In the Mission

We Received this Message Today

I just got to the mission, everyone here is so nice. The bus ride took a while. there were some protesters that blocked the road or something like that, I guess people don't like the government. all is well though, I'm sorry I don't have time to write more.

P days are on Mondays in this mission, so that's when you'll get the next email.

I love you guys

4 Hours Later We Received This

Dear Brother and Sister,

Your missionary has officially made it safely to the mission!   Sister Goodman and I have had the wonderful opportunity to meet and talk with him.  We are excited to start working alongside him in the work of the Lord here. We already love him and we know he will be a truly outstanding servant of the Lord.

With our love and appreciation,

President and Sister Goodman

Week 5

I'm glad you are all doing well, that's awesome.

I don't really have much to tell about what I'm doing. It is basically just lots of class time, we haven't really gotten out of the MTC much.  Since we are leaving for the field next week, the teachers have started cramming content into the classes. There is a ton of work learning the lessons, the language, and all that good stuff.

My favorite day of the week is Sunday, which is weird cause it never was before.  But now the Sabbath is actually a delight. I'm not quite sure what is different though. Maybe it is cause we work so hard the rest of the week, or maybe it's because... Well here is what I think. Most of the week, I'm operating under a certain level of stress, so when Sunday comes around it is finally a chance to rest mentally.  We have all kinds of devotionals after the usual three meetings of church so we get to rest, and refuel spiritually. It is seriously the greatest thing in the world.

My district here is the greatest, it will be sad to leave them when we go to the field next week. my companion is pretty awesome, his testimony is really strong, and he works so hard to be the best he can. We still have some things to work out, in the actual teaching part though.  He tends to give 2 thirds of the lesson, and I give a third, almost every time. I don't want to say it's his fault, but I'm pretty sure it is. That is awful of me to say though; there are a lot of things he is really good at.  His Spanish is better than mine, and he is a lot better at preparing lessons.  He just doesn't always know when to yield the floor. But aside from that little quirk in our lessons, we work really well together, and I love him.

Speaking of loving people, the Latino Elders are so much fun to talk to. They like to joke about Trump a lot for some reason too.... Most of the time the ones that speak English are easier to talk to, cause they understand that they need to talk slowly for us to understand since they went through the same struggles when they learned English. some of the other ones will talk super fast, and when you ask them to repeat it slowly, they will say it just as fast, just with pauses between the words, which doesn't help much.  Anyway, they have such a great senses of humor.  Also, everyone here listens to American music.  There is this Catholic school down the road, and they are always blasting music, most of which I recognize.  It's a blessing and a curse, cause we aren't supposed to listen to worldly music.

Next week I will leave for the field.  As far as I know, it is a 3 or 4-hour bus ride to the mission home.  There we will be assigned to a trainer, who is basically just a companion who knows the ropes and is willing to take a newbie under his wing.  We will have five minutes to write and say we didn't die on the bus. So it will be a couple weeks before you get a real email.

I am not ready to go to the field at all, but I also know I will learn much faster out there, and I am excited to get to work!

love you all, Adios!

Week 3

So it turns out McDonald's delivers here!  Isn't that crazy. They have little boxes for the food on the backs of their motorcycles.

So I didn't have time to mention in my last email, but we had a visit from Elder Cordon of the 70.  You know, the guy grandpa and I met in Nauvoo.  He gave us a very nice devotional on missionary work. It was pretty awesome.

Today was the most interesting P day of all, we got to go to the zoo, and there were a few animals that got out of their cages.  Nothing dangerous, just a few peacocks, and some kind of reptile lizard thing.  I will send you some pictures when I get out of the CCM.  By the way, I asked a teacher why we can't send pictures, he said it was blocked on these computers... something to do with youtube.  So you'll have to wait for the photos for another 3 weeks or so.

I'm halfway through the CCM and boy is it crazy, time flies by so fast.  I feel like I just got here last week.  I can't wait to get out in the field, but its also super terrifying, cause I'm not anywhere near ready, and I am already halfway there.

We just had a huge group of people leave, so there are only about 32 missionaries here right now.  We got 3 or 4 new ones today, and there are about another 100 coming tomorrow.

It's crazy how similar Guatemala city is to America.  Aside from a different language, it's about the same. It is like a more colorful version of downtown Seattle.  I can't wait to see what it's like in the field. We are just 3 blocks away from the temple, so we go there every P day.

I'm almost to the point where I can read the book of Mormon in Spanish, and I can understand most of Preach My Gospel.  There are occasionally a couple essential words in the sentence that I don't know, but it's coming along. The scriptures are harder because they are written in vosotros form, and they use an odd vocabulary. But when you think about it, so do the scriptures in English. It's like when you're a kid, and you can read just fine, but the scriptures still make no sense. But I've been reading it every night, and it gets easier. At first, it took me 10 minutes to read 2 verses:  I had to be constantly checking the English scriptures, or the dictionary, or both.  But now I can understand most of it without either.

The gift of tongues is an interesting thing. I always thought it was basically God will put the words in your mouth, and you can suddenly speak another language, but it's not like that at all. You have to work diligently and study hard.  God will help you learn faster, and when you need it, he will bring words you've studied to your remembrance.

Week 2

Everything is great over here, I'm busy all the time, and it's great cause I'm learning so fast.  I don't have time to think of everything I left behind, and the spirit is always here, cause we are always studying the gospel.

