26 November 2012

today we are here in reu in a meeting of the sister missionaries and we have tons to do. but i'm in charge of the talent show that the sister will have and i am so excited to see that tonight. i do not know what else we will be doing. hahha 

this week was wonderful we are working hard with all the members and doing activities with them to help them feel the importance of being active in the church. this week on thursday we will be having a talent show with all the members and again we are in charge of that. hahha. lots of things to do this week. also our bishop invited us to eat with him, because yeah i'm going home soon. he is amazing and always i'm learning so many things from him. so the family that we are teaching will not be baptized this saturday because they were not in church yesterday and the rules are 3 asistencias before they can be baptized. it was hard but it's okay. i know they need to be prepared to be baptized and not baptized because i'm leaving, hard but it's better that way. they are a great family and they are progressing. 

but we also found new people this week because of the members. they are so amazing here. they have really opened up to us and are just working with us in the work. i really have felt the joy of good work. i do not have tons of baptisms here and i have one more week to go but i can see that the ward is so much stronger... or it might be that i'm so much stronger... i'll take the two, haha. but i am really trying to work my hardest in this last leg of my mission, but i know that there is so much more to do in the work of the Lord. it never ends.

Members and Missionary Work

lots of things happened this week. one of the members in our ward passed away, and we were helping a lot with that.... she has 4 daughters and the oldest is 21 and the youngest 14. it was so hard to see.... it really hurt, and i was crying with them. i cannot believe how much love i feel for the people at times. when i'm just sitting at my desk or at night i think about how much love i have for them and can see that every day it grows... it is such a beautiful feeling... i prayed so much for love and i'm feeling it.... i know that i still have so much to learn but i am soaking it in everyday.... 

we have new rules in the mission and one of them is that we cannot knock doors anymore, just reference and contact with the members. it was a shock for us, but it is good because i have seen results in the ward just with working with the members... they really have gotten to love the work and are willing to work with us. i really do love our bishop. he is always teasing me and asking me to stay another change and forget about BYU and studying. haha. he really is thankful for us. he says he will take us out to dinner with his family the next week. we have so much confidence with him. also there have been a lot of changes, and we are working in two areas. there are no elders so we are working in their area and ours. it is really big and at times i feel stressed, but i love the feeling of the calming Spirit of my Heavenly Father and the feeling to keep working. i'm working hard and i am so thankful for the work. i know that it will never be done, but i know the Lord always blesses us when we have faith in Him. i love everything about my area and seeing where the other part of my ward is, which is more in the mountains and it is so pretty.

Earthquake

this past week there was a earthquake and it was a big one, there are little ones here but this one was pretty big. luckily we were in the church and in a place where it is secure. afterwards we were just like "wow this is real." but i felt really safe and did not feel that scared. but it just made me think a lot about the Book of Mormon when Jesus came in 3 nefi and how there were earthquakes and storms and everything, just the little bit of what i felt made me think of how scary that was for them and made me think of how we are in the last days.. then i thought "wait i'm not ready for the 2nd coming i just have a few more weeks until i'm home!" haha jk but other than that we are working here... lots to do and i do not know where to start. i am the companion here with more time in the field and i feel terrible because we do not have baptisms right now and i'm thinking what to do.. we are working the members but i think we need to work a little harder with them because this whole week was contacting and that was not really successful. we just need to find another path to find new people... but other than that i just wanted to say i love my ward so much. i love working here with the people and seeing our converts progress. i know that this work is true and that the Lord sends us to people that are waiting to hear His words. that we are angels in His work and that He has so much planned for all His children.

Wow, what a week!

this week was such a hard week.... but i loved it!! we really do not have fechas for this month and we are working hard, but it was one of those weeks where it was trying your faith. i was on my knees so much this week but it's a comfort to me to know that when i pray it is free. and what comfort it is to have that knowledge that we can pray to our Heavenly Father and feel His love fill our hearts, or when we feel so helpless we can offer a pray and feel the strength seep into our hearts and body. that is why we have weeks like this to realize and see all the little blessings in life. i am so happy to be here... happy to be learning lessons like this... also seeing the type of person i am becoming. 

we had a conference with presidente and he was talking about how we need to develop the characteristics like Jesucristo and how we need to always be working on that. i have lots to learn but i think that i have my whole life to do that, but it is here that i am starting to see how i can do it... 

