ha ha ha mom I just died laughing, that story is too funny! Loved your letter, I know I say that every week but I mean it! I didn’t get a letter from grandma this week, I hope everything is okay. Oh and also I already wrote Steph and Max last week and told them about the video, so sorry for ruining the surprise, ha ha. I actually wrote every single one of my siblings last week and only one wrote me back ONE! It was Steph so Steph is now my favorite sibling. 

    Well this week was really long. I feel like last time I wrote was like an eternity ago. Its not like I had a bad week or anything it was just long. But on Tuesday we did a service project as a zone. We met up with like the mayor of Coatepeque or something and picked up trash out of a river. It was the most hopeless activity because there are literally piles and piles of trash everywhere especially in the rivers, but they interviewed my companion and put her on the guatemalan news so at church on sunday everyone was like hyperactive excited to tell her that she was on tv. So I guess that makes me famous through association. 

    So since hermana Fusi left we had to change it up a bit in Coatepeque. A mini missionary came so we thought she was just going to be with hermana Cadavieco until changes because that makes the most sense. but they ended up changing some people around and hitting us with a bunch of surprises. So there is this hermana in my zone who has some freaky crush on me or something and it is like a huge joke in the zone. (she is this tiny girl from honduras who never talks and is like half my size). She is kind of weird but I try to be really nice to her because she doesn't really have any friends in the zone. So she follows me around everywhere and is always touching me, like all the time. and I don’t like being touched. She always comes up behind me and touches my hips and it is like a huge joke in the zone and everyone always laughs. So anyway, thanks to all the freaky changes, she now lives with me. When they announced it in the zone everyone just about died laughing and was like, outsen you better sleep with your door shut. So it was a pretty funny situation. But don’t worry it was no problem living with her, I actually think she’s pretty funny. 

      So on Saturday there was a relief society conference. The senior couple in our zone invited all the hermanas over for dinner and then we all went to the conference together. They are Mexican and she made really yummy mexican tacos and we got to chillax in their fancy house and it was a good time. and watching the womens conference made me really pumped for conference this week!!! I cant wait. 

    Alright well I hope everything is going well back home, I love you to the moon and back and miss you tons. I sent the video with hermana fusi. She is from California but she is going to salt lake for conference so I gave her dads cell number and our home address. her first name is Pelalina or something like that so you can try to find her on fb, good luck! Oh and I really want to know who Jackie is going to prom with. until next monday.

con amor,

LOVED your letter this week mom! I am so excited for Jacks, tell her she can wear one of my prom dresses if she wants! and I think that is a really cute way to answer. I am glad you had a fun week with little Cal, I cannot believe my eyes when I see pictures of him, he is so big! Tell John to shoot an email to Ben Duzett, he has been writing me lately so I will tell him to keep an eye out for John. He is going to love it, latinos are awesome. oh and those pics of Max and steph are gorgeous!! Loved them.

    Well I had a fun week because it was hermana Fusis last week. She was supposed to go home last change but she extended her mission so she is on her way home right now. I am so glad I got to live with her for this past month. The four of us got really close so it was really hard to see her go. She is going to be in Utah for conference and I sent her with something to drop off with you guys.  so since hermana Fusi left I am in a trio. We are all already really close because we live together but being in a trio is kind of hard, I have to constantly remind myself that I cant talk so much in the lessons. but its fun. Hermana Cadavieco is totally crazy and kind of a rebel but she's really funny and we get a long really well. 

     Well I woke up this morning and thought, my hair is ugly, so i chopped it all off, 10 inches to be exact. Some member did it in her house with paper scissors and didn't even wet my hair down. but she did a really good job, i really like it. I got layers and it barely hits my shoulders when I straighten it. Tell dad I almost got a bob, I changed my mind last second. but I decided I am never going long again so I am sure we will be seeing a bob sometime soon.

    Well I still love my mission, I still love Guatemala, I still love you, to the moon and back! Let me know when you get the video and I hope Jackie Sam and Dad are feeling better. 

love,

hermana Outsen

 Elder Heiner and Maren

 The parade

hello! I am so excited that Sam is pregnant! I think that is a very cute name, if I had a girl I think I would name her Guatemala. So its a good thing Im not pregnant because she would probably get a lot of crap for her name in middle school or something, but I did teach a chick named Brazil this week so I guess  its fair game. 

