Week #96: San Lorenzo

The last two weeks, day after day my companion, Elder Virgin and I have been split up and we have been going around the mission with various missionaries interviewing all of the investigators to hopefully resolve any concerns for those that have some doubts. Honestly, this part of the responsibilities has always been one that is the most rewarding.  There is something so special about getting to know all of the progressing investigators throughout  the mission. One of the best moments was going back up to San Pedro with Elder Kahl. He has never gone up to the mountains in his mission and so he never really understood just how different the work is up in the mountains compared to the coast. As I am sure I have said before there is a beautiful contrast between the mountains and the coast. The people of the coast are willing to take great leaps of faith at the first hints of the spirit while the people in the mountains dive so deep into their studies of the scriptures that the sure quality of their questions pushes any missionary to study to keep up with their investigators.  This week he had his first mountain lessons. After a few minutes had passed I looked over at him to see him a little shocked that the people we were teaching had actually read and had some seriously good questions. A few mins later he recovered from the shock of an investigator that actually read and had real doubts and we had some of the best lessons of the week.

Well....changes, happened and I have been transferred out of the office.  Well, changes sort of at least.  It was more like Elder Virgin and I were moved out of the office to a new area. We are opening the area of San Lorenzo which was actually part of Maclen where I have worked before. It has the same climate as Rio Blanco, so that means I need to go paca shopping to find some sweaters but it is nice to be back here in the mountains. I feel  a lot more at home here than on the coast.

Right now, San Lorenzo will be going through a trail period. If we manage to consistently have 20 people in church each week,  we will be opening up a new Rama (Branch) up here which has been the dreams of many of the members for a very long while.

Our house here is well....rather interesting....it is very "chapin" style, which means if we don't duck we will be slamming our heads into the doorframes of the house. It was really funny and I don't know if President Ruiz said it as a joke or not but he said and I quote, "Your house is one of the nicest in the mission. It is a swiss style house." I was like wow.....Swiss huh what does that even look like. Anyways,  I will be sure to send you some photos next week so that you can be the judges of our "Swiss" style house and whether it is one of the nicest in the mission......come to think of it, we don't even have blankets.....So things are going to be nice and chilly tonight.

We are literally starting from square one up here, in this new area, out in the middle of nowhere, but after a five-hour drive and getting to our new area, and settled in the new house, the moment that we walked out of the house we ran into a girl working with the peace core.  Elder Perez was with us and was looking down the street and said kinda loud "Shes White!"  The crazyiest thing happened. She yelled back "yeah I am!"  After talking with her for a bit it turns out she has been here for seven months and will probably be able to help in getting us into teaching the kids in the schools.

I am excited about this new area!  I am excited about the new opportunities that it presents, and this is just how I wanted to end my mission.  I couldnt be happier!

Week #93: Mazate, Conference and Mangos

This week has been great. So many things have happened this week. Another set of changes have come and gone. It is truly weird to think that I am on the last days of this time here.
           So as I said last week I was heading out of the office for a short little trip. I ended up going to a the area of La Union in Mazate las Flores. I was only there for two days but...wow I love that area. That area is something special, something so completely different from the area that I am in right now. Mazate, in general has always been known as a blessed area of the mission. For two days I became companions with Elder Shupe. He is an excellent missionary and I am glad that I was able to serve with him even if only for two days. I went through my limited time with him at a very busy, fast pace. This week is conference, but beyond that there will be easily 6-8 baptisms from him and his new companion this month. I got to get to know a great deal of the investigators that they have there. One is a little lady named Vanessa, she is about 16 years old. She was found when the missionaries had been accidentally  referred to a small little out of the way alley where some reference supposedly lived. Here they didn't find who they were looking for but rather found Vanessa, who had prepared for them. Things started off a little rocky as all first encounters do. She listened to the missionaries and accepted them back, even accepted a baptismal date, but then there was a time when she just simply could not be found. The elders began to loose a little bit of hope and understandably so. They would try and call her, try to  see when they could come over, but every time something came up, or she would say a time and then not show up. A few weeks later, out of the blue, a thought came to them that today we need to go and see what was going on with Vanessa. Sure enough, she was home, and the Elders began to talk to her trying to figure out what had happened. It turns out that at times life becomes busy for all of us and at this time things were just going on with her. The Elders began to prod a little to see If she still wanted to be baptized, a few weeks earlier she had been unsure of her answer, but this day she said with an a surety, " I want to be baptised". She began to tell them a little bit of how she had been reading the Book of Mormon, and how at the moment she is finishing 2nd Nefi. At about this point of the story I come in at a moment so perfect, we had stopped by her house to see how she was going and to see if she would be going to General Conference with us. There we learned that not only would she be going but that she had invited a few of her friends. I was already impressed with this but then she said that she had not only invited them but that she had been teaching two of them from the pamphlets that the elders had given her. She had made photocopies of pamphlets to give to other people. On the spot I grabbed all of the teaching materials that I had on me and gave them to her, telling her that her days of photocopies are over.
         Another Great couple of investigators I got to know were Brenda and Samuel. Well more than anything Brenda and her son. Her husband Samuel couldn't join us because he was working fixing cars in the "garage"(open field). You see the Elders had done something rather original. They decided to contact everyone that has a mango tree asking them for well....mangos. I absolutely love mangos and if any of my areas had ever had mangos I would probably be doing the same right now rather than be here sitting here writing this to you. Anyways they had gone around this day asking for mangos when lo and behold they found a nice lady walking around doing nothing less than giving her mangos aways. Needless to say,  God put them in her path and her in theirs. After eating some mangos for a while and talking, she invited them back to her home where they began to teach her and her family who are also extremely pilas reading the Book of Mormon and loving the general feeling that the gospel brings into their home.
        Honestly, Mazate is one of the most blessed lands in all of the mission and I will miss being there. Now being back in the office is nice but honestly the blessing of the mission is being able to effect a change in the life of the people we are teaching. Here in the home area, we had a little bit of success for conference. A little family came to conference and really liked it. Also, it was kinda fun to look for you guys during conference, it gave me a little something extra to do but I don't think I really meet any success as I didn't see you, you must have all had the nosebleed seats. Well I'm all out of conferences....and now that I think about it I'm out of all major holidays I think the only thing left is mothers day.

