Rabinal

Dear People

Ok I think that ill be able to write a little more today because I have a little more time.  So yeah things have been great here.  My companion is Elder Brito and he is from Bolivia.  He is pretty sweet, but as I said last time he knows no english so we dont really know a whole lot about each other, but I do know that he has two girlfriends...  I asked him why and he said, so I have a lot of options when I get home.  But yeah whatever that means.  But we get along great and we work well together.  Also we have two other elders, Elder Call, who is from California, and Elder Fitzgerald, who is from Nicaragua, that we spend a lot of time with, because there area is about 30 minutes away and they dont have a lot of things.  Namely food, a church, a way to do laundry, kind of the necessary things for a mission, so they come here often.  Elder Call has been here for 10 months and Elder Fitzgerald got here when I did.  But Elder Call is pretty sweet.  He likes to golf too and his last golf course he played was at Pebble Beach the week before he left.  So that is pretty cool.  Elder Fitzgerald is also a pretty cool guy but we dont talk very much.  So that is all the elders in my district, and elder Call is the district leader.

So some of the physical things of my mission.  My house is pretty sweet, but it is always dirty, with dust and bugs everywhere.  I have figured out that I do have a shower but it only works about once a month according to Elder Brito.  I have a fridge that is about two feet big, and a hot burner for my food, and a microwave.  That is about it, oh and a bed.  But I love my home it feels like home.  And I got to take my first shower on last Thursday.  It was pretty sweet, but I actually think that I like the little bucket shower better.  After having done it for two weeks I kind of like it. Also we dont even have a way to do laundry so we have to pay a member to do it each week which can be good and can be bad.  Its good because we dont have to do it, but its bad because it takes two days for her to do, so sometimes I dont have clean clothes and that sucks but ill get over it.  Also every day for lunch we go out to this same place where we get a thigh of chicken rice and tortillas.  It is pretty good but I think after three months of it I am going to get sick of it.  But it is cheap it is 10 quetz for the meal which is about 1.5 dollars.  So yeah it is a pretty good deal.  But that is about the only food that is here.  All I eat is eggs, peanut butter, bread, chicken, rice, and tortillas, but those are some of my favorite foods so its pretty great.  The town I live in is Rabinal and it is a tiny town, but it is awesome.  The town itself isnt very pretty but the places around the town are awesome, there are a lot of trees and things like that.  But it is super sad, in the town there are tons of dogs everywhere, without owners.  You can see all their bones and stuff like that and a some are just dead on the side of the road.  That is one of the hardest things that I have seen.  So I hope that brindle is doing a little bit better than that...  

But the people here are amazing!!  They are so humble.  They literally have nothing.  It is awesome to see how happy they are with what they have, and how much faith the members have in Christ to help them with what they have.  We have about 20 people who are members in the town and they are some of the strongest people I know.  My first sunday was last week and it was pretty awesome.  But the branch president wasnt there, and he only has one assisstant, because there arent enough other men with the preisthood.  And his assistant wasnt there either, so Elder call presided over the meeting.  So us missionaries ran church the first week I was in the field, and it was a pretty awesome experience.  I have a lot more appreciation for the leaders in the church now.  But anyways I gave a talk too, and passed the sacrament which was way awesome.  

Now as far as the work goes, it is fantastic.  We have a baptism on this saturday, and two more on the 19th of October.  So it is awesome.  I love to teach the people the truth and to see that light in their eyes when they say that they know what we are saying is true.  But I wish I could speak more spanish, because I dont say a ton in the lessons, it is mainly Elder Brito.  I feel like if I could speak in English I would be much better, but I know that the spanish will come.  But I had an awesome experience the other day.  On our bus ride back from our district meeting there was another gringa, or north american who is a woman, on the bus with us.  Actually there were three.  So me and Elder Call taught them, and I could actually do something.  It was pretty sweet. Until we asked them why they were here, and they said they were missionaries too.  That was kind of a bummer, because they probably wouldnt want to know more.  But we continued on teaching them about the book of mormon, and this led into a discussion that was kind of like a bible bash.  They would say something that they thought that we believed in, like we worship Joseph Smith and we would answer using the bible, because they believed in the Bible.  It actually went pretty well and they accepted the book of mormon to read, but I dont think they will follow through, but it would be cool if they did.  So the work has been great and I love to teach the people here because they are so accepting.  