   Well my life rocks. Guatemala is cool. On saturday in the morning There was a HUGE parade. I guess they do it every year on March 15 and its like a really big deal, groups from all over the country come to perform in it and they also have groups from every country in Central America and Mexico too, AND ITS IN COATEPEQUE RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY HOUSE ON THE VERY STREET I LIVE ON of all places. again, my life rocks. So we couldnt leave because the street was blocked off and there were maybe 4 thousand people so we just pulled up a chair and sat with my super cool neighbor to watch it and she explained everything to us and all the significance and symbolism, it was awesome! They basically acted out the entire history or Guatemala. They did traditional dances, and wore sweet traditional clothing and it was awesome. it was three hours long and I was on cloud nine smiling my face off the whole time. it was so interesting, entertaining, and cool. As if I didn't love Guatemala enough already... I took a billion pictures but I am really bad at sending pictures so I will just show them to you when I get home in 10 months, but the pictures do not do it justice. 

    On Sunday an hermana in my ward invited us over for dinner and she is by far my favorite person in my huge ward. I seriously felt like a queen at her house yesterday and she totally reminds me of you because that is how you treat guests too. So thank you for being such a good host because carma came around and yesterday I was just pampered and ate the most normally delicious lunch of my life and laughed til my body hurt because shes funny. I want to be a good host when I grow up and have my own house and own guests just like my mom. We have a family night with them tonight, I cant wait. 

    Well today we went on an hour and half hike through the beautiful jungle of guatemala. We ended up at a gorgeous waterfall. We all climbed and explored and I was so obnoxiously happy the entire time because I love to hike, I love waterfalls, I love the explore, I love guatemala, and I love my zone. So I had a real good time. I sent some pics but once again, pictures just do not do it justice. 

    So apart from the whole guatemala is awesome aspect of my life, I am also seeing more and more miracles every day. The lord really spoiled us this week. I love being able to be an instrument in his hands as he literally leads me directly to people who are ready. Ready to change their lives and ready to be happy. My testimony on the power of prayer has gotten so strong on my mission, and I want you to know that I pray for my family every single time I pray, every time (and missionaries pray a lot) I really hope you are happy, keep being awesome, I brag about you guys whenever I get the chance, I love being an Outsen. 

Love,

hna Outsen

twins! I freakin love my companion so much, she's so funny! vive mexico! 

Tell Kollette felicidades! Thats so cool!! When does she leave.  Well we had a bit of a dramatic week here in Coatepeque.... So remember how I told you that I live with two other hermanas. (ps I cant figure out how to do a question mark on this thing, perdon) Well I really like them both, and they both get along with my comp. but they absolutely hate each other. They fought every single morning and every single night. They would just scream at each other and hermana pineda and I would just hide in our room and pretend we couldn’t hear them. I would just translate everything they said to my comp. because they fought about really dumb stuff and as awful as it sounds, it was a great source of entertainment for hermana pineda and me. It just made me really grateful for my companion because I absolutely adore her, and we just make each other laugh all day long and talk about everything and get along so well, she’s so awesome! Well anyway things got so bad between my roommates that they had emergency changes. So they called us friday night to break the news and saturday morning she was off. So a new girl came and she’s way cool. She is from LA and she’s funny and way fun, I like her.

    So Saturday morning we woke up early, said bye to hermana beckstrand, then met the zone leaders and the elders in our ward for our Saturday morning basketball game. My companion hates sports and she is maybe the most uncoordinated person on the planet, but she plays anyway and it is so fun to play with her because its so funny. Well long story short, I sprained my ankle. I really love sports, i’m really competitive, and I really suck at basketball, so I think that pretty much explains how that went down. My foot is the size of my head, completely black, and I cant walk. The zone leaders bought me a brace so I have been waddling around like an id for the past three days. come what may and love it. The nurses told me I had to rest for the next few days so on Saturday I stayed in the house all morning and literally almost died of boredom. So we picked our two favorite members in the ward and did divisions. My comp went out to work and I stayed at my cooks house and watched the best two years and the testaments with her and her sassy 7 year old granddaughter. then on sunday I took lots of pills and was able to work all day because I refuse to rot in my house all day, I am pretty sure that is worse for my health. it is still really huge but it feels a lot better today and I think I will be all back to normal by the end of this week.

