Transfers and Mother's Day

The transfers were good. I was a little sad to lose Hermana Ramos but I have a great new companion. Her name is Hermana Cruz and she's got time in the mission. She's going to complete 15 months in the mission on the 23rd. After this transfer she's only got two more. She's from Honduras. And I'm really excited to have her here in Los Olivos. She's had a year outside of the capital so the change has been a little hard for her because the people are a lot harder in the capital. Outside they're really giving and always open the door, give food, etc. But here it's a lot different but she's got a lot of ideas and we're working hard to find new people to teach.  I'm really excited to have my new companion.

I had a good birthday! My birthday is Mother's Day here. We just had a normal day. Searched for new investigators. When we got home I felt a teeny bit sad but Hermana Ramos called and wished me a happy birthday, and after that Elders Reyes and Rodriguez called, and after that Elder Moràn called. I was super grateful for my family here. I can't be with you but they were able to be here with me. Well call on the phone haha. But it was good!

Love you all tons!!!!!! Pray for us so that we can find new investigators!!!

Transfers

The transfer is........Hermana Ramos is going and I'm staying here. It will be good. I'm sad that Hermana Ramos is leaving me because seriously she's like my sister. But I know the change will be good. I know I'll learn to love my new companion and we'll learn and grow together as well.

Right now the potential investigators are possible the daughter of Mariela- Jaymmi (pronounced Jaime), an old investigator Dina, and Brenda. There's still that family that we found as well. We ran into them this week so hopefully we'll be able to find them in their house so we can find out if they want more or not.

Wow it's crazy to think that I only have one year left in the mission. But I'll get to call home like two weeks before I come home haha. That'll be nice. I think. Or it will be hard for the last two weeks. Oh well I'll be happy to call home. heehee

My district leader, Elder Eskelsen, is going to train these next two cambios, Elder Centeno is leaving. Elder Reyes is still in his training so him and his companion Elder Rodriguez are still here. And then we have transfers. I'm a little bit nervous for the transfers but it should be good.

Hey I hope you have a great week and love you all.

A Pretty Good Week

My week was pretty good. We were able to work with Daniela some more and we're going to baptize her on the 8th of May (the day before the transfers). Brenda fell through because we didn't feel like she's really progressing because she wants to. She's living in a member’s home and we think that she's just joining because she's willing to do whatever they say so we're taking a step back to see if it's really something that she wants or if it's just for the member. We didn't meet with the family.

The English classes went well. I taught the beginning class and it went really well. We had fun and they learning how to greet a person, what's their favorite color, and what's their favorite food. It was really good.

No, we didn't eat cow brains but we're going to eat them this week.

Hey hope you have a great week!!!! Love you tons!!!!!!!

Winter and Summer

We weren't able to teach the family more this week but we were able to connect with Daniela again and she's doing really good. We're going to put a date with her for the 8th of May, the day before the transfers heehee! We really want to baptize her! She's really a sweetheart and we love her a ton!!! We also found someone new this week, Brenda and her date is also for the 8th of May so we're pretty excited to hopefully have two more baptisms in this area before the transfers.

We're looking forward to the transfers this time. We're pretty sure that Hermana Ramos will go this time and there's a big possibility that I'll go too. I hope so! I want to see more of Guatemala. But it's not really up to me so we'll see!

We're going to start the English classes this week. My district leader Elder Eskelson and I are going to teach them. It all depends on how many people show up as well. Hopefully it will go well!!

There isn't really spring here. We have summer and winter. Summer started in like February and will end in like September I think or something like that. I don't know. I just know that it was little some days in January and February and after that it's been pretty warm. I'm glad though that I'm not in Peten right now because May in Peten is like an oven. It's like an oven right now but it's even worse in May.

Love you lots and hope everything's going great!!!!!!!!! By the way I'm going to eat cow brain this week. Love you!!!

