Hey

i really do love this area and the members and just being here with my comp. i think everyday how it is such a blessing to just be here and to be learning so much. i know that there is so much more to learn and that i need to work to get it... haha. but this week we were busy the whole time.... but it was such a good week. it was fun just working with Hector and Nataly. hector is amazing, he has changed so much and his daughter said that he is not the same person, that he has changed so much. this man and his family no words can describe my experience with them. this past month i really have thought about the scripture that with the faith of men miracles happen and after a lot of work among them they began to have a lot of success. Alma 32:2. i know the Lord change the heart of Hector and he was prepared to be baptized this day. i love what hna Estrada always says, people can look at the case of family Rodrigues, Jose Luis, Hector and Nataly and think how easy those baptisms were, but they do not see the years before when they had their hardships and moments when they felt so lost. each of these personas were prepared for this time to accept the gospel and we're just instruments in the hands of the Lord. i know that we are not perfect but i am so thankful that we can work on becoming better people.

so funny story and cute. we got to see Hector propose to his wife thursday night... it was great, i really enjoyed it, it was really cute and she was crying so hard. after 24 years he accepted to marry her and be baptized. she told us that he would get so mad when she would go to church and with the kids as well and would not talk with any of the elders but within the last 3 years he changed. ah this man was one person i have so much respect for. it was great teaching him and working with him. Nataly had missionaries for years teach her too. when she got the Gift of the Holy Ghost a lot of the people in the ward were surprised and so happy because for years she investigated the church.  

sad story but one i learned a lot. so saturday was a lot and i was not feeling good because i m fighting a cold right now. but after the wedding of Hector we had the baptism and during the bapstim we went out of the room to get the scriptures of my comp. while she was getting them i looked outside and saw a group of men driving off with the motorcycle of our bishop... i was at first thinking why is that young man staling in his moto he knows how to drive and why is there a bunch of them and hey that moto is the color of bishop´s... i then told hna Estrada i think they stole the moto of bishop and she was like how do you know i explained it to her and we were like what do we do tell him now or after the baptism.... we decided to wait a little and when she finished her talk we talked with his wife and she was like we will tell him after. we told him and he was like really well and said "i'll talk to the girls and you can go report it." my bishop is amazing, he has so much patience and one who gives his all for his calling. he is always teaching me lessons and helping me see the most important things in life. he did not get mad, did not show any anger or sadness in his face, but just that he knew that there were important things to do first. he had the patience to explain to his daughters what had happened. one of his daughter was like "dad i do not feel good" and he took the time to explain about the Holy Ghost and when we feel that way we do not have the Holy Ghost. he then took all the kids and started to teach them so they would not bother us when we were cleaning. i was very impressed and thought to myself if this happened how would i have reacted. i am so thankful to have seen this and learn by his example. 

Nataly

the bride and groom (Rosenda and Hector Lopez Ramos)

baptism of Hector

This week was great

i am so grateful to see the wonderful blessings of Heavenly Father....so this week was great... we are working hard here and are seeing the fruits of our labors... this week has been filled with so many good things that everyday i think to myself how merciful the Lord is. so right now we have two other personas preparing for baptism this staurday. one is an old investigator and she came to church sunday and decided that she wanted to be baptized... she had missionaries before for years and one night she had a dream that made her think about her life and wanted to change. her name is nataly hernadez. but her brother is a member and is a great person. he is always willing to work with us and help us out. also we have been working with hector. he is a man that did not want to see missionaries in his house and his kids are less active. only his wife...well his women because they are not married... is a member. we are working with him to be baptized this saturday and have his wedding before the baptism... with this family i have been exercising a lot of faith but i have seen such a beautiful change in him and in his family. he has so much more light to his face and he keeps all the commitments we give him. he reads the Book of Mormon every morning at 2 am, so he can not read well and his eye sight is really bad but we promised him that if he prayed before reading he would be able to see and understand it. it was fulfilled and this week we bought him a big Book of Mormon that he can read without trouble, when we gave it to him he almost cried... it was so touching, also he is very proud of his Book of Mormon. 

the Lord is really blessing us right now with success and i know that it is all Him. i know that i am nothing without my Heavenly Father. we are working hard and are trying to find new people to teach. i think it is amazing how as missionaries we can help people feel that there is hope in their lives with the gospel of Jesus Christ that we can help people see that life is not just pain and hopelessness. i have seen the Lord use us to find certain people and say the right words for them. i am so thankful to be here and to be in this work. please pray for hector and nataly this week so that they will have that extra strength...  

