Póngase PUMPED!

more pics of santo domingo

This week was so spiritually exhausting.  But first, I have noticias...Yesterday Hna E and I found out that we are going to be staying here together for one more change!  Yay!!! It's been a fun companionship.  I'm glad we're staying.  There's lots of work to do and we are just pumped.  (That's the latest word I've taught to Hna E in English.  I always tell her 'Póngase PUMPED!'  Yay for English.)

But this week was rough.  Looking back it was rewarding too, But still rough.  We had 2 people set to be baptized on Sunday.  They live on opposite sides of our area.  But we were 100 percent sure they were getting baptized so we ran all over our area everyday to keep visiting them and make sure they were doing good.  We barely taught other lessons.  It was just nuts.  And all kinds of problems came up and they decided not to get baptized.  But Saturday we were running like crazy with lots of faith that they would still have their interviews for their baptisms.  It ALMOST worked out, but at 8:55 pm on Saturday we still didn't have any baptisms ready for Saturday. I was so sure we would baptize on Sunday.  So we went and looked for an eternal investigator who comes to church every week.  I challenged him to be baptized in his doorway.  And......he wasn't ready to get baptized either.  I was so discouraged Saturday night.  We worked so hard and we had so much faith. I felt like we did everything we could and I just didn't understand.  Sunday I was sitting waiting for church to start and I was feeling kind of down.  But all of a sudden walked in a family of converts who hasn't been to church for months.  When we last visited them they were not very happy and it was really clear that they don't have strong testimonies anymore.  But they came to church by themselves!  NO one could believe it.  The family was bawling all of sacrament meeting and they were so thankful for our visits.  

It was a good lesson for me.  It was not the miracle that I had been praying for.  It wasn't even the miracle we had been working towards.  But it was an even bigger miracle than having 2 baptisms.  It was a good reminder that the worth of souls is great in the sight of God.  It was SO good to see that family in church.    Ah. trials of our faith are just exhausting.  But you've gotta love it.

So that's my story for the week.  It's probably not as cool in the letter as it was in real life.  But we're just pumped for more miracles.

Love you all!

Hna Haymond

Familia L.  a family of less actives. This family...tries my patience so much.  but I love them!  

So we always do practices during companionship study (but this picture was taken after a long day in the rain).  So lately we've been using a balloon that we got at the grand opening of Little Ceasers.  It just makes things way more fun. We're just worried about how hard it will be to baptize him by immersion.

the foto shoot with the balloon was super inspired because the
next day we found our investigator deflated.

We had cleaning checks last week.  It went fine.  But this is us cleaning.  hna E was happy.
 She is just a little punk!  I can't even describe her.  She's so funny!

My district eating Little Ceasers yesterday

Obedience with exactness.  Don't touch the Elders.

Flyer for the baile de las abuelitas that I found on the bus.

Biggish spider!

Baile de las Abuelitas

Last Friday we had a meeting with all the hermanas from the mission.  It was so fun but way different.  I realized that missionary work is not a girly thing.  Because this meeting just felt so foreign.  It started with lots of squealing and hugs as everyone saw their old companions.  Then we had muffins for breakfast.  We did an activity to see who could find a sister who has 4 siblings, and shares the same birthday month as you, who is in your old zone, etc.  Then we sang as sisters in Zion and heard talks about how much Heavenly Father loves us and how great our worth is.  Then we had to find someone we didn't know and give them a bracelet.  Then we ate salad for lunch.  It really seriously was an awesome day!  I love seeing all the sisters.  But it was hands down the girliest thing I've done in a year.

Sunday was a big day here in the area.  Apparently every year a marimba band comes and they close down the high way so a bunch of little grandmas can dance in the street.  We just walked by really fast but there was a huge crowd.  And the grandmas were dressed in costumes and had creepy masks.  I just loved it!  Its just one of those only in Guatemala things.

I never thought I'd say this, but watching Wheel of Fortune on a regular basis before the mission has really come in handy.  Every Tuesday our district leader puts up a hangman puzzle on the board to guess the theme of the meeting.  I take it way to seriously and win almost every week.  If only Wheel of Fortune were in Spanish with gospel related phrases, I'd be rich.

We are super determined to baptize this weekend.  We have a few candidates that need lots of miracles.  But we love them so much and are working so hard to help them with these steps to have eternal life.  We need lots of prayers.

Love you all and thank you for your prayers and support!

Hna Haymond

The white board from district meeting.

I guessed the puzzle today with just m's and a's and n's

A village in our area called Santo Domingo

15 de Septiembre!!!

We had Pday of the zone.  We went to the stake center and the Elders made like 200 crepes.  It was super good.  Our zone is really cool.  Everyone is really close and its just fun to be together.

And...yesterday was 15 de septiembre....Indepence Day in Guatemala!!!!! It was the best day ever to have Pday.  There were a ton of parades in the morning!! Here it's like you get a grade to be in the parade with your school,so everyone was there.  And the other thing they do to celebrate is they have marathons and races with torches.   Like the Olympics.  When they run they have whistles and make tons of noise and all the cars honk and its a big deal.  There were a bunch of people running on the highway and tons of people got on a bridge and they threw water on all the runners.  It was a funny sight.  It was a crazy weekend and everyone was out celebrating.  Its was awesome!

Watching the parades yesterday was a really educational experience actually.  Each school  had its own presentation.  And lots of them focused on facts of Guatemala.  For example...

Guatemala had 6 different versions of the flag before they got to the version they use now.

The marimba is the instrument of Guatemala.  There are different styles from different parts of the country.  I really like marimba.

Theres a super cool bird called a quetzal.  Its on all the money.  It means freedom.