What does this 5 gallon bottle of water and Elder Wilcox have in common?

Streaming Conference...

Week #92: There and back again...

This week has been a rather special week, for me here in Guatemala.

Almost two years ago,  I was starting out the mission and I was in my first area with my second companion,  Elder Garcia. We had just finished what I considered being one of my favorite changes in so far in the mission. On that particular occasion, changes took place on the 10th of Dec. one day before my Birthday. I was looking forward to my birthday and a we were going around that week we had used my birthday as an excuse and had set things up with various families for the week. Then changes came and I was transferred to on of the furthest places of the mission, Rio Blanco.   This area then proved to be one of the favorite areas I have served in.

        For the last several weeks, we have been working with mini missionaries, getting them all processed and situated to experience a short taste of what missionary life is like.  Throughout the course of March around 30-40 youth came to serve mini missions here in the Retalhuleu mission. One of the best of surprises was a young man named, Mosiah one of the youth from Rio Blanco, came down to serve as a mini missionary for around 5 weeks. It was great to see him. I remember when I was up there helping him start on his papers and then to be here for the turn in of his mission papers was fantastic!  Anyways, he was here for a long while, long enough to send off his papers and have them come back. On one of his last days here as a mini missionary, we received a nice big envelope that was none other than his mission call. However, he couldn't open it, as the procedure says his District president has to be the one to give it to him.  He finished the mini mission that same week and then began his wait.
       One week later President Ruiz calls me asking if we could do him a favor and take the missionary call up to Rio Blanco for him to give to the District President. President  Ruiz is a busy man and with changes around the corner he has a lot to do.  So he asked us to do something I have been dying to do for a while.  It was funny because he asked it with a tone of voice implying inconvenience, although it could not have been any less of one. That same night we took off for the mountains.   We could have timed it a littler better as all of the traffic caused by Semana Santa caused us to be stuck in a lot of traffic. However, we came prepared with music and talks for the whole ride through. Not only that but we called the Elders up there in advance to get them to buy us some food for dinner. The food was nice,  however, the fleas that were in the beds we slept in were not and I'm still feeling their feeding frenzy at this moment.
      The next morning we left the Zone leaders house and made our way to Rio Blanco taking the nice long dirt road to the top of the mountain. After driving that mess of a road I now have a much greater respect for the bus drivers up there. We arrived at the church nice and early in the morning because when I was there, Church started at 8am and....well now a year has passed and they start at 10am.

     Going back there was something that definitely pulled a little on the heart strings. Needless to say, I was in church early that day and had started to greet families as they came to the church. It was one of the most beautiful experiences of my mission thus far. It was so much fun to see these people again, to be able to pass with them a bit and just catch up.  True to Mormon Standard Time only about a quarter of the ward was there when the meeting started and being true to that same principle before the sacrament hymn was over the rest of the ward showed up. I had taken a seat in the back, right where I used to sit when I was there in the ward. As each of the families walked in, they each did one of those fun little double takes. They looked over in my direction and then, returned their focus with a growing smile of realization, each did a good job trying not to make a scene, but for the rest of sacrament meeting there was a wave of whispers that passed through the sea of members as the little ones started to realize what was going on. What was super funny is that all of the members thought that I had come back after finishing my mission. This last Sunday will go down as one of my favorites.  It makes me realize how close you grow to families and individuals here as you walk hand in hand on the journey of service, education and spirituality.
 

