Week 4

Guatemala MTC

I do not have a lot of time and I have a weird keyboard so bear with me as I try to fit as much as possible into this letter. 

One of the elders in my district informed that (playing BSU is like playing a girl)-Elder Maxwell. We had a great argument about BSU Football and he kept telling me how terrible they were, so that was fun. then he told me that his favorite team was BYU, so then I really started laughing. I have nothing against BYU, but we own them in football, They have beat us once in like the last ten years, so it is fun to tell all of these Utah kids who are either University of Utah fans or BYU fans about BSU. they try to argue but they cannot argue that BSU always wins.....usually by a lot. 

The Elders here are great though, I have made a lot of good friends out of the Elders here. We have a lot of fun and the favorite winding down activity at night is tie trading, I have traded half of my ties now and I think that I have improved my collection quite a bit. All the rage is paisley, I watched an elder trade 4 nice plaid ties for a paisley tie that had bought from a thrift store. So the craziest thing that happens here is tie trading as far as night time activities. There has been a lot of rain the last few weeks so the club next door has calmed down a lot during the night, which is great for us because we can sleep in peace. we always open our windows because there is no AC in the rooms, I sweat every night and I wake up and immediately take a cold shower. 

My companion gave me a bad time when I had diarrhea a few weeks ago, but karma struck I suppose. We were listening to a speaker to the area authority of central america and my companion runs out of the room, so I have to follow him and he is in the bathroom and he was in there for 45 minutes which is unheard of. He obviously was in pain, his face was white and he was doubled over for several hours. I felt bad, the little guy really took a hit from his first bought with diarrhea. A few days later while we were in class he had another interesting experience, his pen stopped working so he began slamming it against the table until he broke it due to rage. I did not say anything but I thought it was a bit unusual to rage over a pen, but my companion is a great guy. We get along much better now and our unity in teaching lessons has also improved. 

They had some real people come into the MTC so we could teach them and that was fun, they have a hard time understanding our spanish but we can understand theirs so we actually have the advantage in that situation because we kind of said whatever we wanted and they just nodded. I caught on about halfway through the lesson that these (real people) were just actors and I was right. It turned out to be a practice, I am so excited to go teach real people and to have the opportunity to change people lives and bring them more happiness because they will know why they are here on earth and how they can return to heaven. 

I had a dream the other night where I was back home and I could not remember anything that happened on my mission, that was really weird, what I take from that is that I need to make every moment count and cherish to opportunity to serve as a missionary who has been called by a living prophet of God. I am lucky. 

I read a story about starfish this week, it is about on old man with arthritis and other health issues who walks along the beach every morning and slowly picks up starfish one by one and throws them back into the ocean. He really does not throw that many back out of the thousands of starfish washed up on the beach that will die in the sun, and his neighbors would ask why he did something that does not make a difference in the grand scheme of things. But the old man said that it makes a difference to the ones he threw back to live. 

I feel the same way about my missionary service and I hope that throw some people back and change their lives. 

I miss you all, and I hope that you are all doing great. 

Love, 

Elder Gardner