Lion King and Retention Leader

Hola everyone! 

Well, considering that I just emailed last Thursday not much has happened.

There is a huge hill in my area that I took my companion to this week. It overlooks all our area in the valley. It felt alot like Lion King: 

Everything that the light touches is our kingdom. 

But what about that shadowy area over there?

That´s the South Mission. 

Well, I got made Missionary Retention Leader for my ward this week! This means that I have to track and report the attendance of every convert for the first year of their membership. 

We found this guy in our neighborhood that, seriously, is ready to be baptized. He has never once talked to the missionaries but:

1. He attends a ward with his friend who is a member every week

2. He knows EVERYTHING

3. His friend is an Area Seventy in Costa Rica

4. When asked what he was waiting for he said, I don´t know, you?

PILAS.

Pues...mi nueva compañera no tiene la abilidad para hablar Ingles PARA NADA. Entonces esta semana fue un poquito extraño con nuestra manera para comunicar, pero mi Español es mejorando cada dia! Me encanta esta idioma y estoy tan agradecida para la oportunidad a ser in esta paiz para predicar el evangelio in esta lengua! Le amo todos ustedes mucho! Gracias para todo su apoyo y amor siempre!

Zoo Trip, a New Companion, and....Puojos

Hola finalmente!

Well, this letter will probably be unsavoringly short because this keyboard is really dumb...

We went to the zoo a million and ten years ago! Well, last week. They had a bunch of cool animals that you don´t see at zoos in the states, like wallabies, ocelotes, and other really cool things. They also have things that are really weird to see in a zoo as an American, such as white tail deer, raccoons, and cows. 

I did my first divisions last week with Hermana Sol! She went with one member for two hours, and I with another. Divide and conquer. My member, Kati, is going to be a missionary soon, so I made up my mind that in those two hours, I was going to kill her. We had 4 lessons, 3 new investigators, and 62 contacts. Kati thought she was going to die, and Hermana Sol was happy as could be. :) Success!

Puojos....

LICE. Luckily I did not get them, but one of the Hermanas in my house did! She combed out 18, went and bought shampoo for Lice, and they were gone within two days. In the meantime, H. Sol and I wore plastic bags on our heads in the house (really just to mess with the other Hermana). 

Well, I restarted Personal Progress haha. I am almost done with the first experience, and I am almost 20 years old. Yay chambonas! 

Well, Sunday was my last day of training. I am now done, and cannot believe it. I am no longer a new missionary! 

With the end of training, came transfers. I have probably cried about 5 times this week over this fact, but it is said and done now. Hermana Sol is in El Frutal, literally 2 minutes away from me. I received Hermana Flores. (sun...flowers...what´s next?). She is nice, but she is no H. Sol. She is from Peru, and it will take a bit of getting used to, but I know that I will learn to love her eventually. She does not speak one WORD of English. Not. One. Word. And her accent is really hard to understand!

Yeah, I´m here to tell you that the first transfer after training is NOT FUN. 

Well, we got to do something really special yesterday. We had a conference with Elder Cook! We all got to shake his hand, and afterwards he talked to us about mission work (well, duh). He said that we have GOT to learn to love our companion, because we have each companion for a reason, to learn something from them.

Well I will be emailing my normal time next week. Hasta luego!

A Baptism and Semana 12

Hey everyone!

Yes, we had a baptism this last week! Well, yesterday, at 7 in the morning. Which meant that my companion and I had to wake up at 4AM. We thought we were going to die. The baptism was for Maury, Keler´s older brother! He is really nice with us, but we aren´t very sure if he was exactly ready for his baptism...well, our hope is is that as we continue to visit him and as he continues to keep his compromisos, he will gain a testimony. 

About a month ago, we started a Family Home Evening with about 4 families who were struggling to have FHE every week. We met Monday nights in the house of one of the families. Every week, more and more people attended until we OUTGREW the houses of the members! So, we decided to have everyone have their own individual FHE, and move our meeting to the church on Wednesday nights! It is now called Noche de Hermanomiento (I thought it was llamamiento at first...), and is up to about 40 people now in attendance! The main goal of these meetings is to get investigators and less actives to church. It started with just my companion and I teaching, but now all 6 missionaries in our ward, including our zone leaders, come and teach together every meeting! It also always ends with snacks, which is a huge bonus. :)

It´s funny how, when you are on a mission, especially in a foreign country, you don´t ever know what is going on in the rest of the world. For instance, literally like 3 days ago, I found out that Nelson Mandela died. Apparently that happened a while ago? SABER!

We have been teaching this boy named Ederson, who is 14 years old, and has a testimony stronger than a lot of members that I know! He keeps having experiences that are pointing him to the church, and almost every day that we teach him, he has a new experience. The thing is, he never wants to wake up in the morning. And, considering that our ward starts at 8AM (yeah...HUGE problem for the missionaries with our attendance of investigators), he has not attended in 3 weeks. His dad is less active though (but he is starting to return to church), and gave him a huge chicote yesterday in front of us about the importance of church attendance. Kind of awkward, but if it gets him to church, vaya!