    Anyways this just in, there was supposed to be an Elder coming to the mission today. However there was a setback and he won't be coming at for a while. It looks like I will be breaking out of the office going on the loose for the next week or so as things get worked out and smoothed over.  There is nothing more peculiar in the mission field than an odd number, so tomorrow I guess I will see where I am heading.

Week #90: Everything is pretty tranquillo

Well honestly not too much has happened this week.

We finished the mission inventory and I am glad to report that we are going to be ordering hot showers and microwaves for every house in the mission.  Not to be used together at the same time in the same location in case you were wondering.   This may not sound like much to you state-siders but wow.....a warm shower is something all too rare here in the mission.)

We finished with the first wave of emergency transfers, and I talked to all of the missionary moms calling worried about their sick children. (/wave if any of you are here perusing...)

Everything is pretty tranquillo...we are about to start a little campaign in the mission going from Multi-Zone meeting to Multi-Zone meeting passing out all of the stuff that we will need, such as invitations and a DVD full of new videos for Semana Santa and a bunch of other stuff.

Check it all out:  https://www.mormon.org/spa/pascua

Until next week...well hopefully.  Give everyone my love and it's exciting to hear about Chase putting in his papers for his mission - how time flies!

Week #88: "you need to be where you are supposed to be, doing what you are supposed to be doing..."

I experienced one of the baggiest moments in my mission this week.   In order to understand exactly why this was this was, one has to understand a few things.  During all of my time on the mission I have never been in a ward until now.   Twenty months ago I began my mission in the Rama La Verde and from that branch I moved all across the mission going to some of the most unique branches of the mission. Their buildings, the benches in the church, the amount of people, all of these things have always formed a sort of mental gap and because of this I have never truly felt as though I were in my ward. The second thing you have to understand is before I came into the mission, for almost all of my time in the young men's group we had few young men, and I was one of the only young men of my age who was truly active in the church.  In fact, the young man closest to me in age has always been my little brother who is almost exactly two years younger than me. It created many definning moments, and there were many things that I learned from experiences in YM.    From the day I became a Priest, in my ward I was up on the stand blessing the sacrament,  until the day that I left for the mission.  Few, if any, weeks passed  where I was not up there on the stand,  if not by  choice then by necessity.  There was even a time when my friend was investigating the church and he was in another ward and to support him (even though he didn't need it - he's a lot more pillas than I am) I would go with him to church in the morning and then leave, flying across our little town to the stake center to go to my ward.   My Dad had said I could go to his ward as much as I wanted,  but I had to be back in time to fulfill my responsibilities in my ward.  Dad always said,"you need to be where you are supposed to be, doing what you are supposed to be doing when you are supposed to be doing it." Whether I like it or not, it became drilled into me, and has been, and is, one of the reasons that I do a lot of the things that I probably otherwise would not do, like going to church twice a day. It might have been something I didn't like doing but it was what I was supposed to do.
          Now fast forward to 28/2/2016, I am in the Sacrament meeting of the Ward Reu 2 (that is "Dos", if some of you just said "two" in your head).  My first ward and probably last area of the mission. We have a few investigators at church today, things are going well. My companion Elder Taylor is sick with Zika and has been suffering a little bit the last couple of days. Everyone is silent, the type of silence that only comes in church right as the sacrament prayers approach. Today there was only one priest on the stand so they had asked me to bless. The sacrament song began and we began to break the bread,  As we finished, I knelt down and began to speak the prayer, however in this moment, it was as though I were back home in my ward blessing the sacrament like so many times before.  As the words of the prayer left my mouth, for a moment I became so lost in the vision of home that I almost began to say the prayer in English.  As I finished the prayer I couldn't raise my eyes to the crowd, I don't know if it was because I couldn't withstand the thought of seeing the families or because I couldn't withstand the feeling of not seeing my ward. When we finished blessing and passing the sacrament I finally looked up, it was so weird to look out over the crowd and not see the Southwells, Bruces, Lovells, Lahodas, or the Sobecks, or the other Sobek's or even the other Sobek's (I am not stuttering) or the Raleighs, or even my own family in their places where they always are. It was even weirder that there just simply weren't people in their spots. During my 20 months in the mission I don't believe I have ever been home sick.   That day, I definitely was.
       Anyways off of the baggy note, six more mini missionaries just got here and we drew the short stick and get to drive them to Mazate.  At least, we will be eating good tonight!

Week #86: Fixing the pickup...don't forget the keys.

