A Spoonful of Lluvia(rain): Guatemala Mission- week 13

So May officially starts the rainy season here, but April wanted to kick things off a little early apparently. If Arizona got one of these rain showers that we have in the middle of the day, they'd have enough rain to get us out of a drought and last us 10 more years. Despite this, we still manage to not have water in our little casa. It's actually a city-wide problem, and we're able to survive without it, it's just frustrating when you get done with your workout and go to take a shower when there is no water to do it with. And whereas I might have felt ok going without a shower for two days in the states, here it just feels wrong. 

I was able to attach some pictures so hopefully you can enjoy them. Most of them are from my MTC experience, and I have more but it was such a pain to attach them this is all I'm sending for now. I...don't remember which ones I attached, but I think there's one of each of my districts and some at the temple with the Guatemalan MTC president and his wife. And maybe one of our little casa? I'm not sure. 

So we found a family that's as close to golden as I've ever seen but they didn't make it to church this Sunday! It was kind of devastating, but nevertheless, we're continuing to work with them. We've taught them almost every day since our first lesson and we left them a Book of Mormon last time which I'm really excited about. The father of the family reads and remembers everything we leave with him and I know if he reads the Book of Mormon he's going to get a testimony, it's how it works. 

I will need to start making a list of all the interesting things that happen, because I'm kind of at a loss of what else to add. We got the keyboard in the chapel to work so I was able to play for sacrament meeting and because it was our ward conference, I accompanied our Bishop to Come Thou Fount. It was a neat experience to be able to help make the conference special. Anyway, I hope all is well with you all and if you're ever faced with the thought of what you should do, the answer is obvious, isn't it? Write Hna Cappuccio a letter! Ha, just kidding, reading your scriptures is a much better option. You realize how much great stuff they contain, right? K, Until next week!

-Hna Cappuccio

A Spoonful of La obra continua: Guatemala Mission- week 12

I just completed my first whole week in the field! Crazy. Although, to be fair, this week wasn't a full week. While you were all eating your chocolate bunnies and eggs, we were reading the Book of Mormon non-stop in the stake center in Mazate. It was Semana Santa here which means with all the processions and vacation-taking, it's both useless and dangerous to be out on the streets as missionaries. So we decided to take the challenge of reading the Book of Mormon in 36 hours. It was rough, but only in the sense that it's hard to sit in the same spot for hour after to hour. The actual reading was neat. I've never gone through the Book of Mormon so it was neat to see all the stories one after another. It definitely gives you a different perspective about the book. 

The only sad thing was that they don't celebrate Easter here so there's no such thing as chocolate bunnies or easter candy. How sad is that! They don't even really have good chocolate here. Nevertheless, I'm not seeing myself losing a lot of weight. All the hermanas I've talked to so far have said they've gained weight. The only ones that have lost weight have been because of parasites, and it's not like I'm actively seeking those. I'm kind of proud of my streak of health and want it to last as long as possible.

I really like my area of San Francisco. We have a cute little house and a little bunny, Roger (don't worry, we don't actually own it. It's our neighbor's bunny that can fit through a gap in the wall). So far we haven't been having a ton of success. People are either really catholic or really evangelical, and if they're neither they're really good at hiding. Still we have some investigators that are positive and with time we hope to have a lot of success because we're putting in the time and effort. My companion continues to be awesome. I really got lucky with my trainer. I'm trying to figure out a way to send pictures but I haven't been able to yet, but as soon as I do, I'll be sending all of the pictures I have from the beginning, some of them from the MTC seem like a distant dream. 

Just know that I'm safe and seeing the blessings of God in my life and in this work every day and I hope the same for all of you. 

Until next week!

Hna Cappuccio

A Spoonful of La Verdedera Capacitacion Missional: Guatemala Mission- week 11

Hello world!

 My bus didn't roll over the road, but I do have a different surprise. My visa didn't go through and so I'm in California waiting for it--San Francisco to be exact. It's kind of sad because I was really looking forward to meeting my President and my real trainer, but things like this happen and I just have to keep a positive perspective. 

