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

Photos!

 That is my district.  Next to me going from right to left is Elder Pyper, Hansen, Wilson, Uribe, and Dixon.  Dixon and Hansen are companions, Wilson and Uribe are companions.  And Elder Dixon is the one we met at the airport.  He is a huge nerd... Then the hermanas going from left to right are Hna. Brewster, Brower, Conover, Godfrey, Darger, Funk and then our teacher Hna Chavez.

Kek´chi

Not much has happened this week.  Life gets kind of repetitive in the CCM but it is awesome because of how much we are learning.  I have learned so much spanish that I can now basically carry on a conversation with my latino roomates.  So that is awesome, and also I can understand spanish almost fluently.  So I cant wait for when I get been one of my dreams.  Also it has been confirmed that I will be learning the dialect in Coban and basically only speak it.  It is called Kek´chi.  So when I return hopefully I will be tri-langual.  Me and Elder Pyper have met some of the Latinos that are in the CCM that are from Coban and we have tried to talk to them so that we can learn a little bit of Kek´chi but it is hard to learn from them, because we dont speak enough spanish to ask them how to say things in Kek´chi because we are trying to translate from english to spanish to ask them, then the tell us the Kek´chi word, which we have to translate into spanish then into english to understand... So if that even made any sense, it is hard to learn it from them, but we are trying.

Tomorrow for P-day we get to go to Wal-Mart which is the thing that basically all the missionaries look forward to here.  So that is going to be a party, because they dont really have a lot of American stores here.  But we get to also go to Wendys that day too, so that is what I am really looking forward too because I have been craving some sort of American food.  So tomorrow is going to be a good day.

Also I was talking to one of the Elders that got to the CCM at the same time that I did, and his name is Elder Mckay Kearsley.  We were talking and then he said something about golf and I said that I played golf.  Then he said ¨Thats where I know you from!¨  So I asked him how he knew me and he said that he played in a golf tournament with me one time.  But I was a little confused because I didnt remember him.  He said it was the Brigham City invitational, and that he plays for Morgan High, which is 3A, and they were invited to the same tournament as Woods Cross. I told him that it probably wasnt me he knew because I didnt play in that tournament, but then I remembered that Ryan did! He says he played in the first spot for Morgan and that he played with a Woods Cross guy but he cant remember if it was Ryan or if Ryan was in the second spot, but he remembers Ryan.  Ryan do you remember a Mckay Kearsley?  But yeah I thought that was cool and I finally found my first connection in guatemala.

Anyway thanks for all of the support and letters that you guys have written.  I really appreciate it.  My scripture is 1st Nephi 3:7.  I know that this scripture is well known, but it has popped up in my teachings like four of the last five times, so I figured it is important to share with you guys.  ¨And it came to pass that I Nephi said unto my father, I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded for I know that the Lord giveth no commandment unto the children of men save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the things which he commandeth them.¨ I really like that scripture, and how it shows that the Lord is on our side and that he wants us to keep his commandments so that we can return to live with him.

Love Elder Jeffrey Stuart

Week 2

So this week has been kind of boring, because it is kind of the same thing every single day.  So that gets kind of repetitive and boring, but i know that it is necessary to have these classes to learn from so that i can become the best missionary that i can be.  So not much has happened this week, but there are five elders from the mtc that are all leaving on tuesday to go to quetzaltenango.  So i have been talking to them a lot about jonny, and when i told them that he was about 6 3 and 200 pounds they didnt believe me.  But yeah i guess i would believe myself either...  

Well I accidentally sent that last one so here we go again.  They seemed like they were pretty excited to go to serve in quetzaltenango, and they all wanted jonny as a trainer, and i told them to say hi to him for me.

On tuesday it is our p-day this week, but i am sending this to you now, because we get to go to the market tomorrow to shop for things, so we wouldnt have time to email... but p-days kind of change throughout the weeks, so next week it will be on wednesday, then back on tuesday in two weeks. 

Also me and Elder Pyper are both sick this week, mine is because of allergies, but his is a sore throat so Im trying to stay away from him as much as possible, even though that isnt really possible in the mtc.  

Sundays are the best days here, because they are relaxing, but we still learn a lot.  But in church everything is in spanish, which i am getting better at, but i still cant understand the latinos.  so i just kind of do my own personal study while they talk.  But after church this last week we watched like four videos that were all about an hour long.  It is nice to have that break from everything.  We watched two videos about pioneers, a video about Joseph Smith, and a devotional from elder Bednar.  So that was a good day.