Well, this is my last week with Hermana Sol. The next time I email, I will be out of training, and with a different companion. How that happened so fast is beyond me. I´m already going on 4 months on my mission, and I feel like I have only been gone for 1. I am excited to not have to have companionship study for 2 hours everyday, but I am sad that I won´t have who will probably be my favorite companion of all with me any longer. I am also a little scared, because Hermana Sol is fluent in English, and I am fairly certain that my next companion will NOT be, not even close!

Speaking of fluency, I had my first real, REAL conversation yesterday in Spanish, where I understood EVERYTHING. We were at the house of a member, and Hermana Sol was in the bathroom. I was sitting in the living room with about 8 members of the family, and just chatting with them about my family, the church, upcoming transfers, and church doctrine on baptism haha. Seriously, I understood everything that was going on!

Well, next week is going to be a little nuts, so I won´t be emailing until Thursday, January 23. We have PDay on Monday, Transfers on Tuesday, a tri-mission conference with Elder Cook on Wednesday, and Weekly Planning, District meeting, and Emailing on Thursday. So don´t panic when I don´t email on Tuesday!

2014 and Week 11

Hola everyone! Feliz año nuevo!

New Years was AWESOME. Well, actually I wouldn´t know. My companion and I put earplugs in and went to bed at 10:30 haha...living it up. 

Everyone down here thinks I am either from Canada or Argentina. I don´t really know why, but a lot of the time that I am in the street people are yelling ARGENTINA! at me. At first I didn´t understand why everyone was yelling a country at me, but my companion explained that not many people can see why an American would be down here, so their second guess is Argentina. Vaya! 

The Familia Rivas. OHMYGOSH. This family is incredible. We have been teaching them for the last few weeks, and some of the members of their families have baptismal dates now. The dad is a less active and LOVES to talk, and he and his wife have 4 kids. They are reading, praying, and living the commandments and it is SO incredible!

So my companion had to go to this sketchy lab in someone´s living room to get her blood drawn. And, as is missionary rules, I had to be next to her. I faced the entirely opposite direction the whole time and just cringed and fidgeted. They couldn´t get blood out of one arm no matter how hard they dug and tried, but they were able to coax some out of the other arm. 

So this is semana 11 in my 12 weeks training program. Which means I only have my Hna Sol for only 2 more weeks. I am so sad about that! We have literally become such good friends and I am so sad that she is leaving (yes, she, I am staying here in VH for a while longer). Presidente asked me today at a meeting that we had if I knew my area well because Hna Sol has been here for 6 months and it is very likely that she will be going. Well, we know what is happening this coming transfer! Transfers are on the 21 of this month, instead of on the 22, like they were supposed to be. They got bumped up because we kind of have one of the 12 APOSTLES coming to have a conference with Misiones Ciudad Central, Seur, and Oeste that day! Elder Quentin L. Cook!

Really though, Sem 11 is terrifying. I have to start and lead every lesson, lead planning, and lead companionship study. It is pretty much like being a trainer and it is so hard. On Friday, I have an exam of sorts. I have to go to a reunion de nuevos and teach Presidente and Hermana Brough. Ah! I´m just a little scared. 

Motorcycles are DIRT cheap down here. Like, $80.00 US. No lie. 

Well, I will be emailing on Monday next week because we are going to the Zoo on Tuesday! 

Love you all and Happy New year!

Navidad en Guatemala

Christmas down here is nuts. NUTS. I was fortunate to talk to family on Christmas Eve for 40 minutes, and after that, we went to the Bishop´s house for a Christmas Dinner. We had permission to stay out until 1230AM Christmas Eve, so we got to watch the most insane firework show ever. We went to the roof of the Bishop´s house, which looks down into all of Villa Hermosa. 

Imagine this - Every single person in Guatemala has access to professional grade fireworks, and a lot of them. Then, at exactly midnight, everyone sets them off at once. PUCHICA. It was absolute insanity. There were fireworks going off above us, below us, to our right, left, front, back, everywhere. My companion asked me if we do that in the US, and I said, well, this would definitely be illegal. 

We moved our PDay to Wednesday this last week, and nothing was open, save La Torre (local grocery store). We didn´t do anything that day, except for sleep! 

We didn´t get all that much food on Christmas, but the days following we had 2 back to back lunches every day. I thought I was going to die. We were stuffing handfuls of food in our backpacks and clothes when people weren´t looking, but we didn´t do a good job of hiding that fact, because we couldn´t stop laughing. I felt so sick after every meal, but you just gotta eat it.

My companion should not be allowed to use superglue, ever. Ever. She is constantly getting her hand stuck on things. A few weeks ago, she glued her fingers together. Friday, she glued her hand to the toilet while trying to fix the handle. The next day, she glued her hand to the superglue bottle. I have pictures of every time, but the toilet one was definitely the best. 