April fool´s! I hope none of you were so easily fooled by that. And I know that technically april fool´s was yesterday but with the combination of it being conference it completely slipped my mind, so I figured I give it a shot in my weekly email. I'm celebrating a working enter bar so this might be a long email. 

So my first week in the field in three words would be: I LOVE IT! It's like exactly what I wanted if I had any idea of what it would be (which I really didn't), but I have a Latina trainer, Hna Ramirez from Honduras. She's fantastic. Obedient, patient, and open to suggestions. I really am in San Francisco, but it's an area in the zone of Mazatenango which is about one hour from Reu. 

I loved meeting President Maravilla. He's an enthusiastic man and they gave us all a warm welcome as well as a good laugh. We ate at his house the first night and he told the cooks to give the two Norte elders (who you should know would easily eat 2 plates of lunch or dinner at the CCM) a ton of food but when they saw them loading their plates. They couldn't finish their plates for probably the first time in their lives and to all the Latinos it was funny because they were always asking them for food or ice cream. I will admit I was laughing pretty loudly too, but partly because of President Maravilla's attitude about it all. 

In other news, I love my area. It really is named San Francisco for a reason. It's  built on a hill so we're either walking up a hill or down a hill no matter where we're going. We also have a village called Buena Vista which is a good walk from our little casa and it's in the jungle practically. Well, there are roads, there's just a ton of trees too. I inherited all of 1 investigator. The others were baptized before we came and so we had to focus a lot on finding finding finding. Families in particular. And we did find but we're now in the process of visiting which can be a tricky thing because people have such tricky schedules around here. 

Conference was perfect, wasn't it? I honestly loved all of it and could go on and on about it, but I've just chosen a few to highlight. First, Elder Andersen's talk in Sunday Afternoon. The question he posed at the beginning, "What does Christ think of me?" was something completely different by the end of the talk, anybody else experience the same thing? How the question was transformed by the Spirit to mean something so much more than the sum of it's words. So cool. And then President Uchtdorf's about not judging seemed to go hand in hand with Elder Holland's about how life isn't a competition. Elder Christofferson's was funny with his little nod to the interpreters. I was watching it in English so I don't know if they translated it or not. Hermaneutics, eh? I really appreciated Elder Hallstrom's as a missionary because it's so true. How I wish sometimes we could just go around a say "Look at our church. Look how well organized it is. Look at all the fruits of our labors. Look what the Church can help you do." But I realize how silly that wish is, because if an investigator is going to join the Church, it should be because they're truly converted to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, not the Church. The Church is merely a tool in the goal of salvation for every human being. 

Life isn't so primitive here. We walk a lot, yes, but we also take a bus a lot and even tuc-tuc's which are small taxis that can fit 6 missionaries if you squish. There's a ward member that we pay for lunch and she's a good cook. There's also a ward member who does our laundry and we have a warm shower. My first day in Reu it rained super hard. And it rained again on Friday pretty hard and it looks as if it will rain today too. I'm totes fine with that too because it helps cool this place down. 

The humidity really isn't that bad, but after walking a mile, you can feel pretty icky. What keeps getting my goat is the bugs. Apparently my blood is a hot commodity around here because everyday I have new bites. And even though white people aren't new to San Francisco, I'm 99.9 percent positive I'm the only one there right now which means I get noticed a lot. Some of my titles here are canche, canchita, hermanita, among others. None of them are inherently offensive, just a bit annoying, but that's life in Guatemala for nortes I suppose. 

