30 de Julio

 This saturday we were walking down the road on saturday and we saw a drunk guy laying in the middle of the road with cars swerving around him, (There are always a lot of passed out drunk guys in Guate but usually they make it to the gutter or sidewalk before laying down) this guy hade obviously downed some 100 proof rubbing alchol and tanked it on the way home, well as we got to him we realized that he was one of our Investigators who had a baptizimal date, we carried out of the road but he wouldnt wake so we went on our way.   This sunday we baptized  Santos, the Gandpa of the kids we baptized a couple weeks ago, and we got a call from the zonies yesterday morning telling me i was to go to Guete city today so we went to their house to sleep over but it turns out that they got their Info wrong and Elder Gonzales was to go not me so im chillin with the zones leaders for p-day today (which is pretty sweet as we got to go to the mall which is normally off limits) while my comp is in La Capital signing papers
Elder Balhorn.

From right to left 

Me, Hna. Cresencia, her husband Hno. Santos, their son  Hno. Santiago, and Elder Gonzalez

The Zonies Elder Carter and Elder Celis 

                                                                         

23 de Julio

We've been doing fairly well this week, Santos the gandpa of the kids we baptised on the 8th wants to be baptised next sunday, and we have a couple more investigators with dates, but one of them is having trouble with a drinking problem, so he has to wait until he is off of the stuff before baptisim, this past week we found 13 new investigators which is a lot, but only a few of them look very promising.  We walk at least 10 miles every day and I've already reached the last hole on my belt and my clothes are a little big on me.  On the flip side my feet have several blisters each. But nothing I can't deal with.
                                                          Se Cuiden  Elder Balhorn 

16 de Julio

If anyone comes to guatemala I would advise them to not eat the Brocolli...Unfortunatly nobody ever told me that and I ate, it wasn't that bad at the time, but the next day i was blowing chunks. and the day afterwards my comp was sick and i caught a mild cold. so we've both been sick this week and not a lot has gotten done> Maybe it was the fact that i was sick but i had the worst food that i have had so far in the mission, pureed papaya.....I almost barfed a couple times and it was at an investigators house so i had to drink as much as i could, my comp is still mad at me because i didn't quite finish it but I said that I was full and I think thats a lot more polite than barfing on his floor.                                           
                                                                  Elder Balhorn

9 de Julio

Yesterday I got my first baptisims we
baptised 4 grandchildren of a recent convert (Marielos, Johanna, Luis,
and Erick) their mother is planning on being baptised too but she has
not commited to a date, I baptised Johanna and the priests and an
uncle baptised the rest, it is a super awesome experience.  At church
yesterday we finally got one of our investigators to come but he came
late and didnt stay the whole time.   Also a Volo (Drunk guy) showed
up to church, unfortunatly he´s a member and he claims he served a
mission.  we had a talk with him about the Word of Wisdom but its hard
to reason with drunk people. Anyway our biggest challenge now is
finding investigators who will progress.
                                                 Nos Vemos! Elder Balhorn

2 de Julio (July 2)

Honestly this week has been really hard, we have had about zero luck contacting and im having a hard time with spanish.  In the last few days we have run into 3 different drunk guys in the street that say they are members of the church, im not sure all of them are because they were barely able to stand, and we also ran into an investigator who we had commited to the word of wisdom and had a fecha (baptisimal date) also very drunk, and he said he didnt want to be baptised although he had previously been excited for it, we told him we'd talk to him when he's sober, but honestly im not sure that the drunks here ever have sober moments.  The food here varies depending on the wealth of the family but the basic component of every meal is corn.  Corn tortillas, tamalitas, corn on the cob, corn café and tons of other corn based things, beans also are huge.  as far as drinks go its all about café, but they call all hot drinks café the most basic is hot sugar water and another which is basicly boiled corn meal so its hard to teach the Word of Wisdom ´cause we have to define which kinds of Café they can´t drink.   My personal favorite is Morcaf which is bien rico.
                                           Elder Balhorn

June 24 (En El Campo)

