12 months - La Nueva Misión Antigua

We had a nice little chat with Joseph today. He is in his new mission as of Monday - a new mission but an old mission - cause Antigua is Spanish for ancient! ha, little joke there. I'm going to leave in the typo in Joseph's letter of his spelling of ancient. That's what happens on a foreign mission, you start to lose a little bit of your native tongue.

 And he said he was on splits with this Elder...

...who is going home next week, and Joseph has already arranged for him and Melodie to go on a date, haha. Also, he saw a sign that asked "Do you speak English" but it was spelled "duyus pikin gles" Funny. Here is his first week of his new mission!
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    Subject: La Nueva Misión Antigua      

Hey hey hey!!!

So a lot of big and exciting events this week!!! First off I hit a year on Thursday... so that's SUPER weird. And we are now officially part of the Guatemala Antigua Mission!!!!

We met our new Mission President and wife, President Barney and Hermana Barney, on Monday. Today we also went to ANTIGUA!!  

Antigua means anchient (which is funny because the antigua mission is new... but its also old). And the city Antigua is this super old and touristic city in Guatemala. It is about 30 minutes away from my first area (which was on the edge of the capital) and about 50 minutes away from my area right now. Antigua used to be the capital of Guatemala until there was an earthquake and then they moved the captial to Guatemala Valley, where it is now. But there are a ton of tourists in Antigua. Like we saw so many canches there! Here are some sweet pictures in famous parts of Antigua!

And another big highlight of the week was when we went to the temple with Valeska (who just barely got baptized) to do baptisms for the dead.

It was super great and it was awesome! The spirit was really strong and she felt so much peace in the temple and was really just able to forget about things that are going on in her life. We also started some family history work with her! We are planning on watching the Restoration movie with them tonight.

Also this week I was on divisions with Elder Bludworth and Elder Snow who are both finishing their missions next week! They are both super great examples to me with obedience and working hard and I hope I can be like them by the time I finish my mission.

This week we had a lot of people at church too!! It was a great miracle!!

We had the Mendoza family, who are still waiting on their papers but they are closer and closer to get their papers so they can get married but are still waiting on the word from Mexico so he can go there and get it all worked out. We also had Galilea (who is super pilas and is reading Saints and the Book of Mormon) and her mom Elsa. They both really liked it but we haven't been able to visit them since Sunday. And we also had this kid named Luis come! We have been working with him for a couple weeks and he and a friend of his who is less active named Kevin have said that they will come to church a bunch of time and never come. And we even pass by to go get them and they aren't there. So this week we taught them again and they said, again, that they will come to church but I told them I wasn't convinced. So Elder Chan and I made them a deal that if they came to church this week then we would buy them a pizza and that if they didn't then they had to buy us a pizza hahaha well Luis came!! Kevin didn't but so last night we ate pizza with Luis and the best part is that he actually really liked church and how he felt! He said his favorite part was the sacrament and we are hoping he will keep coming!

That is about it for this week! And just to end with a spiritual thought, this is something our new Mission President shared with us.

In the Doctrine and Covenants 31:3, it says, ¨Lift up your heart and rejoice, for the hour of your mission is come; and your tongue shall be loosed, and you shall declare glad tidings of great joy unto this generation.” And in verse 5, “Therefore, thrust in your sickle with all your soul, and your sins are forgiven you, and you shall be laden with sheaves upon your back, for the laborer is worthy of his hire. Wherefore, your family shall live.”

The Lord gives us great promises if we serve Him and not just giving our time (2 years or 18 months) but if we give Him all we have He will make a lot more out of our life and mission than we can on our own.

Also my mom sent me the new Preach My Gospel in English (because it doesn't exist in Spanish yet) and I have been comparing it with the 2004 version and it there are a lot of little modifications that make for a TON of interesting spiritual insights. I invite you all to do it if you have not already.

Les amo mucho!!