Monkeys, Pigs, Parrots, Lizards, and Spiders the size of a CD - Awesome!

Where in Guatemala is Elder Jordan Smith.......?????
IN SAYAXCHE, PETEN!!!!!!!!! SWEET HUH!!!!
Ok first travel....Took a really boring 10 hour bus ride and we got to the ZL´s house in San Benito at midnight. The Zone Leaders are Elder Bruneel and Elder Pierce. Then we slept on really crappy cots for like 5 hours and then we left to Sayaxche which took another 3 hours. So that made me a little bit tired!!
We live in a house with another companionship. And guess who??....ELDER MCPHEE (my Provo MTC comp) and his comp Elder Drach!! Its so sweet. Drach has 16 months in the mission. My companion is Elder Toolson! He is freaking sweet. It is so fun up here, especially with 4 gringos in the house. Toolson has one more change than me in the mission (7 months) so the spanish battle out here is a little tough. But I think it will help us out a lot. It's going to be really fun this change. I will probably be with him 2 changes at least because he was here only one change before me. He is from Gilbert, AZ by the way. He is tall and I think he is gonna play basketball at UVU. Sweet huh!

I am doing so great.

Peten is probably the hottest place on the face of the planet. You know how Jessica always whines about her Arizona heat? Tell her to come here. It is probably between 100 to 115 degrees every day with 100% humidity. It is psychotic!! I sweat so much. Other elders have compared it to the surface of the sun!!! It's that super hot. There are a lot of mosquitos too! So thats always fun. There are a lot of mosquitos because there is a huge river that is in our area. It's really beautiful here though. I love it! So green and just straight up awesome!!

We have cold showers, but boy does it feel fantastic after being out in the sun for so long. The shower is just a pipe in the wall that water just kinda falls out of. But its not too bad at all! It's great!!

We probably walk like 10 miles a day too. All of the houses are really spread out. So get ready for me to lose some more weight up here. To get to district meeting, its like 45 minutes away. It's funny though... In the Capital we always used buses. Here there are Microbuses. They are like vans that drive back and forth. But they are way expensive. So when we cross the river on a ferry to go to District Meeting we always hitch a ride there and back from some guy with a truck. So we are in the backs of trucks a lot here. Its rather fun. Today Elder McPhee got hit in the face by a big ol grasshopper. It was hilarious!!

So, the things I have seen so far in this area....
A HOWLER MONKEY...a WILD ONE!!! It was sweet. Those things are soooo loud its sweet!!
There are more pigs walking in the street than dogs.
The roads aren't paved, they are practically just rock streets. My feet hurt quite a bit at the end of the day. I love it though.
I have held a parrot on my hand.
I have seen a sweet little monkey tied to a tree swinging around.
I have seen a spider the size of a CD.
Our house is kind of like a barn. I will try and describe it. The roof does not connect to the walls. And there are giant open windows on both ends of the house. Or in other words, whatever wants to come in our house can. It's pretty crazy!!
There are always lizards in the house too. The first time Elder Drach saw one he said. "There is a lizard on my wall. Are they poisonous? If not, I'm gonna fry it up and eat it!!!!" Ha! It's really fun here!!

I really don't know too much about our investigators yet, but we did put 3 fechas (baptismal dates) yesterday with some kids of a recently baptized family! So that is pretty sweet. We do have 2 investigator families that, well, they pretty much only speak Kekchi. That could pose a problem because Toolson's last comp could speak it. But we can barely speak Spanish. In one family, the husband can speak Spanish, but the other family the wife can speak less Spanish than I can. So we will see what happens with those two families.

Oh I don't know if this is a scripture, but I have heard it a lot lately and I really like it so I will share it with you. It is, "If God is with you, who is against you? " I think that is a really cool statement and it has helped me quite a bit here out in the field, like looking in the past and stuff.

The church building here is more like a house and it's really hot. There are no microphones so it's really hard to hear. I have been told that this area has lost investigators because the church service is boring. It wasn't too bad this last Sunday, but it could use a lot of improvements. Hopefully we can help out with that.

Oh a really cool thing about the area is that we get to baptize in the river. So I sure hope I get a baptism soon because that would be a sweet experience!!!

I used my new card today, yes I got it. But I don't know how I can send those signature cards back. You are going to have to talk to the bank about that one. We don't really ever get pouch up here and I dont feel comfortable at all sending that in the mail.

Grandma's reaction was really funny about that Dear John from my car. Ha ha! Sweet that Jake has Miss Newby for English. She rules.

Well I think that's all for this week. I love you all so very much!!
Stay strong.
Keep the faith.
Love, Elder Jordan Smith