Week 9 Report - 2 Months In!

Elder Wride's Mom here. I was gone this morning - I forgot that he said p-day would be Monday this week, so I wasn't online and I hadn't written him, but I guess he still had one of my late unopened emails from last week, so maybe he didn't notice. He sent a journal entry and lots of great pictures! They had a baptism over the weekend of a sweet little girl, I'll let Joseph tell about it -

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Subject:  2 MONTHS IN                        

What's up Fam! Well this week was overall super great and I'm officially 2 months in as of TODAY since I got to the Guatemala MTC on June 27th.

Meggan's baptism was Saturday and that was awesome. I don't think I've ever seen balloons and streamers at a Baptism before but Elder Aquino was super excited about them and I do know that Latios like to party.

It was really an awesome baptismal service though.

Jason, a priest in the ward, baptized her. He's a good kid and is getting ready for a mission. He's still 17 but I think turns 18 in December.

Elder Aquino has some more pictures that are better quality too. Lemme know if you want those as well (Editor Mom here - these pics are the ones from Elder Aquino's camera, cause they were pics of the same thing just that Joseph's were blurry)

We're going to keep working with their family to help them be able to enter the temple to be sealed and I hope it happens during my mission and then I'd be able to go!

That would be amazing. They're family is so precious and their kids really remind me of my siblings especially Giselle who is 5 and is literally the Guatemalan version of Natalie. They act EXACTLY the same it's a little freaky. Megan reminds me of Sophie a lot too and their little boy Steven is about Daniel's age so if they ever come to Utah we need to have a barbeque or something so my siblings can meet their guatemalan twins. So that was definitely the highlight of the week. Here's a picture of the program from the Baptismal Service.

Let's see here are those pics that I didn't leave enough time to include in my email last week sorry about that.

My Zone here in Monserrat. These guys are awesome.

Top left is Elder Strong. He was in the MTC at the same time as me and like his last name is very strong. He's super cool and is from Centerville. In front of him is Elder Faroñan who is from Peru and is in his last change. He's training Elder Strong. They're reopening an area like we are and since Elder Faroñan leaves in 3 weeks Elder Strong will get a new trainer so he has to really learn the area like the back of his hand. Elder Bywater is the tall one in the back with his tongue out. He is from Olympus!! He has a year in the mission and we've talked a lot about people I know from Oly and people he knows from Skyline. He was an SBO there and played football and after his mission he's going to play football for the greatest school on God's green earth - Brigham Young University. Haha I'm glad he was here in Guatemala and didn't see this past season. Next to him is Elder Zwahlen who was also in the MTC with me. He's an super cool guy and is from California. I'm betting we'll be companions at some point but ya never know. Then there's some guy named Elder Wride. Next to him is Elder Dustin who went to Davis High School and has about a year in the mission as well. He's super cool and has been helping me on the piano. He's the other district leader.

Middle row is Hermana Osorio. She's from here in Guatemala and is kinda quiet but I like her a lot. Her companion Hermana Christiansen. She's in her second to last change and has been directing the choir since our zone is singing at multizone conference this week. She was in BYU women's chorus before her mission. Then Hermana Camargo from Panama and she's pretty funny. She is training Hermana Martin who was also in the MTC with me. Our Zone has the most greenies in it. Hermana Martin went to Box Elder High School and did a year at the U before her mission. She doesn't like Skyline because we always beat them at swimming. Go Eags.

Bottom Row. Elder AQUINO ma COMP!! Then Elder Millich who is the other Zone Leader with Elder Bywater. He used to be an Assistant and this is also his last change. He's the one who I thought was Guatemalan but he's actually from Draper. He's super great. Next to him is Elder Benson who is my District Leader. He's from California as well but did a year at BYU before the mission. He's awesome. He's training Elder Cornejo next to him who is from CHILE! Elder Cornejo got here one change before I did though so he's got 9 weeks in the field whereas I now have 3. So yeah that's my Zone.

