Sunday, October 28, 2012

Scripture

And also, I have been forgetting to put a scripture in every week!  Oops!  But here is one for this week!  Matthew 28:19-20.  Jesus Christ is with us always when we are preaching the Gospel, and I know it, because I can feel him here with me!

Matthew 28:19-20
Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:
Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always even unto the end of the world.  Amen.

Pictures!

Sorry, last week I forgot my cable, so I couldn`t upload any pictures, but I can this week!  

This is from General Conference, and it is us as a Zone with our investigators that came to General Conference.  We are acting like the army of Helaman.  It actually turned out really well!


Last week for P-Day, we went over to a members house in Momos, and he had a lot of paintball guns that he let us borrow!  It was a lot of fun!  (I went 5-1, just for the record)


My Converts!  On the very right is Carlos Pu Mejia.  And from oldest to youngest for the Pu Imul family, it goes Laura, Santos, Rafael, and Juan.  Such an amazing sight to see them all dressed in white after wearing their regular clothes, which are always really dirty!  A great picture!


This is General Conference night, and we had to stay with Elder Schmidt and Elder Petingill in Momos, along with another companionship.  So there were six of us sharing two mattresses.  Needless to say, it was a very uncomfortable night!

Just your ordinary haul of insects for Pancà.  We caught both of them within 5 minutes of each other.  Makes me wonder how I even sleep at night!  (But don`t worry mom, I`m alright!)

My First Six Weeks!

Hello Family!  Well, I have officially reached my first transfer period in the mission field, even though I`m not going to transfer.  It still feels good to have reached this point though!  I seem to have had a lot of success recently, I hope that it continues to be this way!

     Well, first things first, our baptisms went through!  On the 18, four of the Pu Imul kids get baptized, and we also had one kid from the Pu Mejia family that got baptized.  He didn`t get baptized when the rest of his family did, because he didn`t have enough attendences to church, but he did now, so he got baptized!  So that`s FIVE baptisms!  That is five souls that have come closer to Christ.  It feels so good having helped with it also!  It was so cool to see them so happy and filled with the spirit!  Usually, the Pu Imul kids are so serious and hardly look you in the eye, but at the baptism, they were so happy and laughing and just having a good time!  That just shows how much the Gospel of Jesus Christ can do for you!  That is why I love being a missionary so much!  I have to opportunity to spend two years doing this work, seeing the gospel change lives, and just being closer to my Savior!

     Other than that though, not much has happened.  We have just been visiting other less active members, active members, doing service, and such.  We do have a family that we are still working with to get the kids baptized.  The mom is not active at all, but the Dad is.  He actually just called to be the second counselor in the Branch Presidency this week, so hopefully that will help the kids realize how important the Gospel is to their Dad, and will make them want to participate more!

     We just got here to Momos for P-Day, and just got back from helping all the new missionaries to this area carry their bags to wait at the Zone Leader`s house until they can get to their respective areas.  So we are going to have some new faces here in the Zone of Momostenango!  I`m still in the same area, so not much will change, just the missionaries in their respective areas.

     Well, I`m still doing great, continuing doing the work of the Lord!  I love it here, and am ready for another week!  Until Next Time!

     - Elder Stuart

Photos!

 So this is a bug that we found walking around.  It was huge, plus is had a stinger type thing on its "tail!"  It was crazy, so of course I had to take this picture!

This is a waterfall that we pass by everytime we go to our Ward Mission Leader´s house.  (He is the one in the pictures that I sent last time.  He translates for us into Quiche.)  We finally to time to find a good spot to take a picture.

I found Paper Mario in Momos.  No big deal.  Of course, knowing me, I had to take a picture!  Yay for nerds!

We stopped by Elder and Sister Fairbourne´s house this day.  They are the financial secretaries for our mission.  We were in Xela, and about to head to Guate for my Visa stuff.  They called us and asked if we wanted to join them for cookies.  Of course we said yes!

The Pu Mejia Family that we baptized!  

This kid at the baptismal service for the Pu Mejia Family was wearing an Orioles hat!  I was so excited, needless to say!
 
The Quetzaltenango Temple!  I saw it last week when we went to Xela to play soccer.  We didn´t get to get closer, but at least I got to see it!

 A Meat Store in Momos.  Awesome right?  And yes, I did eat some of the meat in this store!

This is us after the Sunday Morning Session with the Pu Imul Family (Part of them)  The weapons are for a later picture that I will describe next!

