Christmas Phone Call

Dad do I still need to send emails to both your emails? Is that just so you receive more emails? Just a question and will keep doing so until you say so. So before I forget the three photos I sent today, one is of the coolest Christmas tree, that they have here, I have plenty of videos of it so you guys can see it when you get the memory card. The other one is of our little Christmas in the apartment. Thanks Mom I loved it! And the next one is for you Mom. Alex said you didn’t match yesterday at church so I sent you a picture of me today, in army green shorts and neon blue shirt that’s too big for me and crocs and yes you better believe I went out in public like that!

So I want to apologize for my call yesterday, I don’t remember a thing, and it went by so fast! The stupid lag sure made things interesting and funny at times. I’m sorry if I seemed negative about anything, cause I absolutely feel a love for Guatemala, I just meant to say that our apartment is dirty, but I love it here!!! Cam has a dog? What else is new? Do you guys really want a package? What kind of stuff do you want in it? And family vacation in a year and a half? Let’s start saving right now so it will be really fun!!  So Wednesday was our Christmas activity and we played soccer with 2 Zones and also there was a football so we started to play catch and then President Stay came and we played a game with President Stay, it was really fun. He is such a man! Then we had a devotional and watched a mission slide show, and also we watched a movie 17 miracles! So yes I’ve seen it now and it was so good! I am so grateful for the pioneers and the sacrifices that they did for us.

So the question about college has got me seriously worried now, I laid in bed today and just thought for a hour about it, (while Elder Velez was talking with his family) why did you have to ask that question! and also what I want to do in life, I kept thinking and trying to pick a job that will go in line with the church also, I’m thinking librarian, zookeeper (with Cameron, we made a promise) a national park ranger, (maybe when I’m older) something with business but I don’t know what! Or how to even begin thinking about what to do because I love everything!!! So after stressin about school and jobs I decided I DONT WANNA GROW UP!!! I’m extending my mission and never coming home. hahaha just kidding I’m stoked to come home (but I’m not baggy)!

I loved the mini master mind game, it was so random but it is so fun! We played it for like 2 hours on Christmas day. So I read your email and I didn’t say the mission is in shambles! Just the culture of the mission is very different than what Pres. Stay wants. There is a problem with obedience I’m not pointing the finger to the Latino culture but their culture is just very different then our culture and how they were raised concerning rules and things like that. So President Stay is trying to change the culture of the mission and make it better. He teaches with love and cares for us. About the question about after the mission NO! I’m not homesick; I don’t even want to come home. (ok a little) but I asked because a common question is if I am going to come back or not to visit, and so I don’t want to lie and say yes if I not going to.

In the NBA the thunder is from Oklahoma, the Oklahoma thunder. And what is the power of attorney with school? I know we don’t need to make any immediate decisions about school, we still have about a year but I will think and pray, but I have no problem going to UVU until I get things figured out. But we can discuss it more. Well I don’t know what else, I think that covers about everything. Cam didn’t send an email to help me with my virus´s on my memories but if I send a package I might just ship all my memories home and you can disinfect them and also organize them.

I want to share my testimony, I’m still working on it, and trying to make it stronger and fine tune it, but this gospel is so amazing, I truly can’t express how great it is. Every single aspect about it is amazing; I just want to learn everything right now! But it’s hard and I need to focus on the basics in Spanish for my investigators. But when I get back I am going to just study and soak it all in. I love it here, we are going to work hard this week, Elder Velez made me a promise and we are going to reach our goals, things are going great here, that pocket book is amazing! And I’ve already used it when someone challenged us if Mary had other children, we showed her the scriptures and it was great. This gospel is great, I don’t think we understand how great it is, and the sacrifice that Joseph Smith made for us and Hyrum when they were martyred or the Pioneers when they gave up everything they owned to come out west and establish Zion. I hope you are reading the Book of Mormon for the Stake, start now and read a little every day, yes, even you Dad, read it! You will feel the spirit more in your life it’s a promise from the Prophet. I love you guys!!

Elder Call

BAHAHAHA

You guys are so funny! I was dying last night because Elder Arce called and was like umm I think your parents tried to call. I couldn’t believe it, and then he described what happened. HAHAH I was dying laughing. Dad I am in TECULUTAN. He said for the life of you, you couldn’t say it. So ya I am here. This area is in the same stake (but it is a district) as san Jorge, I am kinda close and have been here before for stake conference in November. My comp is Elder Velez, I ate lunch with him during general conference in October so we kinda knew each other before. He is from Honduras and I am killing him (don’t worry that only means this is his last change here.) So he goes home in January. He is a little baggy but we are going to work hard.