Here is where we study every morning. My desk is on the left.

This is our bedroom. My bed is on the right. We got Mosquito nets installed this week and I also have a picture of that I'll put in.

Beans and tortillas.

Like I said I've eaten more beans in my time on the mission so far than I had my whole life but every meal I've always eaten all my food.

Mmm

Behold the glorious bean tortilla platters.

Our whiteboards we use to keep track of investigators and a desk with our stash of folletos

The cool pictures of all the past prophets.

The water filter!! This thing is really cool

So those are the pictures that I meant to include last week, plus my zone. Here are other pics from this week. We played this fun game that was like revenge but with soccer last week on  p-day. 

If your chair got hit with the ball you were out and if the person who got you out gets out you're back in. Elder Cornejo won most of the time. Latinos are good at soccer.

So we are teaching a family that speaks Kekchi (They came to church with us this week!!). I also don't know how to spell Kekchi but its whack. Some Elders going to the Coban mission had to learn it and they were in the MTC for NINE weeks. Not everyone in the family speaks kekchi but some do so we got some kekchi folletos and Books of Mormon for them. LIX HU LAJ MORMON hahah I think it'd be super cool to learn kekchi

My Mission Scripture Words of Mormon 1:7-8 in kekchi

The SemCo themed Scripture last year Ether 12:4 in Kekchi

And Moroni 10:4-5 of course

We bought some eggs this weeks and I got a dozen eggs... in a bag. So I was very careful on the walk home that night.

Here's the mosquito net. It's pink because they delivered the nets like 4 weeks ago when there were still Hermana's here but now its us and they finally got them installed. We don't really need them in the capital but I've been using it because there are still some mosquitos I've seen in the apartment.

A couple nights ago I must have been moving around too much and accidentally pulled the mosquito net down on me in the middle of the night and slept the whole night like that. It was weird because you feel like you have blanket over you and are going to suffocate but it's a mosquito net so you can breath just fine.

Here is the view outside our window.

We live on the second floor of this building. It's not much but it's home.

Also that is not our car. We do a LOT of walking around here.

And here is a street here in Berlin that we walk up probably every day. Elder Aquino looking fly as usual.

So yeah great

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Joe's mom here. I was able to get into his email and get the pictures that Elder Aquino sent Joseph that he forwarded but didn't upload, meaning we couldn't see them. Yay for online life. So some of the pics above were from Elder Aquino, and there were also these two short video clips, so I am glad I was able to log on and get those. That makes for a good email day, should be able to get us by until next week! So great to see them, as Corey told Joseph in an email yesterday, "It makes me smile every time I think of you out in the streets meeting with people. Keep it up! We're very proud of all that you're doing."

Week 8 Report - Lo De Coy - Picking Up Steam!!

We got great emails from Joseph this week, with the added bonus that we figured out how I can log into his drive, so now I can get his pictures! He sent some in his weekly email, but they didn't work. He mentions 14 pics here, I think he only uploaded two to his drive, cause I couldn't find the other image number ones. So, we'll have to wait until next week for him to get those off of his camera, but go back and look at the past posts in the MTC, I got 100+ pics from his drive that I'll update into those weeks. So, as you know from last week, I emailed the mission office to verify if the Alphasmart was ok for him to use so I could try to suggest ways for Joseph to use his one hour online better to get in touch with us. Today in an email to me he said:

Things are going great here and we're picking up steam but the first week was a little rough. After you called or emailed the secretaries to see if I was alright I got a call from them and I just started crying after haha it was just a bit of a rough day and when they called saying that my mom all the way back in Utah was wondering how I was doing it was exactly what I needed in that moment and really built my testimony that God really loves us and looks after us. But I did start crying and it was on the bus haha and I felt a little silly but it was a really good learning experience. More than anything I just didn't really have the spirit with me. We hadn't had our personal study since we had to be at the church early and i don't really know but I just want to tell you that I love you and Dad and all that you guys have done and do for me and all the other kids. Things are going good here now and we're picking up steam. 

