MESSAGE NUMBER TWO

HAVENT SEEN THE PICTURE I WAS LOOKING FOR YET. MIKE HAD IT ENGRAVEN ON HIS OR SOMEONE ELSES SCRIPTURES. OF STRIPLING WARRIORS AND THERE ARE TWO MISSIONARIES IN THE FRONT.
THX

Well, we got to go out today. we stopped by the mission home and picked up a package, it contained ONE scripture marker, some jell pens, calenders two ties, and valentine cards. I am not sure but i believe you said you were sending two in that package. mostly because you said the other would contain only one and have jerky. all is good though. one is for my teacher and the other for someone else. probably me.
I didn't realize it but i sent home pictures and you have no idea of what they are, who they are etc. any system with that? the people i have got to know? we'll 11 of them left yesterday now its only my district. The two you saw in the air port , Reeder and Puputiu, my comp (kinda curly hair) Davis, Elder Waters as mentioned in the letter i sent home. Buffington redish short hair, Swenson tall, and Robles with ... ahh lets face it i cant describe them to you-.. we went to a 3d map of Guatamala today. i took pictures and videos. we also went to a museum, also pictures. As well a few with the guards carrying their fully auto rifles.
I liked the hand print calender. now i have 3 and don't know what to do with them all.......
We have 3 weeks left in the mtc.
HOW BOUT THEM JAZZZ 36 and 20 If i am not mistaken. Mcdonolds never lies.. and sister browns weekly update helps, all though it is a little bit of a lag.
we had more grilled cheese´s this week, as well the other group did their ¨Initiation¨ to us as the new group. he knighted one as the king and passed down the master key that opens all doors MUAHAHAHAHAHA. ohhh and did i tell you what else we did... we would hide an alarm clock in the ceiling to go off at about 3 in the morning. It happens to everyone... just me and my companion sleep through it. it was I ¨taylor wood´ son of dean wood who initiated the first of doing DOUBLE alarm clocks. so at three they wake up and run around like chickens with their heads cut off trying to find the alarm clock. then about 30 min later when they THINK they are falling asleep again BOOM HEADSHOT!!! another one goes off in their closet or their laundry hamper. muahahahaha life is cruil i know. the elder that did it to us first had a picatchu alarm clock and it was SOO annoying. really durable too. it has been chucked at the floor many times.
Mom if u could give access to the blog to my friends... Ohh and tell them that i am NOT using facebook, and that if they see activity it is a teacher at the mtc who i told she could teroize my facebook.
i dont know if this will send so sorry if you get two.

Mission Info

Just in Case:
General Phone: 011-502-2385-3386
Fax: 011-502-2385-3388

More than a Million

“We have made great progress in our missionary work in recent years,” said Church President Gordon B. Hinckley at the Missionary Training Center in Provo on 25 June 2007. “We have more missionaries and more effective missionaries. It is reliably estimated that a million missionaries have served since the organization of the Church.”

“It is not possible to pinpoint exactly who the millionth missionary is,” said Elder M. Russell Ballard of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles during a news conference while at the Missionary Training Center for orientation sessions with 118 new mission presidents on that day. “We do know that young men and women, senior sisters and couples have volunteered to serve at their own or family expense in spreading this message to 145 nations and territories.”

There are over 53,000 missionaries currently serving in mission fields all over the world.

We weren't stiffed, just emailed to T's gmail

Well that photo wasn't the one i was looking for.. it seemed like it was just a line of warriors with missionaries in the front.. talk to mike about it.
Mike Got your letter.. thanks for makeing me ask a teacher to read it to me!!

so for this week
Mom i need you to make sure i only have like 500 in my checking account and the rest in some other account. (preferbaly mine). i sent a package home with pictures. can u send some to elder WATERS mom (address in address book) he is the one that dances. and a picture of him was drawn in the whiteboard.

(Elder Eliason holding the football and Elder Davis in forground) About that professional pitcher i think i told you about. well they bought him 2 gloves and a baseball to help with his homesickness SLASH turning down 800 thousand dollars. ROUND UNO! shattered two windows because the impact was so great... nothing like an 80 PLUS fastball going too high :) All is well though he really didnt care that he broke it (i think its not his first) and the president got a good laugh. he is going to buy me a blue fererri and my companion a green one.

The two elders liked their DEAR elders. especially my comp cause it was his first.

it takes about 12 days for me to receive dear elders. then again i only get mail on sundays.