 Guatemala is awesome When we left the CCM it was a 3 1/2 hour drive to Xela, it was really beautiful but foggy most of the time, President and Sister Bautista are really cool.  My new Comp is Elder Gonzales from Mex. City, he's a really good missionar, although he's almost as new as me (5 months) my area is Olintepeque its pretty much just outside of Xela. When we got there he imediatly to me to change Cause we were going to an investigator family that lived an hour away and olintepeque is pretty much built into a valley, so we had to hike down the hill we were on and up the hill that they are on and they are really steep.  any way we then entered a corn field and at the center of it was a cinder block hut. (They're actually better off than most of our other investigators) Anyway most all of the people in Olinte are dirt poor, infect the nicest building in the whole valley is the LDS chapel and even that is smaller that almost any other chapel i've seen.  The houses that the missionaries live in are the nicest houses that ive been in in Olinte but by america standards they would be pretty crapy, any way the people in guatemala are the "draw near unto me with their lips but their hearts are far from me" kind of people and in olintepeque there are muchas evalngelical churches so the people are usually either Catholic or Evangelical.  Xela is actaully the lowest baptising mission in central america because all the catholics are very caught in their ways  (they have a saying here that has been recited to us a couple times which is "Better a bad old than an unknown new" or something like that)  or they are Evangelical in which case they believe that all churches are true and its just a matter of finding the one that suits you (another saying "There's only one god but many ways to worship him" or something to that effect)  But we actually have 4 baptisms lined up from the Oxlas family (Oh-slosh those are the types of names i have to deal with)   I have learned a couple of Quiche words but I promptly forgot them cause they're really hard to pronounce. Anyway i love my area, except for the hills, my comp is hard working, and there's another Comapnionship (Elder Menendez and Elder McGrath )that lives down the hill from us so we get to hang out with them every once in a while.  theyre also pretty cool Elder McGrath is awesome, he just got in the transfer before me so he's been able to give me a few heads up about things.                  
                                                Elder Balhorn       

Week 9

 Well things are wraping up in the CCM, yesterday we had an all day seminar
on being an efective missionary (pretty much about setting goals and
working with the ward)  I leave on tuesday for Xela (Quetzaltenango)
and I'm pretty stoked for that.  Its a 4 hour ride by bus and I'm told
its past some spectacular scenery.  I´m kinda nervous to find out who
my trainer is, from what i hear they usually stick new nortes with old
nortes their first transfer but it just depends on the mission
president. Anyway my nexy entry will be from the field.
                                         Elder Balhorn

Week 8

Things are going well here, my spanish is improveing but I'm getting kinda
tired of the mtc, pretty much I want to get to the field quick, I feel
so sorry for the elders who have to stay in provo for 9 weeks or those
heading to asia, who are there for 12, that would suck, anyway im
pretty much trying not to strangle my companion, he has some form of
OCD and he's a total Hypocondriac, anyway i forgot to mention in my last
post that we got to go to the market after the latinos and the
previous group of Nortes left,  it was super fun we went to a large
releif map of guatemal and looked at the terrain of our mission
(president told us his thoery of the book of mormon lands) then we
went to the market and baught some sweet stuff I got a guatemala
soccer shirt, and a sweet pen with a quetzal on it among other things,
 and then we went to wendys, (not all of the elders agree but i think
it was better here) I ate 3 sandwiches and a large soda, :) anyway
until next time!                Elder Bahorn

Week 7

 Yesterday I set the toaster on fire,
apperently when the roll you put in to a taoster has a little bit of
barbeque sauce on on it, it becomes quite flammable.  So ive been
getting crap for that all day long.  And since my companion has been
having digestive problems the doctor put him on a diet of bread and
bananas, and now he's ticked all the time, apperently he feels like I
never take the initiative while planning lesssons (the reason being is
that whenever I try to he wont help or pay attention soI found it
best to wait till he took initiative and the join in planning) anyway
so he decided to wait until I took the initiative to start planning
and I was waiting for him, finally he just got ticked at me and
nothing really got done, but we talked it through and we planned and
taught a pretty good lesson.
                               Elder Balhorn

Week 6

Things are going great here i went tracting
monday and got 5 referals for the missionaries in the area, my
companion for trackting was Elder Romero, he's really cool kid from
guatemala city and im glad I had him 'cause he could actually
understand the people we were talking to, I can only tell the general
topic of a conversation which is fine since I can testify, he'd go off
for a couple minutes about the BOM and then pause and I'd say somting to
effect of I know that the book of mormon is true and testify of it for
a minute, then let him talk again.  Then he would pause and we would
repeat the process, the people here are so kind, there were only a
couple of people who turned us away and that was because they were
really busy doing something else and the were very polite while they
did so.  The rest of the week has been great we have just been
studying and practicing alot, on thursday the president called a
meeting of the entire mtc cause a CTR ring and 100 dolars had been
stolen, its kind of been a problem here, my companion honestly drives
me nuts, he either never wants to do anything or wants to do
everything and hes really cocky, but whatever I can put up with him for
a while more.  On tuesday after the latinos leave we get to go on a
city tour and go to the market I'm super stoked for that, it's going to
be awesome.  Anyway talk to y'all next week.
                       Elder Balhorn

Week 5

Things are
going really great in the CCM the food is great and  the latinos are
really cool guys, im getting a little tired of being in this building
and a little homesick but im fine,  plus i get to go tracking with a
latino companion this monday and see some of the city, im kinda torn
between thinking people are really good drivers here or really bad,
because everyone is super insane when it comes to traffic but i havent
seen or heard a wreck yet, (which is more miraculous than you might
think) only the sound of screching tires.  The latinos are super cool
especially Elder Gochez who is the best english speaker here beside
the maestros (teachers) Im super stoked to get out to the field even
though i know that my spanish is not even close to where it needs to
be.