So, I wrote the office prob more for me, but it turns out it was just what he needed to let him know of God's love. That made me feel better about being over anxious to hear from him. :) Then we figured out how I could log on to his account and I saw pictures. This one was my favorite and made me cry for the first time in 7 weeks (I've been okay after making it through the first week). Love this boy, look at that missionary glow!

It's a good day to be a missionary's mom!

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Subject: WEEK 8 Picking up Steam!!         
Week 8

   Good Morning Utah! So this week has been really great. There's always ups and downs though and I had my first cry of the mission but it has happened so many times where our appointments fell through and it led us to either someone we found knocking doors who is less active or someone who totally wants to hear more about our message. Like so many times it's kind of unreal. God can only work through us when we do everything we're supposed to though. That's probably been the biggest lesson learned this week. It's hard to reopen an area especially when there hasn't been a baptism here since February but we have been working hard and are starting to pick up some steam. We have two baptisms lined up, Megan and Fernando. Megan is the girl who is 9 and we've been working a lot with their family. They are awesome. The mom is super active but the dad has been inactive for a little while but is getting better and we're gonna keep working with them so they can go through the temple. So we thought we'd have to reactivate the dad so he could baptize Megan but since her mom is solid and Megan has been going to church for a long time we can baptize her this month! So Megan's baptism is this Saturday and we've been working hard to get all that ready and I'm really excited for them.

   Then Fernando is also going to be baptized on September 16th, in the morning before church so his parents can come. Boy do I admire that kid. He's 13 years old and no one in his family are members. He's been going to church for 8 years with his uncle who is in our ward here in Lo De Coy. His uncle Sergio is a convert too. Haha I almost wrote tambien. That keeps happening where I think of Spanish words instead of English words when I'm writing. Probably a good sign. Anyways so his uncle is a convert too. Sergio's wife jokes that he is her Eternal Convert haha. Fernando is a super awesome kid and has got a bright future ahead of him. I hope he and Wesley are mission companions in Argentina in 5'6 years. So yeah it's way exciting! We have 2 baptisms lined up both because of members. I mentioned the Susan Fulcher Story last week and seriously go and find that if you're getting ready for a mission or have you're parents find it and send it to you if you're already on a mission. It's all about working with members and how to get members more involved in the missionary work. Members are seriously the key to getting solid investigators but you have to gain the trust of the members first. Anyways enough about that but go find that story and read it.

   Yesterday we had interviews with President and Hermana Shumway which we have once every change. It was fantastic. They're great people and I can't wait for multi'zone conference next week. I learned We Thank Thee Oh God for a Prophet in the CCM on piano. Not the simplified version by the way haha and am going to play it next week as the intermediate hymn for the conference which is with our new Area President so no pressure there. I'll probably be spending the rest of P'day practicing.

   It rained really hard this week a few times, and boy were we glad to have out caps! They kept us mostly dry. Except for our knees down which got completely soaked. Some streets here don't have gutters or drainage systems which is where we were when it started pouring and it was litterally like the Narrows!! Like no joke I felt like I was on high adventure again. The street was on a hill and was seriously a river. My shoes dried out after a day underneath the fan haha but so the next day I decided to break out the rain boots, which are not the most comfortable thing in the world. Dansko shoes are the most comfortable thing in the world though. Highly recommend them. Plus they have a 2'year guarantee. Anyways so I decided to break out the rain boots and ended up switching to my regular pair of shoes, the pair that wasn't wet, after lunch because the boots were just super uncomfortable and it didn't look like it was going to rain anyways. So now I have some blisters on the back of my feet from the rainboots I'm pretty sure but they're healing quickly.

