Elder Alex Walbom Guatemala City/Kansas Mission experiences!

Zona Bosques Elder Alex Walbom’s P-day just happened to fall on Christmas this week.  It was lots of fun to see him open his gifts "in person" and talk to him for quite a bit.  He seemed in good spirits (despite being a bit sick). Here is his Christmas email: "Hello everyone! Highlights:  We painted a house! Yay.  We had a nice big ward party and that was fun. Everyone put me up in front of everyone and sang  happy birthday  (it happened on my birthday). Then they had me give the traditional Christmas hug to someone in the ward and I did and it was cool to be loved by a ward like that while being a missionary.  We had our big mission Christmas performance and my zone's skit was a hit. I got to sing a little solo and I did it in a cheesy theatrical style and everyone laughed so that was fun.  I got to sing for my ward (O Holy Night) and for the Stake at the Christmas devotional (Mary Did You Know)....

  Elder Walbom's birthday was Dec 21 and his companion, Elder Duarte, had a birthday Dec 15 "Our converts made us a cake!" Elder Alex Walbom's email: "Hello everyone! This week we got to have more Family Home Evenings with people so that was good. Some got cancelled but watcha gonna do? One highlight of this week was a bolo that we met. His name is Josue. He walked up to us swerving and we tried to steer clear of him but then he asked us what we teach and if it's good. We talked to him more after that and taught him a lesson even while he was drunk. We felt the spirit and he was pretty happy to hear what we taught about faith and repentance. We got to teach him another lesson after that another day and he was less drunk for that one so that was nice. We are really trying to help him and he told us that he wants to change. Another highlight is that Im eating a McFlurry as I write this. Finally the dogs here do ...

 " The family where the kid got baptized a month ago and the  dad got baptized two weeks ago more or less.  They are super Pilas!" Here is Elder Walbom’s weekly email: Well folks, This week was the burning of the devil. We were just going about our daily business, we knew that this day was a holiday but we didn-t know what would happen. Well exactly at 6 pm on the dot the explosions started. And most of it was not fireworks, it was literal firecrackers that made car alarms go off, hurt my ears, made me jump and punched my chest. Honestly I didn-t feel safe walking the streets at that time. Then the fire. The devils went up in flames and every corner had a big fire where the devil burned. Its supposed to be a catholic tradition round these parts. It was super interesting. On another note, the people here really like fireworks, more than any other group of people I have met. We also had a super sketchy situation this week. W...