October 29, 2012 - Happy Halloween!!

this week was wonderful... i am with my new comp and you can see the picture of us... she is from mexico.. and her name is Hermana Rosas... she is really chill and i like that, but she always makes me laugh... i am learning so much from her and she loves to work, which i like. hahah. we are working hard and we had a baptism this week of INGRID... i was so happy! there were so many people (like 45) and the members were so happy. a lot of people were waiting for her to be baptized and at first she was so nervous and did not want to, but the day of/the minute before she was like alright lets go do this! haha it was funny.... but it was such a wonderful experience with her... but we have a lot to work with her because it has not ended yet... also i forgot to write you all about Zulay she was our milagro baptism... she was baptized last week and her boyfriend is a member and they are getting married on the 10th of Nov!... i am so excited for her... i really do love her... she is amazing... she is so cute and she is so strong. i am really looking forward to her future. but we are working hard here. trying to help the ward have more desire to work with us... we are trying to become better with working with them but i love my ward so much... 

tonight we are going to be with our bishop because his dad passed away yesterday and here in Guatemala they have a meeting for the family for like 7 days, but we are helping out with putting up tents and chairs and making hot drinks, and today just going to meet with him and all the members. but it was sad to see this happen for obispo... yesterday i was thinking how i could help him and his family, but i just thought it's better to just help out and we gave him a card.... 

well right now we are looking for families to teach so we are contacting a lot and working with the members.... i know that is where we will have the success... 

October 22, 2012

i am so happy that Halloween is coming! so some members in my ward bought a pumpkin for me and we are going to carve it for Halloween  i love this family they are always helping us, especially right now when my comp has been hurt, so she will be going home... it really has been hard for her, i feel so bad for her and i was thinking how it must feel to have to go home when you want to keep working... i feel so bad for her... but this past week she was told to be on bed rest and so i have been going crazy this week looking for people to do divisions with me and to keep working with our investigators. the family that we had moved and that really tore my heart out... i felt so bad because they were progressing and i was really happy to see them progress, but they moved into the area of our district leader and i gave him their number. i really hope they can keep on progressing. but this week i have seen the help of the Lord so much. at times i felt like i was so alone and i just kept on going and i saw the Lord help me in some way, answers to my prayers. i have seen the importance of being a companionship of 2. i love working with the members but it is not the same as teaching with my comp. but i feel so bad for her because she will be going home 8 months early. but i've learned so much from her... in this next change i will get a new comp and i think i'll be staying here in San Felipe, i really hope i will because we have one hermana that accepted to be baptized this Saturday and it is hard for her that Hermana Aldana has changes, but this Ingrid... she has changed so much, i love seeing the change in her... i love how the gospel changes the lives of others. she was in our activity this week and she loved it. but the members are getting to know us better and it has been a wonderful experience  i am learning so much and i am so happy to be here.... we are working hard and with my new comp i am praying we will find more families that are waiting for the gospel.

October 15, 2012

alright lets see what happened this week.... hum.... we had trainings with pPesidente about the Book of Mormon, the Holy Ghost, teaching people and not lessons and last of all the gospel of Jesus Christ. it was good because it helped me see areas where i need to work better in. also to feel the love Presidente has for us his missionaries was wonderful. we always need to work on being better and see what talents we do have, it was great because we practiced afterwards and i was pretending to be one of our investigators and it was amazing because we received a lot of revelation for her. when we taught her that same night she asked the same things we asked during the practice and we were able to help her. it was great! also this past week we were vising a family and one of the sons had his fiance over and we ended up teaching her and challenging her to baptism and she accepted for this coming Saturday .. its a milagro... and we are so thankful for that.. she is so prepared because of her boyfriend and she asks so many questions i love it. oh so we are trying to work more with the ward and i was praying for help on how we can do that, then something happened... my comp is really having trouble with her knee, and we had visited the doctor and got x-rays last week and this week they sent her to get a MRI and it looks like she might need to get surgery, but we are still waiting on the final word from the doctor here in the mission. we will probably know this week. but with this i have been doing divisions with members. i am just really worried about my comp because she has pain all the time and i do not know how to help her i just thought why didn't i pay more attention in my classes because the words they used, the doctor, i thought "oh I remember learning that word at one time" hahha but we are trying to work hard, and i know the Lord knows our hearts....
so we are teaching a family named Chanchavac and this Sunday just his wife went to church, but he is reading the Book of Mormon, but we are working hard with them and the other investigator named Ingrid and we have others that we are working with, but i'm just praying we will get help to visit them all.
just working hard an trying to be the best i can.

