14 months - Excellente!!

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    Subject:  Excellente!!              

Excelente!!

That is what Elder Riffo says to everything and it's starting to rub on me. It has even gotten to the point where we get to peoples houses who we are teaching and the first thing they sy is excelente. But this week was very excelente.

We had a mini leadership conference last week with the other zone leaders outside the capital and President talked a lot about how he is worried that as a mission we are very low in fechas (people with a baptismal date) so we have been more bold in inviting people to be baptized and also been talking to everyone. Especially from Thursday to Saturday almost the only thing we talked about was that the prophet was coming to Guatemala. And it was SO awesome! Our building is the stake center, where it was transmitted so we made flyers and posters that we put up close to the church on lamp-posts and stuff and gave the flyers to a bunch of people (including members to invite their friends) and there were a TON of people and so as of right now we dont know if anyone came because they read a poster but if they did it is possible we wouldn't have seen them. This is what the poster/flyers looked like.

I especially liked the talk of Sister and President Nelson. Sister Nelson talked a lot about the Book of Mormon and about how a good response to many questions people will ask us about our actions and standards being different from others is "because I know the Book of Mormon is true". And President Nelson talked about keeping the commandments and at the end gave an apostolic blessing! It was very spiritual and the Lord blessed us with a good turnout.

Also a megahighlight of this week was on Sunday afternoon when we found the most pilas family I have ever met!! And it was all because of a BYU sticker they had on the back of their car. Yes it was on the back of their car. And that is why we decided to knock on their door to ask them where they got the sticker. Well turns out the daughter "Yazmin" (they spell Jazmin with a Y here) put it on the back of the car because of her name. Well they let us teach them later that day and we also went on Monday and they have been SO prepared. We taught them about the restoration and they understood it and loved it! They dont go to any church, the dad already believed that Christ came to the Americas (because he had read the Popol Vuh, check it out) and they dont even drink coffee. The son also had a really cool question/insight about the sacrament that connected it to baptism and the Atonement. The whole time Elder Riffo and I couldnt stop smiling. And they bought us Pizza after the lesson! They are golden and we are expecting them to get baptized very soon. All because of a BYU sticker on the back of their car!!

Also there is the boyfriend of a girl in the ward that we started teaching and he is on date to get baptized on the 7th! Assuming everything goes well. He has been coming to church for a while and in the first lesson he told us "this is the true church" and the spirit was very strong in the lesson.

We are also teaching some other families that are super awesome and came to see President Nelson and loved it! We are going to keep working with them and they have already come to church twice! The little girls in the family are SO cute. They got to the devotional with the prophet very late but the little girls were all dressed up and they loved the feelings of peace they feel in church and the focus on families. So yeah the work is going well here in Chimaltenango 1. I want to challenge each of you to do a little better this week in prayer, scripture study, and making the most out of your sacrament service. President Nelson talked about that and promised us that if we delight in the words of Christ and put them in practice then we will prosper in the land and find joy in our posterity. Keeping the commandments is the way to go! Read the Book of Mormon! It is true! Share your testimony with someone this week.

Love you all!

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13 months - From Santa Marta to Chimaltenango

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  Subject:   Santa Marta --> Chimaltenango     

What a week!

So we had changes this week and I honestly felt like I was going to get transferred even though I was training because that normally doesn't normally happen. None of the members thought I would get tranfserred either but then President Barney called me Sunday afternoon asking if I would be willing to serve as a zone leader and saying that I would be going to Chimaltenango with Elder Riffo. So that was nice because I already knew that I was leaving so I could say bye to people a little sooner. Elder Tercero and I had a great last week together though.

Little update on Madelin, she came to church again this week and is going to go see the prophet with a member friend on Saturday!! I got transferred out but the plan was to put her on date for baptism last night for the 31st! So hopefully that went well but we are super excited about her progress!

It kinda felt like as soon as things started going really well I got transferred out haha but its all good. I am sure that Elder Tercero and his new companion are going to do really well there.

So when I said bye to people that we were teaching that are on track for baptism I felt like I should give them one of those granite rocks (which I normally give at baptismal services) and when I gave it to Galilea (who is close to getting baptized) she started tearing up and it was a super cool moment. I cant wait to see the pictures of all those people in white (when they get baptized and also a few years down the road when they go to the TEMPLE!!)

Here is Galilea and her dad

Another pilas eternal investigator we we are hoping will get baptized soon and is also going to go see the prophet, Eneyda and her sister Victoria

Fun fact is that Elder Riffo and I were in the MTC together!! He got there the day before I did and left after only 3 weeks. We weren't in the same zone though so I didn't know him personally but it was funny because we realized we have the exact same amount of time in the mission.