So I think I mentioned in my last email that they have us practice teaching investigators almost every day. The investigators are played by the teachers, and they are real profiles of investigators the teachers had when they were missionaries. So all the challenges the teachers had to overcome with those investigators, we do as well. Even though we aren't actually teaching a real investigator the spirit is super strong at times. Our first investigator was Micaela, and she was very excepting of the gospel, there was only one major obstacle to overcome with her, and maybe I'll tell you later. But our second investigator was Estefenia, played by the same teacher as Micaela. Estefenia is completely different, we've had two lessons with her.  In the first one, she didn't want to have anything to do with prayer, or repentance, or anything like that. She refused to participate in a prayer with us or anything.  The only thing she wanted to know, is why a loving heavenly father would allow good people to suffer.  We were expecting something like that, but we totally blanked, and we couldn't think of what to teach her.

So for our second lesson, we prepared some scriptures, and we were going to teach her about the importance of trials in this life and how they are for our good, but we decided we had to make sure she was going to seek the answers for herself.  So we started the lesson talking about prayer. We taught her that the only way she could know the truth for herself was to pray, and God would give her the answers she needed. She said that she would respect our beliefs but she didn't believe in prayer. We both bore our testimonies, and eventually, she agreed to participate in a prayer, so one of us offered a prayer.  When it was over the spirit was super strong.  We asked her what she felt, and she said she didn't know.  We talked a little bit about how we can receive answers to our prayers if we have faith and a real intent and all that good stuff - and guess what she said.  She said when she was younger her father was a very bad person. He was always drinking alcohol, and being an awful father.   Eventually, he left, and to this day she has no idea where he is, but that her life is better without him.  I felt impressed to ask her to pray right there, so I did.   She said it would be better if one of us offered it, but I said no, it is better than you do it. Then my companion said, Five years right, it's been five years since you prayed?  I know your Father in Heaven wants to hear from you after all that time.   She had previously told us she hadn't prayed for five years. she agreed to offer one.  She got as far as "father."   There was a long pause, then she looked up with tears in her eyes and said I can't. We asked her why, and she told us her story.

One day, five years ago, two Mormon missionaries came and taught her about prayer.  They told her if she had faith, real intent, and sincerity, she would receive an answer to her prayer.  Through tears, she told us that she prayed, the whole night long, with so much faith and sincerity.  But she didn't receive an answer.  She said, she didn't expect her father to change magically, or anything, but five years have passed, and she still hasn't received an answer.  After another long pause, I felt the prompting of the Holy Ghost.  I said, What is it you would like to talk to Heavenly Father about?  She said I only..... I only want to know why he didn't answer my prayer. Then I said We don't know why he didn't answer your prayer, but He does.  Will you ask him?  After another long, teary pause she said yes, then she prayed.  It was one of the most powerful prayers I've ever heard.  After the prayer, it was way past time to go. We taught her what she was feeling was the Holy Ghost, and then I said, One of Heavenly Fathers favorite ways to answer prayers is through the scriptures.  Will you read the Book of Mormon tonight and search for answers? and she said she would.

More to follow on that next week. I'm sorry I'm out of time,

Love you all. Adios.

Week 1

It sounds like everything is good over there. Please don't give me any actual spoilers when the next movie comes out Issac. It might not make a difference though because they do watch Star Wars here. I asked one of my teachers and he looked at me like I was crazy, cause why wouldn't they have star wars!

So I missed my flight from Seattle to LA, and they rerouted me and Elder Trampp to Atlanta and then to Guatemala. we were only 6 hours late, so it was all good.

My companion is pretty great, we get along pretty good, the only problem is we're still learning how to teach. I have the best district ever here in the MTC, well technically its called el CCM... Spanish and stuff. So they divided us up by Spanish skill into 2 groups, which actually turns out to be North Americans and Latinos. I have yet to meet a Canadian among the North Americans though. But they divided those two groups into districts of 12ish people, and my district is the best.  We have such great people in it: everyone such great testimonies, and great senses of humor.

Speaking of teachers, the teachers here are great.  They all have a sense of huma\or, and they're super patient. We're in class basically all day except when we are eating or something, but it is the best thing ever.  We have already learned to pray, bear testimony, and share scriptures all in Spanish. The teachers speak to us in Spanish, and we are supposed to speak Spanish as much as we can. If you ask them a question in English, they will pretend they don't understand you, until you at least attempt it in Spanish. They all speak English by the way.  But we are learning so fast, I've already started to think in Spanish a little bit, and sometimes I accidentally write them in my journal.

We have realistic practice almost every day of teaching an investigator. One of the teachers named Sister Morales plays a character named Micaela and we are supposed to go in, one companionship at a time, and teach her a lesson that we prepared. So far we have taught her 3 lessons and she has expressed a desire to be baptized. My companion Elder Kirkman and I got her to break character in the last lesson.  She just randomly started laughing because of something one of us said, and just as she was starting to calm down Elder Kirkman yells, "Esta es el Espiritu!" which means," It's the spirit!" because we had just finished talking about how to feel the holy ghost. But after he said that she started cracking up all over again.

But yeah, I'm having a blast, and learning so much. I feel like in the last 6 days, I've learned more Spanish than I ever knew before, and all the other gringos here say the same thing. Most of their language teaching revolves around helping us obtain the gift of tongues, and it really works. I don't think any other language program would have as much success as this place, even if they used all the same teaching techniques because they don't have Heavenly Fathers help as much as we do.  On top of all the grammar, they teach us specific language tasks, and that is how we learned to pray and bear testimony and all that stuff.

We just got back from the Guatemala temple.  It is super small but really beautiful, it might just be my new favorite. After we are done emailing, we are going to the distribution center, which is great cause there are a few things I need.

The food here is soooo good too, the only problem is the portions are huge, and it is insulting to throw away, or refuse food., so I guess I figured out why people gain weight in the CCM!

I have a few pictures but I heard a rumor there are laws against sending pictures out of the country, so until I know more, they'll have to wait.

Anyway, I love you all.

P.S. I don't know if they have Jack in the Box, but I do know they have Wendy's.
P.P.S. Guatemala is so beautiful