New Area in the City!

Here I am!! In Las Margaritas in the capital...well it´s not the capital but it´s not the coast or the mountains haha I´m in a trio with Hna Garcia de El Salvador and ..Hna Garcia de Ecuador! It´s cool I really like my area.

So I still don´t know too much about the area but we´re learning fast. All I can say is that it is really different than the mountains! I really like it here and I like the change. I love my companions Hna Mandy Garcia is really outgoing and it always makes me want to be more animated about the work so that´s great. I also really like being in my first barrio (ward)! Even though I still had to lead the music in church haha. It was awesome to see a full chapel!

This week we´ve been focusing in on a few really good investigators since the goal this week is to have a baptism for every companionship and our area hasn´t seen a baptism since April!  We visited a kid named W. He´s 16 and he is preparing to be baptized this week. His family has had a lot of problems and right now he only lives with his brother who is 17. But he is really great and really positive when we go to visit him. We´re planning on him being baptized this weekend.

We are also visiting a member’s husband. He is awesome! We´re going to baptize him for sure we just don´t know when yet but he´s been coming to church and he wants to have an eternal family so he´ll be baptized. He´s really positive too and he understands a lot. We are going to have family night with them tomorrow. They have twins and they are such an awesome family.

We are also preparing S to be baptized. She is 16 and she lives and works for some members in our ward in a circus. We are also planning her baptism for this weekend we just have to teach a few things and she´ll be ready. It´s a little difficult to teach her sometimes because it seems like she doesn´t understand a ton but she wants to be baptized and she´s learning little by little. We have an appointment with her tonight.

We taught a guy named M and he has a sister that is a member of the church so that helps. His biggest problem right now is futbol and the word of wisdom. His sister that is a member is dating a boy who wants to be baptized too but he´s 17 and his family won´t give him permission so that´s the big problem there. He turns 18 the 24 of September so we´re going to plan for some time that week! 

Yesterday for PDAY we went to metro centro...which is what they call a MALL!! Ahh man it was awesome. I had to get new shoes so that was fun. Other than that we just cleaned for like 3 hours because our house was a disaster. There were tons of spiders and ants and cucarachas. Now it´s not so bad.

This week we are getting a "mini missionary" from Escuintla. It’s just a sister that is preparing for a mission so that will be weird but interesting. We´ll divide into 2 companionships since we´ll be 4 missionaries..in one house..with one shower...haha

This week we have to have a perfect week as a mission because our goal for September is 300 baptisms so we have to be obedient with exactness to achieve it. 

Sorry the email isn´t that long..that´s what happens when you go to a new area!

Oh.. and the thing to send photos on the computer doesn´t work so you´ll have to wait till next week

It's Time for ....a CHANGE!!!

IT’S TIME FOR….

Familia G - getting baptized tonight!

A CHANGE! Yep the rumors are true I´m going to get transferred tomorrow and I am really kind of nervous because I don´t want a different companion. It´s weird to think that I am leaving San Pedro and saying goodbye to everyone kind of sucks but it has to happen right? Well the best part of this week will be today...THE G FAMILY IS GETTING BAPTIZED! woohoo! Their baptism was supposed to be Sunday but asked if we could do it today since I´m leaving so we have a baptism tonight!

so this week wasn't the best. It was a little bit more of a trail than the rest but we got through it alive and well and ready to do better this week! Starting it off with a baptism tonight! The G family is getting baptized and I am so happy for them! It´s always good to baptize but it´s a completely different feeling when it´s a family because you know you are helping them toward the goal of getting sealed in the temple! They are such a great family and already love the gospel. They´ve been receiving a little bit of problems with their neighbors but they are really strong and they know that what they have felt is really from God. They are seriously a golden family and I am so happy that I had the opportunity to teach them! Everything we teach they are willing to do. It´s been a great experience for me to be a part of their lives and help them on the path toward eternal life.