   A little more about Elder Aquino. He's  from Peru and was baptized at 14. He's a convert which I think is so cool! He has two sisters and one of them was baptized with his mom right before he left on his mission. He says was baptized at 14 but wasn't active until 18 and then 6 months later was shipped off on his mission. He's a great guy and a really good missionary. I don't know if I could have asked for a better trainer, especially since I am forced to speak in Spanish in order to communicate AND Peruvians are said to have the most pure form of Spanish. So I'm pretty lucky I'd say.

   We eat a lot of pasta around here. The other day Elder Aquino put in a bunch of the random spices we have and that was some picante )that means spicy= pasta! I couldn't finish it and neither could he. Other than that he's a pretty good cook. He made tortillas with beans the other day. Yum. Ya know beans aren't actually that bad. Especially if you have tortillas or rice to help get it down. I think though that I've eaten more beans in these 8 weeks in Guatemala than I had eaten in my 18 years of life before the mission.

   Here are some pictures but I didn't have time to label all of them and they aren't really in order.

1 - Us with President Shumway

2 - Elder Aquino and I before we left our apartment the other day. (Pic at top of this post) That was a good day. Every day is a great day to be a missionary!

3 - Picture of our desks

4 - Our sleeping quarters

5 - The shower. Last week I figured out how to make the water hot and that has been SUCH a blessing! Not looking forward to when-if I go outside the captial where you have to shower with a bucket.

6 - The room where we exercise haha we have a disk and a little portable dvd player thing and so for exercise we do P90X and  it's actually pretty sweet.

7 - Our white boards and desk of folletos )pamphlets= and Books of Mormon. We found a family that speaks Kekchi - idk how to spell it. Maybe its QueQuchi? (Tiffanie here, it's Ki'che', or Quiché in Spanish)

8 - Pictures of all the prophets up on the wall with little bios which I really like.

9 - We ran out of the little bags of water we had to time to break out the water filter. That water filter is pretty nifty! You just put water in and it goes through this thing before it comes out the top and then it's purified! I thought I was gonna have to start boiling water every morning!

10 to 14 The glorious bean tortilla platter. It's bean mush basically. You can buy it in bags and it makes it easier to eat since you don't have to chew. I think I like the bean mush better than plain beans. I'm pretty sure I actually ate more of those than Elder Aquino did that night haha I'm becoming Puro Chapin.

   Haha sorry I actually ran out of time to upload the rest of the pictures so I'll make sure and send those next week! Things are going great here.

   Also p'day is Monday for just next week.

Week 7 Report - Lo De Coy - Que Chilero

Well, Joseph, sorry to say this, but you left me feeling a little bit lacking again this week. I got a "love you, mom!" email letting me know he was online, I sent him a quick note:

I'm in a RS meeting right now but I told them I'm gonna email you a bit, but I haven't read your stuff yet, but just send pictures and journal entries!! We love to hear whats going on and all your thoughts and feelings. If you are able to use the alphasmart, that's perfect to just get on it and do a brain dump ramble of all any random thoughts that come into your mind and get it all out!

His reply:

Yeah I'll send them but keep running out of time because I can't really do other stuff while it's uploading

He had already sent the email below, although I hadn't read it yet, so I didn't know how short it was. I'm feeling like I did after our dinner date this past week at the Charleston in Draper, where my "salad" had 8 mint leaves and a sliced up peach. Like I needed a re-do to get what I'm after, this one is lacking. Anyway, sigh, here's his mass email (shorter than last weeks email and no pics this time, boo) Not to complain, but I may need to adjust my expectations going forward...
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    Subject:  Que Chilero___                              
So this week was great. First official week in the field whoo!!
I learned what reopening an area means. That you contact A LOT and really have to get to know the members so they can help you know the area and references.
I had a banana thrown at me. It missed haha but got a little banana mush on my shoulder. Some guys who were probably drunk threw it and later threw a rock at Elder Aqino and missed. Because we're missionaries and are protected.

We're finally making some progress with some Investigators and I think Spetember is going to be an even greater month. Lots to do.

