I LOVE the people of Dolores!

Mom,

I wanted to send you a bunch of pictures so I am not going to be able to write much again. But when I am done I'll answer your questions:

Pictures from Last Week's Family Night

 These are from a bon fire that we had. 

We have family night with this family almost every Monday night. 

 

 The kids of this family, the G. Family, 

make up the majority of the leaders of the organizations in the branch. 

They are the best.

 OK, so these are from today. 

This is of the inside of the cave we went to that had all this ancient Mayan stuff.
 It is called Najtunich —if you want to try to look it up—they are like two hours from Poptún, close to San Luis . It's pretty cool. 

That is the gate that they locked the cave up with
so you can't get through to the really cool stuff
—cuz ppl destroyed some of it apparently.

Me and Hermana B. We are Darth Maul candle fighting! Ha ha! 

This is like an actual ancient carved out chair. The first picture looks cooler
but I sent the second one so you could see the chair better.

 

That is a legit Tarzan vine that I am actually swinging on!
That was the best ever!!! Ha ha! 

.....and the two hour ride back in the back of the truck! Ha ha!

The next one is for Abby.
I thought she would love the baby chick!
Tell her hi for me and that I love her SOOOOOOOOOOO much!
...and I never got a chance to thank her for the note that she sent me. Tell her thank you soo much and it was my favorite! It helped me out a whole lot and made me super happy!!!.

Then the next one is this GIANT caterpiller that we found in our house the other week!

And then the other two are of one of the tarantulas
that we found in a corn field a couple weeks ago.

This is the second one we found.
The first climbed up the pant leg of one of the kids that was with us
 and he had to grab it in his pants in a wad
and then take his pants off and shake it out! Ha ha ha!

These ones are of a service project 

we did in Mopan a few weeks ago.

The first few are of the jalón ride up.

The kids went with us to help.

And yes, that is cow crap im standing in! Ha ha ha. 

I have no idea what I'm laughing at but I really liked this picture. Me with my machete eating my cañon. (sugar cane) That is what that plant is behind me. It is the best. Whenever we go and work in the fields we just chop down a stick of caña and suck on it while we work!

Now, Mom to answer your questions.

I loved  my packages! Everything was the best, the laundry bag is PERFECT! And the food is incredible. Everything got here including the cheese—and the jar was unbroken.

As far as the weather, it's not cold anymore.

As far as books or stuff you can send.... other study material isn't allowed. But thanks! If it's like stuff to teach —like that that would be awesome! Can you get Queq´chi stuff?! I dont think that I am going to be speaking it too much— but today I talked a little with our guides in Najtunich with the little that I knew. I love it SO much! It would be cool if I got sent where I could learn it and speak it!......Yeah, but they usually don't send you up if you already have as much time out as I do...but that would be awesome. And like if you could send little things like examples that would make things easier to teach so they can understand that would be awesome! Because it is for sure a lot easier for a lot of the people to learn if they can see it.  

Changes aren't this Wednesday but next — I have no idea what's going on this change. I think it might be a crazy one either way...   

You know me mom......I am not OK......Not great....... OF COURSE...... I AM  AWESOME!!!!!!!!

And last but not least: 

YOU BETTER SEND ME PICTURES OF THAT BABY!!!!   

LOVE YOU MOM!!!! I GOTTA GO! I will try to send more pictures again next week! 

I love you all!!! 

Talk to you next week,

Elder Welch

Lot's of photos this week!

The Village of Mopan

A beautiful morning in Guatemala.

These pictures were taken on our way to Mopan.
 Mopan is the village that we have to walk 2 hours to get to.

Mom—I thought you would like this one!

Playing Soccer in Mopan

This is a picture of us playing soccer with the kids in Mopan.
Elder  P. is on the left and I am taking the picture.

We brought the soccer ball with us.....they had so much fun playing with a "real" ball.

Some of the people from the village. 

Planting Corn

This one is of me with M. sharpening our machetes.
Yes, now I really do have my own. I got sick of borrowing one. 

Then there is one of us ¨chapeando¨ 
We had to clean the land of all the weeds and brush with machetes so he can plant his corn there. 

We didn't finish the work, but the last picture is the 'after" photo of when we had to stop.

Then one of me dipping my head in a river on our way back from the service....
.... cuz it was SO— hot. It felt SO— good! 

My Companion

Me and my companion Elder P.

One with us and all my loot! Ha! Ha! With our PEZ´s Ha ha ha ha!

 Teaching Music

Me teaching music!
One of the people there was messing with my camera and took this picture.

 The Talent Show

The Talent Show!
These are some of the kids that I teach music.

This me playing my song for the talent show.
Lead by example Right?!? I just HAD to play!

Dancing....it turned out well.