Well, another week has come and gone and I have to say not too much has changed. Things in the office are very different from other kinds of work in the mission but none the less work is work and we have been called to work in the Lord's vineyard.
      So we had a fun little trip this week. For the last while, we have been having a lot of problems with the pickup of the mission. As you can imagine with all of the traveling on the dirt roads and all over the mission over the last 2 years our pickup has kinda taken a beating. On Monday, we took the pickup to Xela to give Jaime (the pickup) his checkup.....He had a lot wrong with him. More than was wrong with the 300,000 miles used Saturn back home. Over the next two days, Jaime was in surgery and left on Wednesday. So Wednesday we went back up to Xela to go and check him out of the Taller and do some other stuff. Now Xela is one of the truly few developed areas in Guate and it has many stores and things that the rest of the mission lacks. That being said aprovechamos when we go up.  However, as has been the theme of everything in the world anything that can go wrong will go wrong.  After we had taken the pickup out of the shop and were done eating lunch we went over to a store called Cemaco to buy some new tables for the mission. We got out of the car were heading towards the entrance of the store when we realized that we didn't have the keys with us....We started running back to the pickup knowing that the car has a highly annoying auto lock feature the moment we touch the door to yank it open we hear the faint noise of the car doors locking and our chances of getting into the car went down the drain. After a little while of trying to find some way in we managed to get ahold of a guy who breaks into cars for a living and then went on our way to finish out our compras.
     Pretty much for the rest of the week, we have been busy about doing all sorts of little projects here and there. Doing some banners for the mission planning activities, and all the rest of things to many to mention. The next focus will be a giant activity in the mission and a big ole inventory of everything in the mission.
      On the proselyting side, we have some really amazing investigators at the moment.  One named Tatiana is an absolutely prepared lady.  She has opened her heart to the Gospel and is here now to accept it, she has a beautiful little family with a little three-year-old boy who calls us all the time. No one has any idea of what he is saying but he is hilarious. Last Sunday, as normal for little kids entering into the primary, he started to yell and scream until his mom came back in. However this week he was completely fine with going to class and didn't put up any resistance and so Tatiana could go to her Sunday School class with us. A little while after the class had begun everyone began to hear some kind of weird wailing and were thinking what is that noise? Tatiana said "don't worry that is just my little boy singing" Everyone got a good chuckle out of that. Anyways she is going to be a very good Primary or Young women's teacher she seems like that kinda person.
      The other guy that we are working with right now is named Luis. Now I don't know how many of you have seen the chapins here in Guate But they are not a naturally tall group of people. Luis however at the age of 14 is already nearly my height and without a doubt will outgrow me in the next couple of years. I can see him being like the guy from the movie the Blindside. He has come to church with us twice now and will be going with the ward to the temple on Saturday. We tried to see if it is possible for him to be baptized confirmed and receive the Priesthood on Friday so he could go in but just going along for the experience will be great as well.

Week #83: Off cycle transfers bring new adventures

Truth of life. Every time you get comfortable in where you are and who you are a rapid wind of change comes to disfigure the world you know. this is week 83 of my mission and I had thought with such little time that I have left that I was going to go through my entire mission unscathed by Emergency changes. about 8 months ago I had a close encounter and nearly had changes to the Office however with some luck  I escaped and stayed where I was. Now 8 months have passed and what I thought I had escaped finally caught up with me and I have been pulled into the the Office of the mission. On the bright side at least I finally get to drive the pickup of the mission.

It was a Tuesday night we had gotten back from a district meeting and we were in Asintal.  We had gone and set up the baptism of another from the finca.  After coming back down we went over to the house of a new investigator of the two other Elders in the area. We had a good lesson with him and he is as strong in conviction as ever and said he would go with us to church and would pray to know if this is the path in which he must follow.  We were visiting with la familia Maldonado, after the lesson we went with them back to their house to finish the night with a little something to eat. Just as we entered into the house and having sat on the couch my phone began to ring. I looked down to see Assistant #1 calling and didn't think much about it.  Then as though, it were no more than a casual conversation, he told me that I have changes and that I would need to bring my stuff to the meeting that we were having the day after. I looked up after the short call realizing that this would probably be the last time I would be in the house with this incredible family. A family that has most certainly become part of my own and I apart of theirs. It is amazing how close you come to people that you meet in your mission.
       That night I went burning the midnight oil, packing away all of my stuff.   The next day we left the house with my bags and jumped into a taxi leaving to go from Asintal to the meeting. (that is one of the beautiful things about here in Guatemala you can pay someone 30 quetz and they will take to to the other end of Reu) When we arrived at the meeting,  after doing a brief introduction and having breakfast they gathered all of the people with changes into the cultural hall  of the church.  Then in true suspenseful fashion with me being last, told me that I was going to the office.  I was still uncertain as to what my new assignment was going to be, but as Saturday came and the office had its weekly correlation meeting  with the President he told me that I would be the new Comisario de la mision. Every change is a new adventure and this one seems like a very different type of adventure as the workings of the office are a little different then any other area in the mission.  But excited to learn and grow and serve where ever and how ever I can.