Baptism of Jose Luis

Familia Rodriguez

My mission president's mother-in-law visiting from Nicaragua and we taught her...
she is one tough lady. I hope she gets baptized someday

when we were at a museum

I danced for an activity.

July 9, 2012 - Such a Wonderful Weekend

after 5 months of work familia rodriguez were baptized on saturday and were confirmed members on sunday. it was such a wonderful and tender moment when i saw them take these steps in their lives. i was so touched by the blessing that each of them got. ah my heart is so full.... i was so happy saturday and also jose luiz was baptized on saturday. he is so excited about going to church and changing his life. that is what the gospel is - hope. when we go to church with hearts ready to receive revelation every week we can feel like the convert that goes to church for the first time, looking for a place to find refuge from this world that at times is hard to bear. i know the gospel is true i have seen the book of mormon change hearts but most of all i have witnessed this change in my own heart.... i have been reading the book of mormon in spanish every day and my goal is to finish it in 3 months and so far i have been loving it. there is always something more to find and things to change in our lives. i know that there are things that we need in it at different points in our lives. i love what my mission presidente said about how when we read the book of mormon we receive a lot more joy and that extra push to be happy. i know this to be true when i am sad or feel terrible about an investigator. i read the book of mormon and have received that comfort that we needed. i think to myself how much easier life would have been if i had been reading the book of mormon for all these years from the start.... i know that if we rededicate ourselves to read the book of mormon, pray everyday and go to church with hearts ready to learn we will have much joy and faith to work through all things. i love how it says in preach my gospel about how faith is confidence in Jesus Christ. when we have that faith and we act on it we show our love for our Heavenly Father. i am so thankful to be here and to be changing things in my life. i am so thankful to have so many wonderful people in my life and to be touched by their love for me and this work. i love my ward so much and this area. 

oh happy day

    so this week was great! i love being here. we are working hard in our area and i am so thankful that i am here with my comp and i can work hard. she is always wants to work which is good. it was just wierd when we hit one year in the mission together... i cannot belive how fast it is going. 

well this weekend we have 4 baptisms schudule. family rodriguez.... i am so happy for this one... but i am so happy to see the faith that they have... so the wife is a member and she was so sad becuase she wanted to be baptised with her family. she said that the baptism was not correct because she was little and was so mad at her mom for the baptism. but we learned and explained that the authority was right and it was vaild but that she can have better experiences with her family in the future. the baptisms almost fell but freddy said that he knows that it is true and this is just a test of his faith. i have learned so much for them and am so thankful for them. it was great. then the other baptism is going to be jose luis. he is 22 years old and has so much in his life that he wants to change. when we were teaching him i saw him feel like a little bit of his burden has been lifted. i know that there is so much more that we need to do to help him to use the atonement more in his life. i am so grateful for the atonement and the opportunity to learn about it. i dont know it completely but i know that with the atonement it can take away all the pains in the heart. i know that jose luis right now is feeling the power of the atonement. 

also the youth had an activity with 5 differnent stakes and they had a culture night. they asked me to dance in this and i was so happy to do it becuase it was a family that we eat with every sunday that asked me and i could not say no. but i thought it was going to be a small activity but it was huge! i was freaking out.. but it was great so many people loved it and i thought how wonderful that i had the opportunity to share this beautiful dance with them.... i love dancing and am thankful that i can. after i danced i was so happy and was ready to go out and teach.... it was great.... i love the people here. they are so amazing. i know that i need to enjoy it more and work harder.

June 25, 2012

so i have one more change in reu with hermana estrada! i am really excited to be here one more change and to work with family rodriguiz it is so fun seeing him with all his books for church and he asks which lesson they are in and which he needs to study. i know that people are preapared and that when their time is right they will be baptized. one hermana that is new in our zone was in my old area and she told me about my converts and about people that we started to teach and how they were baptized, i love thinking that it is all the timing of the Lord but i just need to listen to the spirit to help His children recieve this wonderful gospel. we also had a joven come to church sunday we taught him and challenged him to be baptized 14 of july, his name is jose luiz. he is 22 years old but it was such a wonderful experience to teach him and see how the Lord prepares his children. 

oh so in our house there is new sister that is from idaho and she was in coatepeque with me. she is really funny but its weird having someone in the house that speaks english, she talks to me english but i talk to her in spanish. i have notice in this 5 days my spanish is much worse because i accidentally say words in english so i told her to help her with her spanish i will only talk in spanish with her. to tell the truth i feel more comforatble in spanish and it is more polite becuase my comp and hers only speak spanish. but its fun being in our district. a lot more untiy and we are all working hard. we are working hard this month as a zone. i love how the zone leaders taught us about unity and i feel like as a zone we are all working hard for that. 

oh so this p day we went on a three mile hike. my comp didnt like it but i really enjoyed it. i was so tired afterwards but i loved and thought how i missed this feeling. it was great, i live in such a beautiful place here and we got to climb up a half built bridge, a hill where there was ruins underneath, see a dirty river and walk through a plantation of sugar cane. i loved it. but i think i got a little burned but it was fun.

