Monday, January 30, 2012

New Address

This address is a better address to send mail to and it's safer.

Hermana Rebecka Leona Nielsen
Mision Guatemala Norte
Apartado Postal 951-A
Guatemala, Guatemala C.A.

The other one is still alright but this one is better and faster. Thanks love you


This week was pretty good. We worked really hard. A lot of our appointments fell through and we couldn't meet with the people. We keep finding all of the minor girls to teach. Right now we have like 5 or 6 young women age girls that we're teaching. Hopefully we'll be able to meet more with the families of these girls this week. My companion and I are doing really well. We work really hard. I was sick one day this week but I got a blessing from the bishop that night and the next morning I was just fine. It was great. Wow I love the priesthood.

We attended the New Beginnings in the ward here and it was really good. They sang Daughter of a King in Spanish and it was really pretty. We only get the Liahona here luckily they order us a copy in English haha!

Our baptisms dates aren't doing too well. One is doing really good, one is doing alright, and one I'm not really sure what's happening with her because she says she'll attend church and then doesn't show up. And the last two are probably going to fall through. It's really sad but we need to work with their mother first because they won't do anything without her and she's confused about the whole thing. I don't know. We're see this week what's up with them. Anyways I'm doing really good. The work is good. And I have 4 weeks in the field this week! Oh my gosh!!!!! It's almost a whole transfer done!! I can't believe it! I'm really happy that I'm here!!

Love you!!!!!!!!!!

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Virus Bugs and Live Bugs

Things are going really good!!! We've got five baptisms lined up right now. Three girls that are YW age, one woman who's like 33, and one guy who's about 24ish. It was good this week because one of the girls and the guy attended church this week. We were really disappointed that the lady didn’t because she told us she would and we thought she was a golden investigator and then she did show. And the other two girls we knew weren't going to make it because their mother told us. We have some really good people that we're working with right now but sometimes it's like why won't you do this? I don't understand why because if you just did this then you would understand! But it is their choice. But really things are going good here.

Hopefully next week I'm going to send some pictures.

Apparently there was two earthquakes this last week. One of the members said that the first was rated as a 5.0 but I don't know. We didn’t feel anything. I'm a little disappointed haha.

My companions doing a lot better. I think that she may have caught a bug but I don't know. She was a lot better this week.

The bugs aren't too bad. We have a bunch of little ants that we had a little trouble with at first because they were living in the things underneath our mattresses but the problems solved now. There's been quite a few cockroaches that we've gotten really good and either killing them or sweeping them out the door. It's normal when we come home at night to find at least one in the house. Luckily they don't have carpet here so they can't hide in it. And there's some spiders but not too bad. Just a nice little surprise every once in a while when you find it haha.

I love and miss you!!!! Stay good!!!

Monday, January 16, 2012

Los Olivos, Guatemala

This week went by really fast. And slow. Each day is slow and then you look back and it flew by.

This week we didn`t teach as much. Not many people were home but hopefully this week we'll do better. School started today so hopefully that will mean that people are at home more. The language is getting better every week. I can tell a difference every week in how much I understand. Hopefully soon I'll be able to talk more. My companion has been helping me with saying things correctly because some things are similar and others are different between the languages.

Guatemala is really nice. The area Los Olivos is a good area but like I said a little big. Not horrible but sometimes when you're walking up the hill you think man, really.

There was one day this week that we couldn't go out and work because my companion was throwing up and her stomach hurt so I was really bored. I ended up washing some of my laundry (we do it my hand at the house), watching The Testaments, and reading, and eating. My companion has been sick almost the whole time that I've been with her. She says that I've been poisoning her and that's why she's sick. She's had diarrhea and her stomach hurts and she was throwing up that one day. I think she's starting to get better though.

Today we got our shower fixed! It was exciting! Up til now we've been using a bucket and warming the water with a light bulb thing and then scooping up some water and dumping it over ourselves for a shower. It's actually not too bad to shower this way. You use a lot less water.

Guess what? We have three dates for baptisms right now!!! We got one of them to attend church yesterday and one of them we just barely commited last night. The other has a hard time because her parents are split and with school starting she needed clothes and stuff and they each buy different stuff for her so she couldn't attend yesterday but hopefully this week!! We're also hoping to commit a family with two people that can be baptized this week. My companion said that this is really good for this area because she was here for three months before me for her training in the field and they didn't have any people with dates and no baptisms so we're pretty excited!!!!

I'm doing really good. I've had some blisters :( but they're healing now! :) And I'm really starting to feel better about the language. I still don't understand a lot but it's getting better.
I love you!!!!! I hope everything goes well for you this week!!

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Pictures

Ok hopefully here are some pictures. Our district in Provo with the two different teachers.


My companions in the CCM first is Hermana Garcia and Hermana Alcorraz.

