Good Week!

First off... It has been great saying the pictures of Jonny and all that!  Im glad that he made it home safely!  

But this week has been pretty great.  We are still working with Rodrigo and Angel... and they are doing great... Rodrigo came to church again this week but Angel couldnt because he had to go and apologize to his fiances (I think that is how you spell it... he is engaged to her)  family, because about 2 years she moved in with him and he basically stole her.. so he went to say sorry so that he could get married to her...  So that is going on with them...

Also this week I ended up going to a different area named Sayaxche and I worked there with an Elder named Elder Santizo... It was an interesting experience to say the least...  We walked for about 6 hours just contacting and we got nothing... so that wasnt very fun...

But yeah just more fun things have happened this week and that is about it!

LOve Elder Stuart

Changes

This week we received our changes and I am finally leaving my area to go to an area named La Libertad in Peten... So I am excited to go there and I am going to have a gringo companion named Elder Loveland... so that will be interesting... It will be my third companion that doesnt have spanish as a native language...  So that is pretty  interesting!  So I am super excited for that!  I have heard many good things about him.

But this week was kind of a bummer, but also super good... We didnt end up baptizing douglas, because on thursday he had a lot of doubts and he did have the desire to get baptized still but we told him that he couldnt... we felt that it would be better if he waited until he had a little bit stronger of a testimony... which was hard for me because that meant that I wasnt going to be there for his baptism...  But I did learn that it is best to do what is best for them and not for me, so Ill be excited to hear about his progress throughout the weeks that I wont be there, but he is going to get baptized in like 3 weeks... 

But we had a pretty good week because one of our investigators, named Daniela, We had been teaching her for about 3 months back in like march, but then in late may early june, her dad called, who lives in a different part of Guatemala, and said that she couldnt listen to us anymore... so we stopped teaching her, because we didnt want her dad to get mad... But then a week ago she came to church out of the blue... so we were a little bit surprised by that, so we started to teach her again this past week and she is super excited to get baptized... she said that it doesnt matter what her dad says, that she knows this church is true and that she wants to follow god, not her dad... So that was super good and this week (yesterday) she came to church alone again, even though it was raining and she had to walk 10 minutes!  So that was super good, so my companion will be baptizing her this next 6 weeks!

So things are going pretty good over here!  I am a little bit sad to leave my area because I had some close relations with the people there, and so im going to miss them, but I am super excited for the next area!  I am happy to have a new start again, looking in new places for people to teach about the gospel!  So I am super excited for that!

Hasta pronto...

Love Elder Stuart

Oh and p.s. I am sending a package home with elder Welker... He was Jonnys companion in the CCM and well they are going to meet up after the mission... I think so he will be taking that home for me... Ill give more details on what is for who and things like that when you guys get it!  

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

"My Work and My Glory"

This week not much happened.  We were supposed to have the baptism on saturday but when we went to have the meeting with her the day of, her dad still hadnt given her permission yet, so we couldnt do it that day...  But she is super excited so hopefully this week we will be able to get permission from her dad.  But it was awesome, that night we had another lesson with a diffferent member.  And it was awesome!!  He is going to get baptized this sunday.  And im pretty sure we wont have any problems with this one.  But it is going great here.  We are having quite a bit of success, and i know this is because we are working hard.

We also had a ward party this week like jonny.  And i also got to hit the piñata.  It was a ton of fun.  We had a lot of food candy and cake.  That was a lot of fun.  

Im sorry the pictures are hard to see but I hope that you are able to see them, because I like to share what I am seeing with you because it is awesome out here.  But I think I might be able to figure it out this week.  But it is hard to use these computers because they are literally like computers from the 80s.  But yeah I hope all is well.

My scripture for this week is in moses 1:39.  For behold this is my work and my glory to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.  I love this scripture and I know that this is the time that the lord is truly hastening his work.  I love being a part of it too.  It is awesome!

Love Elder Stuart, the Younger...

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

Earthquake!!!

This week has been a very exciting week!!  I experienced my first earthquake and it was pretty awesome...  We were in our class when it happened and it was a 5.9 where I am, although Jonny said it was a 6.2, Im not quite sure exactly what it was but it was pretty interesting.  But anyway we were sitting in class and all of a sudden all the desks started to move.  Nothing was destroyed which made the experience pretty fun.  It was a side to side earthquake which I have come to find out isnt as dangerous as an up and down earthquake.  Then after the earthquake they made us all go outside and get a little lecture on what to do in case of an earthquake.  And this was at night, so they gave each companionship a flashlight in case there was an aftershock.  But there was no aftershock.  So I can now check that off my bucket list of surviving an earthquake.

 

For my p-day last week we got to go to wal-mart which was extremely fun.  We dont get to leave the CCM very often so it was awesome to be able to go and experience some of the things of Guatemala.  Wal-mart here looks just like the U.S. ones but most of the prices are a lot lower here.  I fould 2 Gatorade bottles for 10 quetz which is about 1.5 dollars.  So I have this feeling that I will be living of Gatorade because it was cheaper than any other drink.  Also for p-day we got to go to a wendys, and this was the first American food that I had had for four weeks and it was amazing.  But it was funny because we had to order in spanish, because we´re in Guatemala, and the lady taking our order talked super fast.  So most of the elders would say what they wanted and then the lady would ask them a bunch of questions like what they wanted with their food and we would all just nod and say ¨si¨  so a lot of the elders didnt get what they wanted because they couldnt understand her.  So that was quite the experience.  Also we went to a church that had a field and everything, so we played soccer there.  I have come to love soccer, and Im not going to lie Im pretty dang good...  ok not really but it is fun to play.

 

The Latinos here are some of the funniest people I have met.  They are always so upbeat and ready to talk to us Nortes, they like to make fun of us because we cant understand them a lot of the time.  And also they always want us to teach them english.  Although they dont want to learn good english all they want to learn is slang... so it is kind of fun.  The Latino in my room now always says, ¨what is going down up in here¨ because Elder Hansen taught him that.  So it is pretty fun to hang around with the Latinos.  But they are also some of the most spiritual people I know.  This week there was a Latino that went home, because he didnt feel worthy to be on a mission, but it was an awesome experience to watch the love that all the Latinos showed for him.  The night before he went home, all the Latinos were in his room just talking to him.  They werent mad at him, or telling him that he was doing something terrible, they had a testimony meeting, and talked to him to help him feel better.  This went on for about two or three hours.  So the Nortes that were in his room had to come stay in our room for a little bit, because they wanted only latinos in there.  They stayed up until about midnight talking to him.  Then in the morning the elder left at four in the morning.  And about thirty of the elders woke up at four with him and said good bye to him.  It was awesome to see the love that the Latinos have for others.

 

My scripture for the week is D and C 4:3.  If ye have desires to serve God ye are called to the work.  I have always loved that scripture and it has helped me to know that if I have a desire to serve, God will help me in all that I do.

 

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