Alright... well here I am again.... this week was a a good week.... We are going little by little to help Cubulco to keep going strong! Although this week my companion got sick.. seems to be the going thing for the new missionaries... they always get sick, but I guess he will get over it soon. But he had to go to coban today to go to the doctor... so I stayed here in Rabinal with Elder Vargas and Elder brito ended up going to coban with Elder Barahona because he also had a doctors appt. in coban... so I am here in Rabinal until tomorrow night.
But this week for work was a pretty good week! We are preparing a family to be baptized this weekend.. so we are praying a lot for him that he and his family can get baptized! He is doing good, and he is super ready... but he just needs to keep strong because he used to drink and since we found him he hasnt drunk, but we are just hoping that he can keep strong until his baptism... and for his whole life! So yeah that is about all that is happening with us for this week!
Showing posts with label Elder Brito. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Elder Brito. Show all posts
Sunday, April 19, 2015
Sunday, March 8, 2015
Another week gone...
Wow... well we had some interesting things happen this week, but nothing that is too unordinary... But first one of the funny things. We have to go to Rabinal every week to do meetings and stuff like that in the church... but in the morning after church got over Elder Brito left the keys in the office and locked them inside... and well that was the only pair of keys... so when I got there we spent like 20 minutes trying to open the window and door by picking the locks (we really didnt think that it was going to work but we didnt want to have to break the door) but it didnt work... so I finally decided that I was just going to kick the door open... Remembering that we are in guatemala and everything here is built weakly... so I just kicked the doorknob and... It opened! So I have officially kicked open a door now.. the only problem is that we kind of ruined the door knob, so we bought a new one today and replaced it... so that was pretty fun...
Also this week was kind of a sad week but also a good week. Marcos, who is the husband of Lucia, who got baptized in december, had been trying and trying to receive an answer for quite a bit of time... and finally this week he got his answer!!!!!!!! So that was super good... he had a dream that he was on a bus with me and Elder Gomez and his family and that we were all going to a place... and a guy came on the bus and asked for our tickets, and Marcos was seated behind all of us, and was watching us give our tickets to the collecter.... but he said that he couldnt find his ticket. And finally when the collector came to him told him that he had to have a ticket to continue on and that without a ticket he couldnt continue... so he got off the bus and was looking for a way to get a ticket, and a man dressed in white, with a white beard came to him and gave him his ticket to continue on... and so then he got back onto the bus and could go with us to our destination... So that was a pretty cool story to hear... But now here comes the sad part... Marcos left for the States today! So he couldnt get baptized before he left, and so we will see if he will follow through with the church there and if he will get baptized there... Luckily I have a way to contact him through email so we will keep in touch... but I hope that he can get baptized!
And well many other things have happened this week but those were the two experiences that I wanted to share this week!
Love Elder Stuart
Sunday, February 8, 2015
Changes... NOT
Well this week was the week of changes and we were a little bit nervous to have a change but we didnt.. so that was all good. Another six weeks here in Cubulco! Also something interesting is that Elder Brito, my trainer, is going to be in Rabinal again! He already had 7 months there and he will be going back but this time as branch president! So we are super excited for that again... although this time I will be in Cubulco not in Rabinal with him.. but we will be close! So we are super excited for that!
As for the work this week it has been super busy like always! But we are doing good... working hard, and progressing in every aspect! Inculding this week we had 4 members pay their tithing! That is basically a miracle here! That is one of the difficulties that we have been having to progress to become a branch but now they are getting the hang of it too! So we are just super excited to see the progress of Cubulco!
Also as with the investigators.. we have a ton of investigators that are going good and that want to get baptized the only problem is that here (because we arent a branch) they have to be super prepared to get baptized... and we personally have a rule that we arent going to baptize a person until they attend church 5 times in a row.. and it is a little bit hard... and we have a lot of people who want to progress, but they just dont attend church sufficiently... but we will see how that goes...
But in other words all is great! Super excited for another 6 weeks here!
Love Elder Stuart
Sunday, December 15, 2013
Changes!
This week we have changes!!!!! Im not going to be with my comp elder Brito anymore, but im getting a new comp, but I still dont know what his name is yet... But I get to meet him tomorrow! So Im super excited for that, and we will be comps down in Rabinal still! So that is pretty sweet!
Other than that we didnt have too much happen this week. Just the regular mission life, studying, teaching, and sleeping! It is all going pretty good down here though. Im loving it more and more each day, and I didnt know that it was even possible to love it more than I do, but I guess I was wrong!