Hermanas Sanchez and Aldana

Me with Santa Claus at Christmas.

Hermana Ayala one of my teachers who is the one of the best people in the world.

And last is my district which hopefully you can see everyone!

Hope things are going good! Love you all!!!!!

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

First Week in the Field

I'm doing good here. The mission field is different and in a lot of ways better. My new companion is Hermana Ramos. She's really nice and we work hard. Our area is Los Olivos. We're in the Esperanza (Hope) zone. And I'm in the Santa Elena district. We only have 4 people (including us) in our district. We're also the only Hermanas in our zone. There used to be two more hermanas but I guess our area isn't big enough or something. Our area is big! My first day we walked all over all of it and I have been so tired this week.

Our mission president is awesome and I really like his wife. She's so funny. She holds your hand. When  we first got to the mission home both the mission president and his wife took us individually to have interviews and I thought it was really funny because she took my hand like a little child and led me to where we were going to talk. And then I got to watch all of the elders hold her hand too which was really funny because some of them were like macho boys that are in the military. It was hilarious for me!!

There are a lot of really nice people here. They're all really accepting and all ask me where I'm from? How long I've been here? Then they ask how my Spanish is after I tell how long I've been here. Then I do a lot of sitting and trying to understand a little bit of what they're saying. Luckily I have the Lord on my side in lessons otherwise I'd really be in trouble. So far we have one person with a baptismal date but the biggest problem here is that the people won't go to church. They have a lot of less active members because they won't go to church. They've even had people attend church enough times to be baptized and then they go inactive because they know the church is true but they won't go.

Oh yeah I forgot to say that my companion is a newbie too. Well she has two months in the field which is your training time. By a rule you're with your trainer for 2 transfers, 12 weeks, and they have a new training program that they're using that helps train you in the mission so that when your 12 weeks are over you should be prepared enough to be a trainer and that's what happened with me. She's really good though. We spend a lot of time studying because I'm a newbie and I need to learn the language and I need to learn how to teach but our lessons go pretty well. I'm doing pretty good on not having fear to talk to people but I still have some.

Today our zone got together and played sports. We played dodgeball which was awesome and a lot of fun.  I've been so tired. I thought I would sleep better at night than I have. I slept pretty good but the last couple of nights I've woken up a lot and last night I had a really bad dream that we were in a lesson and Hermana Ramos was saying something and then turned to me to say something and I had no idea what she said and I tried to explain to her that I didn't know what was happening and she just kept looking at me like why aren't you teaching. It was terrible!!

The food is really good here. I haven't had any problems with any of the food here except for guacamole which I still don't like. This week I ate some grilled cheese sandwiches that were so good!!! (I made them) Our apartment is nice and we walk a lot!!!

I haven't had too hard of a time communicating with my companion which is good. I can tell a difference though that she still is kind of green. It's all good though. We're all learning. We don't really make many appointments here. I think we're supposed to try and make appointments but where this last week was all messed up we mostly just had people that we would try to visit.

I'm doing good. Love you all!!!!

Monday, January 2, 2012

Here I go!

I know it's crazy! I leave tomorrow morning at 8am and then we go to the mission house which is only like twenty minutes away and have training for the field for the whole day. I'm excited and a little nervous. This last week was different and we had a lot of time for studying and asking questions.

We took down the Christmas decorations on Saturday morning for our service project and it was really weird because they've been up almost the whole time that we've been here because they went up the Saturday after we got here and they went down the Saturday before we left.

President and Hermana Steimle are amazing. I love them so much. I love how personal this MTC is because we got to talk with them and they got to know us better than they would at the other MTC. It was kind of hard transition for me when I got here for the first week and then things were good and then it was a little hard again when the change came with the other people switching out. Now it's finally my turn. We just said goodbye to three elders from our district that were going to El Salvador and one of the old Norteamericano girls because she was going to Nicaragua. It was good but I'm going to miss them. Luckily it's our turn tomorrow morning so we can finally get this goodbye part done for another six weeks. Time feels like it's gone slow but fast at the same time. I can remember the time that I've gone through but I can't believe that it's already time to go out, it's January, and it's 2012!!! Happy New Year!!

I feel ready to go out. We've gotten alot of good advice for when we go out to the field. They showed us a clip from Facing Giants today I don't know if you remember but they're doing the thing where they carry someone on their backs and just on their hands and knees like they're charging. Then they carry them a certain distance. The coach has him blindfolded and he carries the guy all the way across the field because he's just supposed to give his best and they push until he goes all the way. This is what we are to do. We think that maybe we might be able to reach the 50 yard line but if we push, ignore ourselves, and just focus on what the Lord tells us then we will accomplish so much more than we could ever imagine.
Love you! Here I go! :)