One more week gone--Im getting into that ethereal "near the edge" feeling, cause Im 95% sure Ill be leaving Santiago this change. :( So weird! But its been wonderful here. And Ive got 5 weeks left, so Im not that close in any case :)

This week was a pretty good week for us! We've had a hard time lately finding new people to teach, but we've been contacting and trying for references, offering service, and praying harder than ever--the works! In any case, I know the Lord will send us His chosen when He's ready. I think even more importantly, we need to be ready too. That's been my focus lately. :)

Story from this week! Monday we got stopped by a girl on our way to Tzutuhil class, who is here in Santiago working for the peace corps. Anyways she said she had been in Santiago six months, had tried everything to learn Tzutuhil (studied with natives, read books, etc), and still hadnt gotten it. But she said, everyone had told her that "the Mormon missionaries were the best non-native speakers in the village" and that they must have the secret :) So she's started coming with us to class. The first day of class, I showed her most of the book that I had written, and we looked over it. She said it was the clearest layout of the language that anyone had ever shown her, and that in all of the books she had looked at, nothing had explained the basis of the language clear enough to begin studying it. Concepts that I had been taught my whole time in Santiago were completely alien to her, verb groups and conjugations, possessive groups, transitive properties, the whole schpeel. I was excited to be able to teach everything to someone that interested in the language, but much more than that I realized the outreach that the gift of tongues has. It is not just the gift to be able to speak another language, but its influence creeps into the other boundaries--the Lord blessed his Santiago missionaries with the ability to figure out Tzutuhil, to dominate it, to discover connections and principles, to simplify it, to explain it in ways unknown to the world. I was deeply humbled by this realization. And as always, ever grateful that I have been able to play a part in this work.

Hope that fall continues on in its inevitable bliss :) I dont know if I told you this, but there is an RM that served in Santiago who is studying at BYU now. and the coolest thing---he's writing a thesis now about the similarities between indian languages and Hebrew :) Cool, huh?

Hope Halloween is excellent! Ill fill you in with the Guatemalan Halloween details next week. I have no idea what the mayans are going to do. haha.

Till the next, Tyler