November 18, 2013

Buenas!

This week went by SO FAST! I swear I was just emailing like yesterday. ANYWAY, SONIA AND PABLO GOT BAPTIZED ON SATURDAY!!! It was sooo cool. It was a crazy morning, I swear Satan works hardest on baptism and confirmation days. Sonia is the best person and was so excited and ready to be baptized. I was worried about Pablo getting baptized, that he wouldnt want to get in the water, but he was SO EXCITED too! When he came up out of the water, he had the most surprised, and excited look on his face! He's so funny. The baptism went really well, hermana nielsen and I sang a baptism primary song with the other hermanas that live with us, but i cant remember the name in english, Its the "i like to look for rainbows" song. The baptism reminded me why I am on a mission, it's amazing the change the gospel has in peoples lives. 

We went to a funeral this week of a member's dad, hermana nielsen had to play the piano. I hate funerals, PLEASE DONT DIE WHILE IM GONE!

Last sunday, a member of our ward told us he wanted to feed us that week, and we were like, yeah ok! ANd he was like, ok i'll invite Oscar. Now, there are two Oscars in our ward, a middle aged Oscar, and a 6 months off his mission Oscar. We had no idea which one he meant. He ended up taking us to Dominos with young Oscar, and it was really weird. I think he was trying to set him up with one of us.. people here.

Today for pday we went to the Quetzal refuge. A quetzal is a famous bird here, and several things are named after it, like the money (quetz) and a big city, Quetzaltenango, and even the boy scouts. They dont become eagle scouts, they become Quetzal Scouts (im not sure if thats true, someone could have been lying to me). Anyway, Quetzals (ket-sals) are a big deal, so we went to the Quetzal Refuge today as a zone. We had to hike for a while in this jungle, which was super fun, and we actually saw a Quetzal! (everytime missionaries have gone they havent seen one) They are SO beautiful and have long feathers, look it up. There were also waterfalls and scary bridges and all sorts of jungle things, I love Guatemala! We lost some of the elders on our hike back, and they literally got lost for a few hours. I've learned to have so much patience with these baby elders. 

I'm becoming used to weird things here. I was going to make a list in my journal of weird things, but now I cant even think of any! Whats wrong with me? I cant wait to train a gringa one day so i remember all of the things so i can write them down.

I found a scripture the other week that i LOVE. Its in the Bible, in John 14:18, Its when Christ is talking to the twelve apostles and is hinting that he's about to die. He says "I will not leave you comfortless; I will come to you." I LOVE IT! Because its true, He won't leave any of us comfortless. ALL we have to do is seek for him. Why do we make it so hard? Heavenly Father and Christ promise us several times in the Bible and Book of Mormon that they will love us, and we just need to come unto them. I am so thankful to be a missionary right now. I am so grateful for the relationship I get to build with God, I am loving Guatemala more and more everyday and the people here. 

love you all! :)


Last weeks email that didn't go thru...
Happy Birthday Helen and Dick! I wish i was home to celebrate!!

Last week we got to do such a fun service project! The zone leaders have an investigator with property farther up the mountains and he needed his corn folded. (It literally means what it sounds like. we went to a corn field and folded the corn stalks in half. it dries it out)We went to an area about 20 minutes away to his other house that he rents out to the cutest famly! They were so fun. Their house is one room i think, and they live in the middle of NOWHERE. It was so much fun, the people here are so amazing and such hard workers. The other day we helped a lady carry her bags up a hill, and we each only carried one, and they were so heavy! She was carrying both by herself and i was struggling with just one. Why is north america so lazy?

Hermana Nielsen and I were contacting the other day, and we knocked on the door or a reference we got. They have this cute dog that hops on his hind legs so he can see us over the little fence, so i was talking to the dog, then looking at the street, then went to look at the dog again but this lady was standing there! It scared me so bad i jumped, and said "oh my gosh you scared me" in english though.. so obviously she didnt understand. She looked SUPER familiar but i couldnt think of why. We asked her to see the lady that lived there but the lady "wasnt home". We walked away and hermana nielsen recognized her too. I thought we had seen her in a different house and hna nielsen thought we had seen her in the street before. We went to contact someone else who also "wasnt home" so we went to pass for an investigator who lived on the same street. We knocked on the door and THE SAME LADY from the other house answered! It was soo funny. we were like "um.. is Gabby home?" She told us no and we walked away and just started laughing. Apparentlty this lady works at both houses and can teleport! We ran to the house of the reference where we had seen her 10 minutes earlier, just to see if she would be there again, but she wasnt.

