Sept 5

Hey fam! Well boy do I have a looooooot to tell you. First and foremost you should know that....I no longer live in Retalhuleu. I finally left!! Crazy huh? I had transfers on Wednesday but LUCKILY I got transfered with my bff (Hna Hidalgo). I am now in Zone Mazatenango in an area called Lincoln!!! And let me just tell you something.....I LOVE IT! It is so fantastic! Our area is HUUUUUUUUGE!!!!! We have to take a "picop" (aka a pick up truck with like a cage around it so people wont fall out) to get anywhere. And they pack soooo many people into it its crazy!! The talegate is like scraping the ground when we are all packed in there. Its hilarious. But we have to take that or a bus everywhere cause everything is so far away. It takes like 30 minutes to get to any of our appointments. Its been reeaaally hard because we are opening the area and we have no idea where anything is! We are completely lost! But we finally got the bus route down I think and we know where a few members live so we{re good. We have spent the whole week contacting and finding new people.

Our house is a complete dump. haha! Its crazy! Our bathroom and pila are outside. We dont have to clean our bathroom cause the rain cleans it everyday! baha! We dont have a sink or anything inside. Just our pila outside. We dont have water or electricity about 40% of the time. But it{s definitely an adventure. The weather here is A LOT cooler too so I am pretty much loving that! It is still pretty hot but NOTHING like Reu. Our area consists of 3 different pueblos. San Gabriel, San Lorenzo and Central Mazate. San Gabriel is tin house, tropical forest like....San Lorenzo is a little bit nicer but beautiful! And Central Mazate is INTENSE city! I have never been in a city like it. It is pure insanity!!! THERE ARE SO MANY PEOPLE!! There is this place called the "red zone" that we cant go to after like 6 pm cause there are tons of prostitutes and bars and such. The prostitutes are really rather frightening looking. They look like men.

It has been raining like CRAZY here! I thought that it was a huricane. A bunch of trees got knocked over. Everyone is saying that there was a tornado but I definitely didnt see it. Hna Hidalgo and I were walking down a street where a tree had fallen on the electrical chords. So we were about to walk through it real fast when we decided that we probably shouldnt do it. Well right as we were walking away, it EXPLODED! Like a huge loud explosion! bah! We almost lost our lives! haha

As far as investigators go, we got a reference right away from a member and we went to visit her immediately. She is AWESOME! It is actually a really cool story. She had a dream that one of her friends that had already passed away came to her house and he just kept on saying "HURRY HURRY HURRY!" and leading her to the river. She was really confused but she followed him. So when she got to the river it was super dirty and she didnt want to get it but he told her that she needed to. So she got in the river and just as she got in, the water that was coming from furthur up was crystal clear and sooo beautiful! (end of dream) Then 2 days later, a member of our ward came to her house cause she was really sick. And he gave her a blessing. She said that she felt something that she had never felt before, like a fire rushing through her body she said. So she told us that she thinks that her dream was a way of preparing her to be baptised and the clear water that was coming was baptism. So she is getting baptised the 17th or the 24th of this month. We are way excited. She is the sweeting most humble lady in the world. They live in a little tin hut with soooo many people. We also just met 3 daughters of hers yesterday and we are going to start teaching them too!

Yesterday, we went to go visit the family and it was raining sooooooooooooooooooooooooooo incredibly hard. We took a bus to get out there and when I stepped out of the bus, I was in a completely river in the middle of the street. It was almost up to my knees. So I started walking to the side of the road and all of the sudden, I fell!!! Apparently there was a canal that I did not know was there because the water was running so hard in the street I could see. The water was up to my hips. It was great. Some people helped me out of it. Including a drunk man that just grabbed my ankles. Im really not sure why. baha! But the water was running so hard in the street that we had to stand on a bench and the water almost even got us there! Craziness!

As far as nursing stuff goes, Dr. MacArthur went home and there is a new mission doctor. I am not a fan. Thats all Im going to say. I am still the mission nurse. I am just going to be traveling to Reu once or twice a week to work in the office. Its only about an hour drive and we just catch a bus. Not to bad.

Well I am soooo sorry to probably bore you all to tears with this very long email. But I just had so much to say! haha Sorry I dont really have any pitures of my new area. Im kind of scared to carry my camera with me. But I will give you what I do have. Thank you so much for your support and prayers. You all help me sooooo much! I love you and miss you all TONS! Keeps the emails and letters coming. They do NOT go unappreciated!

Love, Hermana Kami Alyse Alston

cool volcano right by our house.

awesome delicious fruit called chincuya

bathing in the pila when the water went out.