Earthquake!!!!

Hey family!

Well, this week I experienced my first earthquake! Well, aftershock that is. We were just in the house studying and there was a truck outside. The house started vibrating a little and I thought it was just from the truck at first. Then it got a little worse. We headed outside until it ended. Pretty cool but not, at the same time. It was in the center of Guatemala and I think 39 people were killed. I don´t know if they found anymore.

Lets see... This week was ok. We didn´t have too many lessons this week. We are still trying to work more and more with the members. One of the Hermanas still doesn´t feel ready. We don´t really know what to do now except wait. We still teach her but she hasn´t gone to church for a few weeks. Their family is really struggling right now and they don´t have much time. She has to work nights in Tuxtla sometimes so she doesn´t get back in time for church. Oh! Blughgh!

We got some cat calls thrown our way a couple days ago by some shemen in the back of a truck! Not sure what it is about this town but there are a lot of them. One works at the bar next to our house! I thought "she" looked a little manly but couldn´t tell. Then I heard him talk! That same day we walked by another bar and the two in the back of the truck were dancing outside as if to draw attention to the bar! And worse, I think it works! The people here sure have their minds messed up!

We got told yesterday at 3 that we had to get to a meeting in Tuxtla by 5. We had to hurry and eat so the hermana wasn´t left with all the food she just made for us. Then we sat in the combi for about 40 min just waiting for it to leave. We got to Tuxtla and got on another combi.Our District Leader, called asking where we were cause we were supposed to get there earlier. I told him in a combi and on our way. He called again asking how much time and to ask the driver. I didn´t. I just told him we didn´t know and there´s nothing we could do. WE ARE ON OUR WAY! He called again telling us to get a taxi. We didn´t. That would have taken more time to try and get one. He called again and I gave the phone to Elder Torres. We got there and were walking to the church and he called again! I just hung up. He called again. I hung up. He called one more time! I just said "WE ARE HERE!" and he told us to hurry. When we walked in he gave us a look as if we were stupid or something. Man he really made me mad! Luckily we didn´t have to talk to him at all while we were there.

One of the area 70s talked to us about how to work with the members and inactives. It was really good. I paid a lot more attention than usual for some reason. Hopefully well the ward will start helping us out a lot more. Well, that was my week.
 

I love and miss you all!

Aaron

Day of the Dead

Hey everyone!

Another week gone. What happened? I just can´t remember...

We are trying to work better with the members. This last Thursday and Friday they had day of the dead. Nothing real interesting happened. I just saw a lot of wasted food on their shrines. Everyone just goes to the cemetary and that's about it. We didn´t have many lessons those two days, I think because of that. We were able to find a few different members to go out with us. Hopefully they will help us find some more people to teach.

It looks like we may be getting more money every month! That will help out. I still don´t really understand how they are doing the money for travel and all that. We´ll see if this is actually better or just a bunch of confusion.

An area seventy came and talked to us. It was Elder Johnson. It was pretty good. He focused on not baptizing ANYONE until they are ready. Fully ready. Also how when we ask people to do certain things, if we haven´t done them, DO them! Like praying and asking God if he really is our Heavenly Father, if we are His children, and if he actually knows us. The basics pass us by a lot of the time and we may need to focus more on those.

Torres and myself are quite different. We were brought up culturally different. He is a recent convert. He knows a lot of the scriptures and I really need to work on that.

I haven´t had anything too weird to eat this week. Nothing weird actually. Oh, I have had a lot of candied pumpkin which is really good and I think its easy to make. Just sugar, cinammon, I think, and water. Look it up how to make it and maybe try it sometime. Uhhh, what else?

One investigator promised to go to church and said he didn´t have anything else that would get in the way. Well, he didn´t show up again! We visited him after sacrament and he said he was going to get a shower and head over there. HE DIDN´T!!! I'm getting pretty sick of that.

Well, not much else crazy happened this week. We had some really good lessons and just need more help from the members. Ok, gotta go.

Love and miss you all!

Aaron

Tejon tacos

Hey family!

