Yo Yo (week 27)

I loved your letters team as always… seriously they are the best. Thanks for not telling me about tanners mission call until this week haha I had no idea he was going on a mission. I thought he was still like 12 haha. Seriously, I still picture tanner as a little kid. How is he old enough to be going on a mission haha. I love that kid so much haha. Man life at the house seems dope. Poolside, bbqs, family and friends staying at our house… summer is the best. Freak and ben in Hawaii right now…man that’s so great. I’m happy for him. He is living the life right now.

As for me, this week was crazy. We ate at pizza hut Monday and I woke up at 12 midnight that night with a pain in my stomach like I have never experienced before. From then on out I was on the toilet all night with a bucket in front of me…yacking and the runs... horrible. I can deal with those 2 things but on top of that I had the worst pain in my stomach. Oh my gosh I hurt so bad and I had myself convinced all my organs were shutting down…hahaha I had my comp give me a blessing when I was on the throne at like 2:30 in the morning because I couldn’t leave. haha What a trooper haha. Ya so that was hell. haha I was sick until Wednesday night so I missed 2 days of work which blew. There was nothing to do in the house but read the scriptures. Ya so I’m all better now though. The mission pres and his wife were really concerned about me though so they called me like 4 times a day Tuesday and Wednesday. Great first impression with the new pres of me dying haha. Ya all is good now but wow that was terrible. Friday I actually had interviews with the pres. He seems great and we really get along. I’m really excited to have him as my mission pres. As far as Sister Curtis well she is great but different than Hermana Watts. Hermana Watts is an angel. Sister Curtis is great though and I really love her. She said something to me that really stuck with me. She started to get teary eyed during our interview and said thank you for being worthy to serve a mission and to serve my people of Guatemala. She is chapina so she is from this country. It was really cool to hear that. I love her for that and I won´t forget what she said when the work gets tough. I couldn´t help but be a little teary eyed myself. Ok, another thing that happened this week that was life changing is there’s a cute little family that got sealed this week in the temple. Sunday the pres gave them a little time to talk about the experience. These people have nothing they are so poor. The other elder in san andreas was born in san andreas (his first area of mission). He baptized this wife and husband a year ago and now he’s back in the same area in the same branch. He paid for their visit to the temple. When the guy got up he started talking about the experience and he then mentioned elder adams name and looked at him and starting weeping and thanking him for teaching him about this church. He talked more about the experience and testified that it is the home of the lord. I was weeping like a baby. It was the happiest I have been in my entire life to see the change in this man’s life. I am crying right now typing about it. When he walked back to his seat from the pulpit to sit with his wife and kids I just watched the looks on their faces. They were so happy…the dad, wife, and 3 little kids, no older than 5, are going to be together forever. That’s what it’s about and that’s why I am here. Seriously, maybe the happiest I have been in my entire life. Wow, so after church we headed to the hospital to give the sacrament to some jovenes that had gotten into a motorcycle accident. One of them was unconscious for a day and the other compound fractured his arm. OH MY GOSH I had no idea how bad the hospital is here. Ya it’s the hospital paid for by the gov but wow let me just say that I couldn’t even find any soap. I used the bathroom and couldn´t find soap to wash my hands. So ya that kinda explains it. The hospital was like a million degrees and the people waiting to be operated on are placed in a room with like 6 other patients in the room with a tiny little fan. The floor was dirty…everything was pretty much dirty with needles all over the place…like I really can’t even describe that place. It was more like a prison than a hospital…I can´t really explain how shocking it was. One of the other missionaries wanted to visit the emergency room to see if we couldn’t find anything else interesting. Well we found it and walked right in haha. I probably better not say what we saw but let me just say it was like a horror movie in real life. People were dying all over the place and guts on the table…sorry I will stop there. Ya just imagine the worst and that’s what it was like. We were there Sunday morning and Saturday night is when the drunks leave the bars, get on their motorcycles, and end up in the hospital. Ya so it was quite the experience and makes me so thankful for the hospitals in the states which is something I never even thought of until yesterday. Crazy… remember when I compound fractured my hand at Lacrosse and ended up staying two nights at the hospital? Man, I was treated like a king, given a comfy bed, food, juice, and a private bathroom…just crazy compared to the hospital here. Well that was a crazy week! Love you all family and have a good week!

