March 17, 2014

aye.. i know i say this every week, but seriously this week was sooooo crazy!!

I got to go on exchanges with my trainer Hna Nielsen for a day, that was fun. It was really weird speaking english, and i forgot how much attention two nortes get when they´re together. I hope i only have latina comps from here on out!

The next day I got really sick and was in the bathroom alllllll day for two days.. but i lost like 4 pounds!! :)

On Thursday someone asked me if i was 16, my comp said no, then she asked if i was 14.. do i look 14?

On Saturday... several interesting things happened. In the morning, i decided to clean my toothbrush by boiling it in water. At 8 am, i unplugged the stove because it had boiled long enough, then went to do personal study.. during personal study we smelt something burning, it smelled horrible, (people always burn their trash outside and it smells soo bad!) At 9 i went into the kitchen to get some water, and saw the pot smoking, i run over to find the water had evaporated and my toothbrush melted to the bottom!! Hna Gertrudis got a kick out of this because 1. she had never heard of anyone boiling their toothbrush, and 2. my toothbrush was melted! Her laugh is soo funny, i wish i could send the videos!! 

On Saturday, Ana Banana was baptized! I am still kind of shocked, I was pretty positive she would back out at any minute, because she has been afraid of baptism her whole life, but she made it!! That was awesome.

The night before, the zone leaders informed us they didnt have any clothes for anas baptism, so saturday morning we took her to the Mega Paca (DI) to find a white skirt and white shirt, we also bought her a cute dress for her confirmation Sunday. About 4 hours later we went back to her house to pick her up.. we waited for about 30 minutes for her, i thought she ran away! But she didnt, and all was well :) After her baptism, we gave her a hymn book we had in the house, that she used to sing the last hymn. We couldnt find the page the hymn was on, it was hymn 198, but it wasnt the same song everyone else was singing. then we looked at the hymnbook of hna gertrudis, and hers was 198 too... then i thought, oh no, we gave her an old hymn book that doesnt have alll the hymns!! Then I realized her hymn book was in english... haha OOPS!

I am sooo thankful for this gospel! I feel like people who dont have testimonies should serve a mission so they should gain one, talking to people here about their lives and religions has helped me realize how badly the world needed Christs gospel restored to the earth. There are soo bçmany people out there who think they know the church, and doubt it. They dont know anything because they havent truly lived the gospel of Christ. I know  with out a doubt this gospel is true, and I am SO glad to be here in hot, rainy Guatmemala!

pic 1and 2 This is Carlito, the nephew of Ana. He LOVES the canche (im the canche). He is always so sad when i leave, but when i come, he wont come near me! I forced him to take a picture with me

pic 3. we made pupsas with people from the ward the other day!! 

oh i almost forgot, something to add to the crazy week. Last wedneday, we visited Ana, and I was able to talk to her 12 year old brother. Hes kind of a rebel, what when i talked to him he said he wanted to change, and agreed to come to church this week. I invited him to the youth activity that night too, because ana and a girl from church was about to leave for it. He declined my offer. I explained why he needed to go, and that he needed better friends, and that he would have a good time, but he still didnt want to go. he said "next week" and "i will go to church sunday". I recognized his answers, cause he was being me in high school! I knew that when i started to try to convince him to go, that he had won. i also knew that he would never go if he didnt go that night. he decided not to go after i argued with him for about 10 minutes. i was so mad at him, i didnt look at him for the rest of the time we were there ( i can get away with this cause he has a crush on me, dont worry im not burning the bridges!) But i was furious because i knew he would never go. Hes 12 and already needs to change his life around!