Elder Aquino killed a cockroach crawling on him in the middle of the night. So that's great. Ugh haha we're gonna do a deep clean today.

Not much else has been happening but please go read the talk by Laurence E Corbridge about the Fourth Missionary and also find the Boston Massachusetts Mission Case Study Sister Susan Fulcher. They are both very good and very inspiring and help you know what kind of missionary you need to be.

Que Chilero is a phrase that as far as I can tell means sweet. Elder Aquino uses it a lot haha and I'm using it a lot too.

Oh also I would like to announce that I know how to whistle. I learned how to in the CCM and in the CCM I also learned how to do that snapping thing with one hand where you flick your wrist. They do that a lot here too.

We're working with this one family a lot to help the 9 year old girl get baptized. They're kids remind me a lot of my siblings. They have a little boy who's the same age as Daniel and a little girl that looks a lot like Natalie and is 5 years old and just acts a lot like Natalie does. And Megan is the 9 year old and she reminds me of Sophie. They're a really precious family and have some struggles but things are getting better. We're going to try and visit them again tonight.

Oh also I saw a guy wearing a UVU shirt! He didn't know what UVU was though and just somehow ended up with that shirt haha.

Lots to do. Chao

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I usually like to include some kind of photo if I can in all my blog posts, so do you want an image of a banana or a UVU logo? I guess we'll go with UVU....

I told Corey that Joseph's emails left me lacking, he said "I disappointed my mother most weeks" lol, I know that is true. I think I did a good job when I was a missionary cause I'd been on the other side. It's been a few years now, plus email makes things different. I sent this to Joseph just barely, he'll get it next week.

Do you spend most of the online time reading emails? or replying? Or do you need internet time to do other online things for the mission? Are you able to use the Alphasmart on p-day in the morning, before you get online, to write any emails, and then when you get on just upload it? Seems like uploading it would be faster than typing or replying once you are online? Or is your internet connection really slow and that makes it take time? I gotta admit I am feeling not quite like I got my fill from your emails last week or this week, but dad said "I disappointed my mother most weeks" lol. So not to give you another burden, but if you could pretty please make sending a longer email or journal entries or pictures next week a top priority that would be great. Your "small plates of Joseph" won't have much in them with emails this size or without some more large plates stories to take my historical abridgment from for you. Not that recording your mission is your priority right now, but just trying to think of how we can help best record for you, cause so much of what is going on is going to be forgotten if it's not written down - names of people, places, thoughts and experiences, you'll mostly remember your mission from what you are able to capture in pictures you take and words from your journals and letters. Just trying to think ahead for ya. xoxo We love you!

My final email of the day, I just sent this email to the mission! Lol, I guess I'm one of those anxious missionary moms!

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Hi Assistant to President Missionaries or President Shumway or whoever reads this - not sure....

Not to be an over anxious new missionary mom, but I guess I kinda am since Elder Wride is our first missionary and I'm learning how all this works. And I'm just trying to adjust my expectations of what he's able to do on preparation day- 

Last week we got a short email, which I understood because he just left the CCM and I was sure he was busy with transfers and getting to his new area and getting stuff to get settled in his new area in the field. I was really excited that we were sent a few pictures since we didn't get any during the MTC, so that was a treat!

But this week we didn't get any pictures and the email was even shorter. He just has an hour to be online, is that right? And maybe he has a bad connection, I'm not sure, but I did sent him an Alphasmart in a package with hopes that that would him, but he says it takes too long to upload so we didn't get anything from that. I'm not sure if he knows how to use it or if it's allowed? (Although since it was recommended by another Guatemala City South mom I assumed it would be okay?)  Is he able to get on that and type up an email file on pday morning before he gets online? Or is it allowed for him to use that during the week to type up journal entries and then send us his journals via email? 

Anyway, I know he's still getting into the swing on things, but I was really hoping for a longer letter this week, not shorter, so thought I'd reach out and ask so I can adjust my expectations for the next few months if necessary as he figures things out. 