Sunday, October 21, 2012

General Conference Weekend!

Hello Family!!!  


I hope that you all had a great General Conference weekend, because I sure enjoyed it!  Although it did make for less time in Pancá for us, it was worth it, because we got to hear the prophets address us.  I guess I didn´t really put together for me how important and how much of a blessing General Conference is for us.  It is a chance for us to hear the living prophets of today that God has called personally, and they are addressing us as a people in this time.  If you think about it, it is almost as important as the scriptures in my opinion.  I mean, the scriptures are prophets teachings, and General Conference is the exact same thing!  How great of a blessing is it that we are able to hear the words of our prophets and to heed their teachings!  I wish I came to this realization earlier, but better late then never!  I just know that from now on, I will look forward to General Conference!

Speaking of which, that was quite the bomb that was dropped on all of us!  Missionary ages have changed, as all of you have told me!  It was crazy, especially because of how I ended up getting to hear it!  To hear General Conference, we had to travel to Momos to see it, because we couldn´t get it in Pancá, so we planned on leaving early Saturday morning.  We woke up on Saturday and packed all of our stuff through tomorrow (Tuesday) morning, because today is P-Day, and tomorrow we have a District Meeting.  We headed out and started to wait for the truck that passes by Pancá and goes to Momos everyday at 8:00.  When we were still waiting at 8:30 for it, we figured that it wasn´t going to come, so we started to walk.  Now, this is about an hour ride by truck to get to Momos, all through dirt roads.  Our plan was to walk all the way to Momos...  Yee Haw right?  Not gonna lie, it sucked.  I had my backpack and a duffel bag with me, and I was walking all through basically nothing. I thought that we were going to have to walk all of the way to Momos!!!  After about an hour and 45 minutes of walking, the truck finally came!  It was about 10:05 at this point.  I was so grateful for it, because I was getting frustruated, and we were missing conference as of then!  Thank goodness for it though, because we were only about a little more than halfway to Momos!  So we got it and rode the rest of the way.

We got off at Momos, and rushed to the Chapel.  We got in and took a seat in the back.  The speaker was Sister Dibb, So we missed Elder Cook and most of Sister Dibb´s talk.  There were I think two other speakers before Elder Nelson, and I was grateful for them, because it gave me time to calm down and get situated.  Now, the conference was in Spanish, so I was still struggling to understand all of it, I was tired, and I just had so much running through my mind.  Luckily I payed enough attention to hear the announcement about the missionary age changing!  (Elder Nelson reinstated what President Monson said at the beginning what I missed)  I started immediately thinking of Jeffrey, and what he was going to do!  Then I started thinking about all of my other friends that all of a sudden became eligible for a mission!  How crazy is that?!?  Things sure are going to change!

But that was only part of the weekend.  I love hearing all of the speakers talk and give what they think is most important for us.  I got the gist of all the talks, seeing as they were all in spanish, but I will be looking for a Liahona or an Ensign in English, so I can read all the talks on my own time in my own language, so I can get all of General Conference!  I loved hearing it in Spanish though, it was different, but it really put it into perspective that I really am on a mission!  Also, another cool thing was that the chapel that I was in was the headquarters for the translation of General Conference into Quiche!  How cool is that?!?  One of the missionaries I was talking to said he got to go into the main room where they do all of the translations and take pictures, so I got to see it, even though I was late!  I just thought that was way cool!

But General Conference wasn´t the only good news of the week!  We have more dates for baptisms!  On Wednesday, we went up to the Pu Imul family (The family in the photo i sent you) and taught them again.  Santiago (the Dad) surprised us when he said that he wanted his children baptized!  He can´t be baptized, because he isn´t married to his wife yet, but he expressed the desire to have his children in the church!  I was so happy when I heard that!  We set a date for the 20, giving them time to attend church one more time, because they need it for the requirement.  But, we also got to see them at General Conference!  I was so surprised, even though we did invite them!  I´m sure it took a lot of sacrifice to travel to Momos just to hear General conference, but they did it!  That just shows how much the Dad wants them to be baptized!  They were in the Quiche translation room of the chapel, so we went and visited them at the end of the Sunday Morning session and listned to the closing prayer in Quiche!  Needless to say, I didn´t understand like any of it!  But it was still cool to hear!  So yeah, we have more dates for baptism!  I am so excited that I have the chance to bring some more people to the Gospel of Jesus Christ!