Im going to kind of do the thing like Jonny where he shares a scripture with you each week, but a little different, because i have challenged myself to memorize one new scripture a day, so that by the end of my mission i will have about 730 ish scriptures memorized, sounds like fun right???  So i will share my favorite one that i memorized through the week.  This week is 1st Nephi 2:10, and it says,  And he also spake unto Lemuel, (insert name here) O that thou mightest be like unto this valley, firm and steadfast, and immovable in keeping the commandments of the lord.

Love,

Elder Jeffrey Stuart

First Week!!!

Ok so now I have a lot more time to write, then I did on the first day... so be prepared!  So after you dropped me off at the airport, I went to the gate with Elder Dixon, and to our surprise there were like 5 other missionaries sitting there!!  So we decided to sit with them.  By the time that we were to board the flight, there were 30 Elders and Sisters on our flight!  But that was only to LA.  When we got to LA after about 2 hours, we found even more missionaries.  So on our flight from LA to Guatemala, I think that there were 50 missionaries that were all going to the Guatemala MTC. When we boarded, I was in the middle seat.  That sucked flying through the night in a middle seat, between two Guatemalans.  But I still ended up sleeping for all five hours, because I was tired, so I slept.  When we landed we were all put into a school bus that said I love Jesus, and Jesus loves us all over it, so that was awesome.  Then we rode on the bus for about an hour to the MTC, or as they call it here the CCM. We got there and were shown to our rooms.  There are three bunks in each room and the person you share the bunk with is your companion.  So my companion for the whole week is Elder Pyper.  He is kind of an interesting guy.  He is the type of person that skips leg day in the gym.  He is a die hard workoutaholic...  He can basically do anything with his arms, but his legs are little.  So yeah he kind of look like an upside down pyramid...  But he is a good guy, even though he doesn’t like to be on time to things. So we got there at about 7:30 and we were given the option to unpack or to take a nap until 10:30.  So I decided to unpack, because I was excited to get out and work.  Then at 10:30 the MTC president and his wife talked to us and told us the logistics of what we are going to do here, and that it will be the best time of our lives.  Then we had class for a little and then lunch.  I liked the food here the first two days, but then it went downhill, and I’ll explain that later.  Then after lunch we got to email you guys and tell you we got here.  Then we had more lectures, dinner, more class, then we went to prepare for bed. So if we had unpacked earlier we got to go to bed at about 9:00 but if we hadn’t unpacked we had to unpack then go to bed.  So I got to go to bed early that night.  When I went to bed that night it was just me and Elder Pyper, but when we woke up in the morning, there were four new Latino missionaries in the room with us.  So we woke up to having four new roommates... that was weird. So we basically have the same schedule every day, and it is already after a week getting super boring, but whatever.  We wake up, shower, eat breakfast, go to class for four hours, eat lunch, go to class for three hours, have sports for an hour, eat dinner, then prepare, and teach an investigator until 9:00, then plan for tomorrow and do other stuff until 10:30, then we go to bed.  So yeah it is kind of repetitive, but it is worth it, because I have already learned so much Spanish, that I already can’t evenn speel in english...  ok... that was just a joke. But it is coming along great!!! When we teach our investigator we have to teach him in Spanish.  So that is a challenge, but it helps a ton.  We teach one investigator as a district, and we have 6 companionships in our district.  Three are Elders, and three are hermanas.  Also elder Dixon that we met at the airport is in my district so that is cool.  And from our district, we have our district leader, the zone leader, and the zone leader type of thing that is for the sisters.  So our district is basically the best, but I’m not supposed to say that because it isn’t a competition, but we are the best... Also in the Guatemala MTC, they let us teach real investigators.  So the investigator that we are teaching is one of the kitchen workers.  His name is Daniel and he works here but isn’t mormon, and we know that for sure, because we kind of stalked him to see if he was a real investigator, so yeah he is real.  And he wanted to know more about what we do as missionaries.  And on the third lesson as a district, we got him to commit to baptism, and I was the one who did it!  It was amazing to feel the spirit that missionaries get when they are teaching the gospel, and to hear the investigator say that he wants to be baptized.  So we are passing him off to the "real" missionaries.  So that was a great experience to be able to teach him. But the food here tastes good but sucks!  Almost everyone in the MTC that came in our group got dirrhea (maybe I spelled that right) by the third day, except for me!!!  So right now I’m going strong on a week without having dirrhea.  The food tastes good, but it never does sit well, but it has never made me sick, so I guess I’ll just have to get used to that. Thank you for all the emails they were great. Love you, Jeffrey Stuart. P.S.  I couldn’t figure out how to use the enter key...