So let me center my thoughts. The story that Elder Arce told me was so funny! I don’t know if he stretched it a little but it was hilarious. Oh and ya you woke him up....us missionaries are lame and go to bed early, I went to bed and 930 the last 2 nights here because I have been so tired! Alright so I will start with Monday, for p day we went to Jutiapa and just played futbol and ping pong super chill. That night for transfer calls we got them and they said we didn’t have changes! So we were pretty stoked to be spending Christmas together and to have another change together. Tuesday was another normal day, and we ordered pizza that night, I invited him, so I paid for it. While we were waiting for it I fell asleep then it came I ate like 3 pieces and then I fell asleep again. Well Elder Chaves the assistant calls and then says that I have changes and we need to be in the capital at 10 the next day. So Arce wakes me up tells me I have changes, and it’s like 10 so have to start packing (packing sucks). This time I didn’t even care, I just threw everything in unorganized. Then finally went to bed, then back up at 4 AM to shower and finish packing, then we left by 5 am, the fastest, longest 8 hours of my life. In transfers I was kinda nervous thinking all the different possibilities. But then I relaxed (it was my first change meeting, give me a break) and ya when it was all over I got moved here to Teculutan, 40 km down the road from san Jorge! And boy it is hot!!! I have forgotten how thick and heavy the air is here! My comp is from Honduras and has been out 22 months. The first couple days were awkward just the usual getting to know and stuff. But now it’s all good! He is the district leader and can’t speak a lick of English, Arce could but nope he can’t.

Call me at like 2 my time. And I will say this, president put at 40 minute cap on the calls. But you guys can decide.. :) I WANT TO TALK TO YOU!! I am so stoked for our call. Be prepared for questions so it’s not awkward but I know mom that you have a butt load! I am going to die for Christmas here. Tamales but TONS!!! That is all the people eat for this time of year and everyone loves to share them with the missionaries! So I will probably die the 24th and 25th from eating so much. And I haven’t gotten my packages yet, because I got transferred so our Christmas activity where we receive the packages is this Wednesday! So this Wednesday!! Super stoked for that. And I wholly miss The Forgotten Carols that is my memory for this week, and yes I have that CD and I always listen to it. My mp3 is great! I listen to it whenever we are in the house so every morning and every night! And I love it! I downloaded the conference talks for November so I am stoked for those!

Alright well so I had my Guatemalan experience for this week. A member invited us to eat at her restaurant and it was smack dab in the middle of the market, and it was so good. I hope it was clean because technically it was street food, but it looked clean. But ya so we are eating that in the middle of the market, literally in the middle, she put the tables in the middle of the walk way, it was awesome. And there were flies and bugs and all that jazz.  So sorry this is so short but we are going to talk this Sunday!! And don’t even worry if you can’t get through the next day I will email and we can figure it out and we can talk that night if things don’t work out. So don’t worry. I’m sorry I didn’t write much, but I’m like you guys and just struggled this week to think of things to write. Dad study your Spanish and we will talk about mom and it will be great! Mom practice hitting dad while we are talking about how much we love you, but you won’t have a clue. Have dad teach you Spanish! Anyway love you guys and look forward to your call!!!!!

I gave a talk this Sunday and my Spanish has improved so much. This change was good, got me out of my comfort zone and I feel so much more confident I can do this, I can do everything. And this first week has shown me that. Because I basically do do everything. Elder Velez is not a take action guy but we work well together. I love this gospel its crazy how amazing it is. I hope everything is going great back home. Read the Book of Mormon, study the gospel, ya your busy but are you really too busy for the Lord? Always look for missionary opportunities, dad good job with your missionary experience by telling him to remove his records from the church, keep it up! And I love you guys and look forward to your call this Sunday at 2ish!!!!!  LOVE YOU

He is such a kidder sometimes!!!

FAMILIA!!!
How is it going?!?
1. Holy cow what a fast week.
2. Your son is a slave.
3. Temple dedication was AWESOME!
4. Call me.
5. It’s hot and it’s the holidays.
6. K bye.
This was a dry run to see if I could write in 2 minutes or less. And I succeeded. Love you!
(That was all he sent in his email...then about 10 minutes later he sent the expanded version below!!!)