I taught a lesson to a canche (WHITE PERSON!) the other day. We contacted her in the street by her house, and started speaking Spanish, and she interrupted us and said she doesn´t speak Spanish. We found out she has lived here for 2 years (but she doesn´t know Spanish...) and is from Denver. My goodness, it was the worst lesson ever. I can´t teach in English PARA NADA. I think I told her 20 times that God has a plan for us because I just didn´t know what else to say. 

Feliz Año Nuevo!!!

Feliz Navidad, Prospero Año y Felicidad

Feliz Navidad a todos!

The youth in my ward are beyond INCREDIBLE. Five of them organized a Noche de Hogar (Fmaily Home Evening), invited 2 nonmembers, invited my companion and I over to teach them, and all this by themselves. The lesson went so good, and they are now 2 of our new investigators!

On Friday we woke up at 230AM for our zone´s Actividad Navideña! We staggered to the church, got on a bus, and headed to the city to do a Temple Session! President Brough and his wife were even in the session with us! After the temple, we went to El Frutal to the Meetinghouse there to play sports, have lunch, and a devotional. Lunch was awesome! The cooks from the CCM came with ham, turkey, stuffing, cranberries, rolls, green beans, and brownies for us. Best lunch I have had in weeks. After lunch we had a devotional with President Brough, his wife, and daughter. After everything, we got our packages (yes I got all my packages!), and went home to work for the rest of the day. We had a really good day that day, with 8 new investigators and 10 lessons with a member!

There was one really sad thing that happened this week. We were supposed to be baptizing Maury, Keler´s brother, on Sunday after church. But as we were walking to the church for his baptism, we got a call from the Elders that they couldn´t find him. We called him and he was in Zona 1 (The capital). He said he was with his mom, but his mom was in his house. So...we don´t really know what happened. We are hoping for this Saturday now as a date for him, but we aren´t sure what will happen!

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE. It is really weird to not be at home for Christmas, and especially to be in tropical weather for it instead of freezing conditions! I love you all and am so grateful for you, and want you to know that I am happy here. 

By the way, my companion and I had lunch at a member´s house yesterday, and her daughter is an RM from the Las Vegas Mission, and was one of my instructors in the CCM. It was really weird eating lunch at her house. It was like going over to one of your high school teacher´s houses. Weird. 

Anyways, I am looking forward to talking with my family tonight! Love you all and stay safe!

A Testimony of Obedience is Written on my Face

Wow, what a week!

To start it off, we had transfers. There are two companionships that live in my house, and last week, the companionship was one latina and 2 nortes. Well, both the nortes got transfered out, one to La Gomera and one to Chimaltenango. Now, there are 3 latinas and one norte in the house - me! 

Well, you may be wondering what in the heck I am holding in the picture I attached. Well, it is the remnant of the GROSSEST LUNCH I HAVE HAD IN MY LIFE. It was soup. However, the broth of this soup was basically only cooking oil. It had onion that had been quartered into pieces the size of potatoes, and...chicken giblets. I was lucky, I didn´t have much giblet-wise in my soup, except one thing. A chicken heart. I nearly hurled when I unearthed this thing in my soup. Luckily, I happened to be wearing a skirt with pockets, so I did a sleight of hand and got the thing into my pocket when no one was looking. NO. NO. NO. 

I taught my first lesson in English this last week! It was basically just as horrible as in Spanish haha. This less-active family in our ward invited us over to teach them, and turns out, they lived in the US for a very long time. Their son is 11, so we were teaching him about the Priesthood. It was weird because my compañera would speak in Spanish, and then I in English, but it went well. 

Speaking of my compañera, she gave a 12 month old boy a piece of hard candy during one of our lessons and he started choking (duh). So she learned a valuable lesson about babies and candy that night!

We had a Christmas Activity in our ward on Saturday, which was really well attended. One of our investigators came, even! His brother was an absolute terror throughout the activity, though, and even punched another kid in the face. We ended the activity with a dinner, including weird chicken (well, everything always includes weird chicken here). 

I gave a talk on Sunday. It was about missionary work, and was supposed to be 5 min. I talked about the apostle Paul and his ministry and related it to a talk by Elder Holland. About 4 minutes and 59 seconds of my talk was just reading his talk haha. Bullet dodged. 

Well, Sunday I was really, really sick. I couldn´t eat anything and had a fever of 101. I felt awful, but we had to keep working. Sometimes I thought I was just going to collapse in the middle of the street, I was so achey and exhausted. I woke up the next day better though! Still some stomach pain, but that is a daily thing here. 

Saw  my first scorpion ever! Ew. My companion killed it in the street, and I just stood back and made faces at it. 

So the reason for the title of this letter is because, for some reason, everyone here is fascinated with the scar I have on my face! They are always asking if it hurts and what happened and everything, and I never know how to answer them in Spanish. However, the thing is is that I have to learn how to tell them because it is a good story of the importance of obedience. It´s kind of weird to me, though, for all these people to notice it, because it has never been something I have ever really been aware of, since it has basically always been with me. (For those wondering, I think the story goes that I fell off a Lego sculpture when I was 18ish months old and hit my face, because I wasn´t being obedient to my parents in letting them help me down). 

Anyways, Merry Christmas and have a good week!