Christmas in November!

Maham y Daddy-O

This week has been really good.  First of all, I got a package!!! But it's not my birthday package, it's the one you sent for Christmas and I already opened all of my presents. THANK YOU sooo much. I feel kinda like a jerk here though because I have already gotten 2 packages in my first 3 months and some people haven't gotten any through their whole mission.  But that doesn't mean you should stop sending me packages...

My comp and I went to Reu for a meeting with all the people still in training.  It was really cool to see all my friends from the CCM, but we couldn't get back to our areas because of a road block that the police put down because of "demonstrations" in the streets of some of the cities. So we slept in Reu in a hotel. That was awesome because we had hot water and twin sized beds and air conditioning.

We also had a funeral here this week because the Abuela of a member family died. It was really sad, but it was a teaching experience because the Abuelo of that family is not a member. So we started teaching him about how he can see his wife again. He was really receptive. I told him about uncle Eric and bore my testimony that I know we can see him again and I think it really helped him to see that there is hope.

This week we are going to have a Thanksgiving dinner with turkey and everything!!! Presidente Ruiz really pulled through for us. Woooo!!! My comp and I have really been working hard and I think that we are going to have a lot of success here. Next week we're going to have a wedding on Saturday. It's a girl named M... that we have been teaching and now she can get baptized sooo that's exciting... 

This week I learned that the Chapins (locals?) stink at basketball.  We have been playing at the church in the mornings and my comp and I dominate it's really actually pretty sad, but they are really good at soccer.

Happy Thanksgiving to you all. I'm grateful for everything!

Miss you and love you,

Elder Tagg

cool selfie

I assume this is rain

He's pretty tall compared to the locals

Dangerous Eyes

Maham y Daddy-O

This week was great the big thing that came to pass this week is that I got a new companion his name is Elder Ro... He has ten months on his mission and is from Mexico.  He is really cool and we work really hard. This week I had to teach him the area and Elder Rosales doesn't speak English, but we got through it. Elder Go... left and went to zone San Marcos which is in the mountains and really cold but that will be good for him.  He also got moved up to district leader so that's cool.

This week on the day of transfers I went to the temple that is in Quetzaltenango.  That is the mission that Matthew Helton from our stake is serving in. It was a really cool experience even though I didn't get to go inside. It was awesome.

A story- We are teaching this less active family that has two sons that haven't been baptized. So we challenged them with a baptismal date and they accepted!!! It was really cool. The Mom of the family told me that she wants to cut my head off and keep my eyes in a jar because she thinks my blue eyes are really cool. (yikes!)

Also we found a dog that restored my love for dogs (Evan loved dogs before his mission but he says the dogs there are really smelly and awful so he's had a hard time loving them as before) his name is Capitán and he is a chihuahua I'll send a picture.  

I'm really sorry to here about Uncle Eric, but at least he isn't suffering anymore.

Love you guys and miss you,

Elder Tagg

Capitan!

I accidentally sent his email to the wrong address so he sent me a "Sad Evan" photo in this camisas tipicas which just means typical shirt.

New companions! 

Trapped in an Elevador

Mahm y Daddy´o 

This week a lot happened, but first let me answer your questions.  First I am more feeling adjusted. I feel pretty normal as a missionary now. I'm pretty much over the culture shock but there still are things that I'm still like... "what the freak are these people doing" about.  Like all the body language the people use here.  They use it for everything and I don't understand. My language is getting a lot better.  I can hold a conversation for like five minutes without an awkward pause so that is a good thing!!  I'm working hard but sometimes it's difficult because Elder G has 21 months and sometimes he doesn't want to work very hard. But I think he is going to have transfers. I do remember reading with you when I was little.  We read Harry Potter. That was awesome. And thanks for the advice about not doubting my self. I think that is a problem I have had my whole life. 

