Hola! I hope you all are doing well. We are doing good here- we've survived our second week:) This week has been a little different. School was much harder as I got into the intricacies of ser and estar and por and para and saber and conosco and irregular preterit verbs. Whew- it makes me tired just writing it! But conversation is getting better and a little easier and thats good. I figured out that I had over 400 vocab words as of Tuesday. No I don't have them all memorized yet. Keep praying! On Sunday we went to a Baptist church near Antigua and are going today to minister with them in a mission project they are involved in. More on that later. We've stayed in San Juan more this week in the afternoons and that has been helpful. Candy, Mandy and I have also been putting on our backpacks full of stuff and hiking some of the steep streets here a couple of times a week for practice for the Andes. The locals really think we are crazy now. Our family continues to bless us with their kindness and generosity. The food is still amazing- one morning this week we had homemade banana crepes with marmalade in them and a side of fresh pineapple. You have no idea. Please pray for them that the veil of catholicism will be lifted and they will see who Christ really is. We love them very much and hope to be able to speak to them better soon! Pray for our teachers as well. They are used to teaching missionaries and they either know what to say or how to keep the conversation from going there. Though just in regular conversation I've been able to share some things with my teacher. Its not hard to love the people here very quickly. They are sweet in nature, quick to laugh, and always ready to eat something! We are hoping to plan a trip to the beach next weekend b/c Guat.'s labor day is Friday and we don't have class- so we get a long weekend.
Please continue to pray for our group here as we strive to be united, find where God wants us to minister, and work hard to learn the language. Pray also for health for the group- David and I have been fine but some others have had a few stomach issues and a sprained ankle has made their week more tough.
An interesting note: Here in San Juan there is a bombas factory (fireworks mostly, though not with the pretty lights, just the loud loud loud noise) and they are very popular to set off for a fiesta or someones birthday or if I understand correctly, if anything remotely exciting happens at all. We've heard them quite a bit and they are extraordinarily loud. But we've kinda gotten used to them. Yet this morning (friday) I was having my typical nightly bad dream about a war of some kind- when I was awakened to the loud sound of what I could only imagine was machine gun fire. David, being the protective caring, wonderful husband he is, threw himself over me and covered my head. My heart is pounding like crazy and I'm thinking we need to get under the bed!!! But its not big enough- so I'm laying there trying to think if we could turn the table over and get behind it- when at last we realize it was just someone celebrating a birthday with an enormous string of bombas_ AT 4:45 IN THE MORNING. Now I'm not a Guatemalan- so I know I don't really understand, but who in their right mind celebrates ANYTHING at 4:45 in the morning? Well they do in San Juan. With that note- I'll write more next week. 

Week 1 in Guatemala

Hola! I hope everyone is doing well and enjoying the spring there! We've jumped straight into summer here and of course I'm loving it. Guatemala is a great place and we are enjoying it tremendously. Though things are dusty and a little brown now- I've been assured that in a few weeks when the rainy season starts- everything becomes really beautiful. But even now it looks good to us. There are tons of flowers and plenty of fresh fruit. The family we are staying with is wonderful- I really couldn't ask for better. They have 4 kids, one dog and 2 parrots. The house is very nice- its more of a lot of seperate rooms around a courtyard. For instance, when I leave our bedroom I walk outside and across the courtyard to the bathroom and then across again to get to the kitchen. Our mother has fed us very well and eveything we've had has been really good! The pineapple is so sweet you wouldn't believe it. We've also had papaya, canteloupe and bananas. The school is about a 5 minute walk away, we go past the center of town where the catholic church is and the park. The school is 2 rooms, 2 bathrooms and a principal's office. But we don't have class inside- they set up tables outside on the wrap around porch and one is the yard. The yard is very nice, with tons of flowers, and a few chickens running around. Each of us here have our own teacher, so its one on one for 2 hours and then we get a 30 minute break and then 1.5 hours more. Its very good for learning because you can't zone out at all- you have to work the whole time. My teacher is very kind and patient and has taught me a lot. The first few days we did a lot of vocab and verb forms but from there have gone to more conversation with drills thrown in here and there and whenever we get to a word I don't know or I say wrong, he corrects it and we keep going. Today David decided to write out flash cards for all the vocab he' s learned this week and it has taken him over three hours and he's still not done! Whew- very intense. But I can see a difference already- so there is hope for only learning for three months.
In the afternoons we go home and eat lunch, which is the biggest meal of the day here. After that it depends, our first day we had a tour of Antigua- a very pretty town that isn't that large but a lot of people and a ton of tourists. But there is pretty much anything you need there. The second afternoon we went on a macadamia nut farm tour. It was kind of a bust- bc it wasn't much to see. But is the only organic one in Guatemala! Wednesday we stayed in San Juan and studied in the park, but went to Antigua to have supper with some IMBers here. Thursday we hiked up an active volcano- so our first sighting of lava. Friday we hung around San Juan and studied and enjoyed not having the 15 minute bus ride into Antigua and then home again. So in short we are enjoying this very much. Please let us know how to pray for you! We miss you!
Please pray for us as we stretch our brains and try to learn as much as possible

Also pray for us to know best how to minister while we are here, we are trying to start a Bible study and maybe some prayer walking.

Pray that our group will stay united and that we will be an encouragement for each other.

Pray for our families that they will have peace and comfort about us being away.

Pray for our adopted families here that we will be able to show the love of Christ to them in real ways.

Praise God with us for the success of our learning so far!