Week 23

It has been a while since we posted an email. Sorry! This is a wonderful letter from Richard. We are so thankful for the Lord's watchful care over his messengers everywhere!

Week 23

Another sweaty day in Guatemala City. You know, it didnt really hit me when I first arrived, or even for a really long time, but this week, it has been hitting me every once in a while the truth of my situation, that I am in guatemala, that I am speaking spanish, and that I am on a mission. Its not like a punch in the face, knocked off my feet kind of deal, but rather, just a nice little tap on the shoulder on where I am and what I am doing. Just a cool experience.

I have been intrigued by the past emails that I have been sent about our garden. I then think about the vineyard of our Heavenly Father, and that I am but one of his many servants. Planting, sowing, reaping, I really don´t know which of the many tasks I am doing at a time, but in the end, the vine takes the help and produces fruit and flourishes or doesn´t and slowly withers by itself. But If I dont sow, reap, whatever with these wild vines here in Guate, they never have a chance to flourish, or if they do, it would have been alot easier if I were there.

This week, I experienced something interesting, and slightly lame. I feel as though right now, I am decreasing in the amount of spanish I am learning and retaining, and even the amount of help and clear thinking I recieve from the Spirit. Now why is that? My comp gave me a good response that I think fits. When I was with Flores, I had to be the pants, the push and the power of the companionship. And although he was the ¨senior¨ comp, I was in reality, and the Spirit helped me alot more, there was the direction, a real direction, in a way that I cannot describe. Now, with Morales, a good missionary, he has the role of senior comp, and I am back to a learning position, studing for my own knowledge and for investigators, but the fact is that I dont need the Spirit as much, and I am feeling that lack. It stinks. And, in my opinion, I feel just the smallest part of what I imagine I will experience when I get released as a missionary, like what my brothers felt.

This week was somewhat better workwise. There were two days eaten up by responsibilities, and a close call in regards to having to eat duck feet, but all in all it was a good week. We had 3 investigators in church, all new first timers, and the one we have a baptismal date with really was chill and liked it. I am so blessed with my companion, and I feel that with him, I will be able to learn and grow out of good measure rather than absolute necessity.

The rainy season will start soon. I took a video because we had one day this week where we couldnt leave the house for about an hour because of the sheer downpour of rain. Nothing like Vegas, right?

One last experience, and it is this: I found a scripture in Psalms that says something like: A mans heart deviseth his path but the LORD directeth his footsteps. How cool is that? and it has direct correlation to me. This sunday, I gave a talk, but because of lack of time and wasted time, I didn´t plan my talk all that well. So, I was a little unclear in my speaking, and the talk ended earlier that I wanted it too without covering some of the things that I wanted to. The end result is this: If I don´t do my part, the Spirit won´t do his.

I am also reading Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith in spanish, and not only am I understanding 90%, but it is reeally cool.

I hope you all have a good week. I love you all, and cant wait to talk to you. The details: I dont know yet, this friday is Zone Conference, so I am sure we will be instructed in that.

Peace!

-Elder Hale

Week 14- Pica Pica!!!

Ok, time for the good parts of my week, and let me tell you, there are many. I'm just going to bust out my handy dandy notebook and see what my past week had for me.

On tuesday we had a good day with everything. Tuesday was some sort of holiday, I don't know what it was called, but it essentially consisted of people hitting each other in the head with Pica-pica. Pica-pica is a dried out egg shell, mostly intact, filled with little peaces of paper, then has a piece of paper glued to the hole and painted random colors. And all you do is go up to another person and CRACK it on their head! Its cool because it is super easy to clean up (unless it goes down your shirt) and doesnt hurt at all. But sometimes, kids fill it with other stuff, like I got hit in the head with one full of sand and More-caf (its like Postum, but tastes better), so all this powder was in my hair and whatnot.

We also taught a family, I don't know their family name, but the grandma is named Comacita. Comacita is a tall, gangly old woman. In fact, she looks like an old version of Olive Oyl from Popeye. She and her daughter and granddaughter listened to us and participated as we taught about the restoration, in which I made the...mistake of up and up saying that the Pope was not a prophet and didn't have any priesthood authority. The daughter is catholic. So, we spent the next part tip-toeing and answering questions and while I think we ended well, and she said she would pray, I just hope I didn't mess the whole lot up and offend her. Pfffffff.

Wednesday, we had district meeting which turned out well. Especially the part where when the whole zone came out of the chapel, our district pegged them all with Pica-pica! We all joined in,the whole zone, and it was awesome. But besides that the rest of the day, every single appointment fell. :(

We celebrated my comps 20th birthday on wednesday. Some really good cake. I normally dont like the cake here, and this is why: They always buy the cake frozen, so when they serve it, it is thawed. Good right? Wrong. Because there was the excess of liquid that was produced by the freezing, the cake is soggy. I am literally swallowing bites whole just so I dont have to have it in my mouth for too long. :P

The whole week, we have been taking a boy with us to go teach. He has been having problems. He is the youngest, picked on by his brother, and no one really pays attention to him. So he hangs out with the wrong peepl, and acts up for attention. Once he almost swung a machete at his grandpa. Yikes. So we have been taking him, and it has really helped boost his esteem. He hugs and helps his grandma, brings his own Bible and BoM, and although he is too shy to help us teach, I try to involve him by asking him questions that he can answer with some form of confidence, like "What did Adam and Eve do?" or "Who baptized Jesus?" and the like. Hopefully he will recognize what he needs to do and do it, thereby making him happier with his family in the long run.

On Saturday, we did alot of service. We moved some people from one house to another by essentially handcarrying everything that wasnt a dresser about a half a mile through houses and traffic. Heavy awkward stuff too. Once, we were walking down the street, and an old man came out of his house, saw the sheer number of elders and said "Oh Dios mio, gringos!" Lol!

Then as a district we had a carwash. While some elders were washing, others were talking to the people about our message. Some people didn't believe us that it was free, but we got alot of work, alot of pilas references, and a nice sunburn. I got the whole red-ish face, but white lines where my glasses go. :)

We also discovered that one of our long time investigators, Geovanni, who wants to be baptized and attends everything, but his dad wont sign, was drinking. We passed him on the street after dinner, and he was with his friends, saw us and hung his head. Man, that just sucks. Fear can rob us of honesty, and honesty is the only thing that can set us free, honesty with ourselves and others.

Things are going good with the spanish. I am understanding people more, getting accostumed to the accent and the speed, and all it is now is learning the words that they are saying. Man my vocab is limited! I figure that next change, which is next week, I am probably going to get put with a native comp, and then necesity is going to  help my spanish leaps and bounds.

Not much time to answer questions, the cafe closes soon.

Dad, awesome job on working with neighbors. Keep it up. And the maps you have are right, but the lines that google added for the streets are way wrong. Nice fish.

Mom, killed the fleas with a flea collar. Stomachs fine, but cant go.  I still dont like cilantro, but they dont use it much anyways, just eggs and beans. Lots of wards.

2 minutes. Time is against me like scott said. And yes scott, I am tall. :P

I am not going to upload pictures because last time I tryed, I got a virus on my sd card. It is fine, along with my pics. More stuff? I dunno. More ties, not blue ones.

 Love you all!
 Elder Hale