Querido Familia,

It is so fun to hear about your weekend the fun that you had. Thanksgiving has always been one of my favorite Holidays just because of the time we spend together as a family. They don´t have Thanksgiving here but most people know about it but they call it Dia de Pavo. (Turkey Day). On thursday we got together as a Zone to eat our Thanksgiving meal. We went to Tiquisate and we ended up being there a while because our Zone leaders didn´t realize how long it take to cook a Turkey. Especially a frozen one. It definitely was a different Thanksgiving. It was pretty fun though to get together with the zone. This week was pretty hard though. We had a lot of things come up that messed up our plans and we were not able to get a full days work any day this week. It was pretty frustrating. Also our investigators have been struggling. The man that we have been working with to get Baptized has a smoking problem that he is having a hard time quitting. He said he was going to come to church this week but didn´t and I think it is because he felt guilty for smoking. One of the recent converts we have been working with had a fight with one of her sons and went drinking afterwards. She didn´t come to church either. It has been kind of disappointing but we just have to keep working with them and let them know that we still love them. And now we have a new week to work harder and to help these people get on the path. I love the sacrament. It is such a blessing to be able to take the past week figure out what you did wrong, change it, and then move forward. We learn from our mistakes and become better for them. Now I just have to help our investigators understand that. That has been a huge challenge. To help people understand the importance of what we are teaching them. They love listening to it but they are not used to a church that requires them to change our even to act. All they do is go to church to yell and clap and relieve their stress from the week. I guess I just need to be patient and keep working with them. Today we are going to play soccer with some of the members and some investigators including the professional soccer player. It is going to be the missionaries against the others and we are going to get destroyed. But it is going to be a lot of fun. Elder Rigby started out in the Quetzaltengo Mission and he got transfered to the Retalhuleu when it was created. He has always been in the area that is now the Retalhuleu Mission. He does not know Elder Holst but it is nice to now know the name of Emily´s friend. Sam and Tom could probably tell what my daily schedule is like just as well as me. We do our studying in the morning then work until lunch and we do our language study after lunch if we have time. Then we work untill 9 when we come home. We usually will cook our breakfast and dinner at home unless someone feeds us. It has been a huge blessing to find Mac and Cheese here but the hot dogs are not as good. I have been thinking a lot this week of missionary work and how cool it would be to be companions with my Brothers and Dad. I am so grateful for their examples to me. I was also thinking of Jaron and my friends and how different our missions are. It so cool to think that we are all out doing the same work though. Im so grateful for all of them and their desire to serve. I wish I could share with all of my friends this experience that I am having and how much it is blessing my life. I love you all so much and love hearing from you. Dear Elder only takes about a week and a half to get to me because I think they print it out in the Mission office. Also don't forget that you can send pictures to me too through email. Todo esta bien!

Con amor,

Elder Matthew Truman Thorley

P.S. The picture is of our Thanksgiving dinner minus the Turkey.