Hello friends and family,

So this week was mas o menos as said in Spanish (the topic of combining languages in fresh on my mind as I just has a very long conversation with my friend Elder Tebbs about how we dislike the mixing of 2 languages, lets keep spanish spanish and english english) and I don´t have many notable things to write. First off I want to say that I laughed out loud at the mic-check that I heard as I passed by an evangelical church yesterday. He wasn't saying ¨check 1 2¨ or anything even close, what he was saying as he was tuning his electric guitar was ¨ Aleluya, aleluya, Dios poderoso, Dios poderoso¨ poderoso means powerful. The thing is though he was saying as casually as any other mic check in a concert. Churches here are nuts. Before singing a hymn with a new investigator the other day he asked us, ¨Oh you sing hymns sitting down?¨ As he lowered himself back down into the chair (yes he had started to get up when we said we were going to sing a hymn). People trust their pastors so much it´s crazy. Some people say, ¨I would like to read your Book but I have to ask my pastor first.¨ Generally I´m almost positive that the pastor won´t have anything good to say about it.

Anyways I promised a little of Dorian´s conversion story. He was what they call an ayudante (helper) for the buses which is the person who hangs out the bus door yelling the destination when the bus is traveling down the road at 50 miles an hour. I love to think about how many laws the buses here would break in America. Anyways in his job as an ayudante, he met his current girlfriend Ledy Gonzalez, who little by little introduced him to the church. He had always read and loved the bible but had never joined with any church, and become very interested in the church, very unusual for someone in his job and his lifestyle (the schedule of an aydante is crazy and it´s not a very good atmosphere). He started to want to go to church but couldn´t because of his job. At this time he also lived with some people very strong in their evangelical church which made it hard to be openely interested in our church. He started to pray to find a new job and be able to find a new house to live in. This is all before we started talking to him.

The grandpa of Ledy soon after offered Dorian a job, and he was able to find a better house for less money. This is where we entered and within 3 lessons he had committed to baptism. He quickly caught interest with the temple and baptisms for the dead, because as we later found out, both his parents in Nicaragua had died and he came to Guatemala just to get away from everything. He wants as soon as possible to do the work for his parents in the temple and is really becoming quickly an impressive member of the church. It really is interesting to see how he has changed from the life he had before and always reminds me of why were here. It also reminds me that most the success we have happens with people have experience with the church before they talk to the missionaries. The Lord works in incredible ways and stories like this always motivate me to keep going.

Other than that, I´m doing well. Things with my companion are still hard, he has told me he refuses to change and that he is just waiting for a new companion at this point, but I´ve really been able to get to the point of feeling a peace in all of this, knowing that I´m trying my hardest, and I obviously I can always improve, but I really feel as if I´m trying my best. He just has a hard time trusting or listening to anybody, and decides for himself what is right instead of listening to the counsel of our leaders. He´s a good kid that comes from a rough background, and so I´m trying, but I´m not seeing progress. We´ll see what happens.

I love you all and I´m trying to do my best. Thank you for all your prayers and support. It was so good to hear from the Finks and Katie. You guys rock and will be recieving letters soon.

-Ben