Week 13 Report - Lo De Coy - El Templo Con Ronal

Joseph got the package last week at Zone Conference, yay. He said what he really loves in the packages is the letters. I didn't sent any letters from his siblings this last time, so I'll be sure we do in the next one. I also did a test today - sent him a snail mail letter to the pouch mailing address, we'll see if it works! I threw in two drawings that Lily and Sophi had done that were laying around, and Natalie drew a picture of her and Joseph that I put in the letter too. Hope it gets there. I think I'll have the kids write to him every Sunday, write him a letter or draw him a picture.

So here is Joseph's letter for this week:
____________________________________________
            Subject: EL TEMPLO CON RONAL                 

Buenos Dias!

So this week felt kind of long and I think it's because on Thursday we got a little less sleep than we normally do because we had to wake up early. Thursday was for a multi-zone conference and Saturday we went to the temple with Ronal! We are going to have 2 multi-zone conferences this change so that's exciting and one of them was this past Thursday. I don't exactly know what we were thinking for some reason we thought we had to leave at 5 in order to get there on time. Last time it took us like 60-90 minutes to get there and we had to be there a little earlier this week so we woke up at 4 and left at 5. Well there is hardly any traffic at 5 in the morning so we got to Utatlan where the mission home is at 5:30! Hahah we were both like well now what. So we ended up going to the casa blanca (white house) which is where los financieros and executivos live. The financial and executive secretaries. It's also where the valientes ("The Valientes Ones" - aka missionaries who are dying - aka finishing their mission) spend their last night. So we went there and studied a little bit and got a little shut eye before the zone conference started. It was a super great conference and we had a 70 here named Elder Pineda. After the conference we had some little ceasers pizza and then there was a training for new missionaries. All the missionaries that entered 6 weeks ago got to practice teaching lesson 1 in front of the other trainers and President Shumway and they went over rules with different scenarios and it was great. The zone conference was only two days after changes which President Shumway said they won't ever do again because it makes that whole week super crazy for them, the Assistants and the secretaries. It was especially crazy because TWENTY missionaries entered this change! I met a few of them at zone conference but none of them are in my zone. They seem like super great missionaries though and I'm excited to meet more of them.

On Saturday we went to the temple with Ronal! It was so amazing!!! The ward went early in the morning and so we tagged along. Left at 4 and got back at 9. So we were a little tired this week but it was so great. Ronal had a tour around the outside of the temple by the sister missionaries that work in the temple and the tour ended with us sitting in the lobby with Ronal. He was praying to know if he should be baptized and he got his answer that "SI!". Here's some pictures of the temple.

(Joe's Mom here - I cropped it and zoomed it so we could see their faces a bit better)

Shout out to my uncle mark for the tie I'm wearing - from Guatemala with the Angel Moroni on the front. It's my temple tie. 

He still isn't sure what day but we're hoping this Saturday. He's had all the lessons and come to church 4 times but still isn't sure what day. So we set up his interview with our new district leader Elder Erickson for tonight and if after the interview he feels like he should then he'll get baptized this Saturday! I'm excited for him and he's gonna do great. Literally the perfect investigator. Kept ever commitment and yesterday he started 2 Nephi.

We also took a picture outside the CCM that you can't see that well because it was 5 in the morning.

On Monday we had a Noche de Hogar (family home evening) with Ronal, Mario, and Meggan's family. Meggan who got baptized a month ago. It was super great! We had it in the capilla with a family in the ward that are super solid.

Nearly every week on pday we eat at la escala which is a mall and my favorite restaurant in the mall is a krepe store. 

It is sooo good and I've taken pictures of the crepes I've gotten to capture the moment. 

They have oreo krepes, m&m krepes, and almost anything you could think of. Of course with nutella on the inside too. They are amazing.

Here are some other random pictures from the week.

______________________________________

And that's how the email ended this week. One fun thing - Corey and I have a picture of us in Guatemala in front of the temple at that exact same spot!

This was in 2005 for the wedding of one of my mission companions, Hermana Bonilla.

Another companion came to Guatemala for the wedding too - I was the "trainer" for both of these lovely ladies.

Joseph was just a little almost kindergartener at the time, we were living at Wyview at BYU as Corey was about to begin his MBA program. Here's a picture of him and baby Hyrum, my cute kids, helping me take the laundry to the laundromat across the street. So cute. They grow up so fast.