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

Photos!

My comp Elder Valdes

A blanket that I bought

Us by grafitti that says Coban

The view up one of the hills of my area

We threw knifes

I burnt my tie for six months!!!!

Me with Ronald

Us studying...

Family night...  Five minutes after it started...

This kid rode on this car

From the top of this hill

Like this... Multiple times...

NEW YEARS EVE!!!!!

This week was pretty greaat!!!  With new years and all there were a lot of fireworks to watch and here and it was pretty exciting.  But this week in the market where they all sell their fireworks, there are millions of fireworks stores just filled with fireworks, a drunk guy was smoking and he threw his cigar onto a firework stand, and the whole thing blew up... along with two other stores...  But it wasnt that big of a deal, because the stores in the market here and just a table and they put everything on the table, but yeah three tables of fireworks blew up...  And we were about a block away when it happened, and we saw the police pull up and beat up the drunk guy, because there are no laws here, and throw him in the back of there truck and drive away...  So that was a pretty great experience, it was super exciting to watch, because we got a free, huge, firework show!  But a really cool thing that happened too is that one of the members has one of these stores of fireworks and it was right next to the ones that blew up, and she was super lucky that hers didnt blow up, and so she was going around telling everyone it was a blessing from God, so that was a really cool experience!

 

Also another really cool spiritual experience that happened this week is that the elders from cubulco, the area right next to mine, had a baptism and we took one of our investigators to the baptism, but she was having doubts on whether or not she wanted to get baptized, so we didnt even have like a date for her to get baptized or anything, but she told us after that she wants to get baptized this saturday!  But not only that one of the members said that all the teenagers were going to the temple this saturday, and our investigator, Lili and she is 16, said that she wanted to go!  So she is going to get baptized this wednesday, in two days, and then go to the temple to do baptizms for the dead on saturday!  That was such a cool spiritual experience!  So Im super excited for that! 

 

Not much other than that happened this week but those experiences were super exciting!  Things are getting better here each day, and suprisingly im loving the mission more each day, which I didnt know was possible!  My scripture for this week is John 3 16-17.  That one is super common, but I love it!

 

Love Elder Stuart

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

Photos!

This is part of a chicken... The foot.  This was a picture while she was preparing it, but I didnt think that we were going to have to eat it, but we did...  So I ate chicken foot and also the kidney.  It was awful, but i was greatful, because she gave the heart to one of her kids, and the head to the other.  So that was good

My Comps

Well things are going great here in the mission field.  But being in a trio is kind of tough, but it has been helping us a lot with working the two areas because we can do divisions with the members.  So usually 1 or 2 times a week Elder Call and Aybar go to Cubulco to work, and I stay in Rabinal and work with a member.  Its really tough because we only have two people that we can do divisions with, and one of them has to work in the Capital for 15 days then he gets three days off, then goes back...  And the other one is about 100 and sleeps through everything.  So Im basically working on my own, which is kind of weird not having another Elder sometimes, but somehow the work is still progressing in both areas, so that is pretty great.

But our companionship is pretty fantastic.  We all get along well, and we have a lot of fun experiences together.  So all Is going great with that.  Elder Aybar is from the Domincan Republic and he loves baseball, but who doesnt from the Republic...  and yeah he has quite the arm.  Funny story...  So Ive said before how there are always dogs in the streets right... well me and Elder Call are always tossing rocks at the dogs, like just to scare them and stuff because its really funny.  But Aybar didnt like doing this, but one time me and Call were chasing a dog, and all of a sudden a rock passed by us, going about 100 mph, and barely missed the dog.  We turned around, and there was Aybar.  He basically almost killed the dog, but it was hilarious.  So we had to explain that we dont really want to kill the dogs, just scare them.  So thats Elder Aybar for ya.  And Elder Call is hilarious.  There he is from the bay area, and yeah he is hilarious.  So here in guatemala they are constantly making tortillas.  either in their houses or in Tortillarias, i dont know if i spelled that right, but they are constantly working on their tortillas.  So he always asks them if they need help, but they always say know because well were gringos and we dont know how to do these things.  But one time a member said yes she would like some help.  Lets just say that me and Elder Call cant make tortillas.  We sucked at it, but she wanted to help us get better so she bought us all the supplies and crap so that we could tortillar in our house.  So we tried that later in our house and it was an epic failure.  So we are going to give up on our career of tortillando.  So yeah that is a little info about my comps.

Other than that Im not exactly sure what happend this week, because for some reason I have a brain fart every time I go to write on the computer.  So yeah..  Things are going pretty great we are working hard and just having a great time.  Thanks for all the support!!

Elder Jeffrey Stuart

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