No time so I am just going to post another part of a letter I sent home to my family.
“….last friday was pretty much the best day of my life. We pretty much spent the whole day with Richard G. Scott. I am going to explain what happened. So, it all started at 10 am all of us (Elders) from my zone took a bus to Xela. Xela is about an hour and a half from here but its pretty much completely up hill because its located in the mountains. From the moment I got there I felt a million times better. Like I came alive. I really think I was born to live in the cold. I instintally felt more energy. Some day I hope I get the opportunity to serve there!
We got there around 12. And the meeting was at 1 so we had an hour to kill. We ended up going to this place called Hiper Paiz. Wow! It was awesome. Its like a huge mall. If it werent for the señoritas de corte and the gaurds with shotguns I would have sworn we were in the states. It was awesome. And inside they had everything, Burger King, Taco Bell, etc! All things I forgot existed. I freaked out and bought 2 combos from taco bell. hay que aprovechar. Because who knows when the next chance Ill get to eat like that again.
So after that we took off to a chapel nearby. All the missionaries in this mission met there. It was the first time and probably the last time I will ever see all of us together in one area. There is a little over 200 plus missionaries in this mission. Richard G. Scott then showed up and wow. It was awesome! He started by shaking each of our hands and thanking us for the service we are giving. He spoke to us about how we can learn more from the spirit and how we can better study the scriptures. And it was all in spanish! He can speak spanish so well it was so cooool hearing him speak. The meeting we had with him lasted for over 2 hours and immediately afterwards we took a bus to an area close by called campo de la feria.
There all the members from this mission met. There was easily over 15 thousand people gathered to hear Richard G. Scott speak. It was incredible seeing so many members and missionaries together. Very powerful! We had a lot of investigators go as well and they loved it. Now, on the trip home we were supposed to grab the bus home with our ward. The problem is we had know idea where they were! By the time the meeting ended it was pitch black and we had no clue where I ward was in the mess of so many people.
There was literally over 200 buses gathered to pick up all the different wards and take them home. And when I say gathered I dont mean neatly lined up in happy little lines with signs signifying the wards. No. It was pretty much the biggest disordean I have ever seen. Buses were jammed in all sorts of crazy angles forming a giant circular mess with people running around in shouting ward names trying to find their ride home. I honestly didnt think we were going to find it but by luck, miracle or whatever we ran into a member friend who had a cell phone and he made the apropiate calls and ended up locating the bus for us.
All in all the trip was beyond cool. Richard G. Scott also said in our meeting that in the priesthood session he is going to direct his talk supposedly directly at us. He said, well it will obviously be for everyone but he is going to gear it towards us so I am excited to hear that. All in all this week has been absolutely amazing!”
Original comments:
MOM says:
AMAZING!!15 thousand people and 200 buses, I don’t suppossed you ran into any of my old seminary friends, Did you??Has Elder Forbyn, Elder Skinner or Elder Taylor had opportunities to listen to General Authorities yet?? I ran into Elder Kelly at Walmart today! He is doing great, loving the mission but wont be going to Chicago until his arm is healed in about two months.ABRAZOS :O)
Grandpa Sid says:
Elder nieto, You make tears come to my eyes when I envision your experiences! Your last blog you mentioned that you had found out what the ending “tenango” means. The version you told was interesting. However, when I was laboring among the Kachiquel people in the Chimaltenango District (then composed of that city, Patcizia, Tecpan, and Patzun) the people told me it means “a place of many people;” or in other words, a pueblo or ciudad. This would correspond to the ville or ton in English such as Springville, Honeyville, Littleton, Brighton, Jamestown etc. This was altered a little by a book which I read a few years after my mission (about 15 or 20) which said it was a place where the thing indidated in the first part of the name was found in abundance such as:Chichicastenengo=place of chichicastes (cactus) Huehuetenango= the place of the old people, etc. You mentioned you have 200 missionaries in your mission. When I arrived in my mission, the two elders with me and I brought the total number to 63 for all of Central America, from the border with Mexico down to and including Colombia and Venezuela. When I completed my mission in July of 1960, there were only 10,000 members in that area and the majority of them were in the Republic of Guatemala (perhaps 3/4), where I spent the last seven months of my mission traveling from one place to another to work with each set of missionaries for two to three days at a time then on to the next.
Will says:
Wow Grandpa Sid, the church sure has grown since you served! Im not sure how many members are in Guatemala but I know just in Reu we have 3 stakes! Your version of the ending “tenango” makes lots of sense to me when I think about it because there is an area in our mission and it is called Mazatenango. And accourding to what I heard it signifies that area is cold but, nope, its on the coast and its even hotter than Reu. They have a saying there that, el diablo sale en la mañanita con calsotinas. haha, i cant spell good in spanish but im sure you can figure it out.
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