Photos!

This is a member and I going to a cita.  He´s really cool, so I had to take a picture!

Does this not look like the perfect scene out of a scary movie?  We were walking to a cita at night, and I just looked to our right, and bam, that was the view I saw.  An abandoned corn field with a full moon.  It was sweet.

Birthday cake smashing! 

Loving Guatemala!

   Hello Family!  Well, I just spent another week of my life in a foreign country.  I love thinking of that every now and then.  Why else would I come to Guatemala if it weren´t for this Gospel?  That´s why I love it so much, being able to learn more about myself and at the same time helping others come unto Christ.  There really is no better combination.

     First things first, we had changes this week... Well, kind of.  The mission had changes, and we didn´t.  It was really weird, because we were expecting Elder Calero to go, because he has four changes here.  But nope!  We are still together.  Apparently he still has something to do here that he hasn´t done yet.  So we´re on it!

     Well, this week didn´t really go according to plan.  That´s the thing about the mission, learning what to do when things don´t go your way.  You can either be like "Dang, our cita with that investigator fell, now what are we going to do?"  Or, like I learned this week, we can say "Well, our cita fell, let´s go see what we can find out here!"  Two really different points of view that really make a difference.  And we tried to make the best of what we could.  And we did!  We found the most new investigators our of the whole zone by a long shot, and it came from not letting a few things go wrong get in the way!  If anything, the mission has taught me to look for the best in everything.

     We are still working with German, but the hard thing with him is that he is losing his desire to learn more, so he really isn´t putting in his part.  And we can only do so much without his help.  So we are praying for him and making sure that he will continue to fulfill our invintations!

     We have a really cool family that just needs this Gospel!  Antonio and his family of five are such a great family.  We are really working hard to resolve some dudas they have, but the biggest one we have now is that Antonio is working on Sundays, so he can´t come to church.  And the family doesn´t come without him...  But, he is going to finish up his project this week, so we are really hoping they can come next week!

     For all you guys who aren´t on the mission right now, the best thing you can do is go out with the missionaries.  It really doesn´t matter who you are!  There is nothing like a member testifying about what we are saying.  Most of the mindsets here are like "What do you Gringos have to say to me?"  But when someone who lives down the street from them tells them the same thing, they really start to believe it!  So help the missionaries out!

     I did a lot of thinking about why I was sent to Guatemala on my mission.  Like most other people, I have a lot of defects.  One of the biggest ones is having patience with others.  But thinking about it, the Lord really knows why I´m here.  With all the love in the world, the people here have a lot of issues.  And one of the biggest things we have to deal with as missionaries are the people here.  But I really feel like I´ve grown so much, I feel like I am a better man.  So the Lord knows why we are where we are, even when we don´t know as much.  It was a good reflexion time for me.

     That´s about it for this week.  It was pretty good, but there is room for improvement.  So here´s to it!  Until next time!

     - Elder Stuart

      P.S. DyC 64:33

Photos!

My district!

Yesterday we celebrated a birthday with the coolest family here, the Ochoa family!

What A Week!

     Hello Family!  Wow, we had a really good week this week, and most of the good just came from one family!  Funny how that works...  

     First things first, changes are tomorrow.  We usually find out what the changes are on Sunday night, but something had happened in the mission home, so now the changes that we do know of aren´t sure, and there might be some more changes that we haven´t heard of.  The thing is, Elder Calero, who has 4 changes here and 2 with me, hasn´t been told he is leaving yet.  With almost every missionary, two changes is max with one companion, and having more than four changes is really rare.  But as of now, we haven´t been told he is leaving yet.  So we´ll see how that goes!  Either way, I´m fine with what happens.  (Although I´d like a change.  Three months with someone 24/7 is a TON for any person...)  But we´ll see what God has to say!

     But yeah, I´ve got to tell you about this family.  We had found them a while back, like a month ago.  But they weren´t progressing much, so we went to one last cita with them to see if we should continue with them or not.  So we went this Tuesday, and just out of nowhere, they told us that they had plans to go to church with us last Sunday.  But they didn´t end up coming, because it was late.  But we were super stoked that they wanted to come, so we talked about how going to church can help anyone feel the Spirit.  So we made sure they were coming to church.  The thing is, Antonio (The dad) got called on Saturday and was told that he had to come in to work on Sunday.  So long story short, they weren´t able to come.  But we talked to them, and they are already making plans to come next week!  So we are looking really good with them.

     German is coming along nicely.  We´ve found out a couple of his doubts, and we are working on getting them cleared up.  The thing is, it´s really hard for him to come to church with us, because he is only working here, and lives on the coast.  But we are working so that he can go through with his fecha on the 23rd of November!

