Mother´s Day!

     Hello Family!  And happy Mother´s Day to all you mothers out there.  You all are such a blessing in my life, thanks for everything that you guys do!  Things here in Colonia are so great.  We´ve been experiencing so many blessings here, and I feel so blessed to be able to finish off my mission here.  

     This week, I´ve realized that when we work hard, blessings always come.  Sometimes they aren´t immediate, and sometimes they aren´t in the way were were thinking of.  But they always come.  I´ll tell you guys why I´ve realized that.  We are working a lot with Elena and her family, and things have been interesting with them.  They´re coming to church, but are having a hard time accepting the Gospel.  BUT!  Because of them, we have been led to their families, friends, and who knows what.

     One of those people is Aura, who I told you all about last week.  She´s so pilas.  She´s coming to church, reading the BoM, and even giving us references.  There´s a possibility that she could be baptized this week, on the 17th, but if not, it will be next week.  She literaly just fell out of nowhere to come find us, and now look at what is going to happen.  

     Another one of those people is Rut.  She´s a friend on Elena, who has a lot of problems in her house.  She always tells us, "When you both come to teach Elena, call me so I can come over."  And one of the best things about her is that she understands everything so well.  With a little more time, I´m sure that she is going to love the church, and be baptized one day.

     I think one of the most important aspects of missionary work is talking to everyone that you can.  You never know when someone is looking for the truth, or just ready to hear the Gospel.  But if we never talk to anyone, we´ll never know.  Maybe the majority of the people won´t accept it right away, but some seeds can be planted for future missionary work.  This Gospel has to get to all four corners of the earth one way or another, and it´s our job to do it.

     Lastly, something else that I feel like talking about this week is how key the BoM is in this church.  The mission is really stressing that we make sure that every member of the church (recent converts too) is reading the BoM.  They have challenged us to ask every time that we see someone, "What part of the BoM are you at?"  When someone really has a testimony of the BoM, they almost never fall away.  And that´s something that we need to focus on here in Guatemala.

     I absolutely loved talking to you guys yesterday.  I loved seeing you guys, and talking just like good old times.  (That makes me sound like I´ve been away fo sooooo long...)  But I can´t wait to be able to do that every day in about two months.  You guys are really special to me, and I´m so grateful that we are able to spend all of eternity together.  You guys are the best.  I love you all so much.

     As for now, it´s just time to keep pushing forward, diligently and inteligently, in the Lord´s Vineyard.  Everyone that has time, go to LDS.org, find the spanish hymnbook, and put hymn #88 in Google Translate.  Until next time!

     - Elder Stuart

     

     P.S. The scripture for this week is kind of long.  Read Alma 60 and 61, and think about how we should act when someone complains against us when it´s not justified.  Especially Alma 61:9

Great Mother's Day Weekend!

    Hello Family!  Well, here we are talking again since yesterday!  Although it isn`t the same, we will just have to wait until Christmas for that again!  But for now, here is just a regular email for you all!  But seriously, I can`t tell you how awesome it was to see you guys and to be able to talk to you guys!  I love you guys so much, and it really meant a lot to me that you talked to me the whole time!  You really made me excited about this work all over again, and now I just want to work really hard!  Thank you for that!

     (Now, I`ve basically told you all that has happened to me, but I`ll just put it in writing for you guys!)

     So first things first, something really cool that happened this week.  It was an amazing experience!  We have been teaching a man that owns a little store for a while now, but he hasn`t been progressing, and he doesn`t seem too interested, so we were thinking about dropping him.  But we decided to go one last time to see him, and good thing we did!  We were introducing the BoM, but he didn`t want anything to do with it.  We were going to leave, but a man who was in the store, listening to us, stopped us from leaving and wanted to know more about the BoM.  We were shocked, but we recovered to be able to say that of course we could tell him more!  We have been teaching him ever since, and he even came to chruch this Sunday!  Miracles do exist, but we need to put in the work to be able to be in the right place!

     We celebrated Mother`s Day on Saturday with the whole Brach, which was way fun!  The Elder`s Quorum made a huge lunch for all the mom`s so that they could enjoy a day off, and still have a good meal!  And it was a REALLY good meal that we made!  (I should have taken a picture of the final result...  Dang it!  Haha)  Afterwards, we had all the mom`s play games with us, like musical chairs, races, and stuff like that!  And no mom was excluded!  We had the newest mom racing along the 80 year old mom, and it was awesome!  We even had some investigators that came!  But, who wouldn`t want a free lunch and to play some games?!?  A successful day for us! 

     Remember the man I told you about whose wife died last week?  We have been working really hard with him, becuase he is really struggling.  He hasn`t come to church for the past two weeks, which really worries me.  I keep thinking about a phrase that I heard in General Conference.  (But I can`t remember which one... I think it was Elder Andersen that said it)  He said: "During a hard time, the last thing you should do is leave the protection of the church.  It`s like leaving the storm cellar as a tornado is approaching!"  (Or something like that..)  That is really good advice, and I hope that you all remember that saying!

     Not much else...  We are working really hard to have our investigators come to church, which is one of the most important things for them.  Because if they come to church, that shows that they are willing to make commitments, and that they will progress.  I never really realized before my mission how important our meetings are, but now I really do!  This is one of the biggest reasons why I love being a missionary, because I am really appreciating a lot more of my life back home!  

     I need to thank you guys again for talking to me yesterday!  I really love this work, and although I am away from you guys, I know that I am doing the right thing!  This is the most important thing that I could be doing with my life right now, and I love it!  I it so amazing to see people change for the better, and even more amazing to know that I was a part of helping them!  There is a lot of hard work in being a missionary, but the satisfaction that comes from it is DEFINITELY worth it!  I`m so grateful for the chance I have to be here!

     So yeah, just another week passing by!  I hope that you will all have a good week this week!  I know that I will, so I hope that you guys have one too!  Love you all so much, and thank you always for your support!  Love you all!   Until Next Time!

     - Elder Stuart

     P.S.  The scripture for this week is Alma 10:11  (I like substituting where he talks about Alma for the gospel.)  It talks a lot about family, and  I really am grateful for my family!!!  :)

Photos!

Last week, two missionaries from the branch that I am working in got back from their missions!  And we just happened to pass by when they got to Chinique!  So of course I took a photo with them!

We celebrated both the birthday of Elder Berrios´ Girlfriend and Cinco de Mayo this day!  We baked a cake and everything in the church, it was fun!

It was absolutely DOWNPOURING this day, so of course I had to take a picture, enjoying the rain!  (At least it wasn´t snowing...)

We were helping out a member in the forest when we saw something on the ground.  We got closer, and we found it was a baby owl!  How crazy is that???  So now the member family is taking care of it.  But still, crazy!

We bought some tortillas for the Mother´s Day Activity that we had in the church, and I was the one who had to carry it to the church.  So I decided to carry it like a pure Guatemalan!  (They all carry baskets and all sorts of things on their heads like this!)

Part of the Mother´s Day Activity!  The Elders of the Elders Quorum made a bunch of food on the BBQ, and it was way good!

The actividad!  All the material that you can see the majority of the ladies wearing is the "corte" that I was telling you guys about.

Hey!  It´s you guys!  Haha  (Ignore the big fat forehead in the corner...)