NOW THE IMPORTANT PART.... SO LISTEN Up.. If i have anyone email me VIA Dear elder (say annie staheli or something like thaT) can you PLEASE seperate hers and yours. like send two seperate ones. Nothing like getting 7 dear eldeers that all say they are from Annie Staheli, and come to find out there is only a paragraph.... Talk about heartbreak. and your telomarketing calls was doubled.. i got two of each joke. Luckly im not to stupid to own one.

Well i didnt say anything about not struggleing mostly because its hard, it sucks, and i mostly just want 2 years to be over with so i can go to skool and get houked on fonics. I is gooon.g two bee a kowledge stoodent.

We leave here march 17th.

and they lied about 1 year equaling 2 weeks here. i have found myself knowing things that they just wouldn't teach. but then i get it in my head that i can slack off a little more. Needless to say, the first 3 weeks we learned a lot. now our teachers barely teach us anymore. they just assume we do it and have all lessons memorized in spanish.

Nikki; gracias por la pictura y carta, i sent you one in the package.

So about their computers here.. they have all hotkeys disabled, mouse options disabled and anyother form af trying to go somewhere blocked.. needless to say, i cracked it. I,m glad i still have it in me.

we went on splits this week.. my companion was way chill.. i tried to introduce myself and they would just barge in and try rambleing to mee. ends up they were cathloic ministers. but other than that nothing much happened. just walked and tried to introduce us before they stopped my horrible español.

Hmmm i guess thats all..
Hasta

Oops! Not one of Taylor's favorite Pictures

The people of Ammon, who called themselves Anti-Nephi-Lehies, had made a covenant with God never to kill, even in war. ... But they had many sons who had not made the covenant that they would not go to war. .... These brave young men did not fear death. They cared more for the freedom of their people than for their own lives.

See Alma 53:10-21; 56:44-56; 58:39 in the Book of Mormon

La Ventana

Futbol, Grilled Cheese, mock Baseball, and Math

Taylor is in district of 8 and they spend all day together on the same schedule. Classes include: grammar, Spanish, lesson plans in English, etc.

"This morning we got to play FUTBOL AMERICANO!!! It was more fun than I anticipated. There is actually an all girl Catholic school SLASH (darn keyboard) nun's place right in view of the dirt field we play in. About 5 to 10 girls stood on the balcony and watched us for about 10 minutes.. We were gonna run over there and baptize them but we remembered to be obedient..... and that particular time was SPECIFICALLY for exercise, and not for baptizing.

I go on splits on Thursday. One day to realize how little we all know.

I have a teacher from Utah and he is great at drawing. I'm going to pay him to draw me a picture of the stripling warriors with two missionaries in the front. I believe it is in Mike's scripture case... but I need some more information on that picture. My president was going to look for it online. Do you think you can find that picture, or take one of Mikes scripture case for me and email it to me?

So here is for our experiences...
One morning one Elder decides "I want a grilled cheese sandwich" so we started our scavenger hunt. Day one, pancakes with individual wrappers. We all asked for 2 packages and by the time 20 elders asked for double when we usually don't, I think they got suspicious. So the next day we payed a janitor to go buy us some cheese and bread. So the night came, but how were we going to cook it??? You may ponder for a quite a while but to a missionary who rarely gets out the answer is clear! LETS GO GET THE IRONS!!!! So we did, and BOY did we have a fiesta that night. Talk about muy bueno!! I have pictures and videos I shall send. (see video at http://guatamtc.blogspot.com/)

Next experience. a kid from the Dominican republic got drafted to the MLB as a picture (or something spelled like that) at about 6 foot 2-4 he can throw a 95 MPH fastball. SO what do the missionaries do?? Lets let him throw a hacky sack at my back!!! and he did. Video is also coming. Not only is he good at baseball he can dunk. We would spend a good time just ally oooping it to him. (video at http://guatamtc.blogspot.com/)

At the temple today we ran into a few missionaries outside.. a few as in like 40. We were able to talk to them awhile... one was saying he bought a tie for 200 Quetsales *ratio is about 7.5-8# quetz to 1 dollar. I said, "YOU SPEND 30 DOLLARS ON A TIE???" He was like "NO.. its only 15. " I quickly did the math and proved him wrong but he was determined that it was 8 to one dollar. Then he said, "All I know is 700 Quetz is 100 dollars.. I WAS liKE BOY. Where did you go to school? Anyway everyone had a grand time talking about how the greenie would stand up to a missionary bigger and also served longer than me. Unfortunately he was in the South mission so I wont be able to talk to him much.