And Last —but not least—

Mom's favorite photo of the day! :) 

Ha Ha! As Hayden would say....

Then there is one of another snake I killed on the way to the service. Thought you´d like that one mom. But don't worry—It´s not the FIRST most dangerous snake in Guatemala this time.......only the THIRD—!!!!
 But it was just a little guy so don't worry. That is Elder P. with me. He's in my district.

Hey,  I'm almost out of  time because I sent so many pictures. But, for my letter this week I will  try and give you a quick overview of the week. 

Monday I didn't write because of the zone acitivity. We  went to a full sized soccer field and played soccer and frisby and  two hand touch. It was super fun. 

Sunday was the best! We had twenty six people in church with eight investigators!!! and that was even with the elections. Seven of the eight were people from Mopan, that little village.  We went there this week and taught a ton of them and we  brought a soccer ball and played with them on this little dirt  field they've made in-between their houses. They were so excited to have an actual ball and to play with us! We have a family night planned for this Friday with three of the families that live out there and I think it is going to be awesome! And they  all said they are going to come next Sunday too! Woohoo!  

We also went and did a lot of service this week. I would explain but I dont have time—. But  let's just say I could probably run a corn farm when I get home!!!! Ha ha ha! 

Thank you so much for everything! I love the pictures! Oh I got the two Halloween  packages and one Thanksgiving package. I still haven't got the vans and  I'm pretty sure you sent those before— if so , I'm pretty sure they're gonners.  That sucks. 

Anyway, oh super random, but I forgot to tell you last week that I saw a real true live robin!!!—In Guatemala!!!! it  must have  been in route flying south just passing by... I thought you would enjoy that Mom.  Ha ha. 

Oh and the music classes are going well. I am  actually teaching myself a ton by teaching it. I more than any thing just teach one kid  so I'm not sure it's worth it to keep doing it —but we'll see. 

Oh and we had our talent show last week. That went really well! I did a song and so did the kid that I'm teaching! Ha haa! It was super cool. 

But I'm running out of time so I better go. But I am doing so much  better now. So don't  worry. I am doing so  awesome! 

Oh and I was going to tell you too I went on divisions with Elder T— my ZL. I found out that he is family of all of the T's and Winterton's in Heber! Ha ha ha! Just thought that was funny.

Alright I better go. I love you so much! Talk to ya next week!

Elder Hayden Welch

Just like a normal missionary day....

Hey Mom,

I´m doing good. How´s things?

It's going fine. Just like a normal missionary day. It definitely does not seem like Halloween.

I have not received the Halloween package yet. But—Oh man—that sounds like a pretty sick package! But the ZL´s just left to the cap for concilio today so I think next Monday I´ll get it if it's at the office—I sure hope it comes on Monday! All I have gotten since the package from L´s family is a Dear Elder from Nannette. Oh and tell her I'm writing a letter to her right now and to preocuparse!  Ha ha!

(He has not received any of our three packages that we sent for Halloween/Thanksgiving.....so sad!)

I was just talking to the other Elders in my district about how if I was at home right now I would definitely be wearing a very flattering pair of green tights right now!!!! Oh how I miss being Peter Pan!

Yeah—I am just doing "good" not "great"  Ha ha! But no, it wasn´t for the whole Halloween/holiday thing that I am bummed—Even though I sure do miss those tights! Good times! Idk...yesterday was kinda a hard day for me. Idk why. But today´s been good and other than that I have been super awesome. I will be fine mom. Don't worry. But it doesn't mean I'm not gonna have hard times, I know I will, but it is still super hard. It's been kickin my trash lately.


Me and my comp are getting along well though. He´s a good guy. Not the most obedient, but we´re workin on that. Ha ha! I definitely do feel like the mom in this companionship though. I do all the cooking, cleaning, dishes, everything! But it's alright. I love cooking. I´m learning a ton and it's the best. Cleaning, I don't like so much, but I´ve definitely learned to do it!!! Ha ha!

No, that's not true at all about the food. That's a bunch of casaca as we say here. Ha ha! We got extra money and they said that it is enough to eat in one like cheep little restaurante once a day for lunch. I´m pretty sure that it is to save time so we don't have to go all the way back to the house and cook and then leave again. But we, well —I— still cook lunch cuz usually we´re pretty close to the house around lunch time. When we´re short on time though we just grab some food from a comedor.

The best thing I ate this week was a lunch I made the other day for me and Elder P. I made steak with sauted onions, tomatoes and peppers with mashed potatoes and rice. We ate it with this super good bread from this awesome bakery that I found in our area! It was super good. And I totally made up the sauce that I marinated the meat in and it was SUPER good!