Ok, I´m just sitting here trying to remember, again, what happened this week. 

Well, first we did get a new rule saying we can´t tract by ourselves. If we go with a member we just go to the people that they know. Now we are just trying to get over the whole "I don´t know of anyone right now, but I´ll keep my eye out" shindig. That has made this week a bit different. We also have another rule that we can´t teach our progressing investigators without a member. This should definitely help us work more with members. It may take a little while to get it up and going but after it does it should go really well. It's pretty hard when we go to investigators and members houses and they aren´t there cause we don´t know what to do after that.

We went out to the ranch a couple times this week. Yesterday we taught a family the word of wisdom. Not two seconds after we were done the dad showed up drunker than ever. I have never seen him like that. Who knows? Maybe it showed them even more why they should live the word of wisdom. We had to leave because he was so drunk and we weren´t going to get anything done with him like that. It's pretty sad to see the family put on, what I think are fake smiles, when he is like that.

We also went to Piste´s house. We ate some Tejon Tacos. I'm sure Michael already knows what that is. I had no clue. All they could describe it as was a dog like thing that lives in the mountains and has a bushy tail but isn´t really like a dog. It wasn´t too bad. It definitely had a different taste but it was alright. Well, I looked that word up and you know what it came up with? Badger. I never thought that I would ever eat that! There;s just one more thing to add to my list of weird stuff I´ve eaten over here. 

A couple of our investigators are going through some rough times right now. She still wants more time before she gets baptized. I don´t know what exactly is going on with them but they just seem really disorganized and really tired. She is working nights in Tuxtla and he is working in a field. Hopefully things will get better for them.

I had to bear my testimony in church this Sunday which wouldn´t be that bad but Pres. Ruiz let me know I was going to be doing that as he was talking at the pulpit. Missionaries still would like to know these things ahead of time too! Well, I don´t have anything else that I could think of

I hope everything is going great for all of you back home.

Love you!
Aaron

First Week Training

Hey Family 

Well, my first week of training is over. It wasn´t too bad. My comp is Elder Torrez. He´s from Oaxaca, not too far from here. There´s not much that I actually have to train him in. He knows a lot about the scriptures and teaches pretty well. The only thing is in lessons he says way too much than he should or has too. He just needs to simplify things a lot and he´ll do pretty well.

We are getting along OK. We don´t really have much in common at all. He also tries to tell me how Mexico is better than the USA. Well that just isn´t going to happen.

Gledys, an investigator that Elder Enke and I found, was on date for this last Saturday but ended up not getting baptized. She said she still wants to but she just needs more time. I´m hoping she will soon cause I haven´t seen anyone that I started teaching get baptized yet. I was really glad she told us that she didn´t feel ready. This decision is between them and God.

We of course are going to keep working with Gledys and see what happens. We are going to teach her husband and daughter more too. Her older two daughters don´t really want anything to do with religion. We´ll see if they do in awhile.

Oh! I was alone for a good hour or two this week. That was pretty nice. The Zone Leaders said Elder Enke and I could split up so he could get to the bus and I could get to the meeting to pick up Elder Torrez. I got on a Combi, leaving Elder Enke, and went to the church next to the temple. I was about an hour early and just hung around the temple.

Not much else to say about this week. Hopefully this next one goes well. Oh yeah, I made tamales yesterday for the first time. Nena, the land lady, made them so we helped. They were bean tamales and they put shrimp heads in the beans and blended them up, mmmm!

I love and miss you all!
Aaron

A Pretty Crazy Week

Hey Family  

A lot of stuff happened this week. Not sure if all of this next part should be sent to everyone.

On Wednesday we got a call from the assistants saying that three of our investigators were going to get baptized on Saturday. That was a pretty big shock. We had told Carolina to pray the night before to know if she should get baptized now or wait for her husband.

Well, Pres and the assistants were driving through Cardenas and stopped to get some food. One of the assistants had been in Suchiapa before for about 9 months. They stopped at Carolina's and Miguel´s store. He asked if she had been baptized and she said no. They had a long chat with her and then her husband. They both said they would get baptized on Saturday. They also have a 9 yr old, Brayan, that would be as well.

