4/14/2014

Okay, so I just want to tell you about yesterday!! So we have this investigator who will get baptized on the 26th!! and he is so awesome. His name is Hugo and he has 20 years...okay thats spanish...hes 20 years old. But he has been coming to church but we needed someone to be his friend because well, yes, its just a necessity. So we stumbled upon this member family where every single member is a returned missionary and we had a family home evening with them! It was so amazing!!! The spirit was so strong and they taught the lesson so he could be friends with them more and also we had a less active recent convert who is 18 come with us and it was good for her too! And okay, it probably sounds dumb to you guys because typing it out doesnt make as much sense, but i promise you that afterwards, i couldnt stop smiling because it was just so great for him and her! And also, the rest of the day had been kind of bad, most of our citas fell and so we werent really able to work as much as we had planned but then it ended in that and it was so good! So get involved in the work and help the missionaries!!

This week is called Semana Santa and i think its mostly a Catholic thing but everyone who is christian celebrates it. Most people leave town for the whole week to go to the pools or the beaches and yeah. So its one of those weeks when people are like, well this week will be a bad week, but our zone leaders were like no. If you dont believe that this week will be a week of success, then you arent showing your faith, youre doubting. They prayed and received the revelation that we should find 18 new investigators this week. It was super cool because the spirit was there and I just know this week is going to be an awesome week and despite the fact that most people will be gone, we will have a lot of success, but we will have to rely on God so much this week! Well, every week we have to do that. I am just excited.

Well, not a whole bunch else happened that I can really think of, but I hope you all have some great weeks!!

Oh, I have decided that since we are all Gods children, God must be very stubborn because all of His children are haha, including myself, but seriously. He has got to be so stubborn haha.

4/8/2014

Dear Family,

OH MY GOSH THIS WEEK WAS SO FLIPPING GOOD!!!! okay, ive calmed down, but it was. We had interviews with President and it was so amazing. I was able to be very open with him and I felt the Spirit so strongly afterwards. I know he is inspired of God. And then conference. Oh heck it was so good. If you guys chose not to watch it, I am practically pleading with you to go back and watch it online. It was so good. The talk by Elder Uchtdorf about us being eternal beings. It just makes so much since yet I had never thought of it like that at all. We are eternal beings. We are children of God. We knew all about this life before and chose to come here and we can all be together again after this life. Thats why its so important to use this time which leads to the next thing that i loved. This is our time!!! This is my time. Today and not tomorrow. Its incredible and I want to use my whole time on this earth to do whatever I can for the Lord. Ah, I am so excited haha. And then when President Monson almost straight up said that He saw God right there. Or at least thats what I think. So cool. Prophets and apostles are real guys.

I got sick this week and I didnt want to stay in the house so I slept until like 10 and then got up and had comp study and we left and visited bishop and a less active and the lady was like you have the look of death on your faith...haha so we came back to the house and i slept for another 3 hours and a nice couple in the ward brought me stuff to keep hydrated and it was so nice!! and then we left in the night to visit again!

We have two fechas right now and theyre both about the same person. Both young guys who have thier answers already, but are scared of baptism. I am super excited to show the power of God through our faith and our prayers. I cant wait for that moment when they overcome thier fears and just say okay. I have faith, I know its true. Lets go. Only in spanish obviously. I know itll happen, just need to be patient.

I hope you guys have great weeks and I love you all!!!

Okay. SO this week was a lot better because well, we actually know where we are...mostly. We still get lost every now and then but not every single day for hours like before. Having actual directions is super nice. In zacap it was like...oh the house on the corner then you pass the dog and then theres a store and then theres some old guy that you can ask for me haha so yes.

Also, as a sidenote. I dont know whats gotten into me, but lately I have started liking doing the dishes and making my bed. I dont know what it is. Maybe liking is an exagerration on making the bed but you know, I do it and I dont like leaving it unmade anymore...I know...theres something wrong with me.