And the worst thing I ate wasn´t this week but last week. It is called Atól Shuco. It literally means dirty hot drink. Ha ha ha! It is made from corn. They boil it, then let it sit and get rancid and then they make this like really runny oatmeal kinda stuff out of it and it is SUPER disgusting. It was the second time I had had it. I just downed it —but my companion—he had a super hard time! Ha ha! He about threw up!


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Ha ha! That's ma' boy Tay! Doin' it just like his older brother! Ha ha! Don't worry mom, he´ll pull it out.

(He is referring to Taylor trying to pull his grades up the last week of the term.)

Oh, about the sleeping bag. No I am fine. Tell Grandma Murdock thank you so much though! But I don't have too much room and by the time I get it it will be super hot I'm sure.

Oh, hey— and if you can by any chance get a hold of Elder Sorensen tell him to email me again! I have tried to email him back. He emailed me once and I don´t know if my email has ever gotten through to him because now it is saying it can´t recognize the address so I don´t know what´s going on with that —but I really wanna talk to him and see how he´s doing.

(Kyle if you are out there....I hope you get this message!!! He could really use hearing from you! You have been such a good friend to him and you lift him up. Thanks for all you have done for Hayden and the good person you are!)

Also I have a picture I wanna send to Jake and Mandy but i don´t know how to get it to them. What do you think?

Oh and I was gonna ask, how is the whole deal with Taylor and McCabe? Do they still hang out with Chance? I hope that whole deals not awkward now...if so, sorry Tay!!! Ha ha!

The water situation is we only get water like every five days and we just have that big blue water drum that we have to fill and our pila. The rain has basically stopped. It has rained like once in like two weeks or so.


Hey just finished reading Dad's email.


So—Thanks so much Dad!  I love you! Don't worry though—I´m doing my fair share of splitting wood here too! Ha ha! The thing is that they use it year round here though! But I´m getting pretty dang good at splitting wood. We do it at least like twice a week or so and also folding corn and a bunch of stuff! I don't know how to say it in English but folding corn is the direct translation. It is doblar milpa. When the corn is ready, still on the stock you have to go and bend the stock just under the ears of corn so the husks are pointed downward and the water can't get in and the corn dries. Then you pick it all after it has sat and dried. Then you shuck it and decurnel it and then you dry it in the sun for about a day so it gets really dry and then it is ready to put into the silo to use for maza for tortillas or tamales or whatever. We´ve been doing a TON of service lately! Love you Dad!

Hey— I gotta get going. I love ya too Mom! I love you all! Tell everybody I say hi and everything!


I love you! 

Elder Welch

Things are really going well here!

OK, Mom, before I read or send anything else...CHRISTMAS...I don’t really NEED anything. I am actually doing pretty awesome!!! But I will tell you the stuff that I would like and I’ll tell you my sizes and stuff in case you wanna send anything like that...

-PICTURES!!! That would be the best! Pictures of the family, of the house, the garden, the snow, my room, the back yard, my guitar, whatever....I always talk to people about stuff and they´re like do you have a picture I can see? and I don’t have hardly any!!! So that would be the best.

-I know this is super picky! Ha ha ha! But I have a red pen that I mark all my scriptures with and I want to use the same one the whole mission —so I can see all I marked on the mission. They don’t sell them here and mine is almost out. It is called Pilot G-2 0.7  they sell them here but only in black and blue and I need a red one!

-The typical Christmas candy--swedish fish, sourpatch kids, maplenut goodies...you know what I like! Ha ha!

-And more of that cream. Yes, I have pretty much used it all. I only have like a fourth of a tube left and that´s the third tube! Ha ha! My eczema is real bad... it’s the sweat. Its not EXTREMELY bad, but I’m not gonna lie it’s kinda bad! Ha ha! Nothing like when I played football but probably the next closest thing.

-OK and my pant size is 32 -30 in those VanHuesen ones the kind I like with the stretchy wasteband. Longer is better than shorter, there are a million tailors around here and I like the pleated front. My shirts are 15 1/2 I´m really good on those though and that´s really all....I am actually doing really fine on everything except the pen and the cream!

-My shoe size is 44 —yeah or 10 1/2—sorry! Ha ha! That´s how they do shoes around here. And on my eccos too. Totally forgot my shoe size in American talk for a second...

-No, not really craving anything....but EVERYONE else is....well the Latinos at least, all want beef jerky. So if you sent that, I would have a lot of happy comps and members I think! Ha ha ha!

Thank you! I love you! Thanks mom you are the best!

OK, so yeah,  I got half the Salt Lake pictures and half of the St. George boating pictures. Idk what happened but I could not view half of each one. But the Salt Lake ones woould really be awesome if you could send some of those in a package or something...

OK, so, don't have a lot of time, but my week went really well!!! First I'll answer your questions Mom. Elder P. has 20 months in the mission. As we say, ¡ya se va! He's a good guy. We get along and we´re doing some good things around here. Elder H. completed the year with me and now has thirteen months. 