We stopped by the next day and talked with them. Miguel wasn´t wanting to get baptized before and told us he was so his wife didn´t have to wait. He said he wasn´t sure if he would be able to keep the Sabbath day, cause he has a store and Sundays are his best days, or the word of wisdom. He didn´t know if the Book of Mormon was true or if Joseph Smith was a prophet. We just told him to pray that night to know. Hopefully he received his answer.

We did baptize them on Saturday. It was a pretty stressful morning trying to get members and investigators there. We had to get some people to give some talks too. We had more members than we thought we would so that was really good. Pres baptized Miguel, the assistant baptized Carolina, and I baptized Brayan. It was pretty cool to be a part of that family getting baptized. Brayan said he had had a bad cold and runny nose before and said when he went under the water it just went away. Pretty cool for him.

They all seemed to have a really good experience even Miguel.  He seems to be doing good and we are going to keep teaching him more. His mom had a really hard time with him getting baptized. He also received the priesthood yesterday.

Arbe had been doing really well and hadn´t had a drink for a couple weeks. Yesterday he walked up to us and asked why we didn´t come by his house this morning, which we did but he wasn´t there, and he said he was drunk. It was pretty hard to see him like that. He was doing really well but hadn´t ever gone to church. We are really going to work with him to get him there.

We also found out that Elder Enke is getting transferred and I have to train someone! I´m not really ready for that but its coming no matter what. We were really hoping we would have another transfer here but no such luck. My new comp, I believe is Mexican. I don´t know if he is just starting or has been out for a transfer. We´ll have to just wait and find out.

Oh, we also went to try and get some crabs. We went with Piste to a creek and you have to stick your hand in some holes to find them. You just feel for them and pull them out. We didn´t find any though. We might go again sometime.

Well, that is what I can remember from this week. We´ll see what this next one brings.

Love and miss you all!

Aaron

General Conference, Relaxed Day?

Hey family!

This week went a lot better for us. We got our money for the month and have had some really good lessons. Gledys is progressing really well. She has had a big doubt about how there are so many churches and they all have started somewhere and sometime. We just asked her to pray a lot. She also says that when she reads the Book of Mormon she feels at peace and feels the words are true. However, when she stops she says she has a bunch of thoughts pop into her head and gets really confused. I just told her how God doesn´t work through confusion. Who does? Satan. It's a pretty good trick he has.

Arjenis, the ranch kid, and his sister said they were going to go to conference with us. We went to meet them at the bridge a half hour before it started and only she showed up. She said he had to work and she had to go do something in town but they would go to the second session. We told them to meet us in the park. We waited there for a long time, missing a bit of conference and they never showed up. One day we´ll get them to go to church.

Gledys went to the morning session on Sunday with us with her two youngest kids. We don´t really know what she thought about it but we´re going to have a lesson with her tomorrow. Arbe told us he would go as well but once again wasn´t there. We walked around a ton that day just trying to get people there. It wasn´t exactly a relaxing day like the old General Conference days were. We only got to watch the ones on Sunday. If we didn´t have investigators there, we were supposed to just go out and work.

We both tried rabbit for the first time on Saturday. Its pretty good. A lot better than I thought it would be.

Uhhh, I just don´t know what happened this week. Our lessons have been some of the best we´ve had in these two transfers this week. They just seemed to flow a lot better. Oh, transfers are next week! It's probable that one of us will be headed out. We´ll just have to wait and see.

I swung on an actual vine this week as well. It was pretty fun...til it broke. I have some pics and a video that I´m uploading.

General Conference was pretty good. At least what we got to see. I didn´t even know that they changed the age til you all told me. All of the Mexican missionaries have been able to go out at 18.The talk from Elder Holland was the one that really stuck out to me. He talked about actually loving God and Christ and how that might be a question God asks us at the judgement. We didn´t have any chance here to listen to it in English. I wish we did cause it just doesn´t feel the same. The translators would finish earlier sometimes and I could definitely feel a difference when I heard their actual voice.

