Monday, August 19, 2013

Send Your Extra Watermelon to Guatemala

HI FAMILY!!!!!


Crazy week this week. We actually didn't have a bunch of time but it was good. Some unexpected things happened so now I`ll just tell you, we have the whole area to ourselves now!! One of the Elders here was waiting for his visa to go to Argentina and he finally got it so he left. So we got Elder Ruiz in a trio for less than 24 hours! Ha yeah wednesday we were in a trio. That night the secretaries called us and told us Elder Ruiz had changes and so he left and it`s just us two in this area now. We'll be alone for only 2 more weeks though cause two new ones are coming in the changes.

Elders Anderson and Layton at the Guatemala City Temple


So yeah we've been working and the last two Elder`s left some pretty awesome investigators. I'm definitely expecting to see some more baptisms in this area. I hope I`m here for 6 months.We've been teaching people that have such a strong testimony! They read and told us they have a testimony of everything we say but she told us she doesn't want to pray. We asked her why and she told us cause she`s positive she`s going to receive an answer and she`s scared haha. Her husband already told us he`s going to get baptized when they can get married. He has to get divorced but that should be easy he has all the papers. Ok sorry if I told you about them already. HA you get to read it again...or maybe this is the first time.

Also contacting we found 2 people who are really receptive. One of them is married to a inactive member and just got married and had a baby. She wants to have her daughter grow up in a house with the Gospel. They've come to church twice now and she wants to be baptized. So yeah it`s been a crazy week and we're definitely been working harder than I'm used to. Time is WAY too fast here! I almost have a year! And yeah I'm almost 20 years old. 

They named this dog "Layton"
Ok I'm running out of time cause I was reading and studying Mom`s letter haha. Oh mom do you remember when we used to eat dinner and if I didn't finish you told me kids in Africa didn't have food? I used to say well send it to Africa! Now I have the same advice for you. If you can`t finish all the Watermelon don`t worry about it. You can just send it all down. I'm almost positive it`s a sin to waste Watermelon. I do eat it sometimes here which is good but there`s never too much. So yeah no more time. I`ll try to send pictures this week. Good luck with everything there in the States. Curtis since when do you play water polo?? That`s crazy. You're going to be super buff when I get home. But oh well I`m going to be taller.

Ok Bye


PAZ

Monday, August 12, 2013

What It's Like to Think In Spanish But Write in English

HI FAMILY

I'm just going to start off with the coolest thing this week. Between the two companionships in the ward yesterday we had 16 investigators there. 7 of those live in my part of the area here. Also we had a TON of less actives and so the attendance climbed... a lot. We always here have 130 to 140. Yesterday there were 175 people there. Yeah good day and 5 of the investigators there are progressing. 

We should be able to put a couple baptismal dates this week. We had so many people in principios del Evangelio that we have to change rooms to fit everyone. 

Alright so let's see what we did this week. We definitely found a lot of awesome people who are prepared to hear the Gospel. I definitely think I will have more success in this area than in my last. Really looks like it. In this zone they have us contact a ton so that's hard. We basically spend our whole day contacting and then running to an appointment. My companion is loving the mission and yeah he's fresh out of the CCM. He had a month Saturday haha. I remember those days...That reminds me. Todays I have 11 months...already. It freaks me out how fast time is here. I'm basically halfway done. Weird right?

Today is going to be tough cause it`s not actually P Day. I mean it`s worth it cause this Saturday we're going to the Temple!! AL FIN! So yeah we have P Day on Saturday. I'm tired though and was looking forward to resting.

Also to tell you guys we already found a house to move into which is MUCH better. It`s big and actually has room to move around. We're moving one week from today. We were going to move today......but it's not P Day. 

Hope you guys have had an awesome week. Keep on keeping on. Also Briana I just need to tell you my rule again. NO GETTING MARRIED IF I`M STILL IN THE MISSION!! I need to be there sorry.


Ok no time. This computer doesn`t want to send pictures so sorry. Hasta La Proxima.

Monday, August 5, 2013

Going Great in Guatemala

Alright you asked me a lot of questions so I'll try my best to answer them all. That's funny you saw a video of my area. It's pretty cool and definitely a richer part of the city. I saw carpet in a house for the first time in my mission but still almost no one has it. 

So let`s see as a trainer all it means is we have less time to do everything because everyday we have to have two hours of comp study but it`s fun. Oh and to tell you my comp isn't American and barely speaks English. (We assumed that his companion, whose name is Elder Anderson, would be American or Canadian - something like that. We assumed wrong.) He's from the Dominican Republic. So yeah we always speak Spanish but he wants to learn English. He's awesome too. He really doesn't need training because he already knows how to work and everything. 

Our apartment is well....cruddy. (I don't know what he's complaining about. Look at those cool beds in the picture below.) The thing is that with us coming here and opening the area was kind of a last minute thing so they just found the first thing they could. But don't worry about it. We already found a super nice house that we're going to move into one week from today. It's big and considering we still don't have anything more than closets and beds in our house we won't even fill it up. We're still waiting for our fridge and stove and basically everything else we need. It was hard this last week cause when I got here. We didn't eat with anybody and we had to buy all our meals - we don't have anything to cook with.

Told you guys we don`t have anything in our house.

We found someone to eat with now though and she's awesome. She makes really good food and a lot of it. It`s pretty much the same type of food I've always eaten but prepared different. 

Don't worry in our mission we don't eat these. 

Oh and the weather is actually super hot. Nothing like Zacapa but hot. Oh and the area is super close to the airport so every ten minutes a plane flies over super close. It seriously makes me want to be a pilot. We'll see though. And and it`s a big ward here. We have around 150 people who come every Sunday.

So that`s all of your questions right? So yeah awesome week this one. We're definitely working. I've been tired lately though because we've been working so hard but hey I`m not even almost complaining. We've been teaching a lot of cool people this week and we're hoping to maybe have a baptism this month. I sure hope so. Just know we're working here!

We have investigators that are more ready than anyone I've ever seen to be baptized. Their names are ________ and __________. They read a ton and completely understand the chapters. They always tell us stuff that even we didn't see in the chapter. ________ tells us every appointment he wants to be baptized but the thing is they're not married. Wendy told us specifically she knows without doubt that the Book of Mormon is true and Joseph Smith was a prophet but there is something holding her back from being baptized and married. I have no doubt they will though. We'll just keep working with them. But yeah I'm loving the area except the heat but oh well I've survived worse.

I've been thinking a lot about what I've gone through this week. I was just thinking the four months with my last comp has helped me so much. It`s was easily the hardest time of my life but I am so thankful for what I went through. I learned so much from my experiences here and I wouldn't change my mission up to now for a second. But yeah so I'm good. Seriously don't worry about me but my last area I've kinda been worrying about. (Edited for privacy reasons.)

So yeah way to long this e mail. I'll send some pictures and we're going to have an awesome week this week. OK. Have a good week and don't do anything that I wouldn't approve of.


PAZ