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
