The Smile

HELLOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

Hi, this week has gone by pretty darn quickly. And its nice to be emailing once again:) So this week, on martes, I went to the capital of Guate to sign for my papers to legally be here for the next 21.5 months😂 but who's counting?! And that was really fun! We left from Brillantes (my area) on a bus just me with four other elders, and my comp went with our zone leaders for the time that I was gone. And I was the only gringo that went from the REU mission. When we got there there was elders from  the Mission that is above our ( I have no idea how to spell it...) And some of them were in the CCM at the same time as me, but we had three weeks when they got there so they weren't in our districts (elder Whelan's nor I) but I still knew who they were. And it was cool to get to talk and catch up with them. 

Not a lot happened this week because I was gone for two days and we had conference the entire weekend. But the lessons that we did have were awesome. Here is a quick story and explanation for the header.  So we are teaching this kid that is about my age, 18 or 19, named José. This week we had our second lesson with him, and we were teaching the Plan of salvation. I was teaching about the Holy Ghost and the role that it will have in our lives after baptism. And how that it will guide us and teach us and stuff like that. "José, would you like to have the holy ghost in your life?" Yes, he replied. "José....would you like to be baptized?". We waited a second. That´s when he smiled. I will never forget that smile. It was a smile put on his face by the testimony of the holy ghost. It was a smile that allowed me to know that he was feeling exactly what I was feeling. "Yes" He answered. This gospel, is amazing. 

Conference was this week and the parts that I understood and were awesome! And I cant wait to read the rest in english!!! haha But something super funny that happended was, because they have translators during one of the talks it was in english for the first little but, then it gets quiet like the guy is going to translate and we hear, in english "I can't hear him" HAHAHAHA Another set of elders was there with us and We were dying! It was so funny! then he started to translate a minute later.

So After the priesthood sessions of conference that I went to with Kollin, Dalton and Dad, afterwards we would go out for dinner or ice cream or something and I decided to try to do something special with my comp. So after conference, we got mexican tortas. The first bite was awesome. The rest of it all i could think of was fat people haha. Its like a hot dog but with a bunch of different meats and sauces. I still don't know if i want to eat another one...

So something that Made me soooo freakin happy this week completely caught me off guard. Fireflies! WHAT!? Ahh I love Guatemala. At first I thought it was a flashlight, or something. then there were like 25 flashlights haha. FIREFLIES!!! I have never smiled so big before. haha I felt like a little kid. But I was happy and thats all that matters.

Something else that made me happy this week was running. Last p-day we had free (what ever we wanted to do as a companionship) and I asked my comp if he wanted to go for a run and he said no. Great I thought... I will never get to go for a run in the morning 😖. But nope, We woke up one morning and my comp asked, "you want to go to the field to run?" YES!!!!! I replied. Boy, I ran and ran and ran, and I was so sore the next day but I felt so free! Just running and thinking about cross country and lacrosse and coaches and teams and sports, I love running haha. dont tell Becker. 

Thats mostly what happened down here in Brillantes, Guate. I love you all. Thanks for the emails!

-Elder Darling​