Tat Lu is a Dragon Slayer (Sounds like a Minus the Bear song title.)

So, things are going really well. I love it here. Here are some stories from the past couple of weeks:

I sat on my glasses. They were bent pretty badly. The screws ripped out and I think they had stripped their holes. I was able to reshape the frames back to normal . . . almost normal. Supposedly there's an eye doctor who comes to town now and then and who was supposed to be in town the next day for market day, but didn't show. So I was visually impaired for a little while until I finally I bought some super glue and glued them back together. (Not the prettiest solution, but it works fine.) Suzana asked me if I have trouble seeing things from far away without my glasses, so I put my hands up like three feet in front of me and said that I can see well without my glasses up to about here. She laughed and said oh, so all you can see well is your metz (girlfriend in Quiche), and we both laughed, and I said that it's better to have them off in that case anyway. They keep asking me if I have a girlfriend and never believe me when I tell them no. They say that all the students start out saying they don't have girlfriends back home and then it comes up at some point or another that they actually do. Supposedly one student went home early because of an “earache.” Maybe I do have someone out there whose name I can't remember, or I haven't met yet; an anonymous emotional “penpal” I've shared a connection with that defies space and time; some soul on my same frequency I've been sharing transmissions with my whole life without ever knowing what it was I was feeling. Maybe that is why I never feel totally lonely, and might explain this strange connection to some near yet distant beauty that burns for me across the sky. Or maybe my true love has simply always been beauty; in that case I've never been alone. But of course they don't have any of that in mind when they're asking me if I have a metz. Oh, and there also seems to be some controversy about that being the right word for girlfriend in Quiche. My host family says it is. Everyone else says it's not but can't offer any alternative.

Ramona beat me 140 to 0 at soccer. I was a little confused by the score myself, but then again I don't know much about soccer. After the game we went into what I guess you could call the living room and I sat in a chair as the patient while the girls played doctors. Then they bought these fruit drink things that come in bags, almost like otterpops but a lot bigger and melted. They gave me one and I looked at it for a minute trying to figure out how to open it. It's completely full to the point of bulging. Supposedly you just snag it with your teeth and rip. But to do that you have to be holding it in your hand. So I'm squeezing this bulging bag in my hand and then give it a rip with my teeth and juice squirts all the way across the room and all over me. Of course that got Jackie laughing her adorable laughter.

Dinner turns into story time for Tat Lu almost every night. I love it. One night last week we started talking about snakes somehow. I think I told him about finding some big bugs in my room and so he started telling me that the real danger around here is snakes. Black ones will hurt and make you swell up, but the green ones will kill you in half an hour. Supposedly they're only up in the mountains though (?). So then he launched into story after story of how he'd killed poisonous snakes when he was young. Once when he was a teenager he was up in the mountains working and decided to take a rest. He ducked under a tree to lie down and as soon as he was on his back he looked up into the tree and saw a two-headed snake—two of the green snakes with their tails tangled together. So he prayed a lot and then took a big stick and knocked one out of the tree and then the other with another stick, and finished them off with his machete (something like that). Then later that day he needed to take care of some “personal business,” and just as he was undoing his belt a rattle snake came cruising up through the brush. Suddenly he no longer needed to use the bathroom. He stood there wondering how he was going to kill it while it moved closer and started rattling, etc. He ended up killing that one too, I can't remember how though. Maybe another stick machete combo. That was just the first of many dragon slaying stories.

Andy came over Thursday night to plan our trip to Antigua the next day. We ended up listening to stories from Tat Lu for about an hour and a half—I like seeing how long he can go, it's really impressive—and then we planned. Then Tat Lu and I walked Andy home because it was late. It was a beautiful night, great for a walk. I love nighttime. On the way back I asked Tat Lu how he and his wife met. He said that when he was seventeen his grandma came to him and told him that she could feel that she was going to die soon. She told him how she loved him and wanted him to be happy and taken care of, and then she told him he needed to marry Ramona (who is his wife now). Ramona spent everyday up in the mountains herding sheep and cattle and such, which is rare/odd for a girl here. His grandma said that he needed to find her and marry her. Her dad had lots of land and Tat Lu would always be taken care of. As a seventeen year old kid he just laughed. I think he said that she came to him one more time and told him that he needed to go find her, that he would date other girls, but none of them would end up liking him and he would eventually marry Ramona anyway. He shrugged it off again. Time went by. He started working for the post office and dating girls from different areas. Nothing seemed to work out though. At twenty seven he started to worry about how old he was getting when he suddenly remembered the words of his grandma and decided to go look for Ramona. He found her up in the mountains with her animals and struck up a conversation. They spent TWO YEARS like that, hanging out and getting to know each other. After two years of talking he finally was like, so if you want to and don't have another man, if you do that's totally fine, but if not and you want to, let's get married. And so they did. Writing this I just remembered a moment I had on a street corner here, watching all the people walking up and down going about their business. Suddenly I wondered, does the Lord take care of all of us, direct and guide us in life, even if we don't know Him or recognize His hand in all things? And then my mind opened a little and my understanding of the Lord's title of Shepherd expanded and it all made complete sense for moment. And while the logistics seemed impossible, the reality of it overwhelmed me.