Later, we went to the house of the old man who doesnt like missionaries, but decided whe liked me and my comp. We had a lesson planned with him for Wednesday night, but when we went over to teach him, he went in his room to watch TV and wouldnt come out, just like he would do to all the other missionaries. I had just gone through this with the little brother of Ana, I wasnt about to do it again! I asked his wife if i could enter into the room, and she said yes, So i went him and found him lying on a bed, watching some western. I told him to get up, and he said "no, another day, after the movie" I told him no, that he told us we could come this evening at this time, and he just kept saying, "no, another day you can come back". I was so mad. I told him, Hermano, we came over tonight to teach you, you can watch this movie another day, now get up!" He said no, i looked down and saw his shoes on the floor, so i picked them up, put them on his feet, and pulled him put out of his bed. He came into the next room and we taught him about Christ.

We read a verse in 2nephi 9 about how Christ suffered the pains of every person and every living creature. We explained it, and talked to him about it, and explained that without Christ, we wouldnt have the opportunity to repent and return to heaven, and if we dont repent, we will literally go to hell. He asked what hell is like. (he sounds like you mom haha) We read another verse in the same chapter that explains hell, and endless fiery pit, satans slaves, etc. This verse seriously is so clear.

After we explained Christ´s suffereings, and hell, he said "your message is cute,  the bilble and everything is cute, but i dont want to go to any church., not the catholic, not the evangelica, not the mormon church, none." As he was talking to him I just stared at him and started crying really hard. He literally was denying Christ right infront of my face after we talked about how indebted we are to him. We was literally accepting hell after we explained what hell is like too. 

For reasons like this, the mission is so hard. Its plain in the bible, its even more plain in the Book of Mormon, the things we need to do in this life to live with GOD and JESUS CHRIST again. I know there is NO other way we can find TRUE happiness in this life, than by living the gospel. 

one more funny story!! 

The other week dad told me it took him forever to get the italian language down in his mish, but he would always sleep talk, and his comps would ask why he had perfect italian when he would sleep talk, but not during the day! My spanish is FARRRRRRRRRRR far far far far FARRRRR far far far far from perfect, but the other night i guess i slept talk and my comp said " wow, you really have perfect spanish when you slept talked!" haha like father like daughter. 

have a great weeK!

Jaclyn and Ana

Saying goodbye in San Marcos, before heading to the Coast

Making Pupsasn with Ward Members

Carlito, Ana's Nephew loves the Canache. (that's me).

                                                                            Carlito

Young Women of the Ward

Can you tell which one is the white girl?  Not by the color of their skin!

The Baptism of Ana Banana

My Toothbrush, oops!

March 10, 2014

aye!! Wow.. the carnival is officially over!! POR FIN!! (FINALLY!) 

On Tuesday the elders made us go home at like 4 for the rest of the day!! That was really annoying cause we wanted to work, but it made for a nice afternoon on the roof:) (pic 1)

Good news, ANA IS GETTING BAPTIZED THIS SATURDAY!!! We are sooo excited, and she is too. Pray for her, cause i know satan is gonna work his butt off to get her to change her mind!

The other night, we left with a member to go contact a reference who happened to be his realitive. It was about 6:30pm, and she lived right next to where all the crazy parades were. We entered into the "street" thing behind her house, and found her because she was locked out, and no one would answer the door because it was raining so hard they couldnt hear her. We could hardly hear her when we were talking. When it rains really hard, the power usually goes out (dont worry, i always have a flashlight). So, the power went out for a little bit, in all the houses and in the street were without light, then when it came back on, this tall super drunk guy came stumbling into the street with blood dripping down his face. He said he ran into something when the power went out, which i believe because he reaked of alcohol.. im paranoid, so i look at hna Gertrudis like, lets book it. Then he started speaking to me in bad english telling me to kiss him and stuff, so i took off running, and hna gertrudis too, slowly behind me, and the member was like.. umm.. ok i guess we are leaving. 

We walked super fast to the house of the memeber, where we called our Tuk Tuk friend Hans

Hans: 

We got Hans as a tuk tuk referral from members in our ward (tuk tuks are like taxis.. kind of). We actually never met Hans, only his 18 year old son (we cant ever remeber his name, so we just call him Hans too), so almost every night, we call "Hans" to come get us and take us to our house. But this night we called Hans, and the real Hans, the dad came. I saw him and he didnt look like a dad.. he looked like he was in his 30´s. sp i asummed he was coming to kidnap us, but we went with him anyway. He turned out to be the real Hans, and was only 32.. We asked about his son and he was like yeah.. me and my wife were only 14. But he wasnt trashy, he was dresed up nice because he had just come from work, and had nice hair. He remineded me f twislight, cause Edward was young, and his "dad" was young too, and they were a good looking family. 

