Jan 2

Feliz Año Nuevo de Guatemala!

I hope everyone had a great new year! Here in San Francisco el Alto we had an amazing New Year. So during the day it was normal, we had our appointments and then we went to a members house. They gave us dinner, and well, the dinner was of fried cow tongue!! And it was SO good haha. After that a member from my old area called us and asked if they could come up to San Francisco because they wanted to wish me a Happy New Year and give me a gift they had for me. It made my day! I was so happy to see them and to be able to spend a few minutes with them. So then we had to enter the house at 6pm unless we were at a members house, because here in San Francisco it is just a HUGE party for new years eve. I knew here that at midnight everyone did a tonnnn of fireworks, but I never would have imagined the amount that they did. There is no such thing as illegal fireworks here so everyone, literally everyone, is setting off fireworks at midnight. We have to go to bed at 10:30 but we set an alarm to get up at 11:45 and go up on our roof to watch them all. It was amazing!! They were going on for literally 45 minutes. It was like nothing I had ever seen before. I have now set the goal for the year that I will be here in Guatemala next year for New Years Eve again! 

Well, apart from that, the week was full of miracles. We were able to find 3 families this week who are very interested in learning about the gospel. We can see their desire to follow the Lord and do what he wants them to do. It is always very exciting to find people like them, and we should be having a baptism in the beginning of February. It will be the first baptism in the ward for a year and a half! 

So also, I have a new companion! Her name is Hermana Moruna and she is from Chile. She is so so awesome and I am so grateful to have her as my comp. She and I came to the mission together, but she will be here for 6 more weeks than me because the Latinas have less time in the MTC. I think I have spent most of this first week that we have had together just laughing and working hard so I think that we are going to have a great transfer together.

Love you all!
Hermana Baird 

My new companion and I! Hermana Moruna de Chile :)

FELIZ AÑO NUEVO! Una familia bought some fireworks that shoot up in the air to do after dinner so that we could have an area new year with them. Also some sparklers since all the others fireworks are prohibited for us to do haha. This is the familia Alvarez, they are the best!

Midnight fireworks! Some of these were literally directly over our heads and we thought they were going to fall on us haha. It was one of the coolest experiences I have ever had, and definitely by far the best New Years yet!