From Rebekah, Nov 1: Going Without

This week has been good.
I got the granola package. It was SO yummy! It was so nice to eat food from the states. One thing I won't miss about Guatemala is the food. I paid 75Q for the package. In dollars that's only ten, so not too bad, just an inconvenience. I love the lotion. My companion loves the chocolate (I do too, but more the Werther's.) The granola was So So yummy. I felt like I was at home for a few minutes. The pumpkin makes out little apartment look so much homier to, and the little red ice-cream dish. I almost cried when I saw that, I was so happy to get that. Now I can eat yogurt out of it here while Michelle eats ice-cream out of hers at home. Thanks Hannah for the letter - I like your handwriting and it was really nice to hear from you. Thanks Sarah for the note, it was super cute.
We have a baptism this Saturday for a nine year old. His family is less active. This baptism will help us a lot with the members. Without the members help, missionary work is the hardest thing! With them, it's the most joyful thing.
We finally got the members on our side. This area has been hard. The members haven’t liked their missionaries for a bit. The first couple weeks they wouldn't even let us in their homes. Now many of them love to have us visit. There's still a few that don't, but we'll keep working to repair past damage. I love this ward now. The members and the leaders are AMAZING.
We set a goal to have four baptisms this month (but really five.) We gave a cool paper with a big number four on it to each leader in the ward. The bishop spoke about the goal in sacrament meeting and then in combined Priesthood and RS. He really understands the responsibility of members in missionary work and taught the members that it is their job to prepare and give us references. The whole ward has joined us in the goal and we will all be fasting next Sunday with that goal in mind. This is so wonderful. I've never seen so much support.
Some sad news is the mission has closed San Fransico El Alto. The hermanas that were there had some problems and so now it's closed. I'm really sad about that. The members and converts there still mean more to me then all my other areas. But maybe at the end of my mission I can open it again.
We are making progress in this hard area and I am learning to love it.
I love you all and was so happy to hear from you!!
The Granola was your own recipe? Cool! I LOVED it tons!!! We don't have an oven, only the very very wealthy do, but I made it on our little plug in stove top and it turned out great. I loved it so much. I've already made it twice and I just got the package on Friday. I feel so at home when I'm eating that granola. Yeah, times about up.
I've gotten used to cooking without an oven. We just use out little tiny electric stove with two burners. It'd be great for camping! Even if we had an oven, there are no ingredients to use it. The food is the same beans, eggs, and tortillas always. The members cook chicken and everything on the stove top. Some other funny things that we don't have:

We don't have sinks. Really.
Hot water. To shower we do, we light a little gas heater that heats up the water in the pipes. But to wash dishes, nope.
Microwaves
AC and heaters - they don't even know what those are here. That's why everything is made of cement. It helps the inside stay warm when it's cold outside and cool when it's hot.
Bath tubs. I've only heard of one, my entire mission.
Dryers.

I'm sure when I come home, there will be tons of things I'll be surprised to have again. Like carpet.