It’s been interesting. I can’t always remember the questions or what I have and haven’t told you… but to answer Aunt Margene’s question, no, I actually don’t get a lot of attention for being a Gringa (north American)… And actually, my hair is not that unusual. There are quite a few people with naturally blond hair here, they usually have like olive skin, but there are also a lot of people with skin naturally whiter than mine, and a lot of people with light green eyes, and, I even met someone with dark green eyes–which I didn’t think was possible, but it’s true–far away they look brown, but when your in front of him you can see they’re a mesh of green and brown and only look green up close. Weird, but cool. My dirty blonde muck brown color of hair is called “castallano” here… or something like that.
How many teaching appointments do you usually have in a week? And how many of those are with a member? Are the members very helpful with mission work?
I actually really don’t know how many appointments we actually teach usually. The goal is always about 45 lessons or we’ve been shooting for like 43… and for example, this week we taught… 37. I think we usually teach around 35-40. As far as teaching with members we really blew it. The goal was 18, we got 8. There are a few members that are always willing to help, but they’re not often the most helpful members for our investigators (for example, there is an old evangelical priest who is always willing to help us, but we don’t usually use him because he starts shouting his testimony… in the lesson…) Something we really need to help here is the members, they’re not very loving to the investigators or interested in the missionary work. (And of course, for some that isn’t true).
Does everyone in the mission have to take cold showers, or do some houses have hot water?
I don’t think anyone in Central America has hot water.
If a missionary goes to Belize, how long do they stay usually?
Don’t know. I asked Hna Estrada about it and she said usually it’s the missionaries who have about 6 months left or something, because they always send the best missionaries, and I think usually ones with some experience. And always Guatemalans because there’s an area of Belize that is technically Guatemala and only the Guatamalans can teach there without a huge fine.
How much is rent on average for the missionaries?
I don’t know. We’ve never paid the rent or received a bill for the rent. We just pay for water and electricity which is refunded.
How much is typically spent on food?
I have no idea. We’re basically dying… As in, we have to start thinking about how much we’re spending and how we’re spending it because we have to pay our cook 20 dollars a week for lunch and 20 dollars a month for someone to wash our laundry and we need to keep money for water and electricity bill and we’re not very good at it…
What is the worst thing you’ve had to eat?
Well… Hna Arminda cooked me a fish because I said I didn’t know if I liked fish or not and I was willing to try..but that was before I knew they cook their fish whole with the skin and the eyes and the bones…. and that’s how you eat it. And so, I went with I don’t like fish and I let Hna Estrada eat mine and I she tricked me and fed me fish that wasn’t cooked like that later, because I think she realized why I didn’t want to eat it….
How many people are baptized each month throughout the whole mission?
Usually around 100 I think. This month only like 50… our poor Mission President is going nuts……..
Honestly, we’ve had really rotten luck with our investigators. The ones we thought were progressing aren’t… One even received the answer to his prayer that the church was true in our lesson with him, but he didn’t go to church and he had his son lie to us and tell us that he wasn’t there when we came to bring him to church. Fam Cano can’t stop fighting with each other and hence… they’re not progressing because they’re not ready to get married… which is sad because both want to get baptized. It’s a little depressing, but I have faith that this month is going to be awesome.I’ve asked Hna Estrada a ton about her mission and she said that she really hasn’t seen a great difference in the work where she had a lot of baptisms in a cambio (she’s had 5, 6, and 7 baptisms in certain cambios, and she’s one of the most baptizing missionaries in the mission), to the ones where she’s had zero (this is her third). I have no idea what it’s like in the states, but again, I think a great problem here is that the baptisms aren’t retained. Missionaries baptize people who really aren’t ready to enter into a covenant with God for the rest of their life…I’ve learned that the ward is really important. And I’ve also learned I need to be less selfish when I go home and give more of my time to other people, because really, people sometimes just need a little love and attention to do the right things… I think a lot of people would be reactivated here if their visiting teachers and home teachers would visit them.Love,
Bekah