I really like the people here, but they are 100% honest, which means they tell me if my face is greasy, if my hair looks bad in a bun (i stopped wearing my hair in a bun after two different people took it down and restyled my hair in the same week), if my face is fat, etc. BUT, they also tell me how beautiful my eyes are!! I like this part. They tell me my eyes are green (everyone in the states thinks they´re brown, they are hazel), and they LOVE the color of my hair! (in the states  my hair i such a boring color and i am dying to color it!)

needless to say, the compliments and straight forward comments balance each other out,

Also, I LOVE MY COMP!! She is sooooooo funny! The best part about her is that shes sarcastic. FINALLY SOMEONE WHO IS SARCASTIC!! So she understands me too when i am sarcastic. Hna Nielsen and hna Escoto never understood haha. She is also the latina version of Teresa Jack. (mom, doesnt she look just like her!)

March 3, 2014

Wow what a week!  But what a great pday!!! I found out my very best friend had her beautiful baby Lillian!! (Aubrey when the heck did we grow up?), my family is going on a two week hawaiian cruise (you could have left that out, thanks guys!), mom went to the primere of a movie I was blessed to work on right before the mish, life seems good in the states! 

As for life here in Mazatenango, Guatemala, things are seriously insane. They have this huge week long "carnival" that is happening right now. Its not like your regular carnival, its nuts. I honestly dont know what goes on because we are being imprisioned in our houses for the next few days, and after im done writing we have to go back to our house for the rest of the day because its "dangerous" because everyone is super drunk. 

But anyway, the misson is great because you always get to see a ton of miracles! You´re always on the verge of tears either because people are rude, wont accept your message, because you see people change for the better, and of course when miracles happen. 

Our miracle this week is Ana:

We met Ana a few weeks ago and began teaching her. She wasnt ever that positive, and was never super excited to see us. She has a pretty rough home life, her dad died a while ago and her mom is dying of diabetis right now. Her siblings arent great examples, shes pretty poor, and all of the above. We had been teaching her the regular lessons that we teach to people we first meet, but she wasnt that interested. FINALLY we were inspired to change the lessons and talk more about her rather than the gospel. We asked her about her goals in life, and she literally didnt have any. That was really sad. We shared with her goals we had for our lives, and asked her again. She still didnt have any. We asked her what kinds of things she liked to do, and she finally opened up a little bit. She loves kids and would like to work with them (she is really good with her cute nephews), and she also likes to draw. We helped her set goals, then asked her if she was happy. She thought for a minute, then shrugged and said yes. We asked her again and she said yes. Then we explained to her what she could have in life. I learn sooo much about Christ and the blessings of the gospel when I teach people. When I meet people like Ana, I realized how lucky I was to grow up with such a strong foundation in my life. We told her how her future family can be, the things she can learn in young womens, and that she can have friends with good morals! She seemed really interested and agreed to go to Young Womens the next day. She promises to do things a lot, and many times decides not to, so when we went to pick her up Wednesday night, I was more than suprised that she was ready to go. The Young Women did an AMAZING JOB of welcoming her, and the next day when I talked to the YW President, she said that Ana was going to their temple trip on Saturday! We visited Ana again on Friday, and she was so different. She was smiling, and excited to show us pictures she had taken with the girls at YW. Her face was different too, not only that she was smiling, but she had a spark in her eyes! (i know that sounds so clique, but its the truth!) there was something different about her and I know that spirit was working in her. She told us that she was going to the temple the next morning too and couldnt wait. The next day was saturday, and at about 6:3o we passed by the church to use the bathroom. The elders had a baptism so we peaked in the room and saw Ana with one of the YW at the baptism! We decided to stay for the baptism and talked to Ana after. She LOVED the temple (she could only be outside, but she loved it!) She showed us a bunch of pictures she took infront of it, and the flowers, and pictures with sister missonaries that serve at the temple once a week. She liked the baptism too. Ana is way different than she was a week ago. I know the influence of the spirit, young women in the ward, and the temple are all helping her realize her potential in life, and I am so excited to be part of her experience! 