     This week, I´ve really been able to tell when I have the Spirit with me and when I don´t.  The thing is, being a missionary absolutely sucks when you don´t have the Spirit.  But when you do, WOW, it is absolutely amazing!  There really is no way to explain it.  But I´ve really been trying to have the Spirit with me always, because there is no other option.  And when we have the spirit, everything just goes better.

     Not much else for this week.  I guess we´ll see how things go with changes tonight!  But whatever happens, I´m stoked to work more here in Chiquilajá!  Until next time!

     - Elder Stuart

     P.S. 2 Corithians 4:8,9 and 16.

Photos!

I don´t know how well you can see it, but just on your normal bus ride, you have a basket full of live chickens clucking like no ones business.  Man, I love me some Guatemala!

An awesome view of the sunset.  It looked like there was a column of light just bursting out of the clouds!  It looked so cool.

A member asked us to help her by doing service.  Little did we know what we were going to do until we got to the house, and saw the mountain of clothes...

We did service by hauling dirt onto a flatbed truck...  Fun times!

We ate Mexican Tortas on last week, and man were they so good!  

Lightning Picture!!!  Try not to be too awestruck.

As we were talking to a member, her daughter was just having fun staying like this.  She stayed there like that for a good 10 minutes.

Another Week

    Hello Family!  We all just enjoyed another wonderful week of life.  Think about it, and how blessed we all are to be here again.  Makes you think, right?  What an amazing Heavenly Father we all have, who has given us day after day, so many miracles.  We should all be just a little more thankful for all that we have.  Now that I got all the deep thinking out of the way I´ll start with my week!.... haha.

     Things are going really smoothly with German.  We are teaching him about every other day, and he is really receptive with all that we teach him.  Unfortunately, he had to go back to the coast this weekend, so he couldn´t assist church.  But I´m not too worried about it.  He said that he was going to miss coming to church.  So yeah, we are going with him tonight, and we are going to make sure that his fecha goes through for the 23rd.

     I´ve got to tell you all about a really cool experience that I realized about how God puts people in our path.  So about 3 weeks ago we found this woman named Nelly washing clothes outside of her house.  We went to go help her, and we put another cita for a couple days later.  Well, when we went, Nelly wasn´t home, but we talked with her 25 year old daughter Samantha, and ended up putting a cita with her for another day.  We went, and had a lesson with her, but then for a week or so they weren´t home.  So yesterday, we just happen to pass by, and find Samantha at home.  We decided to come back later on in the same day, so we went.  As we were about to start the lesson, Samantha´s brother Pedro walks out of a room and goes to the bathroom.  We wait for him, and when he walks out, we ask him if we wants to listen to us.  He was hesitant, but eventually sat down.  And thank goodness he did!  We taught the BoM with them, and he was really interested, more so than any other person there!  It was just way cool to think about all we went through to find him.  And here´s to hoping that he continues to be positive!

     (I hope you can sort out that last paragraph!)

      Funny thing, while we were teaching Pedro, he approached the BoM like a college essay.  He started talking about how it had a good introduction and conclusion, and how the hypothesis was good.  Then he asked about the purpose of the BoM.  Well, we ended up telling him that it was more spiritual than like school, and he will receive his answer by praying.  But it was really interesting hearing that point of view about the BoM!

     We had some really cool experiences showing what being a child of God really means to people.  We asked some people, "What does being a child of God mean to you?"  Most people didn´t know what to say.  But when we read Romans 8:16-17 with it, we realize our great potential as children of a God.  Also, if y´all have time, watch the mormon message "Earthly Father, Heavenly Father."  It´s a good one.

     Halloween passed by this week, but it´s pretty uneventful here.  Although I did buy a bag of candy and passed it out to kids that we knew.  Thinking about it though, that was sure to cause some thoughts.  "Hey look, that strange Gringo is giving candy to kids!"  And so on... But it was fun.

     We ate a food called Fiambre this week.  It is really interesting...  You basically just take every piece of meat imaginable, a bunch of vegitables, and some cheese, and throw it on a plate.  I didn´t end up taking a picture of it, but I should have.  It was just.... weird.  I can´t think of a better word for it.

     A pretty eventful week this week, but that just means more things to do as a missionary, right?  I know that sometimes I don´t realize it as much as I should, but being a full time missionary is absolutely amazing!  I love being a missionary!  There is no other work so satisfying upon the earth.  And I am a part of it.  What a blessing!  Until Next Time!

     - Elder Stuart

     P.S. Philippians 3:13-14  Always look forward.

Great Week in the Land of the Lamanites!

    Hello Family!  How y´all doin?!?  (I don´t know why, but I always like typing with a country feel to it.)  Man, did we have a good week this week.  It just made me love the mission that much more!  It is absolutely incredible being a missionary.  Really thinking about it, who else would spend two years of their lives, right in the middle of everything, just to go talk to some random people in a faraway country about God?  Mormon Missionaries, that´s who!  Yeah boi.