Oh yeah! There was a fight outside of our house one night. I was just laying in bed and heard a bunch of noise outside. A couple of "gangs" were chasing each other with belts. Yep, belts. They were twirling them above their heads and hitting each other with them. It was pretty funny. We ran and got on the roof to get a better look and two guys actually started fighting. This was also pretty terrible. Neither of them could really do anything to the other. Then the cops showed up. They all started running and one cop chased after them, really slow. I guess that's what happens when you just sit in the back of a truck and drive around all day. They got the one that beat the other one and drove off for the others.

Oh, the address for where we were when Google maps drove by is "Colonia San Esteban, Central Sur and 2a Oriente.

Well, once again that was my week. 

I love and miss you all!
Aaron

Oh! I forgot to write about our land lady cleaning our house! We got home one night and everything had been cleaned. Sounds really nice right? Wrong! It's really weird to have her rummaging through all our stuff. She threw some stuff away that we were using and  put things in different places. She threw the drier sheets I had in my shoes to keep them fresher away too! So, if you ever send another package or something maybe put one or two drier sheets in there. Its nice now to have a cleaner place but it was just really weird.

This Was a Rough One

Hey family!

This week was fairly rough for us here in Suchiapa. We have been working pretty hard lately to find more people. I don´t think we are teaching anyone that we were when I first got here. We do have that family, Gledys, Wilbur, and their kids and the ranch people as well.

I don´t know what we did, but Gledys and them are ALWAYS inviting us over to eat with them. We have been racking our brains to figure out what we did but there just isn´t anything that sticks out. That is good but also bad. They want us to come over and eat usually after we have already eaten and are really full already. Gledys and her daughter went to church this week, for some reason Wilbur didn´t want to.

Church was OK, Sacrament was really good but the classes were pretty long. We were a little worried she thought the same but at the end she asked what time it was so I told her 1:20 and she was amazed at how fast time went. She then invited us to eat again but we ate at a members and then her house and yet I think I´m still losing weight. I can move on to the 5th notch on my belt now but I still wear it on the 4th.

OK, so the end of this week ended on a good note. The rough parts were earlier on.

We have been kind of sick this last week, we´re better now but that made for some difficult days. One day I didn´t feel sick but I just felt so weak. It was a little rough out there in the sun.

Not only that but it's the end of the month and we didn´t have any money left. We asked the mission for more money for travel so we could go to Cardenas and it got here two days before we got our regular money for the month again. We were able to get there on Saturday and it started out rough.

We went to an investigators house, Lucero, to ask her mom where her new house was. She said she moved to another city. That confused us because last week her brother told us it was down a few blocks but we just weren´t able to find it. Then she said "You know your visits didn´t do a thing."  We didn´t quite hear her and she said it again. She said it didn´t help Lucero at all. We didn´t know what to say to that and just said OK and left. That definitely got under our skins. Its just not too good to hear that after a harder week.

We decided to go look for her again but couldn´t find it. We were then talking to Miguel and said she moved and he said he knew where. He told us and we went to look again. We met a family outside that seems pretty interested and we are going to start teaching them. They then looked for us and showed us where Lucero lived. That was a really good feeling to know that we finally found her. After we taught Lucero she said thanks for coming over and not forgetting about her. She is progressing pretty well but she just needs to get to church. General Conference should be really good for her to listen to.

Our luck has started moving up and we are doing pretty good right now. We should have a really good week this next one. Everything is going pretty well now.

Oh, we did go to the ranch. He was drinking again of course but I really feel bad for his wife. He is a pretty nice guy when he is less drunk but he starts bossing her around when he gets more drunk. She is a really good person and wants to go to church but says he doesn´t let her. We also found out that his son drinks as well. Not very much but that's where it starts. Just about all the guys in their whole family drink. There is only one out of about 12 that doesn´t. We really think they can progress, at least his wife and son but we have a lot of work to do with them.

OK, well that was my week. It wasn´t too exciting but that was it.

I love and miss you all!

Aaron