Hola! Como Esta?

My Friend the Pig

Family!!! Hola, Como esta? Dad, keep working on your Spanish so we can talk to each other at Christmas! By the way I am super stoked for that phone call! I think about it a lot! Super stoked! So today was a lazy p day, we have done absolutely nothing, literally nothing, and I am ok with that. We finally went to Zacapa just for fun and internet, I am in a oddly way good mood, probably cause I’m emailing, I love emailing! It’s great. So this last week we went on a spirit quest, but you have no idea what that is because I never told you about them before my mission. Remember that one day at Costco when they took your card away because I tried buying all that food. Well that food was for a spirit quest. Basically we just go out in the wild and go hike with the bare minimum then we return and feast! Well we did that but Guatemalan style and missionary style. So in the morning for studies we just randomly decided to go hike the mountain and have our studies up there, so we have an investigator that lives right below the mountain so we visited her then after hiked the mountain and studied. It was fun I have forgotten how much I love hiking and the outdoors I LOVE it!

Chad 1, Snake 0 = He hates Snakes!!!

Also this last week, well last Monday I don’t know what got into me but I went on a spending rampage and spent 98 Quetzals at the market on junk food and FROSTED FLAKES!! But in Spanish and I can’t remember what they are called in Spanish but they are with Toño el tigre! (Tony the tiger) so good!! 98 Q´s is only like 12.50 but still that is so much here!

Friday night the power went out at like 1 in the morning and hence our fans stopped working, so I woke up at like 130 just drenched in sweat! And neither of us could sleep for the rest of the night, so I was super tired that day. But at like 3am I checked the temperature and it was 88 degrees! Now that probably doesn’t seem hot but to sleep in oh man it was hot!! I am so thankful for my fan.

Alright so our golden investigator isn’t so golden, so we will label him as now yellow or orange, because he needs to divorce a other women and marry the women he is living with, and he leaves in December for the states and a divorce at the very least takes 4 months which is frustrating. But with this other family I think we finally got it across the importance of reading and praying about the Book of Mormon, we have been trying for a month now to get them to read and pray, and they just didn’t get it, but we were patient (as our heavenly father is with us) and I think last night they finally understood., we just bared testimony of it and how great of a blessing it is. (I’ll be honest I didn’t realize how great it is for us and our lives, like REALLY understood until my mission, ITS AMAZING) I will have to upload the pictures another day, but I want to! And I’ve been thinking a lot of Christmas so I made a list you don’t have to send all just pick and choose and surprise me. But some ideas ... vitamins, and I need vitamin E, pictures, Reese’s Stix and Fastbreaks, motivational quotes I would love those! Memories you have, Uno, Phase ten, those I want! Hot chocolate with marshmallows, tropical starburst, crazy core skittles, a small calendar, a new digital watch, with a light, nothing fancy just the 10 dollar ones at Wal-Mart.  Troli peach rings, the DVDS of the New Testament and D and C, I don’t know if they exists but in Spanish they do but I want them in English. Nerd ropes, Scooby Doo fruit snacks, and crystal light powder, peach and raspberry. Don’t send peanuts I can get those here, or lifesavers those turn everything fruity.

Such a random picture???

So sorry this is so short but I have letter for Hicken, I’ve been thinking about that a lot, and I’m too lazy to go search for his email so I will just type it here.

HICKEN!!

So of course I’d write you just a week later! Thanks for the email, the sprit is the fire of the mission but emails are the fuel, they are so great to get, so thank you. so you guys were right all along, service is great, I’m sorry we were so difficult, it was like pulling teeth to get us to serve. Now I give service everyday weather planned or unplanned. Also, setting up the chairs every Sunday. Well now me and my comp do that every Sunday, and if we don’t do it there aren’t leaders there to pick up the slack. And Every Saturday we clean the church by ourselves, usually the branch president helps but most of the time nope. So keep on planning and doing service in the quorum, because it really is so great, and one day the priests will hopefully see this, probably years later like I did.

Tell the new Bishop that you have to stay in Young Men’s because there isn’t any other calling you could do, Melchizedek priesthood they are boring, and primary…HAHAHA... no, so you have to stay in Young Men’s.

So some advice for the priests...well obviously the usual read the Book of Mormon and Preach My Gospel, but I remember when I was in priests and hearing that and I thought ya whatever. But it really is so important. On my mission just in the 4 months I have gained such a new view of everything in the gospel, I feel like I didn’t understand anything before my mission. I think this comes with serving a mission, so because they won’t read let me give chapters that we use every day. 2 Nephi 31, use this everyday. And 3 Nephi 11 when Christ comes to the Americas, also the introduction to the B of M especially the last 2 paragraphs. We use those every day with people. Also preach my gospel. Ch. 3 the usual. But instead of focusing on lesson 1, that gets pounded so much in the MTC focus on lesson 2 and 4, those usually tend to get over looked. As far as preparing for a mission there is nothing really like it so preparing for ¨the mission¨ is impossible, but everything you taught in YM´s is preparing for a mission, weather you can see it or not.

The biggest or best thing they could do to prepare is to develop a good attitude and being positive. That alone affects the mission so much, a mission isn’t easy, and at times I won’t lie it sucks, maybe a different culture, language or a situation you are in, but having a good attitude makes all the difference ad being grateful for all the many blessings we have. Attitude affects everything so start developing a good one now.

Another thing is to decide right now before you serve what kind of missionary you want to become, mainly with obedience, on a mission it is literally you and your comp in the world. and you can do whatever you wanted but that is not why we are out here, and sometimes missionaries forget this or lose sight of this, so think about what missionary you want to become.

Lastly learn from everything, the year before my mission I was being prepared for a mission and I didn’t even know it, but looking back now I can see how every experience prepared me, also change on a mission is not all at once, people think missionaries are perfect, but we are far from it, and change comes slowly, bit by bit and we need to always be striving to become better. I’m not perfect far from it, but I am learning something every day.

Missions are awesome, they are hard but the few good moments far outweigh the bad. Start preparing mentally to be positive and love everyone. I have already seen a change in my from these 4 months, and especially in my testimony, it is so much stronger and I am understanding so much more of this gospel and how truly great it is. Well I feel like I am rambling sorry hopefully you can get something from this. This was a lot longer then what I planned on, so you can tell my parents why they got such a short letter this week. Hopefully thus helps and let me know if you have any other questions. Thanks for all you did in priest quorum. Elder Call

God's Country!