We had lunch with a lady named Hna. Iris on Wednesday, shes a memeber of our ward. She sells food in the street, so we ate with her there. She told us her husband isnt a member and wants nothing to do with the missionaries. She said she had tried several times to invite them over to talk with her husband, but he is always really rude to them and walks away. This made me a little afraid to talk to her husband if I ever met him, but at the same time, I was totally up for the challenge of teaching him. We were sitting there chatting, when all the sudden her husband walked up. He cheerfully said hello and we introduced ourselves and started talking to him, he was really happy to meet us! We asked if we could come by Monday night for a family home evening and we said yes!! 

What..After he left, we were a little confused, and so was his wife. Tonight we are going to their house, pray for us!

Other miracles, a family we have been teaching came to church on Sunday:)

I love my zone

A missionary couple visited our ward and brought peanut butter for me and elder keller (cause we are white haha). I LOVE PEANUT BUTTER MORE THAN EVER HERE!

Clean puppies are a gift from God.  Finally one I could Kiss!

I feel like Kim Kardashian, and everyone else id Chloe and Courtney.

This is the typical Guatemalan attire.

This is typical for the height difference.

My Hair is getting wavy, Look!

The mission is great. Id rather be dying of heat here then on the TWO WEEK CRUISE! thanks guys.

oh  yeah i have a foot fungis.. GROSS 

Love, hna Terry

February 17, 2014 A Special Week

This week, as all weeks, was really special. My testimony of why I am here is always strengthened. Especially when people reject what I know is true. So today, this is what I know is true:

I met a man a few weeks ago that isnt a member, and doesnt really believe in God. He was nice and liked talking to us, but when we talked about the gospel he would make jokes and wasnt super interested. We were pushy enough that he finally said we could come back. We missed our appointment with him because the time before, we had found his house in the dark, and couldnt remember where he lived in the light! A few weeks later we finally passed for him again, and he was mad that we didnt pass by when we said we would. He likes to read, so he read the pamphlet we had given him, but again we could see that he wasnt interested in the gospel. We set up another time to visit him and made sure to be there. The other two times we had talked with him was outside of his house. I made sure to complain about the heat so his wife would let us in, and she gladly did. We taught the plan of salvation to him and his wife. He was suprised to know that we lived with Heavenly Father before this life. He would make ocasional jokes during the lesson and we did our best to continue teaching with the spirit. I was beinginng to realize that he was making jokes because he had a wall up i his heart. His wife told us that sometimes he doesnt believe in God and he believes in Satan. He explained to us that there have been things in his life that has caused him to lose his faith. When we ended our lesson, we invited him to say the closing prayer. After much convincing, he finally agreed. As he began to pray, i said my own little prayer, praying my heart out that the sprit would fill his heart, and that he would know these things were true. I prayed probably harder than I ever have in my entire life. I started listening to his prayer, and after he said amen, i looked at him and their were tears streaming down his face. He had felt something, and I could see his faith returning. 

I KNOW we are children of Heavenly Father. I KNOW we lived with him before, and that we can live with him again, only through this gospel, because this gospel is HIS gospel, and this is His plan for us. I know that we can live happily if we follow the commandments, if we let HIM into our lives. I KNOW that people without the gospel, or that do not believe the gospel, are sometimes miserable, or arent as happy as they can be. I know we can be eternally happy.

Back together for the morning.

Nap time or Study time?

Hermana Escoto, my first Latina Companion.

Puppies!