There is also a flower and a tree of hte country but i cant remember what they are.

Guatemala (and most of central America I think) gained its independence on September 15th 1821.  One year after the first vision (coincidence...I think not.)

So those are the kinda fun facts I learned about Guatemala yesterday.

This week I got called to repentance.  We had a conference with Elder Ochoa.  And he talked a lot about how we need to love people.  How we shouldn't teach people to baptize them, but to help them go to the temple and have eternal life.  He said we need to find to teach, teach to help people repent, and help people repent so that they can make covenants and have eternal life.  I really needed to hear that.  Heavenly Father has given me so much success up to this point on my mission.  But I haven't been doing what I'm doing for the right reasons.  I need to love the people more and teach more sincerely.  The difference that I've felt since I've focused on that is incredible.  I feel so much more faith in the people we teach and I understand why Heavenly Father wants them to be baptized.  It's too bad I realized this now, but I know its going to change my whole mission.

Thanks for all you do for me!

Love you all!

Its been really really really cold!  When we wake up in the morning we're so tired and its freezing.  so we do exercises in our blankets.  I got up one morning and it was SOOO cold and I was so asleep.  My half asleep self decided I NEEDED to take a picture of us doing exercises in that very moment. This is us jogging in place

This is a corte!!!!! I bought my own corte.  And I just love it.  It's the traditional clothes.  And a lot of people use it.  hna E refuses to take pictures perfectly up and down with my camera. 

 It always has to be tilted.

Hna. E.  Shes so cute!  She looks so innocent but shes a punk.  Its funny

there are two ways to carry things in guatemala.
1...put it on your head.

or....
2....strap it to your head like this.

tortilling

and this is a jacket that a really really poor member let me borrow one day when it was cold.  When I went to give it back to her she let me have it.  It was so nice!  She doesnt have hardly anything!  The things I get from people here are way better than anything I couldnt buy.

Yay for rain!
There was a drought for a while and all the crops were dying.  All the corn and the beans.  And if there's no corn, there are no tortillas.  If there are no tortillas, no one will eat.  So it really is a blessing that its been raining.

yesterday for zone activity the elders made 200 crepes. they were super good.  but when your a missionary in Guatemala you make crepe mix in a water jug.

Mota vs. Moto

It's been another good week!  I love it more and more every day.  Time is flying by and it makes me sick.  But I'm doing good.  There's lot of work to do.

My companion is doing great!  She's so stinkin cute.  We joke around with each other a lot.  She likes to mess with me and I just can't take her seriously because she's so little!  I was looking at her clothes the other day and she has some stuff from the Childrens Place. How precious!  But she's tough for being so little!  I'm impressed everyday.

I'm healthy and happy.  My only issue right now is that I'm always itchy.  I'm pretty sure we have fleas but lets be honest that's just part of living in the mountains.  But I'm really not too upset about it. I've thought it through really well and I'd take fleas over lice any day.

Lately everyone has been trying to marry me off.  And the weird thing is, is that it's never guys who are asking me to stay and marry them.  It's their moms!  These little ladies just slide a little half joking comment in the conversation, like 'Oh.  We'll see if you end up staying in Guatemala as my daughter in law!'   My companion thinks it's hilarious because she knows that I don't think it's hilarious.

So about 5 month ago there were only elders in this area.  So all the people are used to calling missionaries Elders.  And we've gotten a kick out of it lately because people that we don't even know will just say hi to us and be like 'Adios Elderas!!'  I really actually love it.  We can track down all of the Elders' old investigators this way.

Lately I've felt really good about my Spanish.  People have been getting me and hna b mixed up on the phone and people seem to understand me better.  But Heavenly Father is really good at humbling me.  Thank goodness.  We were talking with this inactive recent convert who has a lot of problems. He hasn't made it to church because his motorcycle is braking down. I wanted to say 'ya esta lista la moto para ir a la iglesia el domingo?'  (Is your motorcycle ready to go for church on Sunday?) But instead i said 'Ya esta lista la mota para ir a la iglesia el domingo?'  (is your weed/pot/marijuana ready to go for church on Sunday?) So that was a good embarrassing humbling experience.  Just gotta laugh at yourself and be patient Also don't tell converts to bring their weed to church...

Love you all!  Thanks for your support

Iglesation

I've been helping Hna E learn guatemalan spànish.  It's so funny to have to correct her Spanish, but here they use words that are way different here.  She's also teaching me English.  Ya know how in English when we try to speak Spanish we just put an o at the end of everything?  Well apparently in Honduras they just put a 'tion' at the end of everything to turn it into English.  Like holation and fiestation and adiosation.  So she's teaching me how to speak English from Honduras.  I'm sure no one gets why we talk so weird but we understand each other.

I've learned a lot about the importance of the gift of the Holy Ghost.  This has never happened to me in my mission but in the last few weeks we have found 6 people who got bapatized but never got confirmed!  It's so crazy.  Now they don't come to church and they aren't very strong and it's just sad.  It's such a testimony that we need the Holy Ghost to help us after baptism.  And that baptism isn't complete without it.  Now we need to work with them to see what we need to do to reactivate them and help them completely be members of the church. Its so complicated!  And it makes me so grateful that our 2 baptisms were able to get confirmed the week after their baptisms.

We saw a huge miracle this week!  I've been praying so hard to have more investigators come to church.  We really focused on explaining what church is like and inviting everyone.  So in Sacrament meeting I was sitting there and I saw that we only had 2 investigators.-  So I was trying to be thankful for that and trying to think of what we can do better when a family walked in!  We were working so hard to get them to come!  It was such an awesome reminder of how Heavenly Father really answers prayers when we do our part.

Love you all! Thank you so much always supporting me!