The rain has stopped now. Now we are kinda lacking on water Ha ha! But we´re hangin in there...but its pretty dang cold! Like between 12 and 4 every night it is dang cold! Last night I slept in my sweats with socks on cuz I was so cold! Ha ha ha! 

But the work is going really well here! Yesterday we organized for the first time ward conference for the branch and it went really well. We are working on getting the organizations up and running and leaders for each one and everything and evryone is super excited and willing to work really hard with us. Also I am teaching English classes and guitar and music classes and this Saturday we are having a talent show!!! It is going to be super awesome! That kid´s name is E. and he came again. His family didn't but he did. He comes with his uncle that is a member—he is the 2nd counselor but was inactive but we reactivated him and now they're coming every week. Out there in that same village we found two more awesome families just this week. We only taught them once but they said they´re all going to come to church this coming Sunday. Things are really going well here. We are also having what are called Fellowship Nights every Saturday and we are having them in less active families houses and it is a really good thing! Our goal is that the branch can be totally self sufficient before we leave and especially with these new meetings that we are setting up and everything —we ARE going to see it! It is awesome!!!!! I gotta go though. I'll fill you in a little more nextweek on everything! 

Love you so much and thanks for everything!!!

Con amor,

Elder Welch

Zone Conference!

Abby and I were both on the computer today when Hayden wrote —so today's email is compiled of fragmented comments from our conversations back and forth.
Carol Anne 


Hey!!! I love you too!!! I don't have a ton of time left! But I really wanna talk to you guys! that would be awesome! I am downloading pictures off of here that you´´ve sent me so that I can print them off right now!


I´ve already read everything, I'm just downloading family pictures to put in my album now and I would rather talk to you since your on, than write a big email! Ha ha! 


No— we didn't get caught in or even hear about any mudslides. 


So, my comp is Elder P. he is from El Salvador. He is pretty cool. He was Elder D.´s comp. a while ago so that´s pretty cool. He´s a good guy. We´ve only been together like five days but we´re getting along pretty well.




Yeah that´s crazy! I heard about that! That´s pretty nuts! My week wasn´t nearly as eventful. We just had zone conference yesterday that´s why I didn't write until today. But the conference was amazing! President Amador from the area presidency came and talked to us for like nine hours!!! Ha ha ha! But it really was amazing! That guy is awesome! 


The weather has been a little crazy. It has been raining a ton lately! We´ve had a bit of water coming into the house but its not a big deal. We´ve just gotta watch it and take care of it. And it takes forever to dry my laundry with no sun! That stinks! but other than that nothing really has happened...


No— I'm not down at all! I'm justifying to get in as much talking to you as I can before I have to go while also getting the pictures! 


I don't think that's what kinda snake it was. Maybe, but I don't think so—and any way I killed it good! Ha ha! If I went back in time...sorry...but I would totally do it again!!!


Oh! For the zone conference we went and stayed in Santa Elena again Sunday night and that is where Elder H. got sent to —so we gotta chill all night again! That was way cool! and we played ping pong again with the desks put together! Ha ha ha!




I got the package with the socks and the journal. Journal.....BEST EVER!!! I thought for sure there was going to be like a letter in there at least or something! Just kidding. But it was awesome! Thanks! 


And the family that went to conference, one of the kids came to church this week but other than that nothing. They said it's way hard to get there cuz it takes and hour and a half walking. It's hard for us to get out there too! But we are working.




But hey my times up. I gotta go. 


I love you all so much!!!


Elder Welch

No news is good news—right?

For those of you looking for a new letter from Hayden—he did not write today. Hopefully he will write tomorrow. I will post as soon as he writes.

As always—Please keep him in your prayers.

Carol Anne

Hayden's snake!

So I decided to find out a little more information on Hayden's snake....only makes me worry more. He will be getting a little "mothers advice" next week!

Carol Anne

Species: Bothrops asper
Family: Viperidae
Common name in Guatemala: Yellow beard or Yellow Throat. 
Also known as:  Pit Viper or Ultimate Pit Viper
Distribution: Low and moderate elevations from Mexico to northern South America
Habitat: Humid areas. 0-1,150 m.
Microhabitat: Terrestrial
Activity: Nocturnal.
Food: Vertebrates, primarily rodents. Juveniles may consume insects and other invertebrates.
Reproduction: Viviparous, up to 90 young per parturition.
This snake causes more envenomation accidents in Central America and northern South America than any other. In Guatemala it is involved in more than one thousand serious bites inflicted to humans, many of them fatal. It is extremely abundant in palm plantations and rice paddies. It can reach more than 2.5 m long. 

It is Extremely venomous, unpredictable and excitable.