I know he's super busy and has "lots to do" as he said this week - I know he loves Elder Aquino and is so excited to be working in the Lord's vineyard, We'd love to hear more about the work he is doing and things he's learning. If snail mail is a better way to do that then we'll send him written letters and get him some stamps in his next package. 

Thanks so much for your help and advice, I appreciate it!

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So we'll see if anything comes from that, ha. Sorry, Joseph, if you get a call from your zone leader - "Elder Wride, your mother is already bugging the mission president asking about your letters to her!" It could either make him feel like a slacker or it could make me seem like a crazy mom, I hope more the latter. He's a good kid, so let's get this fixed if there is anything to fix (either him writing more or my expectations being more realistic) before we get months into the mission.

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Aw, look that that! Less than 30 minutes later and they've already replied!

Hello Sister Wride, we are the Executive Secretaries and are happy to help with the any concern. First off regarding his emails, we are allowed one hour every preparation day to write family and friends. Sometimes bad connection does affect writing abilities but not usually. He is definitely allowed to use his Alphasmart to type adequate letters before he writes on Pday. We would recommend continuing with emails and can assure that everything will work out as you and your son are both experiencing the wonderful learning curve of the mission. Elder Wride is a fine missionary and will adjust quickly to the mission schedule. He will be writing more in detail in the future as he becomes accustomed to the mission routine. He and his trainer are happy and having wonderful experiences.

Thank you for concern, and have a wonderful day!

Ok. I'll take a breather now and will try to just lower my expectations for the next few weeks/months as he continues to adjust to mission life. :) Should be easy enough with being busy with the kids starting school. Until next week!

Week 6 Report - Into the Mission Field!

Elder Wride has left the Guatemala Missionary Training Center (aka MTC, aka CCM in Spanish - Centro de Capacitación Misional) and is now in the field - aka el campo. He's super excited, we're excited for him. We were happy to see some pictures of his face, first new pics in five weeks. No journal entries, but maybe he'll send them next week after he gets settled in? Still, I'm ok with pictures. Hopefully they will become a weekly thing now! His new companion is Elder Aquino from Peru and they are going to be working in the Lo De Coy area. One fun fact about that, that Joseph mentions in his email here, is that one of his MTC teachers, Hermano Herrera, lives in the Lo De Coy ward and works with the missionaries. Hno Herrera thought it would be fun if Joseph came to his ward, but the chances weren't good - Joseph was the only one from his MTC District going to the Guatemala South Mission anyway, plus there were sisters in the Lo De Coy ward. Well, Hermano Herrera mentioned it to the sister missionaries in his area, just so happened the sisters were transferred out and Elders were moved in. The sisters recognized Joseph's last name - Elder Wride - from Hermano Herrera's comments about a missionary in his MTC district, and couldn't believe Joseph was going to that area! So that's the first miracle of his mission. :)
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    Subject:   EL CAMPO!!!                              

So el campo means the field, as in the MISSION FIELD!!! We have made it and this is awesome.

SO the MTC/CCM was super great and my district was the best there was. The last night we watched a devotional cd from the Provo MTC with Elder Christofferson and he talked a lot about the Book of Mormon and it was awesome. As it ended everything started to set in. Like I'm gonna be in the Field! And meet my trainer! And President Shumway!! So as you can imagine it was a bit of a restless night. I had a hard time falling asleep and when some of the other Elders in my room had to get up at 2 (for Honduras) and Elder Mendez had to get up at 330 for El Salvador. I'll put in a link or something to the MTC pictures I never got to send at the end of this email.

Anyways so we also got our travel information that last night and had to go to bed 2 hours earlier because of so many people who had to get up early. Since the MTC is in my mission our travel was only liek 20 minutes. The Assistants came to pick us up and on of them I totally thought was a Latino except that his last name was Millich, not very latinoish. Well psych he's from draper haha and went to corner canyon. His spanish is just so authentic and he has darker hair and looks like he could be chilean or something. So that's the goal with spanish is to make it so people think I'm from Latin America because my spanish is so authentic with the accent and everything.