October 8, 2012

WHAT 19 YEARS OLD FOR SISTERS!!!!! i was so shocked and was just so surprised how that was changed, but i was then brought to tears thinking of how the Lord needs all he can have doing His work.... to help His children hear his gospel and receive eternal life... it is such a blessing to be here and to be doing this maravilloso work. i know that the Church is true and that the gospel i teach every day is true.
so conference was so amazing... Saturday i listened in English and Sunday i listened in Spanish with our investigators... we planned on our family we are teaching to come but they didn't and i was a little sad but our lider de misional left with us to visit him and it was a great lesson. he was like yeah he will be baptized this month haha it was great because it helped our ward mission leader have a little more animo. also our bishop said he wanted to visit the family on Wednesday so we are working hard with this family and another famlia. i am so thankful to be here and to just learn so much from the people here.. they are amazing and so beautiful i love my ward and just being with the members...

so i loved all the talks during Conference, but the talk that i especially loved was by Elder Larry Echohawk i was crying so hard because i just thought about our people and how when i go home i want to dedicate my life to help them like Elder Echohawk... but then i thought how right now i am dedicating 1 year and a half to my brothers and sisters in Guatemala. i am so thankful that we have the Book of Mormon and to just be here to be doing the work of the Lord. and i am loving all the rain, heat, beans, tortillas and Spanish here in Guate.

October 1, 2012

i am still loving my area, and yes there is still tons tons tons of rain, but i really am enjoying it because i know that is one of the special parts of guatemala. 

we having been working with the family joj but we are really working with them and it is not getting easier... i really do not know what to do but we are praying for them and hoping that they can progress. but we decided that we need to keep looking for others that are ready, and this past week we were contacting and found a family and they are so special... he is 28 and she is 23 and they have 2 children. we found him and gave him a folleto and he read it all when we visited him with his wife... it was really special he likes it and has so many questions... also all of our citas fell and so we ended up contacting and there was a house that we always pass and i always see the woman outside but when we pass i think "hum i want to contact her but ah we don`t have time" or "tomorrow"... but yesterday we had a cita and i was like no i am going to contact her, she was wrapping a present and was trying to figure out how to do it and i was like "hey i can help! but it will be like how we wrap in the states." then i explained how my brother does not like to wrap and i always got asked to wrap it for him.... ... and it turns out that she had missionaries before but at that time was gong to another church. but right now she is not going there and she said we can come back whenever we can. it was a great experience... 

here are some pics. enjoy!

September 17, 2012

can you believe how fast the time is going? septiembre is already almost over and i cannot believe it... it is happening so fast.... i have another companion. she is from el salvador!!!!! hahah i'm so excited to be with her. she is so short, and she is a ball full of energy hahha. i love her so much. she is just so easy to love. but i'm learning so much from her. in these 5 days i've learned so much that i cannot believe how much i've changed... i am so excited to work with her in this change and to work with the ward members and just to be here with her in san felipe. so my first day with her we taught luis. he is the youth that had a fecha to be baptized last saturday but didn´t he asked to be baptized friday and it was such a wonderful experience.... after the baptism was such a tender moment... he thanked me so much and was like "thank you for not giving up on me"... it was so beautiful. i was so thankful that i got to see him baptized. 

this week we are working really hard and trying to help people come unto Christ. i see myself grow a lot and i was thinking how the Lord knows when we need to have those moments of growth that we at times do not want. 

our baptism  this friday was from family yac. they helped with another youth baptsim last saturday and they gave a reference for the sisters in san felipe. so just in this month 3 of their references were successful... i really love this family! they are so kind.... they really have grown in my heart.... 

so there is still lots of rain and we didn´t get any ash or signs of the volcanoes in antigua but did you know that i live near an active valcano? .... yeah i think i live by two, but it's a really pretty view from my window every morning.