Ba`ash kah wah lik?
Mish bah!
^ thats mayan for nothing. And my subject line says "Whats up?"
We have been doing our best to pick up Mayan because we have a few investigators that speack more mayan than spanish, and one that doesnt speak spanish at all, only understands it. Its tough but Mayan is pretty legit. The grammer is really similar to english, but the only tough part is its almost impossible to find someone that knows how to read and write in it. Somebody told me that apart from the symbol based written languages such as Japanese and Chinese, its one of the most difficult to read and write. But thanks to the good old gift of tounges, I have my Book of Mormon (well selections from, technically) in Mayan, and slowly but surely study that each day.
So i really apreciate everyones willingness to help out with our new family we are helping; Jose and his three boys. Their circumstance is very poor and we are doing our best to help them out without literally giving them money from our pockets, even though sometimes I am tempted. We have to be careful, especially as misionaries, to not just lure them to church by giving supplies, and then when we stop they just fall away. Even if thats not our intentions, its very possibly. But the bright side is, with or without help they are very excited to get baptized and learn more of the gospel. This Sunday should have been their second week in church. I say should have because something horrible happened. They came on their own this week, which was awesome, but they came about 15 minutes late, and we had already started the sacrement. Our humble little building has no foir (spelling?), or nice cozy waiting area. Its as simple as walking from the street right into the room where we have sacrement meeting. Mexicans are pretty hardcore about not opening the doors during the passing of the sacrement, and because of this attitude, the brother guarding the door literally pushed it shut when Jose and his three little sons tried to enter. They knocked softly 3 times, but he wouldnt open. Niether me nor my comp saw any of this as, we were sitting with some other inverstigators towards the front. After waiting a few minutes and thinking nobody was going to let them in, they left. When one of my recent converts Andrea told me what happened cause she saw it, i was furious. I obviously couldnt do anything since i didnt find out till after sacrement, but still. How are we suppose to be the chuch of Christ if we shut the doors and dont even stick our head out to tell them to wait a few more minutes and they will be let in? This was the second time in two weeks that this particular member had done something that cause serious issues wit investigators of ours. Its furstrating cause they have the best intentions, but sometimes dont realize what they. We correct them with little to no sterness, and they just do it again. Fortunetly, we found Jose later that day and explained what had happened. he said it was alright and wasnt upset.
We had the 11 year old brother of Andrea in church as well. He is hilarious. He is about the size of a normal 16 year old, and has the mentality of one as well. He is under the influence of an older brother who is into some bad things, as well as some cousins, so he has yet to accept a baptism or anything, but he is learning very quickly and we have high hopes for him. The crappy part is our branch pres wouldnt let him go with the other 3 youth in the branch because he wasnt 12 just yet, so he had to be with the primary kids, which the next odest is 7. Hopefully that doesnt put a damper on things.
Every companionship got a portable dvd player for their apartment. This was shocking to me for severally reasos. One. I feel safe to say we are one of the strictes missiones in the world, and here is our Mission Pres, who is the reason why we are so strict, giving all his missionaries giant opportunities to sin. Two: We have never been givin anything in the mission that could be used for any kinda of entertainment, even if it is church videos. Three: I actually have something to do at night when we get back rather than just kill mosiquitos and eat tortillas! They havent explained the reason why we have them just yet, but i think its beacuse we will start using it in comp study in the morning to watch the videos of "the district", or other missionaries in the states that have been filmed being good missionaries. Fun stuff. The dvd playes cant leave our apartment, and we are only allowe to watch movies that hve the church logo on them.
Well all in all, this past week went really well. We are starting to average really good weeks, which unfortunetly means they become average weeks and we have to work even harder to have good weeks again. but thats how it goes. Hope eveyone had a great week, and is enjoying summer. Im not! Humidity and heat blows... But more people let us in so that good! Thanks for all the letters and prayers. They are both well recieved.
Love,
Elder Kitterman
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