June 18, 2012

i will start with the fun experiece this week so i went to san marcos this friday and danced there for a stake activity. it was such a wonderful experience...... i danced then the polys danced.. it was wonderful. the people loved it they said it was like having byu living legends in san marcos. but one of the elders name elder kakaoho worked at the pcc in hawaii and so he taught the other 5 poly elders and the rest of the gringos it was great! THE people loved it and presidente was laughing with the slap dance. then we stayed the night in a sweet hotel and presidente trusted us with the remote to the tv to watch byu channel. but sad thing was we didnt find it and just went to bed but at breakfast he talked about when he and his wife watched byu and we were like what! what channel and then the 15 mins he gave us after breakfast we found byu channel and watched a little it was funny. but san marcos is about 3 hours from reu and is way cold like the utah... it was crazy.... i was freaking out. also i got to take a hot shower..... i haven´t taken a hot shower for almost a year. it was so nice. but so the trip to the mnts was winding and i almost threw up on the way there.... i always wanted to serve in the mnts but after that i was like hum i m okay. but i m good but on the way back i took pills before and felt better. but it is really pretty up there and was a great experience and i loved it. but it was fun being there with hermana estrada and presidente and his wife. i got to know them better and i really enjoyed it. also they have amazing bread there it was a gift from one member. 

 so this week also we were busy looking for minus activios and working with our families. it was great. one week of wonderful experiences. but one thing i loved was with family rodriguiz, we taught them saturday with the bishop and during the lesson he talked about a change of heart and freddie said that he wanted to have more of a change and he said he wants to be baptized.... it was such a spiritually filled lesson and i was filled with so much love for this family i thought how the Lord has blessed me so much to have found them and work with them, it has been 4 months and i at times thought how can i keep doing this, am i doing the right thing staying with this family, but after four months i know that it was for me to learn. they went to church sunday and it was such a good experience. we shuffled them to all the classes and when we ended freddi was so tired and he told us it was long but he wanted to go back. so we challenged them to be baptized the 7 or 14 of july, tonight we have fhe with them with another family and we will talk to them more to see if they chose a date. but this has been a great experience and i am so thankful i am here to have seen the growth of this family. also our convert brandon went and did baptisms and it was great as well. he is growing so much and i hope he serves a mission. but changes are this week and i am anxious to see what will happen. tongiht we will find out.... i really do want one more change to work with family rodriguiz and family morales but i know that the Lord knows where i need to go and who i need to teach so i am at peace when i think this.

hola

this week was a tough one but i am so thankful that i have hermana estrada. we are there to support each other and help lift each other up. we are trying to find new investigators and trying to help strengthen the ward, and it's amazing to see a change in the members. they are really nice and really good. we had fhe with familia morales with another family in the ward who is also a familia morales. haha. but jose morales is a returned missionary and i loved seeing him teach. i learned a lot from him, so much patience, and he taught it very simply. also familia rodriguiz is progressing and the father wants to meet the bishop this weekend and the bishop is pretty excited about it too. but i love my ward, i am so thankful i am here and to meet so many wonderful people. also we have been working to find less actives and help them return so we have a lot of work to do but we are loving every minute of it. 

i also love reading the talks by the prophets and apostles and just feeling their words work in my heart. i am so thankful for the scriptures and for the opportunity to study them. it is hard at times because we have moments where people want to argue with us but i am so much stronger in testifying of prayer and the truth of the church, we have not had many baptisms and that was a weight on me but i have seen a change in my heart and i am so thankful that i am here. so thankful for the love i have developed for the people and guatemala. i love it so much. all of it and that is what keeps me working harder. 

yesterday we taught hector, his wife is a member and his kids are also members but they are less actives. he loves music and that is his job. he works so hard to get money for his children and make a living but he said yesterday that he wants to change and wants to find a place that will help him. he is so funny and i always joke with him about getting baptized and he says no it's too fast. haha. so we ask him when and then he says before he dies. but he is great, he is really positive so we are working with him and his children to return. 

i loved this week. hard but great. its when you look back that you can see the lessons you learned. i know that this time is a time to be tested and to build the foundation for my life and it's being built.