Antigua was tons of fun. The first day we strolled around to get the lay of the land, got Andy a new camera because his had broken, and checked out a really cool Cathedral that has been converted into a five star hotel and has a bunch of museums. We ate at some great places like Cafe Sky, La Escudilla and La Pena del Sol Latino. Cafe Sky is a a restaurant that has places to eat on the roof where you have a great view of the city and surrounding volcanoes. We had dinner there the first night. I had some excellent battered mushrooms. It's also where I started a small experiment with music. When I'm somewhere I know is going to be very memorable, I pull out my music player and listen to a song or two. I want to see if that song will become a memory trigger. Will Mark Kozelek's “Bad Boy Boogie” always remind me of looking out over Antigua from Cafe Sky, or Minus the Bear's “Guns and Ammo” of eating lunch with my hiking group and a stray dog on the side of a volcano after stabbing lava with a stick I bought from some kids for 5 quetzales, or Sun Kil Moon's “Lost Verses” of riding up the canyon to Santa Clara in the back of a pickup with three kids (brothers) huddled in blankets and pillows? We stayed at La Casa Rustica. It was a pretty nice place. The lonely planet says that, like the Texan owner, everything about this place is big. I guess that includes the dogs in the entry way and the slowness of the computer I used to transfer my pictures from my camera to a jump drive so I could take pictures on Pacaya the next day. I did meet a very nice lady from Ireland while transferring the pictures. It actually was a really nice place. One thing to remember to do on your trip to Antigua is to forget to bring socks for your volcano hike at six in the morning. Bring the shoes, you have to wear shoes on the hike, but forget the socks (I wore my chacos down there and had my shoes in my bag.). This will get you up at five thirty, the sun already up, hurrying past the big Texan dogs out into the street. Once you are outside you can ask the nearest Guatemalan, who will speak to you in English even though you're speaking Spanish, if there is a place you can get socks this early. He'll tell you to try the market a ways down the road. Then start power walking like Mom Dukes down to the market. As you do take a moment to realize how beautiful Antigua is in the morning when the streets are empty and the lighting is photographic (this would be the best time to take pictures because there's no one around to get in the way of a great shot of the arch or an old cathedral). Hurry past the pink and blue and yellow and green and ayayay buildings toward the market. If you're lucky, like I was, there will be one lady at the front of the market (the only one around) getting a head start on her market set up for the day, and the only thing she'll have set up so far will just happen to be a sock stand. By three pairs for ten quetz and run home because it's five to six (but if you know better, don't run, because the driver of your tour van is going to have a cold and wake up late). Also, be careful when you ring the very annoying doorbell to get back in, because it will break and stick and scream forever, at six in the morning. Pacaya was awesome. There were four others in our group: a couple from Australia, and a guy from America who was with a girl from Spain. We were the “Pumas.” Before you go up, there are a bunch of kids that want to sell you walking sticks for the hike. “Stick is good.” The hike was beautiful. Lava is amazing. I poked my stick in it. It was very hot though. Soles of shoes melted, and there was this crazy sulfuric gas that burned the nose, throat and lungs. On the way back we saw a bunch of people running down this really sandy side of the mountain. I wanted to do it so I left the group and hiked up there. When I looked down it was so foggy I couldn't see more than a few feet in front of me. I did the run, which was fun, and then caught up to the group. That night we ate at La Pena del Sol Latino. It had some very tasty food, sinfully delicious brownies, and a band that played some excellent Incan music. It was a good trip. Oh, I also found some pretty good book stores. One of them had a whole section of Neruda. I already own a number of the ones up there, but I was surprised at how many good books they had. Most bookstores around here are actually paper stores. I found a book at another store by Humberto Ak'abal that I need for my work here. I also bought a couple of used classics, including Hamlet, at another store. My embarrassing confession is that I've never read an entire Shakespeare play but have recently become very interested in reading some. Actually, watching V for Vendetta again one night here—I actually watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, V for Vendetta, and half of The Thin Red line that night—really got me hungry for some Shakespeare. I also noticed something interesting while watching V this time. There's a scene when the detective is explaining his predictions on what is going to happen, and it shows a quick scene of EV in a green dress and in the mirror on the wall you can see a reflection of a man at the kitchen table. Can you tell who it is? I've been wanting to read more classics in general, plus I'd just visited a volcano, so I picked up Dante's Inferno as well. The trip back wasn't bad. The last leg we took in the back of a pickup. There were three brothers in the back huddling in blankets. It was a breathtaking drive through the mountains at sunset. We got dropped off a little ways from home and walked the rest of the way. A great way to end an excellent trip.