I haven't even gotten to the good parts yet haha so we arrived and took pictures with president Shumway and his wife and I think they sent those to my parents haha hopefully. Then we had like a little orientation and they gave us our blankets and some other stuff and a bunch of papers and had our interviews.

Then we got to meet our entrenadores (trainers) and it was totally like Christmas morning haha. The first thing they decide before any of the leaders or anything is who the trainers are going to be which I think is very smart. Trainers are the most important leadership position. My companion is ELDER AQUINO!!! He's from Peru and has 16 months here in the mission.

Scotty, I'm gonna make sure he looks for you when he gets home. I'm super glad I have a Latino companion although all the Norte Elders speak really good Spanish too. He's trying to learn English but doesn't know much so we're speaking English when we're en casa and Spanish out on the street but I still have to say most stuff in Spanish too so we can communicate at all haha but it's good. We will have the next 12 weeks together in LO DE COY which is our area. We are reopening it! Which is exciting although I feel like I totally don't know exactly what that means haha.

Elder Wride - top row on the right

After Changes and everything at the mission home a bunch of buses and vans took all the missionaries to their areas including all the other missionaries who were changing areas. There are a lot of missionaries!! Like buses full of missionaries. We ran in to a sister who just closed the Lo De Coy Area and guess what! My teacher in the morning at the CCM, Hermano Herrera, is in that ward! I was the only missionary in my district going to the south mission and he told me that I probably wouldn't go to his area because they had Hermanas. Then he told me they were moving the Hermanas out and some Elders in but like what are the chances that I go to his area. He helps the missionaries a lot in his ward and I guess he told the sisters that he was praying that a missionary in his district at the CCM named Elder Wride would go to his area haha and then we meet the Sister who used to be there and she sees that I'm Elder Wride and am going to Lo De Coy and freaks out!! Hahah so this is officially the first miracle of my mission that I'm going to Lo De Coy with Hermano Herrera, except now I'll call him Junior haha. The Sisters companion that was in Lo De Coy also happened to be in front of us on the bus and she had the exact same reaction as her companion in Lo De Coy haha.

What else. So we got settled and all that and then went out to get to know the area and contact some. We had some really good conversations with people in the street and it look promising. Hermano Herrera and the Hermanas that were here all said that this area is good but it's hard. So we're gonna need lots of faith and work real hard but we can do it. It being meet our goals which we set this morning as companionships and as a zone. It's really nice that pday is the day after I got here so that there's more time to get settled and all that. It used to be Monday here and the missionaries had to wait a whole week basically before they got settled.

What else haha the apartment is about what I expected and we made spaghetti for dinner. Things are gonna be good here and Elder Aquino is awesome. People joke that his name should be Aquisi instead of no because aqui means here and si means yes (no means no if you didn't know that) and he is always working and so it's like should we talk to those people and he's like Aqui si. So like yes here. He's a go getter and I can't wait to really get started. Since we're both new to the area (that's what reopening an area is I think) we have to get to know the area and all these people in the ward. We're meeting with the Bishop tonight and later this week the Ward Mission Leader and Junior which will help a ton since they know where the ward is at and who needs help and all this stuff. The goal is 2 baptisms by the end of the month and we have other goals to help reach that because its like a funnel. If you have 10 new investigators not all of them will go to church so to get those baptisms we're really going to have to talk to everyone everywhere and get them going to church and reading the Book of Mormon and if those things are done then it makes it possible to have baptisms because they don't just come out of nowhere. Last month they broke the mission record for baptisms. 105 for the whole mission in the month of July. The month before they had 99 and plan on keeping it up so it's a great time to be here in the best mission in the world. The job of missionaries is to get people to baptisms and help them after too but at that point it really comes down to the members so if there are recent converts in your ward or area make sure you fellowship them! We don't want people to be baptized and then go inactive just because they didn't feel welcome. Callings also help with that. Well that's all for this week. I'll put a link to my MTC pictures in another email actually. A lot of them. Like all the ones from the zoo are useless but everyone was a little click happy when we went to the zoo 3 weeks ago haha.