February 10, 2014

Happy Birthday to my Madre

Even the Latinas like Seattle!

My Mom and I are getting Pedicures in 10!/2 months

WOWW:... Can I just say I am soo happy to be here in Guatemala! Most of the time.. this week was a little odd. 

TMI.. readers disgression advised.

On Thursday, we were walking to an appointment with a new  investigator, when all the sudden I heard a pig.. that part is normal, there are lots of pigs here, but this one was SCREAMING!!! It was screaming so loud, so I looked over to see where it was coming from, and I saw a pic with rope tied around its feet, and legs, and two people hauled it onto a table. I thought, oh thats why its screaming, its arms and legs hurt! But then I saw next to where they layed the pig, another pig.. only this one wasnt moving.. it was dead. OH.. this is why the pig was screaming, it had just heard its friend die, and now it was laying next to him, knowing what was about to happen. I quickly looked away after i saw the people pull out a dull machete. Looking away didnt help because I heard a scream that I never want to hear again in my life, a scream that probably would have broken windows if there was any around, for about 45 seconds as they slowly cut off the pigs head. I covered my ears but that did nothing. I made the mistake of turning around, only to see blood pouring out of its body.. and i mean POURING. Literally right after I saw that, we turned into the house of the investigator. My stomach was down to my feet and I wanted to cry.. i was in no way ready for a lesson. Luckily, I didnt really have to teach that much,

This guy and his wife we had contacted the other week. They told us we could have a lesson with them and pointed in the direction of their house. Turns out, they lied to us about where they lived, probably because they actually didnt want us to come back (my comp is pushy and almost always gets them to say yes haha): But, being the often rejected/lied to missioaries that we are, we knew what to do, asked arounf, and found them. This guy played it off at the beginining like he didnt have much experience with religion, but turned out to be a bible master. Honestly, I still have a lot to learn about the bible, but LUCKILY, Hermana Escoto is the best and defended everything he threw at us. We tried teaching him, but he wouldnt let us. He went on and on about things we already knew.. and we just sat there. After about 40 minutes of this, we got a LITTLE bit of teaching in. I ended up arguing a little with him about a subject I knew to be true but he was blinded and tried to tell me it wasnt, so i let hna escoto take over because i knew I wasnt the one to get through to him. At one point, before we left, I invited him to chruch, and he asked when, i told him Sunday from 9-12, only 3 hours. and he replied with "wow, thats sure not very much time to dedicate to God" and i laughed.. cause he was serious, and in the states 3 hours is so much to other relegions! We spent two hours with him, most of it was him talking. He said we could come back.. I need to study the bible more!

One great thing about being in a different country is that I dont know the bad words: In the states I heard them alllll the time, and here I dont want to learn them, and dont recognize them on the streets. I didnt realize how lucky i was until i got with hna escoto. She is always covering her ears and saying, "ah que malo!" Then i appreciate being here more, its so refreshing! 

Our miracle this week:

Last week we contacted someone in the street, and there was another guy there too, just listening. When we were about to leave, the other guy said we could come visit him, so we made an appointment for the following week. I hoenstly had forgotten about him until the day of the appointment. We went to his house, taught him about Faith, Repentence, Baptism, The Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. We asked if he would like to be baptized and he said yes! What! Miracle! He came to church yesterday and is getting baptized this saturday! I know that Heavenly Father has people waiting to hear the gospel! Be member missionaries!

Pic 1. hna escoto with her new seattle shirt!

pic 2. sister missionary tan lines..

pic 3. happy birthday clowny!!! Its my moms bday today!

February 3, 2014

AH.. Today is a great day to be alive, and I bet its amazing in Seattle right now! Last night I had a dream that we wrote our families at 4am and you guys didnt tell me who won, so I didnt know! Today, my district met at the church at 11. There is an Elder, Elder Saunders, who is a HUGE Broncos fan. I didnt want to know who won until I read my emails, so I walked in, looked at him, and said If you know anything, dont tell me! And he kind of smiled, then the elders started laughing and my zone leader comes up and tells me the score, I thought the Broncos had won. Then they told me THE SEAHAWKS DESTROYED THE BRONCOS!!!!! dhsdklghsdkghsdkgjh I cried, danced, sang. Wow, i bet Seattle is freaking out! Ah, I am so proud of the Seahawks!!! And to make it better, as we were walking to the internet cafe, i passed a man in a Mariners shirt! (its the little things:)) Watch them win the World Series this year haha

Anyway.. The mission.