elder call

Hey Team (week 26)

HEYYY CHARLIE HAPPPPYYY BIRTHDAY. Man I love that kid, I can’t believe he is 7, where has time gone? I still think of that kid as a 4 year old…what the heck and I think of Ella as 7. Where is time going? I literally can´t believe that haha and what am I doing on a mission? I feel like I just got out of junior high haha…man, that’s just crazy. I’m sure you guys are loving life right now. The best time of the year at home is this time right now. Eating outside every day and swimming. It’s the best haha. Oh, and Charlie, there is a little girl that has the same birthday as you in our branch and we went over to her house and ate cake with her but I was secretly pretending that I was eating cake celebrating your birthday. When we sang happy birthday I put your name in the song and not Florcita’s name haha…love you buddy. Wow family what a week. The weeks are really starting to fly by holy cow. I lose track of the days. I feel good about my Spanish right now too which feels great. I can speak without thinking now which is soooo cool and really weird. My Spanish is far from perfect but the people can understand me and I can understand just about everything they are saying to me which is sooo great. One less thing I have to worry about. It really is so weird speaking in another language like so weird haha. Ya as for this week my comp hit his 23 months mark so we celebrated by buying some martinellis which was fun haha. The weather in Petén now has changed. It is still hot as heck but it rains every day. Just about every day in the afternoon and I freaking broke my umbrella. Man I’m so mad about that. Basically it’s my hobby to throw rocks at dogs it’s like my favorite thing to do here. So I was walking with my umbrella in one hand and I was getting ready to throw the rock. Boom the dog is in position and I launch the rock at the dog but ooohhhhh noooooo in my follow through of my throw my hand gets caught up in the umbrella and I snapped the little metal part. So the umbrella was extended above my head and my hand got caught in the little metal part that extends to open the umbrella if that makes sense. Well I’m paying for it now because now every day in the afternoon I get freaking soaked walking from place to place. The only thing that isn´t wet are my feet thank goodness. The freaking Bargain Den at Cabellas I love that store…what a place. I seriously have people always talking about my boots from there. For example, on the bus ride to Santa Elena for zone meeting there is a little kid that yells out the window to tell people where the bus is going. At first I was like why do they have that little kid yelling that when the bus says where it is going? Then I realized it is because like half of everyone here can´t read. Sad huh but ya the kid’s dad was the driver and he kept on talking to his dad thinking I couldn’t understand him. Wow this gringo has weird eyes. Wow this gringo is rich. This gringo has a weird face. This gringo is rich because look at his boots. On and on so after about 30 mins of only talking about me I told the little freaking kid I could understand him and to stop talking. haha it was so funny because he was saying super mean and rude things about me but then i called him out and he was soooooo embarrassed hahaha It was so funny and my comp laughed for an hour. Let me tell you when Rojas laughs holy cow he laughs he laughs and laughs man I wish you could hear his laugh hahha. Love the guy. As far as the work in our area right now it’s actually going surprisingly well. We have 2 really great families that are really progressing. We had 4 people in church yesterday which is like a miracle haha. The only problem with the families that we are teaching is that in both families the parents are not married. So before they get baptized, if they get to that point, they have to get married first. So I probably won’t be here if they get baptized but I planted the seeds and that is really what matters most. They are so great and I really love these families so much. I will have take some pictures so you can see them. Family, I know I have told you this a ton but say your prayers. God listens and sometimes we don´t realize it but we really are talking to someone in our prayers. Not just someone but god so make your prayers real and like a conversation. He wants to hear from us and he wants to help us. Love you all and hope you have a great week!

elder call

me and a giant tree that looks like it goes up to heaven haha

 drinking cider

 my comp burning all his clothes he doesn´t want including a tie pants suit jacket and shirt. that's the tradition for the end of the mish i probably wont do that though haha

Really weird week (week 25)