So yeah Im loving it here and I love serving the Lord all the time.  It is hard at sometimes but I know that through Jesus Christ all things are possible.  My Scripture for this week is 1st Nephi 2:20, and it says,  And inasmuch as you shall keep my commandments you shall prosper, and shall be led to a land of promise, yea even a land which i have prepared for thee, a land which is choice above all other lands.     I love this scripture because it applies to all of us.  If we keep his commandments we will prosper and we will have the help of Christ in our lives.

Love Elder Jeffrey Stuart

First Week!

I love it here!!!!!  But Im going to start where i left off two weeks ago.  I didnt have a computer last week so i couldnt send any last week.  But here I am.  So It is a tradition in the CCM when the elders are leaving we sing called to serve in spanish as loud as we can the night before. IT WAS AWESOME.  I love the power of all the elders in one area and that is what i miss about the CCM. But other than that im glad to be out of there.  Then the next morning we woke up at five and all the elders that were going to Coban left at seven.  I t was hard to say goodbye to all the others.  I didnt think it would be but we had gotten so close in those couple weeks and it was sad to see them go.  But we were off on our four and a half hour bus ride to Coban.  It wasnt too bad, but it was pretty long.  When we got to Coban we went to the Presidents house and had lunch.  It was awesome to meet President Curtiss.  He was awesome and I cant wait to get to know him more.  But then we had to get on our way.  So we went to a chapel to learn about all the rules of the mission. This is where I learned that I was going to the Vera Paz zone and my area would be Rabinal.  That was awesome.  So we hopped on another bus to a place called salama.  We could only make it to there that day because by the time we left the church it was four and it was a three and a half hour bus ride.  So it was a lot of buses that day.  We got to Salama and that is where I met my trainer.  Elder Brito.  He is an awesome guy but he knows absolutely no english.  So it can be hard to talk to him, but I have learned so much spanish in 5 days with him.  I can say that im about 75 percent fluent.  Its awesome!!!!  So we stayed over night at the zone leaders house, and we slept on five mattresses.  But there were six missionaries, so it was a rough night.  But then the next morning we woke up at 6 and me and elder Brito were going to catch a taxi to rabinal.  That was my area.  So it took us until about 6 30 to find a taxi and we were off.  Almost...  The taxi drove for about three minutes then dropped us off.  He said that he couldnt take us to rabinal and that we would need a bus.  So we basically said thanks for nothing and walked to the bus station with all my luggage.  We made it to the bus station and we caught a bus to Rabinal at about 7 30.  So an hour and a half later we were on our way.  It was probably the coolest bus ride Ive ever been on.  It was about an hour and a half up over a mountain.  It was so cool to look over the city of coban as we left.  We arrived in Rabinal at about 9.  And then we were off to work.  We had comp study until about ten and then we went to the store so I could get some food.  Then we went to work.  We visited a lot of members houses and a few investigators houses.  It was a pretty long day so when we got back at about 9 00 I was going to take a shower.  But that was when I figured out that we dont have one...  I had to shower with a bucket.  So I said screw it and i went to study.  But then the next day I had to take my first bucket shower.  It wasnt to bad.  And now I actually quite like it after 6 days of a bucket shower.  But I love the Area here and the people are so giving.  I dont have a lot of time today so I will explain more next week when I also know a little bit more about what is going on.  But I absolutely love the work.  And a line from one of my favorite songs now, the song is by the band Jonny likes, and it says,  this is the hardest thing I have ever loved to do and it is so true.  Thanks for all of the support.  And I dont have time for a scripture this week so it will have to wait until next week.

Love Elder Jeffrey Stuart