We couldn´t get in contact with H or MJ this week. Apparently MJ  went to work in Escuintla and H  just seems to be dodging us. He is having problems with the word of wisdom again so that´s not good.

We went to visit N and H but their mom isn´t going to give them permission to be baptized right now. We just need to keep praying hard for them so M will let them be baptized. The teachers in N´s school aren´t supporting her anymore since she wants to be baptized so she had to get a job to pay for school. She´s really strong..it´s amazing.

Branch Presidency's family

On Saturday we had an area attack which went really well and we got lots of references from that so now we just have to contact them all. An area attack is when all the missionaries in the district go to one area to contact.

Members

We taught J twice this week. Once during the week and the other time after church..SHE CAME TO CHURCH! ahh man. That was such a miracle. Out of all the missionaries that have taught her family she finally told us she is ready to be baptized. She is great and already knows more than most of our members because she has been reading like 5 pages of the Book of Mormon every day. She´s already in Alma. The night that we taught her after church was really interesting...we were outside sitting around the patio table and her daughter S was babysitting two little neighbor boys and one (that was about 2) went under the table and was under there for a really long time and when we looked...HE WAS POOPING! haha it was hilarious and stinky.

The other miracle is that L came to church! She told us she wanted to be baptized too! Man that was huge for us. This is the first time she has been really sincere about being baptized! That was awesome.

Yesterday we went to lunch with the Gainors at a burger place. I´m sending a box of stuff home with Ian so you´ll have to get that somehow haha. The red tie is for dad and the yellow one is for mike. You guys can fight between the other two haha. We also had a family night with some members and The G family. They are really excited for today!

How is orientation? School starts next week? Don´t forget that your job this fall is send me news about football.

Well I love you lots and I hope you have a great week this week! LOVE YOU and I´ll let you know all about transfers next week!

So this week was pretty good. We went to Santa Ana and visited a friend of a member (well it´s the member’s son´s girlfriend). That went really well. We taught about the restoration and then we went back and visited her again and taught the Book of Mormon. She is really receptive and said that she will read the Book of Mormon but she couldn´t come to church because she is working on Sundays.

We also went and taught N. We had previously talked with her mom and she said that she wasn´t going to give her permission to be baptized because the grandma said she would disown them if she did (even though she already has other family that are members and she talks to them). So we went and taught N  and she said she REALLY wants to be baptized and everything but she´s been having problems with her grandma, friends and teachers. The school said they would take away her support if she got baptized. She´s been faced with lots of difficulties but at the end she prayed and asked God to help her be strong even if her friends and teachers stop talking to her and helping her. Now we just need the permission from the mom.

We also went and taught H. He is still asking tons of questions and everything. He is having lots of problems with the Word of Wisdom still. He likes to do drugs...now it’s only marijuana but before it was a ot of other stuff. We were really direct with him and told him he needed to stop. He said he knows it’s bad for him and that God doesn’t want him to do it but he said he wasn’t going to stop. So then we kept talking and finally he said a prayer for like 30 minutes asking for help with his problems and that he really wants to change and he started crying during it but then he didn’t come to church on Sunday. He said he was going to visit his brother who is in jail (MJ´s not husband but father of her children). Basically he was put in jail by a crooked cop and so their family is suffering a lot for that. MJ wants to marry him and so we´re trying to get that figured out so she can be baptized too.

MA and his family are on the right track! They are so awesome! C their daughter was going to start taking English on Sundays but they switched it to Saturdays so they could keep the Sabbath day holy :) That was awesome to hear! They are loving church and everything and they accepted the challenge to be baptized 26th of August! They are so happy that they can have an eternal family someday! We taught them the plan of salvation (well finished teaching them) and then after church we watched the Restoration with them. They also came to the noche de hermanamiento. They´re such a golden family and I am so excited for them! 

Making Pizza with the other missionaries.  Looks good, huh?

On Friday we had interviews which was really awesome! Man I love President Brough he is the best! He has such a great love for all of us. One of the things he talked about at the end was D&C 93. That we have the ability to see Christ in this life in the Temple so keep going! English or Spanish haha. He said that some of our grandparents have seen him and it’s the reason they have such a great reverence for the Temple.