So now onto some questions I have been asked.  For the baptisms, they were Erlinda and Diego that I baptized.  We wanted Antonio to baptize all three of them, but he didn´t feel comfortable doing it, so he asked us to do it.  So the Branch President baptized Estevana, and I baptized the other two.  For travel times, like I said earlier, it takes about an hour to get from Pancá to Momos by truck.  Also, it takes about 3 hours to get from Momos to Xela by bus.  So it is pretty far from here to Xela.  But it is so different in Xela!  Here in Momos, you have to buy all of your food from street vendors or little shops on the street.  But in Xela, there are fast food restaurants, Wal-marts, and the like.  So Momos is pretty poor compared to Xela.  As for mail, they have said that it is pretty hard to get mail here.  I haven´t gotten a snail mail letter yet.  I got one dear elder from President Castillo, but that´s it.  So I don´t know how reliable the mail system is here.  So I just don´t expect to get any mail, and if I ever do, it will be awesome!  So sorry if I don´t get your letters, here it isn´t really reliable.  

Sounds like fun as always back home.  Woods Cross did pretty good in state, and I think it is because of Jeffrey!  Tell him good job from me!  Although they didn´t take first place, they still did really well!  Ryan also sounds like he is having a blast in the Drama Department!  So just keep loving life, and enjoying everything!

I love you all, and thank you for your emails always!  I look forward to them every week!  I loved this week, because I got to grow more in the gospel!  I love this work, and can´t wait to continue!  Until Next Time!!



     - Elder Stuart

Monday, October 1, 2012

Pictures from Panca

Mission Home of the Quetzaltenango Guatemala Mission

Elder Maldonado and Elder Stuart





LDS Church


Elder Maldonado

Jonny's Home


Kitchen

Bedroom (Jonny's is the Red Bed)

Desk

Closet

Elder Maldonado

Scorpion


Spider






Elder Maldonado 

Elder Maldonado 


Elder Stuart

Elder Stuart

Elder Stuart


Guatemalan Family



An Awesome Week!


 Hello Family!  I can`t wait to tell you all about the week that I have had!  It has been just a really good example of how the mission life is!  The mission definitely does have it`s ups and downs, but that`s all part of life, right?  We just need to push through the challenges and strive to do our best in everything!  

     This week started out a little rough.  We didn`t get back to our house in Pancà until late Tuesday night, because of the Visa thing I had to figure out on Monday.  So we lost about a day and a half of work that we could have done.  So on Wednesday, we went out to go and find some people to teach and Less Active members to go see.  But on that day, either no one was home (which meant we pretty much walked about 45 minutes for nothing!), or they didn`t have much time to visit with us, because they were about to leave (which meant we couldn`t teach them a lesson!)  Not to mention that we got lost on our way back, which sucked, because we forgot our flashlight, and there are no lights anywhere in Pancà, so we struggled over dirt paths through the woods for a while before we finally got home.  So it was a rough day!

     Thankfully, the next day was a whole lot better!  We started off the next day helping the Garcia family (a really nice family really strong in the Gospel) with various jobs around the house.  It felt good to do service for them, because when we do service, we are in the service of God.  Then, they gave us the absolute best lunch I have had in Pancà!  Lydia, the Mom, worked on a huge dish of Chow Mein for us, and after working for so long and so hard, it was much appreciated!  Not to mention it was a nice break from the usual Beans and Rice and Tortillas I have had for the past couple weeks!  It was just a good morning with a nice member family!  Afterwards, our District Leader came all the way to Pancà, because we had some Baptism interviews to take care of!  So we headed out to the Pu Mejia family, and we had the chance to interview Estevana, (the Mom) Erlinda, and Diego (The two kids)!  They all "passed" if you will, and we were all so excited!

     Their date was Friday, the 28 of September, the very next day!  I was looking forward to their baptism the whole day!  It finally came around, and Elder Maldonado and I started setting up for it!  The Pu Mejia family came around, and I can`t even explain how much excitement I had for each of them!  Plus, they surprised me when the two kids asked if I could baptize them!  I was shocked!  I thought for sure that Antonio, the Dad, would do it, but he didn`t want to, and the kids wanted me to!  I was so surprised, but so humbled at the same time!  I was so honored!  So we started the service, and all during the service I was memorizing their names, because these Native names are long and hard, and I didn`t want to mess up!   But the time finally came, and I baptized the two kids!  I felt the spirit so strong, I wasn`t even thinking about what had happened at the beginning of the week.  All I could feel was the Spirit so strong, and the glow from these three new members!  It really made my mission so far!  I am so grateful for the opportunity that I had to take part in bringing some of these souls here in Guatemala to the truth.  I love that they will be able to feel what I feel when I am in tune with the Spirit now!  I can`t wait to get back to work and find some others that I can help out with!  

