Photos!

We did service for a member in our ward, which consisted of using a machete and cutting weeds on a part of his land.  Needless to say I felt like a pure Chapín! (Other word for Guatemalan.)

Well, it´s corn season, and that means that we are going to spend a lot of time "desgranando" corn. (I can´t think of the word in English.  It´s basically taking off the kernels.)  And there is A LOT of corn here, so that means a lot of time doing this!

We had a ward party on Saturday, and they let me have a go on the piñata!  I was so happy!

Chosen Ones

     Hello Family!  Wow, was it just me or did this week go by really fast?  Like, too fast.  I don´t like it when that happens, makes me feel like my mission is going to be over before I know it.  And that´s a scary thought.  Knowing that I just completed 15 months in the mission makes me wonder where the time has really gone!  So I just have to make the best of it!

     So we had some really cool things that happened this week, and some not so... but here we go!

     The theme that we had this week as a companionship comes from PMG, and also from Alma 16:16,  where it says the Lord is preparing chosen ones for us to find.  Sometimes, we find people that are receptive, but not as prepared as others are.  But I know that regardless of our talent of ability, as long as we try our best, we can succeed with the chosen ones that the Lord prepares for us.

     So, with that as our preface, we went out this week prayerfully looking for those chosen ones.  And we found some great people!  I´ll just tell you about a couple of them:  One guy we found let us teach the whole first lesson to him.  And at the end, we asked him a question that if we found out that our message was true, what would he do with that knowledge.  And he said, "I´d come join you guys and serve a mission."  Well, first you need to be baptized, but great!  Another lady we stopped to talk to on the street.  She was shucking (?) corn, so we stopped to help her.  The first thing she said was "Good, I was hoping you boys would stop to talk to me."  So yeah, the Lord really does work for us.  We just need to work with them so that they can progress!  

     Some sad news really quick, Carla´s son that was in the hospital passed away this week.  She´s really feeling it too.  We are just praying that, when she is ready, she will be able to accept the joy that comes from this Gospel.  Sad news, but good can come from anything.  So we have to be the source of the good.

     I had a way cool spiritual experience that I want to share with you guys.  We have always been looking for a man named Rolando, but he is almost never home.  His 15 year old nephew Carlos always tells us that, so we tell him always that we will pass by another day.  Yesterday the same thing happened, but I saw that Carlos was sad that we were going to leave again.  I felt the spirit really prompting me to just sit down with him and talk with him.  I never really thought about doing that before, because I just wanted to talk with his uncle.  But I listened, and I´m glad I did.  We sat down on the curb, and had one of the best lessons I´ve ever had on the mission.  Wow was that guy prepared for that lesson.  It really was special, becuase afterwards, I just would think about it and just think, "Wow."  Spiritual impressions are very powerful, but only if we act on them.

     Not gonna lie, it´s been kind of rough having people attend church with us.  But thinking about it, maybe that´s just the Lord just telling me that I have to give just that much more of myself.  It hard, but I know that it is worth it.

     I can´t really think of much more to say, so I guess I´ll just end it off here!  Love you guys, and thanks so much for your support!  Until next time!

     - Elder Stuart

     P.S. Mosiah 5:2

Photos!

Oh you know, just throwing a member kid in the air.  I´m going to try and get more height this week!  ;)

   Chalk up one more crazy food I´ve eaten here.  Can you guess what it is?  Just go ahead, guess...


You´ve got your guess?


Alright, I´ll tell you..


Blood.  Yep.  They take blood, fry it on the fire, stuff it with some leftover meat, and serve it.  Nice...  Now I can say that I´ve eaten blood...

General Conference Weekend!!!

 Hello Family!  I hope that you all had an AMAZING General Conference weekend!  Man, I don´t think I had even been as excited for it as I was now.  It´s like the Super Bowl for missionaries here!  No joke.  But holy cow, what a conference.  Have I just been so blind before to not realize how amazing it was before the mission?  I guess so, but never again!  

     But yeah, this week was pretty good.  Our numbers were a bit down from the last weeks, but we still had some powerful lessons, and some good new investigators, so that (kind of) makes up for it. 

     This week we a lot of speaking about profets and apostles, because we were inviting EVERYONE to General Conference.  We testified a lot about how we know there are living prophets today, and what it means for all of us.  I liked using the example from "Our Seach for Happiness," where it says "If Moses was here on the Earth today, would you be interested in what he has to say?"  And go from there, testifying about how someone today has the same authority as him.  It really makes sense when you think about it!  Just another stamp of approval on the true Church!

     We have some bad news about Carla, one of our more positive investigators.  Her 7 year-old son has been in the hospital for the last couple of days, and he´s not looking good.  As in his condition is getting worse.  So we haven´t been able to see her for a while.  But just keep her in your prayers porfa.

     We have been teaching this guy named Ricardo, who has Parkinson´s Disease.  It´s really hard for him to leave his house, so it´s rough trying to get him to church.  But he is so pilas (awesome in Guatemalan slang.)  He remembers absolutely everything we teach him, and he wants to learn so much more.  But we are going to try and get over the obsacle of getting him to church.  But as long as he is positive, I´m happy.

     Well, not much happened in the week, so now I´ll talk about General Conference.  Of course, we had to watch it in Spanish, but now that I actually understand what´s going on now, I really enjoyed it.  I got a lot out of every single talk, ways to better myself as a missionary and a man.  There were a bunch of good talks, but I´ll just name a few.  

