hello mother,

Remember my very favorite person on planet earth hermana Pineda? Well she wrestled to get the video on youtube and she just sent me the link, I will forward it to you. I am sorry you had to go through all this trouble for this video, you will probably be really bummed when you finally get it because its really dumb and awkward, ha ha. and thanks for all the recipes! She will be so excited!

     Well This was a very interesting week. So this week was semana santa which is Guatemala’s version of Easter and its like a really big deal.  I have heard about semana santa since my very first day in the field, no joke. They have been telling us we were going to be locked up in the church as a zone for three days out of work for the past three weeks and last year everyone in the mission was out of work and all the elders slept in the church, the hermana slept all in one house and that was the plan for this year too but then they randomly canceled everything and they decided it is not as dangerous as we thought, normal days.  So anyway... Wednesday is the craziest day, we were out of work. They told us that all the hermanas had to be inside their houses by 3 with all the doors locked, so we did that. It was us four in the house and my companion and I were talking, finally starting to build some kind of relationship when the phone rings. It was the assistants, they said to tell Hermana Pacheco to pack her bags, she has emergency changes, we will be there in one hour to pick her up. um.....what! so she packed and was gone in one hour. Later, we found out that there were 15 emergency changes in the mission this week and 4 in just our zone, who knows why. So I am no longer scared out of my mind every second of the day so that is good. She did start bawling when she left though and hugged me and said nice things to me which totally took me back but it was very sweet. So my new gringa companion walks all cute adorable and is happy as ever. Her name is Hermana Minnick. She is from Draper, Utah and went to Alta high school, like the one that is 10 minutes from my house! She only has one month more than me on the mission. We have so so so many friends in common, and all we do is talk about Snowbird all day long. She is so cute and so much fun, I don’t know how we are going to get anything done, we literally just make each other laugh all day long and stay up late talking every night. She rocks, everyone loves her, including myself.

     So spending all of Wednesday in the house was not as boring as i expected since I just packed and unpacked all day. On Thursday Friday and Saturday we all had to be in the house by 7 for semana santa. semana santa is pretty freaky, I don’t really have time to explain the traditions and what they do to celebrate right now so I will just tell you when I get home, remind me. or maybe when I have a really boring week and have nothing to say. 

    So Hhermana Minnick and I have only had half a week together but it has been the craziest week ever, so jam packed filled with experiences. first of all, this area is huge and I only have two week here, so I still don’t know the area very well at all and obviously my companion doesn't know the area either so we basically are opening the area and we have no idea what we are doing, but its cool, sometimes its almost better that way, to just start off fresh. We had a bap, on Saturday!! Hermanita Jenny, who is a girl me and Hermana Pacheco taught, it was the most pathetic bap. service ever, no one showed up and her little sisters were spazzing around and running all over the place, she left her clothes on under so she was soaking wet and a bunch of other little things but the important thing is that she got bap so its all good.

    This week we went to visit a recent convert. she is this really super super old adorable halfway crazy lady who has been a crazy evangelic her whole life and is now Mormon. So we shared a message and asked her to pray, she was hysterically bawling during the entire prayer, was on her feet shouting hallelujah and shaking her body and putting her hands on our heads in an attempt to thrust upon us the holy ghost or something like that, and it was like forever long. Hermana Minnick and I were both dying laughing, we were sweating from trying to hold but eventually we just lost it and both starting crying from laughter, after we felt really bad for laughing but she still came to church so i guess she wasn't too offended.

  In church, during the third hour Hermano Julio struts into church. Julio is an investigator Hermana Pacheco and I had, she is 95 % deaf, doesn't have any teeth, and is just totes crazy, the most entertaining guy ever. So he shows up to church on his own completely wasted, just drunk out of his mind. So Hermana Minnick and I escort him out, as we were walking out he was holding on to my comps shoulder trying to steady himself, when he just totally biffs. Hard, falls flat on his back and rolls onto his head with his feet hanging up in the air. I just lost it right then and there. it was SO FUNNY! so we try to help him up but between his complete inability to focus, slash balance and our laughing it was just not working. So he remains on the ground whining with me and Hermana Minnick, one on each arm, trying to help him up, with the whole ward starring at us, they hardly know us. Eventually some random guy from across the street came running to the rescue and picked him right up and took him away. it literally was so funny, I can still just picture it in my mind and I just die. Later that day we were teaching some lady and some other drunk randomly walked in and sat down and joined and just talked to us in broken drunk english, then had his arm around hermana minnick during the prayer and half the lesson, don’t drink kids. 

     Well I am glad you had a fun Easter, I certainly had an eventful semana santa here in guat (I didn’t even realize that semana santa was guats version of easter till just now when you sent me that super cute picture from easter, I’m so dumb.) love you to the moon and back a million times. 

love,

hermana Outsen