Week 2! Sort of.

(editor's note: Stephanie was transferred last Tuesday, and apparently the Retalhuleu P-day is on Monday, while the CCM is on Wednesday.  So she skipped a week in emailing, which may have caused her family members to have severe emotional reactions including disbelief, anger, sadness, bloating, strange rashes, and other difficult maladies.  We appreciate your support.)

Finally writing! Today is my first P-day in the field.

I am in zona Retalhuleu in Area Reu 1, right in the city! It's very hot, but populated. My trainer/companion is Hermana Mendoza! She's been here for 6 months. She's pretty great and super motivated and is a good trainer.

I have gotten accustomed to cold showers, putting on bug spray every day and I even washed my clothes by hand today! And I got eaten alive by mosquitos so far, so I don't know how effective it is...

It's been an interesting transition. And the roughing-it stuff is not even the hardest part! Although the cold shower in the morning is quite the way to wake you up. The hardest part has been being able to talk to people and feeling confident and everything! But I'm getting better. We've met with some investigators and I've been able to teach the lessons with her and everything, so it's coming along.

We had 3 baptisms this weekend! They were already planned to be baptized when I got here, but they were 3 little boys from areas around here. Mario, Federico, and Israel. These boys were super excited to get baptized and were so happy afterwards. And when they were baptizing them, it was really powerful and my companion, when she was talking to the boys, was just emphasizing how this will help them be better people and examples to their parents and everything. It was pretty powerful. I might have teared up.

But yeah, I'm probably forgetting all sorts of stuff but I don't have too much time, but I love you all and I think and pray about you guys all the time.

Also I finally attached pictures. Probably in many installments. Let's see how this goes.

-Hermana Layton

(editor's note - I'm in Africa on shady wi-fi, so I can't get the pictures to download so that I can put them on her blog.  I'll see if Hermana Layton's mom can get them up on Facebook, and I'll put them up whenever I have better internet access.  Sorry!)