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!

 

 

 

Someones Pet

At Conference

Check out his shirt

Dear Family,

Well, I have decided that I want to study astronomy! haha. okay actually probably not because at BYU when i had to go watch some video about the stars, i just fell asleep because the seats were recliners and its all dark in there. but i kid you not, every single night i tell my comp how much i love the stars haha. Like when were walking I just look up at the stars and it always just reminds me of my purpose. Theres a God up there who made this all! And we are only away from Him for maybe 70 years and then we can be with Him again for the eternities, and thats what I want. For me, for my family, and for everyone (specifically the Guatemalans right now haha).

So here there are pacas and its basically clothes from the US, like Goodwills only better. I have boughten clothes from Banana Republic and Express and Puma and Reebok for like less than 5 dollars. Yuppp. Anyway, so I have seen a BYU shirt (2 actually) and an EFY shirt and then the other day a CTR shirt and we followed her becuase one we wre headed in that direction and two my comp wnated to see and she totally went into some other church (theres at least 5 churches on every street, not an exaggeration) and we wre like haha...thats ironic. reppin the mormon church at an evangelical church. I thought it was funny at least.

The other day we were contacting and it has gotten flipping hot here. And the lady let us in the house only because we are sweating so badly haha and we are talking to her and im not even kidding, sweat running down my face and my back and yeah, super fun but so we say a prayer with her and during the prayer I couldnt stop smiling! I was just thinking about the situation and this lady doesnt want to hear us at all and in a normal circumstance, youd think I would feel like uhhhh I just want to go to the house and sit in front of my fan but I was just so happy. I dont know what it is, well yes I do, its the gospel of Jesus Christ that makes me feel happy but it was a cool experience even though well nothing really happened.

Well, I am still loving it here! Things are going great and when theyre not I pray and I receive comfort and theyre great again haha. I am trying to work as hard as I can so that when I am back home in a year I have absolutely no regrets :)

OK folks, sorry I was so far behind.  Here are the last 4 blogs.

2/17/14

Hello All, 

Well this week was also another hard week haha. We honestly were like well...I dont want to give our dats to our zone leaders haha because theyll lbe like did you even work this week?! haha and were like WE TRIED! But seriously we were so blessed by Heavenly Father!!!! Like before Sunday we only had 6 lessons with members ( the standard of excellence is 20) and then we had 14 by the end of Sunday and we found 12 news this week which is exactly the standard and we had 17 other lessons (without members) and we had 18 and a half hours of looking (the standard is 18) and we were just like wow....there is a scripture I read this morning. I think it is Jacob 5:69 or something close to that and it says that the Lord works with His servants in His vineyard and it IS SO TRUE!!! He blessed us beyond what we thought and we still dont know how but we arent questioning it. I love this work so much, its not even funny. I will be hitting my 6 month mark this week and I am realizing how much time I dont have left to serve and it kind of makes me sad. But it just motivates me to work that much harder. 

We are still living with 4 sisters in one tiny little room so thats been interesting to adjust to haha but its all good now. Our dueno offered them other rooms to live in but they say we cant live together...so instead of having our own separate rooms, we just have been living together for more than a week haha because they cant find another house. So we personally think they should just take the offer but they arent budging haha so yuppp. 

I love you all and hope that you had good Valentines day. Dont worry, a member gave us a dinner and some lady told me that she wanted me to be her daughter in law (I felt very uncomfortable) haha so yeah. and as Kelly said were not single, were just missionaries :p haha. love you all, have great weeks!!

2/10/14

Okay so something crazy happened this week. We were sitting with a family and my comp was about to give a pamphlet about the plan of salvation to a nonmember friend of theirs and when I looked at the folleto, I was like Hermana thats in english! dont give it to him! and she didnt hear me and asked me what i said so I looked at it again and I was like oh my gosh...thats in spanish. Like I understood it without thinking and my brain just thought that it was in english haha. So I think my spanish is really coming along!! Its a miracle.