I cant believe how much that it snowed last week, sounds like it has been a crazy week, and it is beginning to look a lot like christmas, well at least over there in Utah. Here it still feels like the middle of summer.
Yep not much other than that happened this week... My scripture is 1st Nephi 7,8-13.
Love Elder Stuart
Sunday, December 8, 2013
Photos!
Elder Brito and I were playing with an Investigators cat. Me wanting to drive a Tuctuc And my thanksgiving Dinner! This is my family in the mission! there is me, but not in order, my dad Elder Brito, his dad Elder Bashaw, his dad Elder Trujillo, his dad Elder Deschazer, and his dad Elder Escobar. Also Elder Tellez is another son of Bashaw... Me and Jonnys comp from the CCM. Elder Welker Some moth thing that we found that had huge scizzor like thingys for its mouth or whatever you call that thing. Me and Jonnys comp from the MTC, Elder Ashcroft, eating our thanksgiving pizza The turkey before it was cut...
Getting Better at Spanish!
Well this week was pretty usual. Not much has changed over the past week. Other than we had an old investigator that wants to listen to us again. But yeah it is kind of a long story but i will share it because i literally dont have much to say so here it is... So before Elder Brito left for those three weeks we were teaching this girl and she had a baptismal date and everything, then Brito left. So us in the trio went to visit her and she told us she doesnt want to listen to us anymore. But the day that Elder Brito got back to Rabinal she said that she wanted to listen to us again. We thought that was a little weird, but we went to visit her. During our lesson though we could tell that she was a little, I dont know how to explain it, but attracted to him. So we were pretty blunt with her and asked her if she is listening to us again for baptism, or for Elder Brito. She didnt answer the question, but she says that she still has absolutely no desire to be baptized, so we figured the latter. So we arent going to visit her again... So yeah thats it for that story...
Also like Jonny said we had that little stake conference thingy for guatemala. It was pretty fantastic, and it was all in spanish and I understood basically all of it, sooo Im not gonna lie im pretty proud of myself...
Thats all folks, Oh and my scripture this week is 1st nep. 1.12
Love Elder Stuart
Monday, November 25, 2013
More Photos! - Taken from Elder Call's Blog!
Hello Everyone! This is Elder Stuart's sister (the one who posts his emails and photos for him!) We were trying to find an address to send Jeffrey's Christmas package to and came across the blog for Elder Call who was Jeffrey's companion for a couple of weeks while Jeffrey was in a trio. You can check out Elder Call's blog about his experiences by clicking on the link to the left (where our brother's mission blog is as well!). My mom and I decided to take a look through some of Elder Call's pictures to see if there were any of Jeffrey, and we found these wonderful pictures of Jeffrey! We don't have too many pictures of Jeffrey himself, because he always seems to take pictures of other things.
I have taken all of the following pictures of Jeffrey off of Elder Call's blog as well as the captions that accompany the pictures. Thanks for sharing pictures of my brother Elder Call!
All photos are credited to Elder Call
I have taken all of the following pictures of Jeffrey off of Elder Call's blog as well as the captions that accompany the pictures. Thanks for sharing pictures of my brother Elder Call!
taking one of the members home from after church haha with this elder in my district. haha this elder has 1 week in the mission. how can i have almost a year in the mission. i feel like i am in my first week also. [22 Sep 2013]
lunch with the elders in my distric the hermanas live like 2 hours away [25 Sep 2013]
| eating lunch at a members house [12 Oct 2013] |
church activity for el dia del nino [12 Oct 2013]
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| the missionaries in my branch and i took a pic of the funniest guy in the branch nicco he just sleeps during everything haha [12 Oct 2013] |
| my comp and the elders in rabinal all in the hamaca [20 Oct 2013] |
| dinner at robertos house [5 Nov 2013] |
| stuart and i tortillaring in our house haha [9 Nov 2013] |
| the baptism and i'm soaking wet with a broken belt haha [9 Nov 2013] |
| stuart baptizing [9 Nov 2013] |
today at some like sugar factory museum thing [11 Nov 2013]
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Sunday, November 24, 2013
Sup
Well Im writing today because yesterday we had to back to Coban to get Elder Brito, because he is my comp again!! Not gonna lie it kind of sucked being in a trio, so Im glad to be back with Brito. Also we had to stay over night Sunday at the APs house and it was pretty sweet. We ate McDonalds and we had hot showers so it was like the best day of my life.