Yesterday we made pizzas for pday and that was awesome!

No I didn´t see Cameron (a friend from SUU who is down there right now) but he ran into some other missionaries in Chimaltenango and they brought my stuff! THANK YOU! and THANK YOU FOR THE PACKAGE WITH THE GAINORS! haha I´m sure I said thank you for the other. The CD you just sent is REALLY good! As for my towel...it´s drying pretty decently but I think it would be nice to have the other kind for Christmas...as well as some caramel corn :) haha. Also I would like some of the other skirts but it can wait til Christmas too I don´t need them now. I´m good on packages for a little while but thank you so much for sending them! 

Hna Alvarado wants a little preach my gospel too if that´s ok.

Don't know why the sad face...she must be missing me!

As for my letters, can you put them all on a flash drive or something too?

How is Mitt Romney doing? ...and the future of the United States? haha 

Well I love you both so much! Thank you for all you have done for me and I hope you have a great week! Tell mike I say hi and I love him! LOVE YOU

Worn out shoe from walking on cobblestone streets

Lots of Amazing families to teach!

FELIZ CUMPLIMESES A MI! Tengo cinco meses in the misión hoy :) So this week went pretty well I think. A lot of the people we taught were really positive and I´m excited to see them progress. Anyway we went to teach S  in Santa Maria but her parents said she wasn´t there even though we saw her. We think she is having problems in her home for receiving us. Every time we call her brother says she´s not there. She is also moving to Escuintla for a month so if we can get her address we´ll send it to the missionaries there. I just feel bad because she really is an amazing investigator but her parents won´t let her progress. We also went and taught N  and she said she wanted to get baptized. She went to church again in El Tejar with her Aunt and Uncle but they said next week they will bring her to our ward. The only problem with that is that her mom just talked to the grandma about how their family wants to be baptized and the grandma said no. We called them last night and she said she´s happy where she´s at and doesn´t want to change even though the first time we taught them she said she wanted to get baptized too! Hopefully she´ll still give her kids permission to be baptized! 

We also met a family that is seriously AMAZING! they are the familia C and they were really receptive when we taught the Book of Mormon. It was such a good lesson! We had a family night with them last night about faith and that went amazing as well. They are going to come to the noche de hermanamiento and do everything possible to come to church with us. They are such a great family.

Hnas Brown & Alvarado incognito

We also have another really good family named the familia G. They came to church with us on Sunday! It was awesome they are so positive and love learning more about the gospel. Sunday after church they all said they loved it and we had a lesson with them about all of their questions. Baptisms for the dead was brought up in Relief Society and so we talked about that and they took everything in really well and they understand everything we are teaching them. I want to see them baptized pronto! Haha

We met a lady who is the friend of one of our members and she is awesome too. Her name is MJ and she has had a lot of difficulties in her life but she´s looking for a change and ready to make one. She came to the noche de hermanamiento last week and all of the members were really kind to her so that went well. She wasn´t able to attend church though.

One day we went to her house to find her but she wasnt there BUT her brother in law, H came out and said he wanted to receive the "charlas." He works for our Branch President and it turns out he was a reference he was going to give us. He´s had a lot of problems in his life especially with drugs and smoking and now he´s really sick and he said he wants to make a huge change. He´s only 21 years old and when we challenged him to baptism he was like what time is it at and what do I need to do to prepare? He said he wanted to serve a mission :) and he came to church on Sunday. But he also said that the whole time when we were in the bus on the way there he was nervous and wanted to escape haha good thing he didn´t though. He didn´t stay for priesthood meeting.

The people we´ve met have been amazing this week and it´s so great to see the Lords hand in this work especially when we have huge goals to fulfill. It´s great to see that He always finds away for us to complete his commandments like the 300 baptisms in September.