Ya so as you can tell by the subject it was a crazy week haha. So as you know I have a new mission president. Well he changed the changes in our mission and so that means that now this change is 4 semanas instead of 6. So ya mom I come home 2 weeks earlier haha. Ya so right now I should have a change to a new area but because of this weird changer thing we are in week 3 of the next change and everybody is staying in their areas. So I am going to kill my companion and what I mean by that is he goes home in 1 month and the last comp in the mission is the person that kills them in missionary words and vocab. so ya I’m going to kill him. He leaves so soon. So the news about that is that I will have another 4 weeks here in my area and probably another 6 also. Because when my comp leaves to his house I’m probably not going to get a change and leave the area because the president probably won’t want to white wash the area or put all new missionaries in the area because they will know nothing about the area. So I probably have about 10 more weeks or 9 more weeks here in this area. Crazy huh so I am going to have about 8 months in my first area which isn’t normal at all haha. Ya also this week my other comp elder cosigua left for mexico. He was here in this mission just waiting for his visa. He got his visa and he bounced he is probably in his new area in Mexico right now. As far as the work this week it wasn’t the best. My comps where sick the entire week minus Friday and Saturday. So we had barely any time to work. They were both sick with something in the stomach. I don’t know if I have told you this until this week but I have been sick pretty much my entire mission. Ok this might be too much details but I sooooo took the food and being healthy in the states for granted. I have had diarrhea my entire mission or also called bu. Bu stands for something and it means the same thing but I would rather not say the significance in this letter for the sake of the people that are going to read it. Ya I have had diarrhea about 3 times and week after week. I just learn to live with it and ya you can imagine there have been a couple of accidents. I will leave those stories to tell you in person. Let me just say to the people reading this letter… here is something you can thank god for in your prayers… regular bowel movements and I’m serious. Only dad probably knows what I’m going through and the others that have served mission in Latin countries. So ya I think about Dustin’s response about being sick all the time. “Dustin did you get sick a lot on your mission?” Dustin’s response was “no I only got sick once and it just lasted 2 years” haha so true. haha so funny. Anyway my area is good right now. We don’t have any fechas but we have a couple really good familias that we are working with right now and both of which came to church which is a big deal for my area. I will let you know more about them in the future and if they continue to progress. Also the highlight of this week was going to jombampiche which is another little town that is part of our area but is like 2 hours away on bus. The town is about 23 kilometers passed san pedro on our side of the lake. The problem is we have to go all the way around the other side of the lake to get there. so Saturday we went. Only my comp and I are crazy enough to spend the money and go there and try to spread the gospel so we did. We were the first Mormon missionaries that have been there we believe because everybody was looking at us confused and everybody asked who we were but usually the people already know that we are Mormons.Sso ya that was super cool. Every house that we contacted we got into. We only got to see like a tiny bit of the town because every house we knocked or I guess clapped outside we got in haha. It was a really cool experience though. We are like the pioneers of that little village. The town was great though and everybody was really receptive and everybody seemed so prepared to receive the gospel. The only problem is that it is super far and that the church is super far also but the dream is to baptize 2 families there and they can start a little branch. How cool would that b? Unfortunately we probably should focus more on our area of san jose because there the people can actually go to church. That’s all I have to say about this week. I loved your letters about the 4th. Oh quick story I didn’t realize it was the Fourth of July because I only look at my watch for the date and it only has the number of the months. So I had no idea it was until my comp who isn’t even from the states brought it up. So we had to make a quick little trip to an everything for 3 quatzals store and buy firecrackers. So that’s what we did and that’s how I celebrated that night haha. I love you all and have a good week!

 firecrackers that we bought and lit them off in our backyard}

jompempiche 

 me and a pig head in a butcher shop in a meat market haha

Holy Freak that Scared Me (week 24)