    Not to mention this P-Day has been awesome!  Since it is the beginning of the month, we get our funds for the month, so the Zone of Momostenango went to Xela and spent the day there.  We played soccer with another Zone, went around the city (which was weird after being in Pancà for so long!), and bought a lot of food that we can only get in Xela.  All in all a really good day!

     A side note really quick, I am so happy that I have the opportunity to be in Momos.  I heard today that this city especially has a lot of Lamanite blood in it, and is one of the most direct lines there is to them!  Also, I heard that 6 different Apostles have visited this city.  No, no Xela or even Guate, but Momostenango of all places!  It is such a cool place to be, and I love it here!  I am having a blast here, and I wouldn`t rather be anywhere else!  I hope I was able to share my excitement with you all through this email!  I love you all, and can`t wait until next week!  Until Next Time!!!

     - Elder Stuart

     Mosiah 28:3

Week Two!


Hello Family!!!  
     Sorry I am sending this a day later than usual, I had to run to Guatemala City yesterday for some visa stuff, and that took the whole day, so they are letting me use email today!  Thank goodness!  But I don`t even know where to start, or what to start talking about!  It has been such a great week and a half, I just want to let you all experience it also!  But, the best I can do is send it to you guys through email, so here we go!  
     I`ll start with my first Sunday!  It was such a great day!  First things first, we went down to the chapel at 8:00, even though our meetings start at 9:00.  Because the Branch President wanted to do something special.  The reason is because the day before, the 15 of September, was Independence Day here in Guatemala, and he wanted to talk about Independence and relate it back to the church.  So we had a flag raising ceremony, and sang the Guatemalan National Anthem (which I was completely lost on!)  We also read Articles of Faith 1:12, because it shows that we as a church still believe in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law of the land.  So that was the first thing we did.  Then we got to start Sacrament Meeting.  There aren`t that many people there, so me and Elder Maldonado had to help as much as we could!  Elder Maldonado played the piano, and I helped bless the sacrament.  Helping as much as we can, that is what we do as missionaries!  But I really like what Dad said in his email to me, no matter where you are in the world, you can still feel the same spirit no matter where you are, and it was so true!  Even though the meeting was in Spanish and I felt like I was in the middle of nowhere, I still felt the spirit!  Plus, even more, the Branch President called on us Elders to give our testimonies, which I totally expected, so I wasn`t caught that much off guard!  It was such a neat experience, and while I was bearing my testimony, it finally hit me: I really am a missionary!  Here I am, In the middle of the wilderness in Guatemala, probably the only Gringo around for miles, and I`m giving my testimony of the church to others in a whole other part of the world who believe the same things I do!  It was such a humbling experience, and I loved it!  A good thing was also, was that we had an Investigator family that we went and visited the day before come to church!  So that was awesome!  This was their second time coming to church, and the rule is that an investigator has to come to church three times before they can be baptized, so they are one their way!  One of the best parts of the day was after the meeting though.  I just hung out with all the little kids there and played with them for like 30 minutes.  I bet it was so weird for them to see a white boy like me around them!  They are so nice though!
    Which leads me to my next part.  I absolutely love my area.  End of story!  It is one of the poorest areas in our mission, and for that I am so grateful!  You know why?  Because the members here don`t have that much, that are so humble that it blows my mind!  We can stop by one of the member’s houses and they will drop everything that they are doing and give all of their attention to us!  They are so willing to help us find others we can teach, and they want to help us with everything they can.  Plus they are more than happy to feed us whenever we stop by during a meal, which is awesome!!!  I was thinking about it the other day, and I came to the realization that they are richer than most of the people here in Guatemala.  The reason is because they have the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which is the greatest thing we can have in this life.  They will be the ones who inherit the Kingdom of God, and they will be Kings and Queens of their own children in heaven, which you can`t buy with any worldly possession.  Others might have the things of the world, but the people here have the things of the heavens, which cannot be compared to or bought!  