Okay so last night, our last cita of the week was so awesome!!! So this guy used to be a jehovahs witness and so we were like idk if this family will progress but they were nice so we put another cita and yeah. we show up last night (it had been a week) and this guy had read until ALMA in the bom!!! ALMA!! I have never read that much of the bom in that short amount of time. and he was like it impacted me a lot and i really like it and im going to keep reading it. We have an appointment with them on Tuesday. I am so excited. This area has so much potential and we have found some awesome investigators!!!

Just so you know, my car is all over this country. Like I see it all the time and every time I just remember that its not my car. But thats okay. And someone told me our last name is from the indian tribe sioux. So thats exciting.

Tell Grandma Sandy I said happy birthday! Also, i dont know when the temple open house is going to be but you guys need to go when it happens!! And also GENERAL CONFERENCE IS THIS WEEK!!! woohhooo! everyone go watch it. mom, ken, dad, steph, anyone who reads this. watch it. itll be great. go in with a question and it will get answered!!

I might have to move again. I hate moving so much haha.

Last story. Here, theres guatemalan time which is an hour later. We had a baptism that was supposed to start at 5 and started at 6 haha but the thing is the Spirit was so strong that it didnt even matter! This girl was so prepared. Apparently she came into the church one sunday and said im not a member but i would like to know how to become one. When we taught her the word of wisdom she was like oh i used to drink 8 glasses a day but then my boyfriend explained to me the dangers of it...so i stopped. We were like...alright then haha. but shes great.

Love you all! have great weeks!

March 24, 2014

Okay. Well. This week has been crazy. So like I told you I had changes, and it was so super hard to leave Zacapa, everyone was crying and it was so sad!! I love the people there and its hard to accept that I might not see them ever again, but hopefully one day I will get to come back, plus there is always heaven haha. But as sad as I was to leave, I am so happy with my new area.

Okay so we meet up with some other hermanas that had been outside of the capital and we are talking and im like heck yes, I will get to just relax for two days because my comp will know the area and I wont and I wont really know what Im doing, but she will teach me. Well they come up to me and theyre like oh hey, Hermana Wilcoxen and Venegas (she has only ever been outside of the capital too) good thing you came together! You are comps opening an area. We were just like what?! haha. I was pretty nervous because neither of us know the capital at all nor any of the investigators or members or anything. We were pretty lost for the first couple of days, but we are getting a lot better and we understand it a little bit more now haha...I think.

But the area is called zona Bosques and we are in zona 4 mixco if you want to look it up. My ward is called Nueva Florida and yeah, its great! It is a really big ward and the members have already started giving us references (good thing because street contacting and knocking on doors isnt working super well haha) and now the women in the ward can start working with us because before it was only elders. There are also a heck ton of returned missionaries here, which is good because they are really excited about the work! Our area is huge and we share the ward with elders which is really different, but we will get used to it.

I hope you all have great weeks! Love you :)

Fun in the Rain

 Eat here almost everyday

The boy reminds Ash of Ethan

3/17/14

oh wow. so there is so much to say and no time to say it all. needless to say when i get back...be prepared to listen to me talk for 3 straight months haha.

 

well first off...i have changes. i am going to the capital :( everybody wants to come here and im leaving and going there...but thats okay. i already cried with my comp. weve made plans for me to come to honduras one day so that we will see eachother again. and of course for our weddings. obviously. but i am really sad. i love the people here, its all i know of guatemala and some of them are like family. its going to be a rough two days and leaving and not coming back will probs break my heart, but one day i will come back. one day.

 

we had Elder Ochoa come and visit us and our zone and two other zones but we were in the capilla from 7 in the morning until 4 in the afternoon. #onlyonthemission would i ever be in the chapel for 9 hours straight hahaha. but it was INCREDIBLE!! serioulsy has changed my mission. he told us to be bold and to have faith and to have confidence in our calling. that we have this authority. what is the reason for everything we do? baptize and retain. should we be afraid to call people to repentance? no, its our calling and we are only doing it for their salvation. serioulsy the next day we were so bold with the people. like we are representatives of Jesus Christ...what we say is what Christ would say. we invited 6 people to baptism and ahhh it was so cool because the spirit is so much stronger when we do that!

