Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Only in Guatemala!

This week was really good!  First of all, I had my first baptism!  Woo!!!  She had been learning about the Church for months now and a lot of her family has recently been baptized.  It was a hard week for her leading up to her baptism.  But she was all smiles right after.  It was so exciting!  It was so amazing to see her doing something so important.  I haven't even known her for that long and I love her so much!  The Spirit was just so strong for me, knowing how precious she is to Heavenly Father.  I'm so excited to help more people feel that same happiness that comes from baptism.
On Sunday, we split up to go gather people to come to church.  So Hna G and Hna H went one way.  And in the mean time I was on divisions with this recent convert.  She's this hilarious old lady and part of her family is investigators and recent converts.  So my job was to stay with her as my companion and help her family get ready for church.  She was so excited and took her job as my companion very seriously.  So everyone was finally ready for church and we were walking to the chapel.  And they quickly realized that their dog (yes, another dog story.  they're everrrrrywhere) is following us to church.  So they yell at it to go home and it starts to turn back.  Then we're sitting in Sacrament meeting and I look under the seat in front of me and there's their dog!  And the stake president is at church this day and there aren't very many people in our branch so there is no sneaky way to fix the situation.  After 3 or 4 times of trying to send this dog home, he finally left.  It was just a funny 'only in Guatemala' moment.

Saturday we're having a wedding for the couple we've been teaching!  We are so excited!  There's a really pretty grassy area at the chapel so we're having it there.  And we're getting tons of flowers and having someone make a cake and everything!  It's going to be great!  It's fun to plan, and even more exciting because this couple is so awesome and has been working for a long time to get married and baptized.

On Wednesday we were asked to help with a practice for the primary program.  Oh my gosh.  It was so so funny!  First of all everyone was super late, like an hour late.   Then this huge swarm of kids come and are running around everywhere!  We finally got to practicing and it was so cute!  They just sing those songs as loud as they can, whether or not they're getting the right notes.  And they all have their little talks and parts to say.  It's adorable!  It was just a funny sight with all these crazy kids and little Guatemalan ladies trying to get everything put together.

Today we have real divisions for the first time.  Each zone has 2 training sisters who go on divisions with each sister companionship and help us be better.  Hna G and I are staying in our area, and the training sister is coming here.  Hna G and I are both new so we're a little nervous.  I don't know the streets and such as well as I should.  And of course there's always the huge obstacle of not knowing Spanish.  But I'm also really excited.  I have a lot to learn and I know the training sister can help me.  I'm also excited to see how she works with the people.  Each missionary has different strong points and explains things a little differently.  So it will be fun to see other approaches to everything.

This week we really saw how the Lord puts people in our path who really need us.  Last Monday we met a lady on the bus and she wanted us to teach her as soon as possible.  So we taught her like 3 times last week.  And she came to church on Sunday and loved it!  We talked with her last night and she and 2 of her kids are preparing to be baptized the 26th.  It's so amazing to think that just over a week ago she didn't know anything about the Church.  And now she knows that it's true!  We also knocked a door of a family that we met on the street.  They were excited to have us.  We started talking and the father just started bawling.  He told us he just felt awful and needed to feel free of all his bad feelings.  We explained how our message could help them.  We've taught them 2 lessons and they are always excited to learn more.  They're really understanding a lot and have been prepared too!  Heavenly Father needs His children back and He is sure helping us help Him accomplish that.

This has been an interesting week with less active members of the Church too.  We had one day where we found a long lost member of the Church in the house of one of our investigators.  We were excited about that and tried to help him want to come back.  Then we knocked on a door of what we thought was a contact from the street.  A teenage boy opened the door and we asked his name.  He said 'Nefi Moroni.'  We were like what the heck.  We found out that he and his mom are members and moved here from the capital a while ago.  They hadn't been to church in years!  But since we met them last week they've come to church, an activity, the baptism, and she's coming with us today to teach some lessons.  She is so so excited to feel wanted in the Church again.  It's so incredible how things come together.  I'm so grateful for miracles we see every day.  I know it's never by chance that we find these people.

Sometimes I have hard moments, but they pass really quickly.  This is just such an amazing experience.  I wish I was so much better at being a missionary, but I know that Heavenly Father is helping us a lot.  I love everything we do.  The Gospel is my favorite part of life and now I get to be surrounded by it all the time and share it with others.  What a privilege!!  Thanks for all your support!
 
 Love you all!