Most ridiculous question asked in Antigua: “Did you take one of me in baby mode?”

Today is the first day it's rained in like five days. It's miraculous, but I missed the rain. “God is in the rain.”

Every time I tie up the curtain on my window these birds come and hop around on the sill and peck at their reflections.

Random Memories:

Heather, riding home from school on her bike, looks back to talk to me and ends up hugging a mailbox.

The night Heather came to tell me she had decided to go on a mission.

The time I was driving out of the neighborhood, fiddling with the CD player, and looked up to realize that I was flying through someone's yard, up and over the driveway. I still don't know how, but I made it back to the road safe and sound.

Julie telling me that once, when her and Aaron were both at BYU in their first few semesters, she ran into Aaron in the grocery store and asked him if he wanted to come over to her place for dinner. He said he wasn't sure because it was chicken-cat week and anything could happen.

Julie's laughter and music on Sunday afternoons.

My mom doing her drill team routines in the kitchen while cooking.

My mom, the time I took a u-turn without looking and got in an accident. I walked home slowly, my friend Rusty trying to console me. When I got home my mom seemed excited about something and started to tell me about it, but I interrupted her to confess that I'd wrecked the car. She stopped for a minute and asked if everyone was OK. I said yes, and then she said, “Listen to this missionary experience I had today.”

Watching a movie with Tami for the first time on the mood-lit steps because there were no more seats in the theater, and the time we watched Signs in that same theater and she asked me to cover her eyes at one point but ended up peaking anyway, and the time she came down to the house and watched IQ with me and my mom.

Also the time she kidnapped me after “curfew,” and we played basketball in her driveway at night, and then danced to the radio in her dad's truck, unconcerned with how sweaty we were.

Mowing fields in tractors with Bryce on the ranch. Once I was driving right behind him, staggered a little to cut a double row. While we were taking a corner I started looking around daydreaming. When I turned around I realize he had come to a complete stop in front of me and quickly slammed on the brakes and started flipping gears. I ended up giving his tractor just a little nudge. Apparently he'd decided to take a nap. I also remember trying to memorize the old discussions together during lunch breaks.

Tami, wearing a pink shirt the night we first held hands while walking on the beach, and how we were late home because a sea turtle was laying eggs in the sand in front of the boardwalk stairs, and because of a very long train at the crossing in downtown Melbourne. Also that her favorite color was yellow.

Sharing a mango Italian ice with her at Busch Gardens when she fist realized my eyes are different colors.

Katie laughing harder than I ever heard her laugh when I joked with Bryce about spraying cologne on my belly everyday after getting out of the shower.

And how she wanted me to come see her at three in the morning when I got back from a week long trip with my brothers to see my sister and her family in Oregon.

Also that she fixed my watch as a surprise birthday present before we were “together,” and I wiggled my way out of work to spend time with her.

Finding a great Mexican restaurant that had wifi and the funniest painting of all time on that trip to Oregon. And how we slept in the car and fished for a few days on the way up.

When my dad took off work and let me skip school in sixth grade and took me and my best friend, who was moving away the next day, fishing at Sebastian Inlet.

Nate taking me to the water park, Wet N' Wild, with his friends the summer before his mission.

Our babysitter, Jodi, teaching us how to do a crazy frog sound with our throats. I think I was the only one that actually learned how to do it.

Neighbors coming to tell Nathan and I to turn down our amps.

When I came out to Provo a week early before entering the MTC and went fishing with my Dad, brothers and uncle, and forgot one of Aaron's rods down by the river. He ran back with me to try and find it. The sun went down on us while we were coming back. We followed the train tracks too far and almost got lost.

Aaron slipping out of work to see me off at the MTC.

Kyle, when he was like three, dancing and singing, “Don't throw turkeys at my jamis (pajamas) Batman.”

Catching dog fish with shrimp between the rocks at Sebastian.

Jumping off the bridge at Sebastian.

Being too afraid to step in and help a kid who was getting bullied in elementary school.

Kyle sharing his testimony after going to the temple.

Finding Ralph Waldo Emerson's poems and essays for the first time.

When we went to the keys and I made friends with the crazy midget key deer and then they swarmed our camp and started dipping their heads into our coolers and biting our melons and we had to chase them out with squirt guns.

Riding back on John Huberty's boat from the coral reef at John Penny Camp, singing out loud, because no one could hear me over the motor and rush of water, “It Was Just My Imagination . ..”

Dunking off Paul Pahulu's back during a Stake basketball game.

Doing a Jackson five song in a ward talent show, with afros and full choreography, with Paul, David, Shiblon and Tony. How Paul fell down in the hallway laughing before we stumbled back on stage for an encore.

Eating cow tongue.

Eating an entire Little Cesars pizza before anyone else got their food from the FAST food joint in the same parking lot (I swore those pizzas off a long time ago).