Not much happened this week, but it was Elder Calls 1 year mark, so we had a little fiesta on wednesday. We ate an icecream cake that was huge and he burnt his shirt, so that was pretty fun. But this cake was for 15 people and us three ate it, and I ended up eating half of it because they couldnt eat any more, and it was an Ice cream cake, so we couldnt take it home, because we dont have a freezer. But it was worth it.
Also this week in church was fantastic. Our branch president came to church, and we also found this less active guy in cubulco, so we had a pretty successful day in church. It was amazing to see how much more we could feel the spirit with these two preisthood holders in church, instead of the usual one, and it was just fantastic!!
Other than that it was kind of a slow week so yeah thats all folks...
Love Elder Stuart
Sunday, November 10, 2013
New Comps
Well as I left off last week, my comp, Elder Brito hurt his knee. I didnt think much of it but we called Hermana Curtiss and she said that we should go to Coban tomorrow, tuesday, and get it checked out. So we did, we left at like 7 in the morning tuesday to go to the doctor. So we finally made it to the doctor and he told us that there definately was something wrong and that we need to go to a different doctor to get an MRI. So we went there and we got the MRI but we couldnt get the results until the next day, wednesday... So we stayed over night at the assisstants house so that we could get the results and not have to travel back to Rabinal that night. By the time we had left the final doctor it was like 5 in the night so we spent about 7 hours at the doctors office that day. That is one example of how bad the doctors are here, because it took 7 hours to tell us that we need an MRI and to go and get it done. So that was a little long. But anyways we went to get the results on wednesday and we figured out that Brito shouldnt walk for about a month. This was really disappointing to hear. So by the time that we got all his things that he needed from the doctor, like medicine crutches it was 3. So that was really boring because we had to stay at the assistants house again that night, because they didnt know what to do with us. So we stayed over night at the assistants house again, which really sucked because we hadnt planned on staying over night, so we had nothing. We had no new clothes, toothbrushes, or things like that so it really wasnt that great. So then on Thursday we figured out what we would be doing. So at about 10 we talked with the president on thursday morning. He told us that brito was going to stay in the mission office, and that I was going to go work in a different area in a trio with Elders Ashcroft and Tellas. Elder Ashcroft is the other district leader in my zone, and also he was Jonnys comp in the MTC. So I was a little sad to be leaving Brito, but it would be cool to work with Ashcroft. So I got in a car with Elder Kirk, a senior missionary who helps the pres, and he was going to take me to Rabinal to get all my things and then take me to the other area. He was the guy who worked in the FBI so that was pretty cool to talk to him about his work. So he dropped me off at Rabinal to pack my things, because he had to go to do something else, and he would come back in an hour. So there was a member with me, but I wasnt with another missionary at this time which was a little weird, but I packed my stuff and was ready to go. But then he came back to the house about an hour later to tell me that I was going to stay in Rabinal and be in a trio with Elder Call, my district leader, and His comp, Elder Aybar. So I didnt have to leave my area which made me pretty happy, but I was a little sad to not work with Ashcroft, because that wouldve been really cool. So long story short, Brito had to leave and now Im in a trio with Elders Call and Aybar, and im still in Rabinal. So yeah kind of a long week. And also we have to work two different areas, their area, Cubulco and Rabinal. They are about 30 minutes away by bus so that kind of sucks. But I will explain more of that next week when I have more time.
Anyways the work was a little slow this week, because we werent in Rabinal for half the week and we have to work two areas so we cant only focus on the people here in Rabinal. This definately showed, because we only had 30 people in church, When we usually have about 40 or 45. So yeah it just goes to show that working hard and sufficiently really does pay off. Because we hardly worked in our area this week because of all that was going on, and we had only two thirds of the people in church. But I know that it was only for this week and that we will be able to get everything back to normal in no time. But Im super excited to work my butt of this week to get everything back to normal.
Also I cant believe that you guys have already gotten snow!! Its hard to believe that it can be like 90 degrees here and only a 5 hour plane ride away it is snowing!! Thats pretty cool.
My scripture this week in D and C 121. I dont want to type it all out but it talks about Joseph Smith in Liberty Jail, and the struggles that he had, but through the help of our Heavenly Father we are able to get through everything.
Elder Jeffrey Stuart
Sunday, November 3, 2013
Transfers!
Well this week was Transfers but not much happened. Me and Elder Brito are still comps in Rabinal, so that is pretty cool and yeah not much else is important to you guys so thats about it.
So this week has been pretty great. We are continuing to work hard and its continuing to pay off. This makes me super happy, and makes me want to work even harder. So its pretty great here. But my comp injured his knee today pretty badly so we dont know how we are going to keep the same pace that we have been working at, but it should all work out.
