Photos!

From left to right:  Me, Elder García, and Elder Calero

Just thought you´d all like to see all the ties that I´ve accumulated on my mission.  I started out with 7 ties, and now I´m up to 46!  Haha but that´s what happens when you can buy two ties here for less than $1!  It´s crazy!

So just walking down Xela for P-Day, and I see this, which is the walkway to cross the street.  What happened here?  Good Question!

Another week in Chiquilajá!‏

     Hello Family!  I hope that you all had a good week this week!  We had a fairly interesting week this week, so I´ll try and let you all know about what happened.

     Well, first things first, I´m finally out of a trio.  Elder García is leaving for his mission tomorrow.  So now it is just going to be Elder Calero and I.  Which is going to be nice, because working with three people on the mission is just weird.  Also, Elder García had kind of lost his desire to serve, because he wasn´t in his own mission.  But now he´s excited to go, and I´m happy for him.  I hope that he will find that desire again in is own mission!  But now I´m just back to a regular, two-person companionship.  (Thank goodness...)

     Well, here in Guatemala, especially here in Xela, September is by far the hardest month in the mission, because it´s independence month here.  (Independence day is September 15 here.)  Also, there is this huge fair that comes to Xela for about 3 weeks.  So basically everyone is partying, celebrateing, waking up in the streets, and all that fun stuff.  So our leaders have really stressed on starting now so that we can baptize in September.

     Which we have been taking to heart!  We have two sure dates for the 21 of September.  One of them is Wendy, the granddaughter of Martha, the recent convert.  Another one is a young man named Brando.  They are both willing to be baptized, so that´s good.  The only thing we need them to do now is to come to church continually.  They both weren´t able to come to church this week, because Wendy´s great-grandma got really sick, so they went to go visit them, and Brando´s mom didn´t give him permission to go...  So that sucked, but we have talked to both of them, and they said that they are planning on coming next week for sure.  

     I haven´t really realized the importance of member work until I got here.  In Momos and in Quiché, there really weren´t enough members to work with us, and even less who were willing to help us.  But here there are a lot more to help us out.  And we have really been trying to stress member lessons, because there really is nothing else like them.  You can have two strange people, one of them a Gringo, and the people don´t want to hear anything from us.  But when we bring someone who lives walking distance from them, it makes them think that we are actually normal!  It´s great working with them!

     On wednesday we had a Multi-Zone Conference with all the zones from Xela.  President Bautista talked to us, and I don´t know what it is, but I always feel so pumped when he talks!  It´s always good for us missionaries to reclaim the excitement that we had at the beginning.

     Not much else, happened this week.  Just keeping on working for the Lord!  I love this work, and we just need to work hard to make us all happy!  Haha I love you all so much, and thanks for all the support!  Until Next Time!

     - Elder Stuart

     P.S. Abraham 2:16.  Think about it a little bit... ;)

In Chiquilajá!

     Hello Family!  What´s up everybody?  I hope that you all are having a great week so far, and that you all had a good week last week!  

     Well, this Tuesday were changes, so I´m out of Chinique, and now I´m in Chiquilajá!  It´s part of Xela, so it´s somewhat city (Which is weird for me...) but it´s still the outskirts of Xela, so it´s still pretty small.  I´ve liked my time here so far, and I´m looking forward to serve here longer!  Also weird, I´m working in a ward for the first time.  I´ve been in branches my whole mission, so this should be nice.  About 140 members come to church every sunday, so hopefully that means a lot of people who are willing to help us out.  Also, we get lunch and dinner about 4-5 times a week, so I´m gonna get good food!  haha I might reach the 6´3, 200 lb frame that Jeffrey claims me to be after all!  But more than anything, I like it here.

     Get this, you know how I was so stoked to leave my trio and be in a regular companionship?...  Well, not quite...  I´m in a trio here!  I´m with Elder Calero, from Nicaragua, who just finished off his training, and Elder García, who´s from the capital here.  Elder García is just a temporary missionary waiting for his visa so that he can go to his actual mission in Venezuela.  So we might not be much time with him, but who knows.  So yeah, back in a trio...  Joy.

     Last Monday was absolutely hectic, let me tell you now.  When I left internet, the secretaries of the mission called us and told us that we needed to help them load up some stuff they were going to take from Chinique all the way to Xela.  Well, they wasted so much time, that I missed the last bus that goes from Chinique to Quiché.  So we had to ask a ride from a member at 8:00 at night, and thank goodness he said yes.  But that meant riding in the back of a pickup at night to Quiché with all my suitcases.  It was crazy.  Kind of too stressful of a P-Day for me.  But we are all good now.

     Things are going good here in Chiquilajá.  The elders baptized four people the week before I came, but for family reasons, two of them weren´t able to come to church to be confirmed... So we ended up confirming them this Sunday, which was cool.  Even better, Martha, the mom of the family who got baptized, brought two granddaughters with her to church.  She wanted them to know about the church, so now we are going to teach them!  Awesome!

     Also, speaking of pilas members, Silvia, a 60 something year old recent convert of about a half a year, has been going out to contact on her own to find people for us to teach.  Can you say AWESOME?!?  Wow, she´s absolutely amazing for us.  There are some amazing people in the world, you know that?

     The only problem here is that the missionaries before were focusing so much on baptizing Martha and her family (which is great, don´t get me wrong) that we basically have nothing now.  So we´ve been searching out for the next people to be baptized!  

     I don´t know why, but I feel so excited to be out here in a new area.  I just feel so stoked to share this gospel with all the people here.  With the help of the Lord, I feel like I should be having success here.  I hope that this feeling continues for a long time!

     I´ve been reading a lot about the missionaries at the beginning of this dispensation.  They were so willing to sacrifice everything that they had, go through so many struggles, just to share the Gospel.  And now I´m doing the same thing.  I know for a fact that I don´t have the same urge as they did, but I´m working on it!

     If you want something that will blow your mind, let me share with you guys something I learned in personal study.  I was reading Elder Hollands General Conference talk from April "I Believe."  In the last paragraph, he says that he declares the words with the "More sure word of profecy."  I wasn´t sure what that was, so I looked it up.  Man, search that up, and it will blow your mind.

     About 30 minutes ago I had the chance to talk to some Gringas!  Well, kind of...  One was from Massechusetts, and the other was from London!  I saw them when we were buying food for the week, and I heard them talking in english.  I figured I didn´t want to miss this chance to talk to them, so I started talking to them.  And it´s not all because they were somewhat cute or anything... ;)  But long story short, the girl from London has heard a lot about missionaries before, so I ended up placing two BoM´s in the store!  It was weird talking about us in English, becasue I´m so used to it in Spanish.  But it was a cool experience!

     I ate McDonalds for the first time in the mission today for lunch.  Man, it might just be a lack of good ole American food for so long, but it was SO GOOD!  Man, Xela is a lot different than Quiché or Momos!

     So yeah, I ended up writing a lot this week, but it was worth it.  All in all, I´m enjoying my new area, and I´m ready to work here!  Wish me luck!  Until Next Time!

     - Elder Stuart

     P.S. D+C 1:4