     It is amazing seeing the energy of the ward here change recently.  I am seeing a lot more members taking the initiative recently.  For example, yesterday, we had FIVE member present lessons.  I don´t know about the other missions, but for here, that is really good.  Members were willing to go with us to citas, do divisions with us, and just help us out.  Man, the missionary work really changes when members help out.  (Hint Hint for those at home...)

     We were really blessed this week with something I would call a miracle.  On Saturday, we had been working hard all week, and we had some really good lessons, but we had yet to feel something really special.  So we went to this one guy we found this week named German.  We gave him the first lesson like usual on Tuesday, and we came back on Saturday.  

     We asked him the usual questions about his commitments, like if he had read the BoM, and prayed.  Well, he told us that he read what we left for him, and then wanted to read some more, so he did.  At this point, I was feeling really excited, but trying to keep it cool, I asked him if he had the chance to pray about it.  He said yes, so I asked him what he felt.  And the answer is the answer every missionary wants to hear.  "I just feel chills, you know?  Like I had a fire going on in my chest."  Is that perfect or what?  Wow...  WE were seriously so blessed to find him.  He came to church yesterday and everything, and even said yes to being baptized on the 23 of November.  It really was just amazing to live it.  What an experience.  So we will be definitely following up with him to make sure he gets baptized!  

     That story just goes to show you about the power of the BoM.  We should all try to use it more in our teachings, and in our lifes.  It really is the word of God.

     Just to talk more about Guatemala, Jeffrey has been saying that some spooky things have been going down.  It´s true.  Guatemala, and my mission in particular, is famous for it´s "black magic."  For example.  Yesterday we were going to visit someone at their house.  But when we got closer, we heard a bunch of shouting and people yelling "Get out!  Get out!"  So we were like what the heck?  But we knocked anyways.  A 12 year old boy answered and said, "Now isn´t a good time, we are casting out a demon!"  And shut the door.  So yeah, we just walking in on a group of people (including a evangelical pastor) casting out a demon.  Yeah, Guatemala´s weird.

      But yeah, it´s been a really good week, and I´m planning for an even better one this week!  Man do I love being a missionary!  Until next time!

     - Elder Stuart

     P.S. Read 2 Nefi 22.  It´s a great chapter.  Also 2 Nefi 25:23,26

Photos!

I love just the beauty of Guatemala.  This is one of the main streets here, just laced with corn stalks.  Love it!

We went and shucked some corn for service.  And man, was there a BUNCH of corn.  I guess that´s what being in Guatemala means, right?

Just Guatemala being beautiful. 

Me trying to be a Guatemalan and trying to carry everything on my head.  Jeffrey can attest to that!

Now THAT is how a Guatemalan does it!  (By the way, I had to be really sneaky with this photo, and it turned out awesome!)

Just more of Guatemala being amazing.

Guatemala!

Hello Family!  Here we are, yet another week in the mission!  And man do I love being here.  Guatemala is absolutely incredible.  Where else are you able to say that you are working among the Lamanites?  Not very many other places.  Guatemala is amazing, I love it here.  The place is just straight up beautiful.  The people have really touched me, and I have developed a love for everyone here.  Which is good as a missionary, right?  Right.  

     As for this week, well, it had it´s up and downs, but when doesn´t it?  But it just made me really appreciate missionary work that much more.  Especially because our ward is being revamped.  Our ward didn´t really like helping us that often before, but in the past two weeks, we´ve got a new bishopbric, and they are super pilas.  Also we´ve got a new Ward Mission Leader, who has always helped us out, but now that´s his calling!  This Sunday, you could just feel the excitement in the air about missionary work, and I love it!

     We had an AMAZING day on Friday, no joke.  We put some really high goals for the day, and we did our best to fulfill every one.  We started off the day fasting, really wanting to be in tune with the Spirit.  And it worked!  We just felt guided to go where we should go, and we hit every one of our goals.  It was amazing, we would find people that would say "Good thing you came now, because I´m going to leave in a couple of minutes."  Or "When can you guys come back?"  Or like this one kid said, "I don´t want you guys to leave yet."  (Man I love little kids here.  So darn cute.)  But what an incredible day.  Just so satisfying getting in my bed at night and feeling like I did all I could that day.  Now, it´s just a matter of getting every day to be like that! ;)

     We are still struggling on getting our investigators to church.  I really feel like Satan tries his best on Sunday Mornings.  One thing comes up after another, and we are just really bummed.  We have awesome investigators, but we just need them to come to church, and we have yet to find the "click" we are looking for.  But it will come!

     The scriptures are amazing.  Just leave it at that.

     I think I have more to say, but my mind always goes blank when I sit down on the computer....  But I´ll just leave you guys with that!  Love you all!  Until next time!

      - Elder Stuart

     P.S. 2 Nefi 1:6  I feel more humbled about my call here to Guatemala every day!