Saturday, April 27, 2013

Week 11: Week 5 in the Mission Field

Greetings from Guatemala,

Hoping that everyone is doing quite well! We freaked out last week when our landlady told us North Korea had bombed America - envisioning nuclear warfare and all. But only a few people died, right? Not that that's not still super sad and scary...

Being out of the range of news is weird. There's plenty of news in Guatemala (though, my goodness, the papers really are kind of tabloidy - it makes me want to study how journalism varies internationally, because you can tell so much about the cultures by... but after the mission, after the mission I will think about this.) Anyway, the news gets to Guatemala, just as missionaries we're not supposed to pay attention to it. So I haven't read a newspaper in 2 months, and I think it's the longest I've ever gone. I miss it, obviously, but at the same time this is what I wanted right? I'm spending all my time focused on the people around me and how I can help them spiritually, as well as how I can be a better person. And I trust that it's right for me to be here right now. I know that I'm learning things here (even things I can't see right now) that will make me a better person and professional and everything when I return.

And, seriously, being a missionary is kind of like being a journalist. An investigative one. We get to ask lots of inspired questions and contact people in the street and go door to door searching for them, sometimes. And now, instead of just listening to somebody's sad story, sympathizing, and putting it in the paper, never to see them again, I can offer them something: the gospel of Jesus Christ. And that heals everything.

On a lighter note, it has started raining a lot in the afternoons. Riding in camionetas (the beds of pick-up trucks, fitted with this iron cage-looking-like thing, and used as busses) is incredibly fun, and yesterday there were 14 missionaries in the back of a short-bed pick-up truck, going to a field in the middle of nowhere to play soccer. I am getting good at soccer! But oh, the things you can do in Guatemala... It's a wonderful life.

Adios amigos,

Hermana Ison


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