     I really liked S. Gifford Nielsen´s talk.  He was really excited, wasn´t he?  But we all need excitement, expecially during the mission.  Of course, Jeffrey R. Holland was amazing.  But he really took a different tangent, and I loved the way he did it.  Randy D. Funk spoke really good too in Priesthood session.  Very clear, and things that we all need to hear.  All the First Presidency´s talks were awesome in Priesthood session, especially their stories.  If you haven´t heard yet, ask a Priesthood holder about President Monson´s home teacher. Classic.  President Monson´s talk on Sunday was soul-wrenching.  He really misses his wife.  Just makes me want to find that special one and love her as much as he does.  And Russell M. Nelson´s talk was really good too.  If y´all have time, go look them up!

      Now, this week we just all have to do what the prophets and apostles told us to do!  Let´s do work!  Until Next Time!

     - Elder Stuart

     P.S. Alma 29.  All of it.  Read it and love it.  

Photos!

We found a really awesome guy who was really interested in our message!...  Ha

Temple!  The members are the second and fourth people, the rest are investigators that we brought.  And although we couldn´t go any closer, it was still special.

I just had to show you the cutest little member girl!  Guatemalan kids are so darn cute!  (And just try to ingore the big mass of who knows what on the side...)

This is the awesome sunset view that we view everyday, and I thought that you guys would like to see it!

Just the volcano that covers all of Xela!

We went up to the lookout place again, so I took more pictures!  In this picture, you can actually see my area, but to point it out to you guys would be too hard...  So yeah.

  Xela, here I come!

 Rockin the Mayan warrior look.

Just being a kid again.  And LOVING it!

Another "O Jerusalem" picture for you guys!

Time Flies!

 Hello Family!  Well, I don´t know what it is, but time is going by WAY to fast!  I have already been here in Chiquilajá for a change already!  Changes are tomorrow, but neither I nor Elder Calero are leaving.  So we are going to be together for another 6 weeks.  I´m stoked for it, because he´s a good guy, and I feel like we can both learn some things more from each other.  That´s what the mission is for, right?  Right.  

     So yeah, we had a pretty unexciting week this week.  Just another week of being a missionary!  So see you guys next week!...  Not.  Jaja but really, nothing really happened thinking right now, but I´ll find something to write about, don´t worry!

     I´ll tell you guys about our best lesson this week.  It was with a 25 year old lady named Esperanza.  We taught her about the Restoration last week, so we decided to follow up on the BoM.  And she loved it.  I felt so good during the lesson, and I felt the Spirit working through me to tell her what she needed.  Wow, there just aren´t words to really express the feeling you feel when the Spirit works through you.  But it is really something else.  So we ended the lesson, and she seemed really excited to read it.  But the thing is, we have a lot of people that say that.  But it was true!  We left, but my comp forgot something in the house.  So we went back, and the door was open and we saw her reading!  YES!  KEEP ON READING!  I loved it!  So we will see how that goes.

     We kind of had a rough week with Carla, who came to church last week.  She was out of town the beginning of the week, and when we passed by on Friday for a cita that we set up, she ended up having to leave.  So we ended up passing Sunday morning to take her to church, and the problems continued.  The light and water went out for all of our part of Xela, so they had been without light/water since Saturday afternoon.  And she basically told us that she wouldn´t go with us because the light was out...  Curse you Satan!  Dang it, that was a hard blow to us, but it happens, and we just have to keep going strong.  We´ll go back with her to see how things go.

     Elder Calero baptized a grandma and her daughter before I came.  So now we have been really trying to bring the whole family into the church.  And we made a lot of progress this week.  We ended up going 7 of us to see the sights of the temple!  There is a special spirit there, and we wanted them to feel it.  So on Saturday night, we made our way up there.  Well, we made a big mistake.  We didn´t take in account of the Relief Society meeting that same day, so when we got there, the gates were closed because of said meeting.  But we didn´t go all the way there for nothing!  So we sat down on the grass and just talked about the temple with them, with the temple all lit up in the background.  And man was that a good talk!  

     The temple really is a special place, and I feel really bad that I didn´t take full advantage of being in Utah, where according to the members here, "There are temples on every block!"  Which is somewhat true.  But I am going to really make the temple bigger in my life when I get back!  And all of you that can, go to the temple!  Always have it in your sights!

     Guatemala is weird, just saying it now.  I think that I´ve gotten so used to it though, because I don´t really see how it is weird.  But I had the sudden thought come to me one day.  I was standing in an old beat up school bus, jam packed with people, squished between an old man with about 4 teeth and a cowboy hat, and an old corte lady that only speaks K´iche´, with a chicken in her hand.  And then it hit me, wow, that´s just weird.  I wish I would have gotten a picture of it!  Classic.

     Guys, the scriptures are awesome.  Really make it an effort to read AND study them every day.  That is one thing that I love about the mission, the time to study.  There are so many words of comfort, happiness, excitement, it just has it all.  Especially the BoM.  Wow, what an amazing book.  I can´t get enough of it!

      GENERAL CONFERENCE!!!  WOO HOO!!!  Be stoked.  Prepare yourselves to be absolutely enlightened by living profets!  

     There y´all go, my week in a nutshell.  Not really the best week in the mission, but it´s a week in the mission, so it´s special.  Really though, I don´t think we realize how great of an opportunity this really is.  And sometimes I forget it too.  But there really is no greater work, and no other work that brings so much satisfaction.  Hope on.  Journey on.  Until Next Time!

     - Elder Stuart

     D y C 30:6  I really am serving among the Lamanites!