He is a super pilas, obedient and hard working missionary and I am learning a lot from him. He is from Chile where my dad served!! Vive Chile!! I am excited for all the miracles we are going to see this transfer! The first one was last night when a couple walked up to us and asked us for some "lectura" (which never happens) and we invited them to see the prophet and come to church and we are going to visit them tomorrow.

Chimaltenano seems really cool and the house is literally the nicest missionary house I have seen. It is calidad. There are 3 bathrooms and honestly I feel like I am in the states when I walk in the house. Other than a couple things (like the cucas) but that is what RAID MAX is for.

Here is the Chimal zone! (well part of it)

Also the most pilas family ever!! I am sure their papers will all get figured out in this change so they can get baptized! They bought us pizza that night.

That's it for this week!!

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13 months - Sabiduría vs. Inteligencia

Joseph called today while I was waiting with Ethan at the podiatrist (getting his ingrown toe nail fixed again.) and then we got home and it was busy then I took kids to school for things and I was busy and distracted a bit there too, SO I didn't get a screen shot of his face today. And he didn't send any pictures! So no pictures this week. Although if I had taken a screen shot it probably would have looked a lot like all the other screen shots. But still kinda sad to not have a picture for this post. I feel like every blog post needs a pictures. Let's read his letter and see what we can find...
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      Subject:  Sabiduría vs. Inteligencia           

So this week was actually really great! We feel like some of the people we are teaching are really starting to progress. We felt like we could do a lot better helping people keep their commitments especially in coming to church so this week that was a big focus for us. We invited people a lot earlier in the week (not just on Saturday) and coordinated for members to pass by them and bring them (because since we are covering 2 wards it makes it hard for us to pass by them to bring them to church) and it really payed off! A couple weeks ago between the two wards only 1 person came but this past Sunday we had 9 people in total! The Lord really helped us out and we saw some miracles. Church attendance is really important because of the sacrament where we renew our baptismal covenant. And in order to make that covenant they need to come to church and even better if they sit right behind the deacons passing the sacrament to get a good view of the sacrament table and remember Christ which is the reason we come to sacrament meeting. If they are sitting in the back it is likely that their view will be of people on their phones. Phones can be a great tool and I really like smart phones. They are literally like a Urim and Thumim. But they should not be a distraction for us or for others. There was an article about this in a Liahona (ya know Ensign) a while ago. Stuff like the gospel library app is great and can make the meeting better and more spiritual and I will usually send a text to the bishop with the names of the new people in church so he can acknowledge and welcome them. So it can be a really great tool but if someone is using it to look at memes on facebook and you are sitting right behind them it is WAY distracting. And investigators have made comments about that to me before and it made me feel really bad. Me da mucha pena. So please PLEASE don't use your phone in church except for church stuff and do you best not to distract others even with the church related stuff. We want to give the best impression possible to our friends who are visiting the church. So I got on a tangent there but yeah it was a great week in church attendance this week and a lot of them did have good experiences and are even planning on going to see the Prophet when we comes next week! That's right, the Prophet is comin to Guate.

The missionaries that are inside the captial will be able to go see him in person but those outside the cap will just watch the transmission. I am inside the captial but there are changes/transfers 4 days before he comes so assuming they don't send me outside the cap I will get to go see the President Nelson. Whether I get to see him or not though I am super excited.

Also some funny things that happened this week. We were reading the Book of Mormon with Aura and her daughter Madelin and some members and Aura got "Nefi"mixed up with "Netflix". Haha we read from 2 Netflix 31 with her. She also combines Mormon and Moroni and says Mormoni which is pretty funny. Madelin, the daughter came to church this week with those members and really loved it. Also Elder Tercero has that phobia where he gets queasy when he sees lots of tiny holes! My Mom sent me a definition: Trypophobia is an aversion to the sight of irregular patterns or clusters of small holes, or bumps. We figured this out because we made pancakes this week and he couldnt stand looking at it when the bubbles started coming up.

Hahah he couldn't even look at it long enough to turn the pancake over.  