Hahaha ok for real! I bet I got you good with that one. Just kidding. OK I will expand.

1. This week was such a fast week! It flew bye!
2. I am a slave! All day Saturday I worked in the cotton fields…I mean the coffee plants! How weird is that? a Mormon missionary picking coffee! (We had permission so don’t worry) but ya I also thought it was weird. So our next door neighbors own a fink, or a field you could call it, but it is straight up a mountain, and they have a butt load of coffee trees so we helped them pick coffee, it is weird it wasn’t what I thought it would be like, they are very sweet and nothing like the coffee we are used to, they go through a grand process. But we worked from 7 to 5 all day! We didn’t get paid but IF we were to get paid we would have each made 20 Q´s or about 2.50, it is ridiculous we worked so hard! They pay by weight, we picked 82 pounds of coffee and for 100 pounds you get 50 Q´s. It made me sad and think about how grateful I am to live in the US.

Who said I wanted to do this for a living after my mission!

3. So the temple dedication was yesterday, I don’t think you guys could see it, I think only Guatemala. But Pres. Uchtdorf gave the dedicatory prayer and it was awesome the whole thing. I definitely want to visit that temple it looks so beautiful!

4-A. Call me! so we just heard the rules, and you guys have to call me here, so you guys pay for it. Usually in times past we could call 2 days before for 2 minutes so you guys have the number, but we can’t anymore. So rumor is for you guys to call me its 00502 then my house number. Oh PS today we receive transfer calls, I don’t think we have transfers cause Arce asked president when we had emergency changes. So probably 6 months together. (We should get married after 6 months! That is ridiculous!) That is if I don’t have changes, you will find out next week if we have changes or not.  If I do I will give you the number next week. You can decide what time, and we can coordinate it next week more. But ya... if you want to test and see if it works I won’t oppose it ;) probably a rule or something against it but I don’t mind, we are in the house after 9, and by 930 for sure. We might have changes though Wednesday.

4-B. Also we have a Christmas activity in the mission, if we don’t have changes this zone is with another zone and the activity is this Saturday. But if we have changes it will be a different day but sometime this week, and that is when I will receive my packages!

5. It is now hot, so don’t worry, I think there was just a massive cold spell through Guatemala that first week, I still sleep with my blanket but it isn’t cold so don’t worry! So this week we went caroling as a district, in a different area, so we are singing silent night outside the door, and it honestly felt like St. George on a summer day, we are sweating and dying! Carols and heat don’t mix! This will be such a weird Christmas with the heat and Guatemala!

6. We kind of have an address that maybe you can Google Earth it, it is Barrio Los Laureles (barrio means neighborhood) 3-35 Zona 4 El Progreso Jutiapa. (El Progreso is the city, and Jutiapa is the Departamento or like State I guess?) So try that out and see, well that’s the address of our neighbors but we live next door, our house is green. Look for it!

So they have a way cool holiday here December 7^th , they burn the devil! They make devil figures usually like piñatas and then they blow them up or burn it! Haha it was awesome! And happy months to me! This last Thursday I completed 6 months in the mission! How crazy is that, it honestly flew by and I have no idea where it went. I still feel like I am in my first change here. Guess it’s time to learn Spanish right?!

So we have an investigator that is so ready to be baptized! He has made such a turnaround in his life, and it was so crazy how ready he was. When we found him he had problems but we didn’t know it, he liked to cut himself, IDK WHY he doesn’t know why either, also problems with chastity and word of wisdom, when we teach word of wisdom there are 5 things we can’t consume, he had a problem with 4 of the 5, the 5th he just didn’t know what that was or else he probably would have had a problem, with that too. But he had made so much progress stopped it all, and is changing his life completely! He just needs to come to church 2 more time and we can baptize him!

I love you guys! And am so looking forward to the phone call, not really though cause then I will be baggy. But this church is so amazing! I am studying it and WE HAVE EVERYTHING! it is ridiculous how complete this Gospel is, But obviously this is Gods church! We have met some crazy people with some crazy believes here! But we are trying to get them straightened out without hurting their feelings, you have to take a delicate approach to it, you can’t straight up say you’re wrong and this is how it is, because then they would never accept it, this is what they have known all their lives. IDK why I just told you all that but ya. Oh I think I got all the virus off my memory so I can send the pictures! One is with me and Chasey, one is me pickin cotton…I mean coffee, the other is my gatherings of coffee, and the other is sometimes investigators have swings and sometimes I like to swing, Guatemalan style.

