Thursday, June 27, 2013

you guys need to get workin in la obra misional... (week 23)

hey family loved getting your letters again this week they always are one of the highlights of my week. sounds like you guys had a heck of a week in for the wedding and all the family that was in town that sounds fantastic. really put me baggy for about 20 minutes thinking about all the crazy fun you guys were having im happy you guys got to have that good time.

well as far as my week it had its up and downs. again with the obra in our area we are having some trails. we are having a really hard time getting investigators to progress like i tell you every week. we can knock doors all day everyday and nothing not one guy will progress but all will listen and act like they care haha. so we are really just trying to figure out the best way to progress our investigators. ill tell you the key to missionary work. here is a little secret the missionaries are not the most important part. not even close. its the members 90 percent the members. references are everything. with a reference the investigator will have a friend in the church and will be more likely to go to church. also when we have a member with us and they are talking and teaching the investigator is more likely to listen and to relate. as missionaries we can bring the spirit and know what to teach but the member is key. sometimes people think we are just machines trying to get people to come to church and that we don{t care about them or anything. when we have a real person of the same town as them they will be more likely to focus and listen. now as missionaries we study everyday and follow the spirit on how we can teach the people and not teach the lesson. we pray that we can connect with the people more and be there friend and to trust us. that being said like i said arriba members are everything. so family and other people that read this letter is help the missionaries with references. the reason i say all this is because last night we had the opportunity to watch a broadcast from provo with the 12 and all the new missionaries in the mtc and mission presidents. i don{t know if you saw it but if you didn{t find it and watch it. the video brought me to tears several times. how important this work is. the time to act is now. we only have this life to act and then down its over. well you know minus the spirit world but in even there we will be the same person and have the same desires. but anyway these are souls we are talking about people children of god and we as members as the church need to work. it is our duty to help the mission work and to help the members. if we don{t then wouldn{t you guys think its a little selfish not to share. oh we get eternal life and get to be with our family's forever others don{t. we need to say something to them so they have the choice to deny the truth or accept it. so ya there is my little bit of sincho that i have for you guys. im dead serious family when i say you need to watch this broadcast that was last night. you guys will get the spirit of missionary work and feel the importance. it will drive Ben and Ella when they are faced with decisions that lead to a mission or another path. for ben at least for a mission and for ella temple marriage or if she wants to serve a mission. i love you guys and this church is true and you will feel the spirit of the lord as you try to serve god and choose the right. church and family is what is most important and we shouldn{t let anything else get in the way of those 2 things. love you guys so much and i hope you have a good week.

elder call
oh i forgot to tell you by the way our investigator delfina got married last saturday and is going to be baptised this saturday


             a turtle we bought from some guy in the street so we could let it free in the lake hahaha


getting a jalon or hitchike from san pedro back to our area with the police. we had to walk all the way there this week it was long hah alike 2 hours of walking but we got lucky on the way back.

a great picture of the lake in our area


Mads Married (Week 22)


let my start by saying first happy fathers day dad and second what the freak is madaline doiing married. that really scares me like what the freak i feel like she is such a little girl its so weird haha. i can remember the days when rachel and i would get bossed around by madiline all the time. rachel and i would always try to fight back and run and stay away from her haha. congratulations and i can{t believe that. the wedding sounded incredibnle and if at all possible i would love to see some pictures. if you guys could send some to me that would be great.

this week was just about the same as the week before. 1 of our fechas fell because we can{t even find the guy and the other one didn{t go to church because he had to leave for a week to work somewhere. as far as delfina everything is still good and she is on track to get ba´tised in 2 saturdays. her husband is going to ba´ptis her so that should be an absolutely incredible experiance for her and one she will cherish for ever. as far as our other investigators again it is so hard getting them to come to church so we had another 0 people come to church as investigators. its so frustrating but this week we focused a lot on menas activios and recent conveerts. we visited a bumch of people this week in those 2 catogories and we had an incredible attendence this week. usually its just like 90 or 85 but htis week was 125. it was great. that was really satisfying. i just need to remember that i am not only here to baptise but to visit everyone and get less actives to church. we went to san pedro again this week which is always an adventure. well we walked all the way there this time which is like 13 kilometros. saber how manyt miles but it took like 2 hours we had no luck with a jalon. haha it was like mid day you could see my skin because my shirt was stuck to my skin i was so drenched in sweat. i drank 6 litros of water that day. it was hot haha. the work in san pedro is awesome though. nobady knows the church there so our presence there is doing some good. the poeople are really nice and are so willing to listen as well. we are talking to the zls about gettting our entire zone to go out to san pedro and talk to everyone one of these days. wipe that place clean just like the witnesses haha. well see if there tactic works and if the zls will let us do it. all and all another good week. i love this work and have never been so happy in my entire life. im loving every second and the time is going by sooooo fast. i cna{t beleive i have been away from home for 7 months now haha crazy. love you guys and its so great to here from you. have a good week and pray always.

