How is it already March? - Sydney O’Guinn
Hello everyone!
Thank you for continuing to read my letters! Its not any poetry but it does come from my heart. I love getting to update you all.
I do have a question for you all. Do you prefer to read the letter or would you prefer for me to upload a video of me talking that way you can listen and work or both? Let me know what yall think!
Language school feels like it is almost over and I am only 7 weeks in! Our school has a curriculum based on books. I was able to skip book A and I just finished book B! Book B is one of the hardest and longest books. I am on book C and should be done with it within the next couple of weeks.
A couple of students and I from the school were able to go to one of the teachers houses in a different city called San Antonio. We learned how to make bean tamal and pepian! They live on a farm and have chickens, ducks, other feathered friends, and peacocks! They have a huge garden with pineapple, beans, avocados, flowers, and so much more! We were able to sit up on their patio to share a wonderful time together eating pepian, tamal, and drinking lemonade. We also danced and sang! It was so much fun! Getting to have these adventures are such an amazing way to practice spanish outside of school and learn more about Guatemalan culture.
Two weekends ago we went to Lake Atitlan! It started off very interesting. A friend of ours that is living in Guatemala city came and picked us up from Antigua. There was so much traffic it ended up taking her about 4 hours to get there. Once we got on the road to the lake, the car started overheating... It looked like a volcano of steam was coming out of the car. Every 30 mins to an hour and maybe more than that if we were lucky, we had to pull over and put water in the car. What was supposed to be a two maybe three hour drive turned into six hours. When I tell you at one point the only thing making the car accelerate was the grace of the Lord. The car stoped accelerating and we were on a hill going up. We were praying and singing praise to the Lord asking for help and guess what happened... THE CAR STARTED MOVING ALL THE WAY UP THE HILL AND CARRIED US TO THE NEXT GAS STATION!!! Talk about favor. Thank you Jesus! We got to the lake and the next morning the car went to the shop. Please pray for our friend Avery as her car is still getting worked on and she has no clue when it is going to be ready. Also, please pray for financial covering for her. She is also a missionary so this is taking a huge hit on the budget. Despite the car issues the weekend was so fun! We got to stay in a beautiful air bnb. We met a very nice boat driver and we got to have the whole boat to ourselves and didn't have to take the public boat which can be so rough to be on with so many people. We visited two different pueblos, San Juan and San Marcos. They were so beautiful! I would love to go back to the lake!
This past week we were able to celebrate a fellow missionary, Lizzie, birthday! She turned 24! We had a party at school painting wine glasses, eating carrot cake, drinking coke, and wearing party hats. We went to the pool and dinner the next day for her actual birthday. Then the next day we went out to dinner with all of our teachers and friends to celebrate her birthday! An amazing birthday weekend celebrating Lizzie!
A huge celebration time here is lent and easter. Every day in different cities they have these set ups of an ofrenda (offering) to Jesus and a huge statue of him. Every Sunday there are huge processionals around the different cities that last all day long. On Semana Santa (easter week), there will be huge celebrations and processionals every single day. Thousands of people from around the world come to Antigua for this celebration. I will make sure to get some good pictures and videos to share!
I have also been so blessed to be apart of Shoreline City Church which was started in Texas! We all go there on Sundays and then on Tuesdays for young adults. Sarah (another missionary) and I will be taking the join class soon at church so that we can volunteer at church. One of the head leaders there came up to us and asked us to take the class because he wants us to volunteer and has a big task that he needs our help with! I will update yall again about this when I have more information!
Thats all for now! Thank you all for your love, prayers, and support!
Smiles and love,
Sydney O'Guinn