    Well I got a valentine this week from the worlds cutest valentine, Calvin. I loved it, it made my whole day! Tell Kollette to write me if she has any questions or wants some advice or anything, I am so excited for her! good luck on your diet, I am rooting for you! love you mom, to to the moon and back! 

Love,

hermana gimp

            Saying goodbye to Mima

 quick story with this pic. So we were visiting some less actives and we spotted this guy in a tree. So their 8 year old shot it out of the tree with his sling shot then we played with him for a little while because he was still alive, they we trapped it under a basket in their back yard and were off. So on sunday this family invited us over for lunch. So we went. When we finished eating we asked how the iguana was doing and where it was. They were like, oh...you just ate him. 

                             The Ruins

 A tall ladder at the Ruins

          This pictures for you Dad - Before the attack

              Investigators pet monkey

Dear Mother,

Well how about I start off by saying I am 100% positive that I have the best mission on the planet. I know I say this all the time but I seriously love Guatemala so so so much. Every single thing that happens here is so ridiculously awesome and it is seriously such an adventure. I wish I had the words the describe how much I love this country but I honestly cant find the words. Guatemala is the best place on earth! I have so many wonderful things to tell you about this wonderful place but I cant fit it in this letter and I dont even know how to say it, you just have to see it. Just so you know, it is absolutely gorgeous everywhere you are, everything is an adventure, everything and everyone is so spontaneous, and guatemalans are really all the most loving, sweetest, funniest, craziest humans on the planet. I am so blessed to get to serve here, I love this country! 

    So the assistants made a dvd for every companionship just chuck full of church videos. There are tons of them so this week we just carried around our mini dvd player and the disk and showed the videos to our investigators and menos activos which is so perfect because guatemalans love cheesy videos so they just eat it up. So we were in a lesson and picked a random video. So we were watching it and I thought it looked familiar but all the videos are relatively familiar so I didnt take much thought to it. All of a sudden Alex popped up on the screen! (remember that video that alex is in?) So I start freaking out, jumping up and down with pure excitement, once I calmed down I started to tear up because I missed him then when I got home I sat on my bed and watched that one 4 second scene over and over again at least 70 times, how unhealthy is that! I am glad I don’t have any videos of you, that would be enough to just kill me. 

    So there is my baggy story for the day. So in Reu there are just tuks tuks everywhere you like so thats just how you travel, but here and coatepeque, they are none. The transportation method here is by pickup. We have a recent convert that cant walk so they bishop lends us his pick up and some guy in our ward picks him up then while we are there we stop by all of our investigators houses and we all pile in the back of a pick up and go to church, its awesome. Oh and today, we fit 25 missionaries in one pickup. TWENTY FOUR! I was standing up on the ledge hanging on the window. We had some trouble finding a bus back from our pday activity today...its a good thing the truck drivers here are friendly. 

   Today was so fun! As a zone we went to the Mayan ruins! It was so stinkin cool!! I loved it! I love my new zone, they are so much fun! and it was so interesting and cool and pretty, I was in heaven. They we all rode 30 minutes stuffed in a pickup till we finally came across a bus and stuffed all of us in the bus that was already full so I was literally sitting on top of some random guatemalan guy but it was cool because I got a free guitar lesson out of it. 

    Okay well I am sorry that this makes zero sense... but I am on a I love guatemalan high right now and can hardly function. but I am glad you had fun in Vegas! looks like the concert was pretty crazy! and thanks for the Cal updates, I love those! and I get Caitlins letters so I was aware of the whole ukraine going crazy thing, that is so scary! keep me as updated as you can and be sure to pray for Cait! I love you so much mom! to the moon back time a million! someday I am taking you to guatemala with me to visit!

Love,

hermana Maren Marie Outsen

Oh and ps.I am sorry I am writing so late, the ruins set us back a few hours. count on earlier next week!