Speaking of South Mission. Last week 20 bus drivers were murdered. You think thats bad do ya??? One elder at the temple pulled out a bullet from a 45. cal pistol (or something around there the bullet was kinda chingered) , and replied, "Ya we were shot at." He fired two shots at the missionaries but they were somehow able to escape. He then decided that "Hey I was just shot at, I'm going back for the bullet" so he pulled this bullet out of a wall and carries it around everywhere now. Just thought i would share some stories and tell mom "All is well."

I will try to send some pictures this week. We send mail out like Monday morning. So I will take my camera on splits and try to get a cd printed out. Then I will find some way to mail it home.

All is well, time to read "the ones if I have time!!"

Thanks for the letters. I finally got the one Kim sent me that says she just got back from Arizona... dated Jan 6th.

Love,
Elder Madera

Grilling the Cheese

Ye Are the Light of the World .....

Don't ask me how they did this but it looks really awesome.

Stiffed already?

It´s ok. ¡¡¡ I didn´t want an email anyway!!!. So here is about this week.

Dad: Log into steam. right click on the little black and white nike symbol om the main task bar and right click and go to games.. thats it - simple. If you want to make it load up on the games pages... go to settings (I think it is on the GAMES box) and just put your FAVORITE WINDOW to GAMES. That might confuse you a little but its worth a try.

Elder Robles is a medium build, and is a wrestler. He doesn't play much basketball. In a game of white lightning his ball had been bumped a ways out. I decided I would let him have a chance to shoot an impossible shot. He shoots from about 60 feet out and just throws it like a football.... SWOOSH... need I say more. Fortunately I hadn't got him out yet so he was able to continue playing. It was defiantly amazing.

About the letters you send me. THANKS . Its great getting 6 letters when there are 7 that come for our whole district. That means 7 people had to split that one.

Most of those pictures that mom put on my sd card wouldn't work on my camera so I had a teacher that is from Utah (his vista didn't pass so he has lived here for 1 year after his mission) go and print the 31 that I wanted. I deleted the rest. They were about 30 cents a piece but it was going to be worth it for family pictures to look at. I paid him and started looking at them. ALL BUT 4 I HAD NEVER SEEN BEFORE. Luckily there were a lot of Kayla, but I don't know how they were on my card. I couldn't see them on the camera but they were just there.

There is a new system for pouch. I guess they had a problem with different weight of papers so now it is ONE PAPER in AN ENVELOPE. But you can write on both sides.

We had the opportunity to watch the funeral of President Hinckley, a KSL-5 special, and the press conference (that was in Spanish though) last night. This morning the Latino elders left so last night an American missionary and a Latino starting singing "Til we meet again", in Spanish. I started hearing and went over to sing. I joined in on the end of the second chorus. Now we had a trio... the third verse was a strong one and all 3 of us had singing experience (cept me). We sang in perfect harmony olne that I have never sung before. Usually I can get a few parts to sound good, but this was totally amazing. By the time we started the 4th verse we had about 15-20 of us. Soon after the President wanted to know what was going on. By the time we had finished the song almost all of us were in tears. I have never felt the Spirit as strong as I did during that song. Following that I wrote in my journal about it.

Today just the Americans went to a church house and we played basketball for 2 hours. Following we went to McDonolds. MY FIRST REAL MEAL ASIDE FROM THE MTC FOOD... ¿¿¿and do u know what i got??? A DOUBLE BIG MAC OH YAH... I even got a picture to prove it.

About the pens VIENTICINCO DOLLARS???? Shoot no I don't want 6. I don't know if I am even worth to hold such a scripture marker as that. One will do. I don't know - one or two. The other would be for my teacher, he wanted one.

Candice¨ got your letter thanks, on is one its way back
Kim¨ got one coming your way as well
Mom¨ I love you
Dad¨ I love you as well (hopefully u can play portal)
Mike/zub ¨ thanks for the watch.. i hope i don't get robbed.}
Blaine. you owe me 20 dollars j/k
Nikki; Your not a crab, (but candice is)
Hmmmm 7 minutes left.. You can tell Steve Thatcher I picked the patriots, but luckily I didn't bet him. UnfortunatelyI lost 3 of my night time snacks to 3 different elders :P

All is well. I happened to snag some Honduras money.. can someone check if it is legal to mail money internationally?

Hopefully I hear from you next week.
E. Wood

Elder Cool

16th Presidency Called

Thomas S. Monson is the new president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, it was announced today at a news conference in the Church Office Building. President Monson, 80, succeeds President Gordon B. Hinckley, who died 27 January 2008.

The new world leader of the Church has called to serve with him in the First Presidency, the top governing body of the 13-million-member faith, President Henry B. Eyring, 74, first counselor, and President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, 67, second counselor.