Elder Wride In Guatemala: 18 months - The Sunday of all Sundays

Tomorrow is Joseph's birthday! Happy birthday Elder Wride! I didn't send him a package with anything this year, since he's totally in the mission mentality and I felt he wouldn't be missing home or wouldn't need that support unlike last year when we didn't talk every week. He's doing so great. He is happy and has lost himself in the work of the Lord.
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Subject: El Domingo de los Domingos
Well this has been a really great week. And Sunday might have been literally one of the best days in the mission field so far.

Elder Uceda came to our ward! He is the Area president for all of Central America and he came to our ward this past Sunday. So we were really focusing on inviting people to come to church and listen to him speak and the Lord poured out His blessings. Last week we were expecting a bunch of people and then last minute they all couldn't come. Well almost everyone who we were expecting last week who didn't come came this week.

One of them is this kid named Jairo who is very smart. He came, and has been reading the Book of Mormon too. Besides the fact that a General Authority spoke it was also an amazing Sunday to have new people in church because the Sunday school class was literally on how we got the Book of Mormon and what it is, which is what we talk about as missionaries ALL THE TIME. Jairo was in the class with the youth and a counselor in the stake presidency told us that Jairo knew more than all the other youth, and he just got the Book of Mormon last week! But he has read a ton and understands really well and feels like it is true. He got a Come, Follow me manual on Sunday and told us yesterday that he spent like 6 hours studying in it! Who does that? And he also accepted a baptismal date for the 1st of February so we are working to help him progress for that.

I think last week I might have talked about a really awesome family that we started teaching. Well we have had a couple really good lessons with them and they also came to church! And they came with their sister-in-law Sara who was the one who introduced us to them. Sara has told us a bunch of times she will come and hasn't but this Sunday she did! We haven't been able to teach them again since Sunday yet because they have been working but we have still been in communication with them and the mom Nancy said she had some questions that got answered in Church. But from what we could tell they really liked it. They (and to be honest the whole ward) had a glow in their eyes after sacrament meeting and we are praying a lot for them that they will read the Book of Mormon, keep progressing, and look for answers in divinely appointed sources (aka not wikipedia or the internet). They are super awesome though and another funny story is that we were talking with a member named Martin, who taught the sunday school class about the Book of Mormon and we asked him if he had seen the new family that came to church (also props to him for teaching a class with a General Authority there) and he said he hadn't seen them. So then we started explaining them and he was like "Las canchitas? Yo pensé que venían de la Estaca!" Yep. he thought that they were from the stake, like stake leaders for the Relief Society Presidency or something like that. He might have thought that because they came in a car but to be honest with you Nancy and her daughters do kind of look like they are already members so that might have been another reason why. No Martin, they are not from the stake. Actually it was their first time in church. Also they have a crepe place in the colony where we live that is SO good. I got a waffle this week and Elder Saxton got a crepe, along with oreo shakes.

Also there is a kid named Cristian who also has a baptismal date for the 25th who came to church. He had a date for baptism before but wasn't progressing that much and he also came to church on Sunday! He came with his member friend named Beckham. He is great and loved to learn, but we are trying to help him always read the Book of Mormon because he is having some struggles with that but other than that he is great.

And about 2 weeks ago we had a Family Home Evening for Light the World with the Primary President and her daughter-in-law named Claudia, who is not a member. So then we started teaching her and she didn't come to church last week either after saying a bunch of times that she would go. Well this week we passed by in the morning to remind her and she had just barely gotten up but said she would hurry and get ready to come. Well church started and she wasn't there and the sacrament ended and she wasn't there, but she got there right before Elder Uceda started talking. And we heard afterwards that when they got there, on their motorcycle, they were waiting outside the gate talking. Her husband, also named Jairo, did not plan on going to church but went to drop her off on his motorcycle but then their kids wanted to go with him back home so he was said he would just go with her to church, but they couldn't figure out how to get in and almost left but right then the gate opened. And we don't know who pressed the button to open it. So that was also a cool little miracle. And later that day we taught Claudia with Evelin the recent convert and turns out they have been long time friends! And now Claudia is preparing to be baptized on the 25th! She is reading the Book of Mormon and wants to understand it more but from what she has read she really likes it. So yeah its been a really good week.

This week I realized that sometimes as missionaries we let fear rule us. We have fear of opening our mouths and dont talk with everybody, or we have fear to invite people to be baptized. But if are afraid to do those things then Satan is winning and he can not win. So we are doing those things a lot more and are seeing lots of miracles. Also we started improving our obedience in little things, like leaving the house before 10:30 and not 2 minutes late and blessings have just been pouring down.

Some of the things that Elder Uceda said that were really awesome were about the Sacrament, taking care of the "corderitos", how Christ is the Good Shepherd and the reality of President Nelson as a prophet of God. He shared some very cool insights from the Original Greek of the New Testament in John 21 where Christ says to feed my sheep three times. Well turns out he doesn't actually say the same thing three times, but changes it a little bit. The first time it is nurture the little lambs, meaning the new members, the less-active, the children and youth. He taught us how we really need to help those people most because they don't quite have their footing yet, but that we also need to take care of all the members. It was really cool. He also said "I have eaten breakfast with President Nelson. I have eaten lunch with President Nelson. I have eaten dinner with President Nelson. I have traveled with President Nelson by car, bus, and by plane. I know President Nelson. He is a prophet." It was legendary.

Sorry for the kind of really long email but it was a really good week. We also had a new years cookie baking fail even though we weren't even baking. We had to be in the house at 6 last week on the 1st so in the store we decided to buy some cookie mix to make cookies. Somehow we had to make them because we couldn't bake them because we don't have an oven. So we decided to fry them. I think it might have actually worked and I take full credit for the failure. In the cookie mix we had to put a certain amount of oil and the oil I used had apparently gone really bad and smelled weird. So it ruined the whole thing and we had to dump the batter.

We did try to fry it though and it was really gooey but the worst part was just how bad it smelled. And then Elder Velasquez, one of the other Elders we live with, decided to put it in the microwave to see if it would work. Well after about 30 seconds the whole microwave was filled with smoke. I am not sure if it was because of the batter or because of the plastic bowl he used but it made the whole house. We started off the new year right. We also did it with brownies on Saturday and they turned out a lot better.

That's it for the long email this week but I hope you all are reading the Book of Mormon every day! Look for some miracles in your week and don't be afraid to open your mouth and share the Gospel with someone.