Have a great fantastic week and remember to keep reading the Book of Mormon and praying to keep yourself spiritually charged.

Elder Wride

 MISIÓN GUATEMALA SUR

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So, the link to the pictures didn't work, I emailed him about that and said he needs to give me "permission" or to give me his username and password for that drive so I can log in and download them, but he never replied. Probably didn't have much time today, maybe next week!

But we also received an email from the mission president - President Shumway - that included 3 more pictures - President and Sister Shumway

That would be so fun to be mission presidents! I'm assuming this picture below is all the new missionaries.

Another picture of Elder Aquino and Joseph, and I don't know who the Elder on the right is in the pic below (President assistant maybe?) Elder Aquino looks like a great missionary, I'm so glad Joseph has him as his trainer!

 

Joseph is super excited to get to work with him and to be in Lo De Coy!

Week 5 Report - Guatemala MTC

We just got a short group email from Joseph today, but that is okay, cause he sent me a long email afterward with some of his journal entries, thanks to the Alphasmart which he just got this week, cause he got my package early! I didn't think he'd get it until he was in the field cause people on the mission mom's facebook page said the missionaries in the MTC don't/can't receive packages. So our expectations were low and we figured he'd just have to wait until he got in the field. A good thing about low expectations is when things come through early, it's a really nice surprise! He said it was like Christmas. So I'll post his mass email first and then will add some more with some of the interesting thoughts from his long email to me.

And I got a kick out of the subject of his email "week 5?" - lol, it might be a good sign that he's found his rhythm and that time is going by more quickly.
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    Subject:   week 5?                                         

Hey all! So today was a great week. Pretty normal haha kinda like last week. Nothing too exciting just learning spanish and marking scriptures and all that. The temple here, which we go to on Pdays is pretty small.

Kinda shows how truly humble the people here are and I can't wait to get out and get to know more of them. You hear a lot that you need to love the people and from the interactions we've had with them I totally do. Like just our teachers here at the CCM and people in the temple. There's less than 6 days left here and we leave I think early next Tuesday morning. Not sure how pday will work next week so if I don't send anything for another 2 weeks that's why but I guess we'll see. I'm excited to get out there though.

My Mom send down a package with mayanXpress (some special packaging system) and since the MTC here can't take packages we sent it to the mission home. Then after all the new guys got here a bunch of guys in my district also got packages from home from mayanXpress but I didn't because we sent it to the mission home. So I didn't think I'd have it for a few weeks but then they figured out where I was I guess and brought it here so I got my first package! It felt like Christmas haha and I am definitely going to ration the candy they sent. Something pretty helpful that came in the package was the Alphasmart 3000. Basically its a keyboard that you type in and it holds all your files. So I've been writing in my journal on it too and that way we can have it digitized as well and my mom will keep track of it and then it'll be super easy to search through after I'm back from the mission. Not sure if the Alphasmart 3000 is allowed in the field so we'll see but there are a few people here in the CCM that have them too. It's pretty helpful but the hard part is making sure to stay focused and not use it as extra time to write home.

Go and watch a MTC devotional by Elder Holland called Feed My Sheep. It's super powerful especially if you're on or getting ready for a mission. Also go and read a talk called the Fourth Missionary. I have not read it but Hermano Herrera said it's really good and he told us a little bit about it.

Thats all folks
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So here's the MTC Devotional talk by Elder Holland that he mentioned-

And a link to a pdf copy of The Fourth Missionary Talk by Elder Lawrence E. Corbridge

A few more things Joseph said in his journal entries -