Subject: Feliz Ano Nuevo!! Estoy en un Trio - January 1st 2019
First happy new year!! Guatemalans know how to celebrate with fireworks. Last night someone was lighting a ton of fireworks right outside the house for probably 30 minutes. A member here told us that he has seen firework shows in Utah and Disneyland and none of them compare to the fireworks here in Guate on Christmas and new years. So yeah there have been a ton of fireworks (juegos artificiales) recently.
Anyways so I have some good news and I have some bad news. The good news is I are working a lot more with the members here! The bad news is that Elder Adams is now back in Canada. It's super sad and I was really praying he would stay but he is gone. It came as a big surprise actually. He went on Friday, and we thought if he left it wouldn't be until Monday. We got a call from President saying that we needed to go the migration offices and then a call from the secretaries saying that a taxi was going to be there in 15 minutes to take us there. So we went he got his passport and some other documentation he needed to fly out of the country and when we got back form migration I got a call from the assistants saying that because Elder Adams was leaving I was going to have to be in a trio with Elder Erickson and Elder Gates in their area. Elder Erickson is my district leader and they're both really great. I am in a different house now and will send pictures of their house once we clean it because it's kinda messy.
So yeah I am in a trio now and in order to work in my area I have to find and meet up with a member to do divisions meaning I have been working with the members a lot more and gratefully have actually been able to work in Lo de Coy for the past couple days. On Sunday I was on divisions with 4 different members. When one couldn't anymore we would go and meet up with another member who could go with me and then at night I met up with Elder Erickson and Elder Gates. It is a lot more stressful than I thought it would be being the only Elder and always having to coordinate with members. But people are really helping us and there are a lot of possible and probably baptisms for January! I think that the Lord is really stretching me though and I am really learning a lot through this.
Anyways last week on Christmas calling the family was awesome!! It was a really great Christmas. I called at noon (guate time) and we had a lunch and other stuff after that. Here are some highlights of the day.
Me with a chapin Santa Clause
By the way chapin just means Guatemalteco, like someone from Guatemala.
Shout out to my mom who sent me some Girhadelli brownie mix in the Christmas package. So we also made brownies and it was a hit.
And we had a gift exchange with the missionaries in our zone! I got Hermana Avilez )who is from Honduras and was baptized at 16 and used to be catholic which I think is super cool= and gave this stuffed animal monkey to her. Elder Nelson, who is also from Canada, had me and gave me this sick belt that says Guatemala on the back and has like little mayan picture things on it too and is super cool. I forgot to take a picture of it but will for sure send that next week. And he also gave me the coolest Christmas sweater!
Isn't that awesome?! I wanted to put my magnet plaque on so that it looked like it was on the Santa but I can't find it. That would have been funny though. So yeah it was a pretty great Christmas.
And this week we really saw a lot of miracles too! First off there was this family called Familia Castillo that we found and I think they can progress a lot!
Because of the new year and because it's "vacaciones" for the people here a lot of people were out of town but we were still working hard to have a lot of people in church. We passed by a lot of people and none of them could come so I was kinda sad thinking we might not have any. And then as we pulled up (because I was with a member and he has a car) we saw this guy looking at the church from the street so we went over to talk to him and he asked what it was and we told him it was la Iglesia de Jesucristo de los Santos de los Ultimos Dias and he decided to come in because he said he really needs to find some peace from what was going on in his life and so he came in and stayed the whole 3 hours! His name is Mauricio and he doesn't live in our area but we are going to pass the reference. He is super receptive and really needs the gospel in his life. Well ya know everyone needs the gospel but he is very ready to receive it. And 2 other people came to church that we weren't expecting making 3 in total so I was stoked about that.
Oh one of the guys that came last week but couldn't come this week is named Gustavo and he is 16. Last week a guy who just got back from his mission gave him a Book of Mormon and when we met with him on Wednesday he had read all the way to 1 Nefi 18!! Just so you all know that does not happen. Like we are lucky if we can get people to read a chapter but he read a ton and had super super awesome questions. And then when we met with him again on Saturday he was in chapter 25 of 2 Nefi!!! Like wow. And he totally gets it. He is a super smart kid. His parents don't want him to go to church with us though and they won't let us meet him in his house anymore so that's gonna be a little hard but as soon as he gets his answer that the Book of Mormon is true he will be baptized. He said he wants to finish the book and then make a decision. And at the rate he's reading that will be pretty soon haha so yeah we are super excited about his progress.
That's about it for this week but I hope you've all set some good new years resolutions!! Oh and we had to reschedule the temple trip with Brenda (Ronal's sister) but we are going this Wednesday for sure! Love you all!
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