Hello everyone! Sorry I was all stressy last week. It was a crazy day! So my companions had to go to the capital so I was in our area with the other companionship. Everything that could go wrong, went wrong. We were walking to the buses to get back to our area for lunch and our appointments. And this week they raised the bus price and apparently people we're not willing to pay so the buses JUST TO OUR AREA were shut down. Someone said there was a little bus coming in 5 mins. So we waited 5 mins, then 10 mins, then 30. So we finally decide to take a little taxi, which is a lot more expensive but we couldn't waste any more time! We go and eat lunch and I try to call some of our planned appointments to tell them we couldn't make it, but their phones weren't working. And we called the member that was going to be my companion for the day and of course, her phone wasn't working either! Finally we meet up with her and pass by our house and see a note from my companions. They had come back from the capital but couldn't get a hold of us. We had just missed them! So I'm panicking not knowing where my comps are. All the little kids are telling me 'Oh! The other Hermanas are looking for you! They just passed by!' Ah! It was so frustrating knowing I was so close and yet so far. But I finally found them. It wasn't that bad now that I write it all out and think back on it. But there were just sooo many unplanned things that were out of my control. And I missed my companions. But it's okay!
Thanksgiving was great! We went to lunch at a member's house in our neighborhood. She's from Canada so she knows more about Thanksgiving than anyone else here. She made all kinds of good Thanksgiving food like green beans and potatoes and rolls and AMAZING chocolate cake for dessert. It was sooo good! We had to explain some things to our roommate from Honduras. She didn't know what things like gravy were. How weird, huh! And it was super funny because there's a Guatemalan lady who works in the house we were eating. And she sat down to eat with us then jumped up and said, 'Oh wait! I brought tortillas!' She ran and heated them up for us. Because what's Thanksgiving without tortillas! We had cute little papers to write down what we're thankful for. It was like something we'd do at home. But I realized that I'm thankful for a lot of different things this year since I've been able to live here. Some of them are kinda funny because I never would have thought I'd be extra thankful for these things. But a few of the things I'm thankful for this year are...
-paved roads
-tortillas
-not sleeping on the top bunk
-carpet
-peanut butter
-the fact that there aren't dogs everywhere in the states (side note: I have decided that if Guatemala was a book it would easily be Go Dogs Go. There are literally dogs of alllll kinds everywhere. There are dogs on the roofs and at church and following us around.)
-being able to get out of bed in the mornings
-arroz con leche
and of course I'm so grateful for my family and friends. And most importantly the Gospel. Hands down the biggest blessing in my life!
So this last 6 week change has gone by soo fast! I only have one week left of my in field training! How crazy is that! It really have been a very magical 12 weeks thanks to my amazing trainer. So in the first 12 weeks of your mission you get a little booklet with goals you have to complete each week. And Hna H gives us stickers in our book for each goal!! And since this is the last week of our training we kinda ran out of goals. But we still wanted stickers of course. So Hna H made more goals for us. Really awesome goals. She made some secret goals that she only told us we got after we completed them (like getting more contacts than her in one day), bonus goals (like contacting 5 couples making out with the Law of Chastity pamphlet), and these last few days of training we're doing '12 days of Christmas' goals. Hna H even made up a song to the tune of 12 days of Christmas that she sings every morning so we find out our goal for the day. We started Dec 1st, so this is what we know of the song so far...
'On the third day of Christmas, my trainer made me do...
3 chocolate muffins (we always buy muffins on the way to district meeting)
2 Singing Contacts (This was a blast. We had to contact a bus singing and it was awesome.)
and 1 testimony in sacrament.'Yep. My trainer is the best ever. So the lyrics of our contacting song were so great! It's to the tune of that primary song 'I belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Days Saints.' It rhymes in Spanish but will only make sense in English so I'll write both...
Soy de la Iglesia de Jesus Cristo De los Santos de Los Ultimos Dias
Yo se quien soy yo, Un hijo de Dios. Ustedes tambien.
Compartimos un mensaje de Cristo, y un profeta viviente.
Este evanglio cambia vidas, y vamos a pasar sus sillas
I belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
I know who I am, a child of God. You all are too.
We share a message of Christ and a living prophet.
This Gospel changes lives, and we're going to come by your seats (to write down their addresses and teach them.)
It was a huge hit. We got lots of smiles. Oh...The things we do for stickers.
We don't have a ton of investigators who are progressing right now which could by frustrating but we are trying our hardest and still seeing miracles. We had a really cool experience with a lady Sunday night. It was late and we were already done with all our plans so we knocked a door we taught once. A lady answered and said she didn't have time but I talked her into a 5 minute lesson. We just explained prophets really quickly, it wasn't anything too special during the lesson just all the normal principles we go over. But after the closing prayer we looked up and she was just bawling. We felt like we shouldn't say anything, so we just stood there for a few minutes with the Spirit so strong. She said she felt good and we bore testimony of how we don't know her problems but Heavenly Father does and He loves her. I challenged her to be baptized and she accepted. We didn't say much and neither did she. All she could say was gracias. We have no idea what happened, but we know it wasn't us that touched her. We didn't do anything special. The Spirit just works through us and leads us to people in the moment they need us. We're going back to visit her tomorrow. It was such a cool experience because we could feel Heavenly Fathers love for her so strongly. Our message is so powerful because it's true. I love how faith in Christ and His restored Gospel touches people and changes their lives. I'm so thankful to be a missionary!
Thanks for all you guys do for me!
Love you all!
Hermana Haymond