Also the people here are pretty funny. This week I was asked by two different members if I knew how to eat a tortilla... I kind of thought it was a joke but they were dead serious. They both thought that there werent tortillas in America. So that gave me a pretty good laugh.
So things are going pretty great here, and Im loving every minute of it. Thanks for all of the support!
Elder Jeffrey Stuart
Sunday, October 20, 2013
Photos!
This is our ward mission leader... He is quite the weird dude, but he is awesome.
This is me elder call, the other gringo, Elder brito and elder fitzgerald. Elder Fitzgerald has the glasses. This was when we were going to our district meeting and our bus got a flat tire. So we had to wait on the side of the road for about a half an hour.
This was our ward party and that is elder call, He doesnt look to happy...
Sunday, October 13, 2013
Photos!
This is me taking stalker photos of my companion... Im not sure if they are jpeg or not but yeah
This is a typical street in rabinal. Those little car things are called tuc tucs and they are the taxi system here. They are pretty sweet.
This was my dinner last night. We usually dont get dinner so im basically living of Peanut butter sandwiches.
This is a shirt I found in my house that another missionary left... Guess what show it is from... Thats right, Psych!
This was some missionary guy yelling-preaching in the public on how we are all sinners so i went and gave him a book of mormon, but i dont think he will read it...
Conference!!
So this week has been just another week in the field. Not much happened but the things that usually happen. But I am loving it here in Guatemala. It is awesome here!!!
We didnt have the baptism on saturday because of general conference but it is going to be this saturday. So im super excited for that because we get to do it in the waterfall that I sent pictures of last week, and Elder Brito said that he was going to let me do it. So I am super excited for that!!!
Also General Conference was awesome. But things here are tough to do, because we dont have a lot of the things from back home, like computers... So we were watching conference on the computers in the chapel that look like they are from the time of Christ, and they were super slow. But luckily we had two so me and Elder Call, my district leader, got to watch it in english!! So I actually understood what they were saying when it wasnt buffering. So that was pretty awesome. But yeah it was so slow that we didnt get hardly any breaks in between sessions because they were about 2 hours and 45 minutes a piece. So on saturday we watched conference from 10 until 9 at night with a little break for lunch but not for dinner. But it was awesome. But then on sunday we didnt get to watch the whole thing for either session because it was so slow. So we only saw about half of each. So that was a little disappointing. But anyway about conference... I dont know if you guys noticed this but i noticed it because it was specifically directed to me. It was said probably around 7 or 8 times that members and missionaries need to work together. Elder Ballard in the saturday afternoon challenged each member to find one person to have the missionaries teach before christmas. I also challenge each one of you to do the same. I know it might be hard and you probably dont want to, because I know I didnt want to when I was home, but it really is easy and the missionaries will really appreciate it if you do this. I love it when the members help us, all three of them. It really does make our lives easier and I know that if you do this youre lives and the people you help lives will be blessed through this. Also another thing I loved was the line by Elder Holland, of course, that says Gods love is ALWAYS there for us whether we deserve it or not. I know that that is true and that god is our loving heavenly father.
Thanks for all that you do for me and all the advice that you guys have given me. My scripture this week is mosiah 2:17, and it says if you are in the service of your fellow beings you are only in the service of you god. It is important that we serve others with all our heart might mind and strength, because by doing this we are showing our love for God.
Love Elder Jeffrey Stuart
Sunday, October 6, 2013
Photos!
This is where we went today for pday. It was an awesome waterfall, so I figured that I would stall on it.
This is me giving a word of wisdom pamphlet to a drunk guy. It was pretty fun. Then we walked around the corner after and we saw another one, so elder Brito was going to do it too, but then some random people walked up and put like a cherry bomb by his head. When it went off the guy didnt even budge. So we decided to leave.
This is me and elder brito on a bridge that we walk across almost every day. It is beautiful
This is my house. In the door on the right is our room, and my bathroom is right by my suitcases. Notice my suitcases still have the red things on them... Elder Britos desk is the desk on the right, and mine is on the left. Also our kitchen is to the right of where im standing. This water jug thing is where we get all the water that we take in. Drinking, brushing teeth, and for cooking. It sucks to not be able to use a sink...
This is my room in the CCM. I was in the top bunk on the right.
This is me Elder Pyper Elder Hansen and Elder Dixon. These were some of my closest friends in the CCM
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
Sunday, September 29, 2013
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
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