This week was a pretty hard week. We felt like we were making a lot of good plans and then they would just fall. Like seriously one day we had plans to visit 12 people and not a SINGLE PERSON was home. Not one. or they were about to leave or something. not the investigators, not the members, not the less actives, not the people we had made set plans with. And then the other hermanas that are in our ward had to move out of their house and they didnt have another house to live in so they moved in with us for right now and theres a rule that missionaries cant share the same bed so right now we have four beds in our tiny room haha and its insanity right now and so we had to cancel a bunch of plans to help them move.

Its also jsut been a week of huge changes. We were in the best zone in the mission. It was the biggest and seriously, it was the best. But they decided to split it so now we only have 12 people in the zone when before we had 26 i think. and we have new zone leaders and a new district leader and yeah its been crazy but i think this week should be normalish haha. except the hermanas have to move out again.

We also had a baptism yesterday!!! Ronny is so awesome and will be such a strong member. We talked to a lady who lives in another ward and she isnt married and shes like ....so wehn can i meet him? hahaha so we are taking her to our next appointment with him and were basically matchmakers haha. yup thats right.  love you all! have great weeks!!


2/3/14

So we got the announcement about changes last night and GUESS WHAT?! I AM STAYING HERE IN THIS AREA WITH MY COMPANION!!! WOOOOHHHH!!!! That means that I will be in the same area for at least 6 months haha. That also means that I will be in Zacapa for the hottest part of the year. My zone leader said he passed out five times during this season. So this should be interesting. At least I will get some good work on my tan :p and maybe my hair will be blonder!

This week we had a super awesome experience that is super special to me and so I hope that you guys can all appreciate it too! So we have an investigator who serioulsy is golden. He is getting baptized this Saturday. He ran into us on the street and asked us about church (i mightve told you about him), he lives like 20 minutes away but alsways makes time to come and meet us, he speaks FLUENT ENGLISH so when I dont know a certain word I just say it in english (its truly great), and he always reads, he loves wearing a white shirt and tie to church, he basically teaches us. Anyway. He didnt have any money to come and visit with us this week. So my companion told him that he should pray and that we would pray too that he could find a way to come and meet with us. So we did and then called him back laster and he said that some ladies had called to look at product and that if he sold at the least 20 that he would come. So we were like okay we know that you will be there we will meet you at 4 because we dont have a cellphone or anything. So we get there at 4 and lo and behold, there he is. Hes  like you will never geuess what happened. Three ladies came in and looked for like an hour so I thought I was going to make a ton of money...they only bought 20 worth of stuff!!!! So he got to come. He said he didnt even know how they got his number! Irt was a straight miracle from God and me and my companion could not stop smiling. It was an amazing moment and I know that God answers each and every one of our prayers, we just have to have the faith :)

Love you all, have great weeks!!


1/27/14

So to start out with super exciting news. I GOT TO SHAKE HANDS WITH ELDER COOK!!!!!!!! AHHHH! I was also sitting in the front row of seats right in front of the podium. AHHH! It was so incredible! I cant even describe the spirit that I felt when he was speaking to us! Like seriously. He explained to us about the process of how the choose where we will serve and it is so incredible. At the end he was talking about how for some ofus maybe there are things going on at home and maybe we think that we would be of better use there but he was like "you are where you ought to be". He pronounced a blessing on the people of central america to open their hearts and to bless us to feel that we are where we ought to be and to bless everyone that we love. There was so much power in that and I know that it was true. I love that we have real men on this earth right now who can tell us the will of the Lord. After that we had a really good lesson about the Restoration with an investigator and when we testified about prophets and aposotles it rang so much truer. I felt so much more confident in the lesson because I realized I dont know everything but thats okay because I was called by the Lord and if He has the confidence in me then I can do what He wants me to do.

We also have found a "golden" investiagtor and by that I actually mean he found us haha. Serioulsy. He approached me in the market one time because he used to go to a church but then had to move and then later he was driving by us and asked us what time church started and we had a lesson with him and he is so prepared its not even funny. He has a fecha for baptism the 9th of february. He is so awesome and we learn a lot from him.

We have been leaving with this kid who is 16 and his mom to teach him what the mission is like and it is so cool to see his excitement. It reminds me how I felt before and how I feel now. I love that the work just keeps on going.