Like every single week, what a crazy week! I just read Hna. Minnick's email, and she said the same thing. I realize that as a missionary, life is crazy. Also, full of the most ups and downs you can imagine. Our hearts are broken everytime a person or family we come to love, doesnt want to accept our message, but they are mended when we are led to new people that are excited to learn that Christ came to the Americas too. 

Examples of broken hearted days:

We have been teaching a family that we have really come to love. There is William, he just turned 8 and is the CUTEST! Heidy 14, Carol 17, and Douglas 18. (the parents never join in our lessons but are really kind). Heidy has come to chuch with us a few times, and is really shy. William, like I said, is the cutest!! He loves to sing hymns and answer questions. Carol likes to listen to us, and her and Heidy always laugh when we try to teach (kind of annoying, but they are teenage girls) and Douglas is super cool. We found them my first day here, and have been teaching them ever since. But, they told us they dont want to be baptized:( It literally says in the bible, in Juan 3:5, that except you are born of water and the spirit,  you cannot enter into the Kingdom of God.. how do you explain that to people who dont want to hear it?

Broken heart story #2.. This week we found a cute family of three brothers. (their names are Edgar, Eduardo, and Fransisco Gomez.. i almost laughed when they told me their names, it doesnt get more latino than that!)

Their parents are only home saturday and sunday because they work, so its the three boys. Edgar has 18 years, Eduardo has 12 years, and Fransisco has 8 years. 8 year olds are seriously so cute!! They were super cool and wanted us to come back and teach them. Our first lesson with them, Edgar said he wanted to be baptized and we asked why, and he said he wanted to be an example to his little brothers. Isnt that the cutest?!! We talked about thats why Christ was baptized too, to be an example. This is where it gets sad.. he starts school this friday, and he has school friday and saturday in Xela, and comes home Sunday afternoon AFTER church!! So he cant come to church with us!!! :(((( We fasted that he will be able to come to church so he can get baptized. Please pray for Edgar!!

Our hearts being mended:

Last week we found a family and the dad said his daughter wanted to play soccer at a school in the states. I asked what school and he said BYU! ummm. ok thank you spirit for leading us to them!!! We met her this past week when we were teaching her cousins that we had just found. Her cousins wanted to come to chuch with us but she didnt want to. Then i brought up how her dad said she wanted to play soccer in the states and asked her what school, she said BYU. I told her i lived right next to BYU before the mission and that is was a church school, and a REALLLY good college. She perked up. She didnt know BYU was a school of the church, she has the BYU channel at home and liked watching the sports. After she found out BYU was affiliated with the church, she wanted to come to church with us. The three of them came with us yesterday. God has a plan :) 

I have become a professional ant terminator this past week. After i found them in my bed (only my bed, not my companions), i went a little crazy and began killing all the ants i saw for the rest of the week. They enjoy being in the kitchen, so i put together a cocauction (i dont have spell check.. how do i spell that?) of bleach  kitchen cleaner, and water. When i put it all over the counter, the ants die! But after they die, they multiply! The most accurate example is from the movie Hercules, when he slays the dragon with multiple heads, and it keeps getting more heads. We keep havingmore and more ants! Sometimes i leave the dead ants on the counter for a while in hope that the other ants will get the message and stay away.. doesnt happen.

Anyway, LOVE YOU!}

                                          Typical way to carry your baby

                                          My Companion

                                          Kitchen

                                          Kitchen on left/Study area right

                                          Our Balcony

                                          Our Laundry facility/Balcony

                                          View from apartment