I always forget to pray when I eat somwhere thats not a memeber7investigators house or not my own. We went to Reu this week for a meeting, and I got to hangout with Hermana Minnick the whole time! THey always feed the people in the meeting and their poor comps (minnick and I) who have to wait. We got our food and brought it to the room we were waiting in, and started eating. Then 2 other hermanas come in with theirs and start praying and hermana minnick and i just look at each other with an "oh crap" expression and close our eyes and counted their prayer for us too. Speaking of, Latinos use words from the US here like "crap" and "super". Its so funny.

Thursday was Halloween, and we had a zone meeting. so we started the meeting at 8, so we had time to carve pumpkins after! I didnt know they had pumkins here.  It was so fun, the latinos had never carved pumkins before, they loved it. Afterwards we watched Nightmere before Christmas. Im not sure if thats a halloween movie or a christmas movie. It was a really fun day, but the next day is the holiday for catholics called The Day of the Dead. They paint the graves of their family that has passed on the 31st, then visit them on the 1st and bring the dead people food and im not quite sure what else. EVERYONE (well, all the catholics) get super drunk and close all the stores and go to the cemetaries. Its a really interesting holiday. EVeryone who isnt catholic goes on vacation or flies kites. EVERYONE is flying kites right now, its so funny, they are selling them everywhere and you always see kites in the sky. I guess they always do it in novemeber. We went with our ward mission leader, his family, and the other elders to fly kites (NO ONE was home for us to teach). THe kites here are so different! We went to this big field that a bunch of other people also went to to fly the kites. The family was super nice and bought us a pastery someone was selling there. It was SO DISGUSTING! It was fried bread with gooey stuff inside, but i think they used the same pan with the same greece they made breakfast with, because it tasted AWFUL! Afterwards, my stomach hurt really bad, with something we like to call "boo". Its where you wish you just had to throw up cause you can do that anywhere, but no, you need a bathroom. Of course we were in this random field in the middle of nowhere for about TWO more hours, and i just sat there ready to die any minute now. We FINALLY got home and i used our bathroom and it was fine. LAter we were out proselyting (trying, no one was home) and my stomach started to hurt again. I usually dont mind living 20 minutes from our area, but when you have boo, and you have to walk home, its reallly hard. If you walk to slow, you'll never make it home in time, but if you walk too fast, you'll need a bathroom faster. it was the hardest, longest walk of my life! We got home and decided to stay in for the rest of the night. Note to self: dont eat pasteries in the kite field.

I have balance issues. Every monday when we play sports as a zone and i try to turn, i end up falling. Today we played soccer, and i was killing the latinos, it was great. Until no one was near me and i turned around fast and flat out slid accross the field. Later some elders were throwing around the football and one smacked me right in the eye. It was a really embarassing day.

We only have our 5 investigators still. THey are so awesome and are so excited to be baptized. The Lord works in mysterious ways. When you humble yourself and follow his commandments, the blessings just pour in. I didnt bring the scriptures i read this week that i wanted to share because i didnt realize we were coming to write! Next week.

We had a movie night with our ward and watched The Croods. has anyone seen it? ITS SO FUNNY! not in spanish, who knows what it was saying in spanish. Hna neilsen and i made popcorn the whole time so we didnt get to watch it, but we got permission to bring it home and watch it onthe dvd player we use for training dvds. AND IT HAD THE OPTION TO WATCH IT IN ENGLISH! what a blessing. its such a funny movie and we had a really good turn out.

not much is new. i learn like one new word a day. slow but steady! 

Mom, I got my bday package 2 weeks ago!!  I started to open it, then saw a clown bday card and realzied it was for my bday so closed it up, bought wrapping paper, and wrapped it all cute :) I also hid it so I dont have to stare at it for another month and a half.

ALso, I LOVE the padded socks you sent me!! THANK YOU!!!!