New Elders and P-day

This week was pretty good. So what happened is we lost Elder Moràn, got a new elder, Elder Rodriguez, and got put together with two other elders so now our district is 6 people. The two new elders are Elder Eskelson and Elder Centeno. Elder Eskelson is our district leader and he's awesome! I don't remember exactly where he's from but he's a gringo. He's really cool and jokes around with us which is nice because our district before was really unified and there's elders in the mission that really just push out the hermanas and don't interact with them at all. So I'm happy that we still have this.

We had our zone conference this week and it was really good. Hermana Watts talked to us about language study and really pushed the latinos to learn English. Elder Eskelson and I are going to start an English class to try and find new investigators. We also learned about the importance of the Book of Mormon in our teaching and we also watched the talk by Elder Uchtdorf again.

This week was a lot better with the work. We found a family that looks really promising. We're really excited for it and hope that it works out!

On P-day`s everyone goes to Walmart if it's close to the area and we have permission to go because our area is really close. Well this morning with the emergency transfers and everything there were some new people and one of them was my district leader from the 6 weeks in the CCM!!!!!!!!!!!!! Elder Vanisi!!!!!!! I was super excited to see him because I've only seen one other person from my district in my time her in the mission and that was Elder Schindler when my papers were bad and had to go in. He was serving in Peten which is an area up north in Guatemala. It's where almost everyone wants to go. He said it was really beautiful. There are four areas outside of the capital and the main three are Coban, Peten, and Polochik. Almost everyone wants to go to Peten because it's away and Polochik because it's where they speak the other dialect. I hope I'm able to go to Peten but we'll see what happens. We were also able to see Elder Moràn because he's just in the area over so it was great to see him too! Yeah today was a pretty good P-day.

Hope everything's going great!!! Love you all a ton!! Happy Birthday to Tracy and Aubrey!!!!!!!!

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

It was Easter?

Wow this week was....different. It was la semana santa, Holy Week. And thank goodness it's over..... Everyone left this week because it was vacation week. There wasn't school, everyone went to the beach, movies, blah blah. We spent a lot of time in the house. We were really bored but we're happy that this week is over. Yep that was this week.

Our investigators are doing pretty well. Dina we couldn't visit because she was gone on vacation. Daniela we couldn't visit because her mom came from the US to visit. Our recent convert, Mariela, is doing well. She's having a little trouble with her family. Her husband's mother died and he's been really sad and drinking. She tried to talk to him a little about the church but he doesn't want to hear about it and she's trying to keep the respect in religions alright so that she can continue with the church. She's doing really good though. She has a really good friend in the church and they're doing well.

There was a problem this weekend with some missionaries and they're going to have emergency transfers and we're losing our district leader. We're really sad but what can we do. It's really hard right now. When we lost Elder Bronson we were really sad but even more so this time for Elder Moràn... oh well asì es la misiòn. this is the mission.

They don't really celebrate Easter here and I kind of forgot about it. Hope everything`s going good! Love you all and we're going to work hard this week!!!!

Conference and Investigators

We were able to watch all the sessions. There were really good and I really learned a lot. I really liked the talk by Elder Holland but the poor men received sincho! I also really liked the talk about the difference in gospel and the church. How many are active in the church but not in the gospel. It made me think about a lot of the people here and how we need to make sure we're teaching them the gospel so then they'll be active in the church. Yeah I can't believe that I have 5 months. Almost a third of the mission.
We have some pretty good investigators right now. One is Daniela. She's amazing. She has studied the Bible extensively and she had the Book of Mormon for 1 week and she knew that it was true. She attended the Sunday session of conference and she's really coming along. Her problem is that her children are super Catholic and she is slowly going to start talking to them about the church but she really knows that it's true. Another is Dina. She knows that the Book of Mormon is true but with her also is her family. She says that all of her family is of different faiths so I think she just needs to receive comfort from God and the help for her to take that step into baptism.
Hope you all have a great weekend. Happy Easter!!! Love you all!!