    I want to tell you a little bit about our investigators.  We have two main families that we are teaching as of now.  The first one is called the Pu Imul family.  They are the family that I told you about last week that only speak Quiche.  The Dad, Santiago, and the kids are all really interested in our message. The thing is, that they are really poor and live a far way away from the chapel, that it is really hard for them to come to church.  So that is the reason they aren`t coming to church.  Also another hard thing is the Wife.  Well, technically I can`t call them that, because they aren`t married.  That is a huge problem for us, because they can`t be baptized unless they get married, and it is going to be really hard for them to do that, because they would have to travel.  So as of now, we are working on getting them to come to church and really focusing on the children, because they have the chance to be baptized!  So that is the deal with them.
     The other family is the Pu Mejìa family.  They are a part member family, which means that the Dad, Antonio, is a new member, but the rest of the family aren`t members.  But!  We have dates for the Mom and one of the kids!  They are planning on being baptized on this Friday, so like in three days!  They are ready, and they came to church this week too, so they have all the qualifications for baptism!  I am so excited!  But, I am a little bummed, because we had a date planned for one more kid, but he got sick and didn`t make it to church, so he has to attend one more time before he can get baptized!  But we are really making progress on them!  I love this family so much, and I can`t wait for them to accept the gospel fully!
     Another big thing we had this week is we had like a neighborhood activity on Saturday, and it actually was a huge turnout!  We had about 80 people turn up, about 25 of which weren`t members!  So that is awesome!  We watched the movie "Joseph Smith:  The Prophet of the Restoration", and they were all interested in it!  To add to it, Santiago Pu Imul and one of his kids showed up too!  So that was really good news for us!  All the people there really enjoyed it, and I feel like it really helped this area a lot to do that!
     So yeah, these are the major points that have gone on so far!  So now I`ll answer some of the questions Mom asked me, so you all can know about where I am living! 
1.  My house, or shack as I call it.  It looked really bad at first, but I`ve grown to love it.  I don`t know how you all would do in it, but I`m loving it!  It is really small, but it has things we need, so Ï can`t complain!
2. Not dirt floors thank goodness!  They are straight concrete, because our house is a concrete slab with bricks around it and a tin roof.  So thankfully no dirt!
3.  We have running water, but it is so contaminated that we cant drink it.  We have a showerhead, so that’s nice, even if the water isn`t warm.  We also have this thing called a pila outside, where we wash our dishes and do all of our main things with water.
4.  Clothes are doing nice, we just washed them for the first time.  And it was so fun, because we did it in the pila with a washboard, so a lot different from a machine!  The shoes are holding up nice too.  I`m airing them out for sure, but I am mainly using my boots here, because it is a lot of hiking.  So I really am trying to take care of my things, because I need them for 2 years!
5.  The bandanna is so useful!  Now so much for the dirt, but for my sweat!  It is really humid here, so I start sweating pretty easily, so I can wipe it all off with the bandanna!  So grateful I brought it!
6.  It is rainy season for another month still, but we don`t have to worry about it much in my area.  It only rains at nights and very occasionally in the day.
7.  I`m making do with the food, it is a lot of tortillas, soup, rice and beans.  Crazy thing is, I actually am loving the refried beans here.  I know I said I would never eat them, but now I find myself craving them!  Weird!  Also, there are little tiendas all over, which are little family owned shops, and there we buy pure water, which is water in a bag.  So I have been drinking water out of a bag for two weeks now!
8.  The Spanish is definitely coming, I can hold my own in a conversation now, although there are still a few words that I don`t know.  But I still have to work hard at it, and really focus.  But when I put it into perspective and see that I have only been 2 weeks out in the field, I say I am doing pretty good.  That doesn`t mean I have to stop working though!  Plus, I’ve learned a few words in Quiche, which is fun!  I really want to learn it, but I have to focus on Spanish first, so no Quiche yet!
     Sounds like you all are having a blast back at home.  I`m not gonna lie, I miss you all like crazy, but whenever I start to feel homesick, I think of the families I am teaching, and I just want to devote as much time as I can to help them!  I really love hearing all about home, and all you are doing back in a normal life!  Thank you for continuing to send emails, I love looking forward to reading them each P-Day!  Keep having a blast, and I will let you know more about my life in the coming week!  Until Next Time! 
     Elder Stuart 
     P.S.  I am going to start sending a scripture home each week that I really like, so here is the first one!  D+C 128:22!  A really good one about missionary work!