Also for P-day we didn´t do much...just went to the Gainor’s and ate and did laundry and wrote letters :)

That´s so awesome about Cam! (Cam Levins is running in the Olympics for Canada.  He is an SUU student)  I hope you saved me a shirt!! if not I’ll be sad haha but I love you so much and I hope you know it! also...you can be expecting a letter in Spanish very soon but I can´t send it til next week so by very soon I mean like..3 weeks haha

Did you get your box from Ian?  yes

Would you like a copy of a small Preach My Gospel? yes

 If so, do you want English or Spanish? Spanish

 How much longer does Hna Alvarado have in the mission? she has 8 

Did you not get my last email about Star Valley?  yes

or do you just print them so you don't have to waste the time reading? no

do you get the Ensign/Liahona down there? yes

How is your Spanish? Pilas  (awesome)

So, really, do you have a maid??? no...she cleans the house every like 3 weeks

 LOVE YOU MOMMA!

"¡Me mordió un perro!"

This week I learned a new phrase - "¡Me mordió un perro!" (A dog bit me!) That was interesting I´ll tell you about it in the long email :) just wanted you to see the pictures.  It was a big dog...ha my g´s protected me in the front it wasn´t really bleeding but the one in back was.

Me mordio un perro!

So this week was pretty good. I´ll start off with what happened last Tuesday! I got bit by a dog! What the heck. Well first it bit Hna. Alvarado and then it bit me...TWICE once in the front of my leg and once in back. It´s owners are some gringos so it had its rabies shot but I have an interesting missionary story now! haha We were in San Pedro El Alto contacting outside this house and the owner of the dog was leaving so he opened the gate and the dog ran out and bit us! It was a bunch of crap. But everything is fine I´m not going to die. It was a big angry dog though and now Hna. Alvarado is afraid of like every dog. It´s sad. Also I had a cold last week which was not fun but that´s not really important haha.

Anyway we taught J and G who are the daughters of an investigator named I. They are really awesome and really smart. Last night we passed by just to see how they were and we asked J if she had read and prayed to see if Joseph Smith was a prophet and she said yes and that she felt really good and that it was indescribable! That was awesome. She wants to come to church this Sunday too! 

We also went to Santa Maria this week and we took two of our members to teach Hna S and a new investigator named MS is still awesome. She said she believes that everything we´ve taught her is true and everything the only problem with her is getting her to come to church since she lives so far away! But we´re going to try again this week. She already has permission from her parents to go so that´s really good. We also met M  and her kids. They are awesome. Her sister is a member in El Tejar and they´ve attended a ton there and they love it. She said she wants to learn more about the church and everything because they really like it. She has a daughter named N  who is 16 and she has done a lot of activities with the young women in El Tejar. They attended in Tejar last week because it was N ´s birthday so they went down there for that.

We also taught J  and her inactive daughter C . We gave her a giant triplet last week and she´s already in like 2 Nephi 15. She was so happy to have it! She reads like 5 pages a day. Her daughter  is inactive and J was just like you need to go to church and be better.  It´s crazy that she hasn´t even been baptized yet and she has a stronger testimony than her daughter. 

We taught JD (last weeks baptism) about the priesthood and he´s excited to get that. He´s really coming along great. We are so proud of him and the changes he´s made. He´s excited to prepare for a mission too! We taught L  again but she doesn´t seem too interested anymore. She keeps saying she knows she needs to be baptized but she won´t say yes to a set date.

Yesterday for PDay we went as a zone to this place called Las Colinas and it´s owned by the church. It´s awesome just a bunch of fields and basketball courts! We played soccer which was really fun and volleyball which was less fun because everybody sucked haha including me. We had barbeque for lunch which was delicious. Oh and we also were throwing around a football and I accidentally pegged a kid in his privates. Everyone was like "¡él nunca va a tener noches de hogar!" haha how sad. He´s ok though I think.