I got on the first computer at this computer place and a bunch of crap came on the screen. I plugged in my memory from my camera and more stuff popped out I was like freak virus I unplugged my memory and went to the other computer and I found all my pictures deleted and a virus on the card. I freaked out and was like comp help me. Calmly he went into his backpack grabbed a memory and plugged it in. In the memory it had a program to destroy the virus and restore my photos. So ya I just about cried. I have all my photos still and everything and downloaded this program onto my memory. Ya so the reason I am writing you all today is because yesterday we went to Tikal again and we got back to late and I didn´t have time to use internet and catch the bus so here we are. I still can´t believe that mad is married that totally freaks me out. Bens hair is still looking incredible and don´t think i didn´t catch him wearing my watch haha. That’s all right i gave him permission on mother’s day and the wedding was a good occasion to use it. Yes so I am officially in Coban i have a new president. pres Curtis but I still have not met him. So pres and sister watts are no longer my parents here in the mission. I said my last goodbye the last Tuesday a week ago it was super sad. We had zone conference with them. At the end they wanted to take pics with everyone. When it was my turn I was super sad I love pres watts but Hermana watts there is nobody like her in the world she is a saint. She started bawling and we couldn´t even take the photo for like 5 mins it was so sad. I love those people especially Hermana watts haha. I’m still sad but excited to have a new pres. the pres wife is 100 percent chapiin. chapin is to guatamalteca as gringo is to white people. Apparently she has a different kind of love for the missionary’s haha. She gives sincho like nobody’s business haha. I still don´t know them I have only heard rumors. The tri companionship is still great. I love my comps so much I’m serious and not just saying that. We laugh all day. Elder rojas the one from the domican doesn´t back down in arguments so when we argue we argue for like 2 hours because I’m the same way. Its great we aren’t mad at each other just arguing which is sooooo fun. For example I hate bugs so I went around our house with raid and a candle. Yes raid is flammable so I blowtorched every bug in our house to the afterlife. Rojas however said it’s bad to kill bugs like almost as bad as killing humans. We argued about that for like 3 and half hours. It was soooo funny. He wouldn´t back down. I was like there is no commandment anywhere that says you can’t kill insects’ haha. He was like it’s an abomination to god I was like if it’s so bad why is there no commandment or scripture haha. Anyway it was hilarious and I love both my comps so much haha. I have been in the my area for about 6 months. I love my area but I’m about ready to leave haha. I think I should have a change but we’ll see. With the new president who doesn´t know the missionaries I wouldn´t be surprised if there wasn´t a whole lot of changes. This change we had a baptism Saturday which was great. Their wedding was Friday so her husband who is a member and rm baptized her. Iit was really cool. They have a date to get sealed for ever and ever set in 1 year from now. Super cool. The baptism itself was nut.  I was so stressed. So much crazy stuff happened.  I had to give a blessing to a person that we chose to give a talk because she was sick and she wanted the blessing before the baptism so I had to do that with a ton of other stuff on my mind. At the end after the baptism we bought refreshments but we didn´t buy enough cups so last minute elder cocigua and I ran out the church trying to find a  teinda with cups and we needed more cookies too. It was nuts. So we ran out of there and all the teindas were closed. Terrible because it was late. We ran I swear a mile and didn´t find anything so we had no choice. Saturday night all the bars were open so we went to a bar to find cups and got made fun of by the drunks. I made the decision to shake the drunks hand bad call he wouldn´t let go so I waited for 15 seconds. When my comp had cups he yanked my hand out of his and ran the heck out of there. Oh no but there were dogs and what do dogs like to do chase things. So we had like 10 dogs who wanted to kill us along with the drunks as we were trying to run as fast as we could back to the church. We almost died. We got back to the church and i immediately had to give a blessing to a dying lady that was nuts. I was sweating so much and I was dripping sweat off my arms onto her. mid  prayer I opened my eyes and she had a huge beetle in her hair and it freaked me out and made me move which distracted my comp from the blessing and also which splashed a bunch of more sweat on the poor old lady. She was drenched by the end. haha That’s just a few things that happened that night it was nuts. I couldn´t calm down and sleep forever. The baptism really was special  even though I couldn’t feel the spirit because I was to stressed all night haha. Her smile though and knowing that she was clean of her sins was good enough for me. Great and memorable nigh.t I filled up 3 pages in my journal of all the things that happened Monday. I went to Tikal again which was cool. I met a dude at the top of a temple from Napa and we began to talk for like 30 minutes. At the end I told him about what I do here and stuff. He is 20 and by himself and he had a ton of questions. At the end I gave him a book of Mormon and told him to go to Mormon. org.  He said he would. He said he would talk to the missionaries in cali also. I told him to tell the missionaries that he was contacted by a missionary at the top of a temple in guat. haha That missionary is going to be sooo jealous. The top of a temple made by the  nephites or lamanites in a lugar where possibly Jesus walked haha nuts. Love you all and hope that you have another good week.

Elder call

mission pres and wife

baptism

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