Thank you for the detailed wedding email, that little snippet about the temple trip had me rolling on the ground laughing! I CANT WAIT FOR THE VIDEO!! and more pictures once you get them (don’t forget!) and I totally know that Havasuapi place. Stan went there one time and showed me pictures and told me about it. He said it is unreal, like the most incredible place on the planet! I am so excited! 

     Well, just another normal week here in the mission. Still love my comp, still love guatemala. We share the area with two other hermanas and we live with them and this week us four started our zumba class. There is a gym right by our house and some super skinny, spunky, gay guatemalan who is packed full of energy gives us a private zumba lesson every morning from 6 to 7. its a pretty sweet deal. Hermana Valeriano and Hermana minnick are both dancers and hermana peguero is black so she just has that natural touch, they all look cute and graceful, then theres me. but I have a good time so its whatever. One morning when we were gone to zumba a cat entered our house and left a little surprise. We have a bunch of windows in our house, and when I say windows I really mean giant holes in our wall and all sorts of weird creatures wonder in. So we came home to find a huge fresh pile of poo right on my comps backpack. President came to our zone meeting the next day and we showed him the picture and then he bought her a new bag, so I guess it was worth it. We are also now back in rainy season so the streets flood every single day just like the good old days when I first got here. I don’t mind the rain, its nice to cool off a bit, but the whole hole in the wall windows thing becomes a bit of a problem at times. 

    So i am sorry I’m writing so late. We had a super cool p-day! We went to Retalhuleu and spent the whole day at presidents house with president and the office because our zone bap the most this month. So we watched a movie in his super nice, air conditioned house, I GOT TO SIT ON A COUCH AND EVERYTHING! it was so comfortable. Then we played sand volleyball, tennis and soccer in his private recreation center type thing and it was super fun because my zone is huge and the office people are a blast and Hermana Prince was there and it just felt like a big giant college party or something. Then he fed us good food and we didn't leave till now. it was super fun! 

     This week we have a wedding and a baptism and IM SO HAPPY YAY!! he is going to be one of those killer converts and I have worked really hard with him. His name is Jorge and we found him when I was with hermana Pacheco and we are still working with him. He is super awesome and he had to quit drinking alcohol, ask for work off on sundays, quit drinking coffee every morning and he had to get married. and this friday he is going to get married then on saturday him and his daughter are going to be baptized! Hopefully his wife will follow shortly after, she still lacks that whole church assistance thing. but we will get her there, de repente... I really hope that it all works out, I just love the guy. He takes his book of mormon to work everyday and reads it during his lunch, cool huh! 

     Well that about raps it up. and oh ya, Im going to skype in like 6 days! we are ids and haven't planned where when or with who yet... but we are thinking I will go second so probably at around 5 or something, or probably sooner, we will figure it out. oh and it will be on sunday. IM SUPER EXCITED! I am glad everything went well with the wedding, I wish I could have been there but Im glad max and steph are happy and if they're happy im happy. love to the moon and back, ttyl! in 6 days! 

love

hermana OUtsen

     

WOW WOW WOW WOW WOW! Jackie looks gorgeous, Steph looks gorgeous, Max looks great! mom, me and hermana Minnick are both expecting a trillion photos, a video of the wedding, and details details details. I so wish I could be there. 

     Well not a lot happened this week, we had two baptisms on saturday, they are sisters. We went over to my mission leaders house (who is maybe the greatest person I have met on my mission, his wife rocks too) and we made the sugar cookies you sent in my package to have at the bap. everyone LOVED them, they were a huge hit. 

    My comp is the greatest! We get along so well and I love being with her. She is reminds me so much of my roommate Laura Jackson, they are literally exactly the same and I love it! I feel like I am right back at school laughing my head off with LJ every night, it rocks! As for the zone, I feel like I dont really know anyone still because the zone is really huge and I am lucky if I can remember everyones name (which says a lot since everyone has a name tag.) but now that I have short hair I got a new nickname. Remember how when my hair was long everyone used to call me hermana Barbie?? yeah well after the hair cut the nickname changed to sunshine because apparently I look like sunshine from remember the titans. At first it miffed me off because Im a girl, but then I got over it and since I can quote that entire movie now I just work it. ¨hey look at that fruit cake!¨

    Alright well I had a good week but nothing too exciting worth reporting. Last night my comp and I got to talking about how ghetto our life here in Guat is so be thankful for all that you have.  well thats my life! gotta love it! but really, I love it! but really please dont leave me out here hangin in the dark, I want as many pics as you can send, a video if possible, and tell me EVERYTHING! I really want to be there too. I love my comp but being with a white girl from my same city is tough, it makes me really homesick. but mom, I needed to come on a mission, I was such a brat before, I still have a long way to go but the mission has whipped me into shape a little and made me really appreciate everything and everyone in my life, just know that I am there in spirit! i love you to the moon and back and I hope everything goes smooth for the wedding! 

love, sunshine

here is a pic of me and lizard

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

      

Here is a picture of me and my companion, Hermana Pacheco.