I am expecting to have changes but we won’t officially know until the Monday before changes in a couple weeks. No I´m not breaking any rules mom haha there are just things we need to be better at that´s it :) I guess my kids took a day off of being my guardian angels because I got bit haha

Thank you for the pictures of Star Valley! How are you guys doing right now? Anything fun going on in Cedar....ITS PRACTICALLY AUGUST! 

I love you momma have a great week and tell Michael that I love him!

Happy pioneer day and year til I get home day if I leave in time for school!

July 24th (we were driving around Yellowstone National Park and luckily found a spot with cell phone coverage right at the time she writes so we could email back and forth from our phones!)

So this week we baptized JD! It was so great.  He has a messed up past like I've said in other emails but after his baptism he said he felt free and like a new man and started crying and just said thank you. It was such a sweet experience. He´s only 18 but he's great and he wants to go on a mission. It's crazy to think that there was actually a time while we were teaching him that we were going to drop him because he wasn´t progressing and then he all of the sudden changed and now here we are with a happy member of the church who is going to serve a mission someday!   

JD's Baptism

Now for Hna L....she was doing great and everything and then we invited her to the baptism to show her there was nothing to be afraid of...well seeing as René wasn't strong enough to hold up JD really well and he didn´t know the words, he had to be baptized 3 times so as for not scaring her off hopefully the spirit helped with that. Then she didn´t come to church on Sunday. We passed by their house to pick her up but she said she was going to go with her son in a different town, and last night she seemed like she didn´t have the desire to be baptized but she always says that she needs to but God hasn´t put it in her heart to want to be baptized right now.

Our next most positive person lives in Santa Maria de Jesus so it´s kind of hard for us to get up to see her since it´s kind of far and it´s hard for her to come to church because she wouldn´t get home until really late at night. We called her the other day and she said she didn´t have permission to go to church because she was going by herself but we told her that we would go and pick her up and she said she would invite a friend for this week! She is really smart and really receptive and when we committed her to be baptized she said yes right off the bat so that was great. We just need to figure out how we can keep her active if she gets baptized since she lives so far away.
We also found a guy named J. He is older but lives with his mom because he has epilepsy. He seemed really interested the first lesson because we talked about the plan of salvation and then we committed him to be baptized and he said yes and then asked permission from his mom and she just said he´d have to think about it a lot because God isn´t a game. But he seemed really excited but then we went and visited him on Sunday and was kind of more distracted and said he didn´t remember anything we talked about before! But we´re going to keep working with him.
We also went and visited some less active members. One was Hermana S. Her situation is seriously dire. About a month and a half ago she left her home and her and her little family are living illegally on some land that is being occupied by people that don´t have houses. It´s so sad there are tons of people there that are living in little plastic tents and don´t have anything. She said she´s not coming to church because if she leaves her plot of land some other squatter will come in and take it. It´s really sad but we tried to explain to her that it´s not right and that she still needs to put God first and come to church. Then she didn´t come to church.
We met a lady and her mom yesterday contacting because a lesson fell through and they started asking lots of questions about death because one of their neighbors just got killed. It was really good and they seemed really interested so that was great. 

We had zone conference last Friday which was really good. President Brough told us that we have guardian angels in the mission and that they are our ancestors and our kids because no one else in the spirit world cares more about the way we turn out more than our future children. I thought that was pretty cool he also really stressed the importance of obedience and how our obedience and our blessings are directly tied together so I am going to be more obedient so you guys can be more blessed (and me too)! :)

I forgot to say that Ian is in Utah right now for 10 days (well he left today for Utah) so yeah if you want to send my contacts and debit card with him that would be great! Yesterday for Pday I got my hair trimmed and that´s about it.  haha

The picture where we´re frowning is because we´re waiting for JD to finish working so we could take him to his interview to be baptized.  Haha

So how is everyone doing? When are you guys going home..How´s Star Valley and work ?

Waiting for JD 

I only have 3 minutes so I love you and I hope you have a good week and that you are having a good time in Star Valley! I love you so so so much! Also can you update me on your side of the family sometime? Thanks love you momma you´re the best!