A Spoonful of Semana 10ish: El Gran Día: Guatemala Mission Week 10ish

Parentals! Tomorrow I'm leaving the MTC for the real mission life. Get
excited!! Here comes the big leagues. They gave us a whole 30 minutes
to write to you because I guess we don't get to write again until next
week but it's kind of funky because I just wrote on Saturday. So
whatevs, I'm writing again.                              I feel pretty
ready for the field, I can understand Spanish pretty well and speak it
well too. And I know how to work hard and am dedicated to this work.
To be honest, I'm mostly worried about my companions. I met an hermana
today who is from my mission who spoke about how sometimes in order to
avoid contention she just went with whatever her senior companion did
even if she had been told otherwise. I don't want that. Wouldn't it be
great if I just had a super obedient trainer?? I guess the real key is
just to be firm in my obedience and also learn how to be loving in
demeanor. It's going to be a challenge, I know it, but it's something
I'm going to have to figure out sooner or later.                Well
my President's wife should be emailing you tomorrow with a picture and
telling you that we made it safely to the mission, if that doesn't
happen you can just assume our bus rolled off the road and I died
somewhere between Guatemala City and Retalhuleu. Just kidding. I'm not
completely sure she emails you tomorrow so don't freak out if you
don't get an email.             Hope you're all doing fine. Oh, and I
have a challenge for you! They always say that the families of
missionaries are extremely blessed. I won't really get to see the
blessings, but you will, if you look for them. So try every night to
write down one blessing whether small or large that you saw in the day
and that way not only will you be aware, but you can give thanks to
God for his generosity and love. I love our Heavenly Father so much.
And will be eternally thankful to Christ for his love and sacrifice. I
love you both and hope you're safe and blessed. Until next week!!!
                   -Hna Cappuccio

A Spoonful of La Ultima Semana en el CCM: Guatemala Mission- week 9

Sadly it's true. My time in the CCM has come to an end. I'm not really
sad about much because I'm so excited to be out in the field, but it's
always incredibly hard to say goodbye to the people you come to love
and all my friends are heading out to their respective missionaries.
On the other hand, I've been quite annoyed by some elders in our
district so it will be nice to not have to see them. Annoyed is a nice
way of saying it. It does give you a greater perspective of the range
of missionaries there are and I have a better idea of what to expect
in a returned missionary.                                      This
week we got to go contacting in the street again and it was amazing!
It was just me and my norte companions but wowzers was it an awesome
experience. As far as numbers, we did a lot worse than our last time,
but yet at the end of the day I felt a feeling of peace as if the Lord
had accepted my efforts and I didn't worry about the people I
contacted and if they would join the Church because of what they felt
while talking to me. I know that God is aware of them and will not
forget them. We were able to teach a lesson. We had just literally had
the door slammed in a our faces when a man on a bike directed us to a
woman waiting in a window with her daughter. We talked to her a bit
from outside and then asked if we could teacher her and she said yes!
We shared with her about the Plan of Salvation and we were blessed to
be able to teach by the Spirit. We know she felt it because we were
feeling it too. We invited her to church and she accepted the
commitment. We had to pass on all the information to the Guatemala Sur
Mission President because it's their responsibility, but I actually
didn't worry about it much.                      It's fun to think
that I will have that kind of opportunity every day starting Tuesday.
I'm sooo excited to be out in the field. I'm already imagining what my
trainer will be like and my first area. I am ready to get to work.
They made us take this grammar test that had an introduction about how
MTC teachers should get all or most of the questions right and that
missionaries shouldn't expect to really do well unless they had been
exposed to Spanish grammar before. Can anybody guess how I did? Haha,
let's just say I think I could get a job at the MTC when I get back if
I wanted, which is great, because I do.                            I
would like to request everybody's address if they have never given it
to me. I give you permission to just send it in an email to me at
amy.cappuccio@myldsmail.net so that if I want to write to you, I can.
Which, trust me, I do. I've lamented over not having many people's
addresses already and would like to have them. If you want to just
give me your address by writing me a letter, that's just fine by me,
but make sure to send it to my mission address. Which should be on my
facebook...maybe. Anywho, I hope you're all doing well. I pray for you
daily, for your health and good spirits and your growth in the good
word of God. I love you all!                            Love,     HNA
Cappuccio