So this week was kind of anti climactic. I got all better and now I can hear fine in both ears. And we finally got to go out and start actually working. But then my companion got sick again. He has a really bad fever, and he actually started hallucinating in the street one day...so we have been stuck in the house for the last couple days. My companion is really, really hardworking, and a lot of the time he doesn´t mention how bad he actually feels until there´s no avoiding it. One day he said he actually felt good enough to leave, and so I called the laundry lady to tell her we´d stop by with the clothes in a few minutes. And then I heard my companion say he felt like "a pile of horse meat burning on someone´s porch." And I looked back and he was asleep on the floor, in the exact place he found me when I was sick. And he stayed there for the next five hours without waking up. I read a lot of things and learned a ton, and got some sleep, and solved the Rubik´s Cube around 500 times, and he was still asleep. He did wake up eventually, and he was really confused. Yesterday we were in the house too, and I actually taught him how to solve the Rubik´s Cube because there was so much extra time.
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| He stayed here for a very long time |
Before he was sick, we got to go on divisions, which means that we switched companions for a day. I went to Rio Santiago with one of the zone leaders, and my companion stayed in El Palmar with the other. Also, one of the mission president´s assistants was with us in Rio Santiago too for that day. His name is Elder Tadje, and he´s a very white, very tall missionary from Utah. It was really cool to see how he worked. He really changed my perspective of some of the normal, everyday things we do on the mission. He had fun with EVERYTHING. No matter what, he was joking and making people laugh. But he was always doing things right and well, and he wasn´t ever lazy or slow with anything. At one point, we came to talk to a lady who was wearing corte and was clearly from the mountains, which isn´t uncommon to see here. She said she was from Solola, and all of a sudden Elder Tadje, who had been up there for a year of his mission, started speaking to her in this OTHER language. She brightened up and started speaking back, and they had an entire conversation together. I think he introduced us too, but we were totally lost. The truth is, Guatemala has around 23 languages that are spoken by people throughout the country. And the ones that aren´t Spanish don´t sound anything like Spanish, because they come from Mayan influence, not from Spain. He was speaking Cakchiquel with her, but I´ve also heard of Quekchi, Quiche, Pokomon, and a couple others. The culture of this country is really cool, and it makes me super excited to learn even more as I get to travel to other parts throughout my mission.
Speaking to people in their native language always gets to their heart, and that´s why I´m here speaking Spanish every day. The bible says that the gospel will reach every person in their own town and tongue, and I am here to do just that. It´s fantastic, and I´m excited to be able to do more of that...once my companion gets better.
Love you guys!
-Elder Cloward
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