the process of remodeling the third floor the construction workers accidentally took out one of the pipes, unfortunately, this pipe was directly above my top-bunk bed. My brand new mattress had to be traded for a...less brand-new one, but other than that, the extent of the damage was less-devastating than it could have been.

That being said, here´s the bombshell for the week...in a very literal sense. There´s not enough room at the CCM for our district to have classes with all the construction going on. So we walk a good quarter mile to a nearby chapel every day, it sounds bad but its actually quite nice! Anyways, we were studying the Book of Mormon outside just before lunch, (2nd Nephi Chapter 33, it´s a great one) and we hear a loud *crack*. Everyone is intrigued by this noise, ¨was that a gunshot?¨ one of the hermanas ask. Our teacher´s response was, oh no, it was just a bomb...¨

I dont know if that´s a normal thing around here but....

Finally, there has been a great deal of rain this week! Almost every day there´s a flash flood smack dab in the middle of our deportees (exercise/sports) time...keeping us underneath the tin roof using the machines to get our daily fix of physical exertion....elliptical machines are only so fun for so long. When it´s actually nice weather outside, the fan-favorite game is Volleyball, although our group is so good at the game, we have lost 4 balls over the 30-foot tall chain link fence...and I guess the locals think we´re too loud or something because nobody has given us the ball back...

That´s the week in review for all of you!

Tune in next week, same time, same channel!

Elder Tyler Monson

In a letter to his family he shared this:

As far as tie trading goes? I am the master at it! I have so many great ties now and only had to give up two of the ones I came here with (Schauber´s and the Green tie) The Tie trade is a huge deal here, every Friday night the hallway turns into a market and people start trading it up!

The language is COMING! The lord is blessing me with the gift of tongues! The days feel long in the moment, but when I blink its Sunday again...weird. We had worldwide MTC devotional on Tuesday  night with Elder Scott...it was really cool! We watched it live and his message was incredible! He talked about the power of meaningful prayer and even though he was 3000 miles away you could feel the spirit that he brought!

2nd Nephi 31 is FANTASTIC! Love those scriptures. Right now I´m reading in Alma and just read about Ammon and the sons of mosiah. But what really stuck out to me this time around was the example Abish sets! She was already a believer before Ammon came and when she saw everyone had fallen to the ground she didn´t hesitate to tell everyone about the sweet word of the gospel! Such a great example for us missionaries!