elder call

my comp had to get a bed and when the delivered it to our house they gave us shirts and we made them tak a pic with us. they look happy in the pic but these guys were super annoyed hahaha it was so funny

wilmer and catorina 
                                                                my comps in our area

Another Week Gone By... (week 21)

i can’t believe it’s already been a week since the last time i wrote you…i just don’t get it… the time is flying by so fast right now it is just ridiculous. the time flew by so fast this week i literally can’t remember what we did all week, ha, ha. well, to start off with, i love my new comp. he is hilarious and he is so motivated to work it is great. really the only thing that i can remember about our week right now is that it was a really good week for the work. we actually had some success this week, except for the fact that nobody came to church yesterday, but other than that it was a good week. we have been working really hard with our investigators and have really been trying to help them progress. we have been praying a ton for them and trying to figure out how we can help them take the next step. your prayers family are really helping us and i am so grateful for that. we set 3 new fechas this week which is pretty much a miracle. we haven’t had any success setting fechas since before the last 2 changes probably. so it is a miracle that so many of our investigators actually want to progress and take the next step forward. its too early to know if they will get baptized or not but just the fact that they are exercising their faith by taking the next step and trusting in the lord to guide them is what i am grateful for. the good part is they are showing god that they are willing to trust him that much more by making a goal of getting baptized. yea, so as far as the work went this week it was really good. as far as fun stuff goes, i really can’t remember what fun things we did because the week just went by so fast. today was fun though because for pday we went to this mirador thing in our area with the rest of our district. my district was once again shocked about my area and how beautiful it is. yea, but this mirador thing is basically like a giant tree fort thing way up in a massive tree. it’s a sketchy guatemalan tree fort that’s like 100 feet in the air…so scary…and the final steps of getting up to the fort are just a ladder strapped to the tree with wire and then a chair strapped to the tree with wire on top of that. it was literally so sketchy and i was totally freaking out…just imagine climbing half dome over again that’s how freaked I was…it really was that scary ha, ha.
love you all and i will try to remember more things about this week to share when i write again next week. love you all and please remind ben not to forget to write me next week too.
love elder call





Mission Coban (week 20)

whats up family great to hear from you this week haha. no but really it was great geting your letters and you made up for it for sure. i wasn´t really even that disapointed that i didn´t get letters i was like more worried like someone might be dead or something. i also thought maybe the house caught on fire so you had nothing to email me with haha. im freakin nuts i know haha i have not changed a bit i always just think of the worst thing possible in situations like that haha. man i was jelous about you guys going to the ball game. those are literally the best seats in the park like actually front row just left of the plate get outta here. man i can´t beleive that the last time i was in those seats was a few days after i got back from thailand. that was almost a year ago holy crap. man i love thinking about all the things you guys are doing at our house best summer house in the world. dad what you said about our grandparents is dead on they are both incredible. man i have a great family. i thank god for that everynight.

ya so whats new this week. well i don´t feel like i am the new kid in the mission anymore which is great. i almost have 7 months and there are a bunch of new areas in the zone with brand new missionaries. like i said last week as well i feel pretty good about my spanish right now. im nowhere near perfect but i can talk and communicate just fine. thats a big relief because i never thought i was going to get to that point. as far as me whats new. i have another comp again. yup i am in another trio. pero esta bein it will be good. the guy is super cool. he is a lat from guat. he has 3 montsh in the mission. pres has put him in trios his entire mission because he is waiting for his visa for mexico. so ya he is only temperal but he has no idea when he is going to get his visa. trio will be fun. there are pros and cons of both. pro you arent stuck with 1 other guy for 6 weeks you have someone else to talk to. cons everything takes longer and you don´t get as much time to teach. i really am excited though for this change both my comps are so fun and we laugh all the time. its not all laughing we do a lot of working too of course haha. as for as the area its still about the same. we are really praying that our investigators will just freakin progress. we also found a wife of a member that isn´t a member and just started teaching her. she is just about ready for baptism as well. we have only tought her once last night but it was a great lesson. she has talked to the missionaries before and loves our message. so we are praying that she will want to progress as well. i think that it is looking pretty good with her though. im also glad i have another comp because rojas is starting to get baggy he leavers in like 2 months so at times its hard to get him motivated but now i have another fresh comp ready to work to help me give him animo. ya so thats whats new in this crazy country of guat. love you all and i will send you pics next week because i didn´t bring my card reader.

love you all and have a good week

elder call

to answer you question mom the only reason people are sad they are not going to be in mission este is because of president and sister watts almost nobady wants to serve in the cap haha