Also there is a cool insight I learned this week about inteligence and Wisdom from our good friend Solomon that connects to the Word of Wisdom. As you know Solomon was very very wise. So when we started teaching Solomon we joked that he must be wise as well and that got into a conversation and I had a mini epiphany (probably not how you spell it) while he told us this story explaining how inteligence and wisdom are different. He told us of a guy he saw who was really smart who he saw buy a cigarette, and that he bought the most expensive brand of cigarette. But everywhere here that sells cigarettes has a sign above it that says in capital letters "COMSUMING THIS PRODUCT CAUSES SERIOUS HEALTH PROBLEMS. IT PRODUCES CANCER". So when Solomon saw that this very smart, inteligent guy was buying cigarettes even though he knew and it said right in front of him that they would be bad for him he thought "why would you do that??" and then proceeded to explain that this man was inteligent, but he was not wise. And that's when it hit me. What demonstrated that this guy wasn't wise was the fact that he wasn't keeping the Word of Wisdom! La Palabra de Sabiduría! El no fue sabio! It isn't called the Word of Inteligence, but the Word of Wisdom. So I challenge you all to use your wisdom and be wise and keep the Word of Wisdom! The Ensign for this past month talks a lot about how we need to treat our bodies and how they are temples and it is so true! They are really a wonderful creation that God has given us and we need to respect them. God wants us to be Wise and also Inteligent. But there are a lot more attributes that we should develop and a lot of them you can find in chapter 6 of Preach My Gospel. I want to invite you all to study that chapter and pick an attribute to become better on, study more about it, and then start to apply it.

I know that Jesus Christ lives and that this is His church! He is our perfect example. I love Him and I love all of you as well.

Also I would like to appologize if I spell things wrong that are really obvious ilke church. The spell check is in spanish and I dont usually reread my emails so if I dont spell it right when I am typing and dont see the error. Hopefully you get what I am saying though.
                                                                        
A few thoughts - I first learned about Trypophobia from Stephanie Nielsen here. Here's another article about it.

Also, I left most of Joseph's spelling and punctuation errors today cause he gave that discalimer at the end, but I usually correct everything. :)

And a thought on the Word of Wisdom, Joseph was the one who started the plant based lifestyle for me two years ago, so here are a few of my blog posts and thoughts about that: Going vegan, Law of Health, and Why God Doesn't Over Explain the Word of Wisdom

And speaking of that warning on cigarettes, I've also been thinking about cancer. We have more than our fair share of ladies in our ward suffering from cancer. I really think the best way to fight most forms of cancer is through food. Here is a lady who defeated cancer through a whole food starch diet (Dr. McDougall!) What is more extreme? Giving up animal products -or- Radiation and Chemotherapy?

And a few links from the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine - 
cancer survival kids
processed meat
red meat and colon cancer

13 months - Antigua Otra Vez

Joseph called a little late today - they had gone into Antigua. I just arrived at Thanksgiving Point with the kids for a family outing when he called. We were having trouble with the connection, so I think he and Corey talked but I didn't catch much of it. Good letter, I corrected his spelling and punctuation except for the word gringos, :)
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       Subject: Antigua Otra Vez            

Buenos Tardes!!

Well it has been a good week. We were super exited last week about this guy named Luis who is/was super duper pillas but for a week and a half we haven't found him. Called. No answer. Knocked. No answer. If you could pray that we will be able to find him (outside of his house like when we contacted him) that would be great because we are hoping that he isn't avoiding us and he is a super bright kid. I say kid even though he is a couple years older than me.

The Mendoza family is reading the Book of Mormon and we are SO close with their papers. I am hoping that they don't transfer me out of the area in 2 weeks or that if they do that the papers get figured out before I leave because I really want to be there for their baptism. They are such an awesome family and will be a great addition to the ward.

We have been teaching Salomon more, who is this older guy (not too old) who is listening to us and reading the Book of Mormon. He is going to come to church soon and is understanding what we are teaching. He talks a lot and gets kind of side tracked during lessons talking about stories in the bible he likes and that he applies to his life and we just know that he will be a great addition to the ward. He thought that we were just lending him the Book of Mormon but now he knows that we gave it to him so he is going to take it a little slower to study it and get more out of it and also mark it up. We are excited for him and also praying that he will receive and recognize that answer from God that these things are true. I love the Book of Mormon and know that it will do its job. It really does testify of our Savior Jesus Christ!!

Also today we went to Antigua again as a zone and it was cool! It is weird because there are a lot of greengos there. It made me feel uncomfortable.

Elder Tercero and I at the famous Antigua Arch!

We also saw these cool ruins! I think it used to be a church. 

Big church. 

But all fell down and great was the fall of it.

Also this week the members who we rent from made us dinner (beans, eggs, and fried plantes which are MY FAVORITE!) and we are outside of our second door in this closed off area and it looked like a romantic dinner!

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