2nd week in the field- Aug 1

Hello family! so 2 of my investigators have a baptismal date for the 20th of august! i asked the husband and he said yes! so they are set and ready to go! we watched the joseph smith movie with them this week and it was so wonderful, i felt the spirit so strong. Their names are Maria and Nery. Marias parents are also investigating but need to get married first. we have a couple new investigators too! i really love all of you so much and i am so grateful for all that i have. you are such a loving and wonderful family who i know loves me no matter what. please be so safe traveling and working! i love you all with all of my heart!

more pictures!- July 25

me and the elders in my misson from my district at the ccm

hermana green and i after the change conference about to head out to our areas!!! (some places in my area look like the ghetto in the background of the pic)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 me on my 2nd day with my first breakfast during personal study

third day  i think after our studying about to go out teaching!!

today the 25th p-day with our lunch!

a street that looks like all the other streets im usually walking on. (ill get a pic of san juan next week

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my old stunt partner Chandler Stone who was at the ccm picking up missionaries

elder bishop and I on tuesday for the change conference

view from the mission home apartment

first week in the field- July 25

hola familia! i am in my first area and it is amazing to be a real missionary really out teaching people!!! i have so much to tell you all but i dont even know where to start!! well basically all is well and the whole week has been surprise after surprise! i cant believe how much my life has changed in just a few short months, and especially in the last week!!!

okay so wednesday we woke up and were driven to a chapel in guatemala city with all of our stuff. then we went into the chapel and had whats called a change conference, or transfer conference, and we had to sit on the stage and then they announced who would be companions with who and where we would be going! everyoen was so anxious and excited including me, because our missionis so big and different depending on where you´re sent! it was like a whole new mission call... so they announced me and my companion is Hermana Molina, latina from costa rica, and she will be my trainer for 2 transfers or 12 weeks, she speaks like 20 words in english,,, so its good for my spanish! hard but sooo good and i am so happy with it, anyway my area is called Ciprisales, and its somewhere in guatemala city, im not sure exactly where but you can probably google it. its not far from the ccm or the temple, but the area is SO different. 

okay so my house is cute! its totally pink on the outside and has a little courtyard thing inside, and then a bedroom-studyroom , a kitchen, a bathroom and a lavendaria all separated by the courtyard thing. ill attach pics, its not too dirty and we just cleaned it today so its great! i really like it for the most part. 

 

anyway so the field started an hour after arriving at my house!!! we went out and visited memebers and less actives that afternoon!!! it was wonderful! it was the longest day of my life! basically we walk a lot on the streets, soooo close to moving cars!!! ive never been so close to moving cars in my life, usually im driving one, so thats still new and scary. the first day we visited this lady with no teeth and she lives in this place called San Juan... which is the saddest and most ghetto part of my area. all of the houses are made of cement and metal and tin and its so sad. i can´t believe how little they have, their beds are almost always in the front room and the cook in disgusting conditions... its so sad i dont know how else to say it. the whole first day i couldnt stop staring because everywhere i turned was just awful. going to africa definitely helped prepare me for this though. its kind of like africa except for in kenya i was watching from the car when i was in the city. 

my favorite family is one that lives in san juan in this little cement house thats connected to all the other houses and they are very active, except not the dad as much, and they are so sweet and forgiving of my spanish! they even help teach me words and help my sentances. when we go to their house we sit on one of their beds, the floors are cement and the baby runs around... its so not childproof, it makes me want to fix everything. thats how i feel here, i just want to run around and fix it all... and i cant. 

but i do have a message that can fix things. i am bringing the message of the gospel of jesus christ and the happiness and blessigngs that they can recieve if they accept this beautiful gospel. as missionaries we are able and encouraged to promise blessings to investigators and i did that last night. we were in a tut-tut or somehting, its like a scooter with a mini car built around it, and the driver is our investigator and his wife as well as we were driving around with him and his wife my companion committed them to be married in august (they have 4 children) and we were so excited! after they drove us home, we were talkig to them about their marriage, they were saying something about how its going to be hard because of money or something. i felt impressed to promise them that they would receive so many blessings if they go through with it. it felt amaizng because i knew it was true and it will happen, their house is sad too, its all so sad, but their family is cute and im so happy

 

anyway the girl has a baptismal date that my companion and her old comp set and im going to ask her husband to be baptised tomorrow! pray for me! i love you family!

Pictures of Hermana's Appt:

one more day till the field!- July 18

hello family! i leave for the mission home tomorrow! we just said goodbye to all of the missionaries going to missions other than guatemala and peru! I can hardly believe im actually going into the field this week. it feels scary and so exciting at the same time. my spanish definitely still needs so much work but i know it will come. i pray for el don de linguas (the gift of tongues) every night, and i say EVERY prayer in spanish. i hope i get a latina companion or one that is amazing at spanish! So i think the guatemala city north mission home isnt too far from here so i heard we may actually be coming back here to spend the night after we spend the day with the president. i am pretty sure the new president and his wife have already started their mission, so we are their first group of missionaries! (maybe that means they will like us the most :) anyway this week has been full of more hours of class and devotionals, we taught lessons, and i really really enjoyed teaching all of them. i love teaaching repentance and forgiveness and teaching anything about the atonement. mommy i have almost filled up  my entire missionary gospel study journal. i LOVE it thank you so much for buying it! you can send another one if you want or i will just make another and make an index in the back. its perfect for preparing lessons the preach my gospel way because i can assess their need and then find scriptures and things that they need to hear really easily. i love you all so much and i hope all is well at home! maybe ill get to email more once im settled in my new area and with my new comp! the mission hojme address they gave us is the 5 degrees one. letters from the US have finally started arriving so some people are getting mail,. so it does get here thats good! i love you all sooooooo much. love you!

Pictures from the CCM:

Last Week in the CCM!- July 13

hi family! i am so so happy that you got my SD cards and bookmarks that i sent! I will make sure to take lots more pictures and record more memos when i am in the field (in ONE week!!!) it is hard here because of the rules and i live with 5 other girls in one room so voice recording is hard. but starting next week i will have lots of new stuff to tell! So this week we went to the plaza/central park again on monday and we did prostelyting with our north american companions and it was hard! we both are new at spanish but we were able to talk to some people about the church. we didn{t get any refferrals, but i did give away a Book of Mormon to a guy who wanted one and he knew a little about it (and he spoke some english which helped). anyway i will leave for the mission home (which i think is pretty close to here) on tuesday! I think we will stay there for a night, and then go to our first area. i kind of hope that i am in the city so i hear lots of spanish, but kind of dont want to be because the city seems scarier than the rural areas... oh well. i am praying for a latina companion though!! pray for her! i love you so much and cant wait to talk to you next week!