 

we found some amazing people! we taught the restoration and we invited them to baptism and the husband was like si, yes haha. and then we asked his wife and she was like well ive been baptized twice already and before we could even explain her husband was like but not with the authority. we were just like yessss haha. it was so cool because he really got it! and of course they ahve a major desafio of their jobs on sunday but my comp and her new companion will work with them on that! i have a lot of hope for them! 

 

love you all and talk to you later! have watching final four!

3/10/2014


So last week we found this less active family and we have started visiting them. There are three different sets of the same family living in two different houses and some of them are members, some of them arent and there are always people running around when were there because like 20 people live there haha BUT my point is this. We met one of the 18 year old kids who lives there and we started talking to him and anyway we are working with him right now. so the last lesson we had we had prayed that we could have the spirit with us to know what to say to him and in the lesson i asked him if he wanted to follow Christ and honestly i wasnt expecting it to be a question for real because everyone is always like yeah of course but he was like i dont know. so i asked him if he believed that Christ loved him and he was like i dont know. and it was so honest and blunt and i felt so much compassion for him because i dont know how i could live without that knowledge. we told him that we know its weird that some kids your age are teaching you about Christ and that this time of life is super confusing because we dont know what we want but we were like please just trust us for a little bit and i promise you wont regret it (actually i havent figured out how to say regret in spanish yet). but it was such a good lesson for us because we figured out his need and i really hope that he can just trust us and i know that he will be able to find the love of Christ that he needs.

I am so so so grateful for Christ. I have no idea what it was like for Him but in the mission i get the chance to experience a tiny part of what He felt and what He suffers for the people that He loves because we all mess up yet He continues to love us. It is amazing to have that kind of love for someone, hard, but amazing. These people, all I want is for them to be happy and when they refuse to accept it, it hurts, it really does, but i am just growing in my love for Him and all that He has suffered for my stupidity and that He still continues to love me and all of you guys for it.

This week we helped build a mud house!!!! WHAT?! haha. it was pretty fun. and correction, we only made the blocks...he needs 850 and pobrecito still only has like 250 but we helped him moake like 105 blocks. this kid is 17 and married and he works so hard! thats something i love about the people here, they work really hard!!

i hope you all have great weeks!! love you!

Dear Family, 

 

So this week I had an interesting experience haha. I got to teach in 100% english. It was actually super hard. So theres this white kid that I always see walking around and we alwasy look at eachother like....are you American? but on saturday he was like hey, are you american? and i was like yeah! are you? well turns out hes here from michigan and is doing a mission type thing i think. anyways so he speaks not a word of spanish so i taught him in english. he knows the bible super well and honestly i started feeling kind of stupid talking to him. It made me think a lot afterwards about what are my beliefs and what do i honestly know. and i realized something that really helped me. yeah, there are a ton of things that i dont know, but what i do know, i know with certainty. I know this gospel is true. I know that there is one way to return to our Heavenly Father. I know that the Book of Mormon is true. I know that President Thomas S Monson is a prophet. I know that everything I am teaching is true and thats the only thing that matters honestly. 

 

We went to a funeral visitation yesterday and it was so sad. This dad of two boys, one is four and the other is thirteen died pretty suddenly and their mom is in the States and we went to support the family (we had never met him) and it was so sad. The thirteen year old Fernando was just crying and his little brother was like oh hes sad because my dad died and hes so innocent, he doesnt fully comprehend what that means. It was truly heartbreaking to see, but I just grew in my gratitude to our HEavenly Father for the plan that he left with us that we dont have to worry about what is happening after this life. I know that this little boy can eventually receive the consolation that he needs through the gospel. I thought a lot about you guys and I love you and am extremely grateful for you all!

 

I have completely fallen in love with the people of Guatemala, well most especially the people of Zacapa. They are so giving. They have nothing and yet they always offer us something. They are so loving and open and honest. We have changes in two weeks and if I have to leave this area, it will break my heart, it really will. But its good for me to see this other group of people. I want to be more like them.

 

I love you all! have great weeks!

 

 

 

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