Anyways this week was awesome I went on divisions with the companion of my district leader, Elder Ga... He is really cool but a really serious guy.  I get that missionary work is serious but that doesn't mean that you can't have fun while doing it. Anyways something really memorable happened this week. So we have zone meetings every week on Tuesdays and we have them in the stake center which is like the nicest building in the whole city because it has an elevator. It's only two floors so the elevator is really small... So after our zone meeting my comp yelled "everyone in the elevator!" So 10 Elders, including me, my comp, and Elder Ngu... a Tongan Elder who has a scholarship to play football as a defensive lineman after his mission at Texas State University piled in the tiny elevator and started to descend.  When we were almost at the bottom we all heard a loud banging noise and the doors opened and we were trapped beneath the first floor by like five feet.  Nobody could move because of how packed it was. The good thing was that the elevator had AC so we didn't suffocate. We where all stuck in the elevator for at least a hour before the 1st counselor to the bishop came with a special key and let us all out. Luckily nobody was hurt. It was pretty scary. One of the Elders took a selfie of all of us in the elevator. I'm going to have him send me it and I'll probably send it next week to you guys. At the least it was a memorable experience. 

Also this week we had a surprise visit from the president and he told us that we needed to work harder and find more new investigators this week so me and Elder Go worked harder to try to find new people and we found a family of four all over the age of 8. After teaching them they told us they knew that everything we were saying was true, and that it was a miracle that we were there. I think for sure that we are going to baptize them they just need to hear all the lessons. This week we found 13 new investigators with just 2 families. 

To close I just want to say that I love and miss all of you guys 

Elder Tagg

Moto Taxis, Perros y Narcos

Maham y Daddy-O

Here in Guatemala they do not celebrate Halloween.  They celebrate la Dia De Los Muertos. But from what I saw they didn't really celebrate it that much.  There were no signs besides the fact that everyone eats fiambre. You can look it up. It's like a bunch of random meats and vegetables died different colors and served cold its really weird. I had it twice yesterday. My baptism with Ke... did go through. We baptized him last Saturday it was really cool. I don't know if I want to be chief of washing the family's socks.  Honestly the washing machine will do it a lot better. I liked the photos you sent of Drew and the other ones in the email. I haven't gotten my birthday package yet but I did get the card you sent on Sept 11th. I cannot change playlists on my iPod shuffle. I think I need a head phone set to listen to it because when I press the voice button I can't hear anything through the speaker. I don't know, it's weird.  I'm thinking about sending a package to you guys with cool things from Guatemala for Christmas but I would need extra money because I can't use the mission money for that... Think about it .

This week we had the baptism of Ke...l it was really cool. I now have brought three almas (souls) to Christ.  Pretty awesome. This week I went on divisions with the zone leaders.  They are really cool guys and I learned a lot. I think I'm starting to grasp this Gospel but I'm not sure. Two youth in the ward got their mission calls. One is going to Nicargaua, the same mission that my companion lives in. The other one is going to Arizona. Not a lot of unique stuff happened this week, just the normal missionary stuff. So instead I will share three fun facts about life in Guatemala Retalhuleu. Also I killed  one of the small moths here I'll send a picture.

FUN FACTS:
Number one, there are moto taxis here that are called 'tuk tuks.'  They have three wheels and the way they drive them here reminds me of Korea.  It's crazy.  You can probably google a picture of them they are pretty cool. But we use them to go everywhere. 

Number two, the perros (dogs) here are crazy they have almost made me not like dogs anymore just because the ones living one the streets are so abused and almost dead and they smell awful. I think its because the people here treat the dogs like they are less than trash. 

Number three, everybody here has chickens and for eggs and to eat or something but the lady who lives beneath us has some and every morning at like 5:50am they go crazy and make sooo much noise I want to kill them. 

Bonus fact, I think my neighbor is what they call a narco, or basically a drug dealer. Because his house is freaking nice and he's got a pack of like 6 chihuahuas that guard his house. 

Yup those are the facts. 

SPIRITUAL MOMENT

Yo se que vive mi Señor. (I know that my redeemer lives)

Love 

Elder Tagg