MUCH LOVE!!!!! SMILE BECAUSE I LOVE YOU; AND JESUS LOVES YOU!

Elder CALL

Who would have ever thought they would see each other in Guatemala!

I AM FREEZING!!!

Haha what a week and where to start?!? I’ll admit I always have so much to say but I hate typing and getting everything organized so I usually just don’t get everything out or across like I would like.  This has been a great week. I AM FREEZING!  Holy canoli! Last Monday I pulled out every single warm article of clothing I had, and my blanket, I slept with a sweat shirt and the blanket. There is an unforgiving wind here that never lets up! During the day it’s ok but at night we are dying! Haha it’s only like 60´s or 50´s but still going from an inferno (hell) to an ice box is a night and day shift.

So we opened this area meaning neither of us know the area, the other missionaries had nothing so we basically started from scratch... again, it’s San Jorge all over again BUT better because I can actually understand and speak! So it is 10 x´s better! We have just done a lot of contacting and getting to know the area. THIS AREA IS HUGE!!! We have so many aldea´s, is what they call neighborhoods maybe or little towns or villages away from the main city…We have like 13 of them so we have a huge area. This area has money! They have so many beautiful houses and they actually have roads! I will admit I do miss the pigs in the streets.

The branch here is awesome, about 60 attended this last Sunday so a completely different shift! And the best part is we didn’t have to do anything! Except we taught a lesson together but that’s not hard when you are together! Also we did our first divisions which is going out with a priest, I was nervous at first but it went great, we went out to a town about 30 minutes to visit some less active and everything went great!

I’ve been kinda sick this week, I woke up one morning and just had straight boo. I think that is a missionary term, but it’s when it just sneaks up on you and then BOO you have about 20 seconds before you explode, I will save you the details, but ya straight liquid...ewe...haha.

Alright well you all have questions so I will just get on with it I SAW ELDER JENSEN TODAY!!! hahaha so awesome!! so we woke up the usual and got on a bus to Jutiapa, then got on one to the capital. 2 and a half hours later we are walking to the CCM! I was nervous I didn’t know why. but we got there and they wouldn’t let us in (they are very strict there) we had called president Stemile about 2 weeks ago and he said it was fine, but turns out he is in the US for a week. So about 20 minutes later the guard lets us in, they sit us in the office and look for Arce’s brother. Then Hmo. Dubon walks in, he is the guy in charge and we are friends so I ask for elder Jensen and he says that he is at the park contacting, but he would return soon, so we met Arce’s brother and we ate lunch there which was awesome. I MISS THE CCM, but I was like a celebrity there with all the gringos…they are asking all these questions and way impressed with my Spanish it was awesome I remember being in their shoes and not being able to speak a lick of Spanish and now I can understand and speak pretty well. (The lord has helped me so much!) But then he came back, well the group came back and I was looking and looking and couldn’t find him turns out he’s right next to me with his back to me. So I tap him and totally catch him off guard! It was great. We only got to talk for about 10 minutes but it was awesome, I gave him some Guatemalan food and some junk food and he gave me some things from the MTC nothing to much but it was great. Then we were off! It all happened so fast. I wish we could have stayed longer but they said only 30 minutes and we were there for like an hour and a half! Haha it was good to see my old teachers and Hmo. Dubon, he is a man! Well I don’t have much time, we are running really late and have to go teach soon, sorry.

Tell the Wilcox’s thank you for the letter! And for the love and support, they are awesome. And tell Dee don’t worry I love BYU ;)… say hi to nana for me, and that I am always thinking about her and that I love her. To answer a question, I didn’t see too many but I just skimmed your letter Arce receives emails from his family every week and through his brother today he received 2 packages and 40 dollars for Christmas. But usually just emails.

I don’t know if you can but tell Ben, Jessie and Chuck hi and that they look so cute! HAHAHAH DAD LOOKS like a goober!! You little cutie in your costume. Alright well I love you guys always know that! Seriously I love you guys so much! I have gained so much more of a love for you guys and its stupid that I had to go to Guatemala to attain it.

Hey I have photos I want to send but there is a virus on my card so the photos don’t show up. how can I remove the virus so I can send the pictures? These photo’s I removed from the folder a couple weeks ago, well I guess just last week cause these are of the missionaries in our zone with president stay, the branch of san Jorge, and me in a melon field that they shipped to Costco, or for Costco.

LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! a lot..... but really!!!

Elder Call