"I can actually speak spanish" 12-13-2010

Hola Familia!

Its Almost Christmas! Oh and Happy Birthday MOM! This week was pretty good. I came to the realization this week that I can actually speak spanish. I really cannot believe it, I can pretty much understand just about everything. There are still alot of words I dont know but it is just coming alot easier now. I can pretty much say what ever I want to say now. On christmas you guys can call me if you want. Here is my number 011-4058-2698. I will give you guys more details next week and we can set up a time or something when you can call.

Another thing I realized is that I am getting fatter. I think its because I get fed breakfast lunch and dinner FOR FREE! man I still cannot get over that. but yah I am getting fatter, so I am not going to buy a mcflurry when we go to mcdonalds today. I also heard that people are going to start breaking out the tamales pretty soon so I am pretty excited for that. this morning I did somepushups so I think that helped alittle bit.

I am starting to learn my area alot better now. The names are alot harder to learn here because they are in cak´chiquel. I learned some new words good means UTZ and very good is UTZ PEEN PEEN. IT is an awesome language. I want to learn more but there are no books that exist that teach it I pretty sure. ANother thing I have noticed here is that during lessons my investigodaors will talk ALOT! which is good but at the same time it is really annoying. FOr example the other day I asked Hermano Chiroy Why is it important that we have prophets? THe next thing I know he is telling me about how he had a vision about some lights coming out of the sky and circuling around him. Its a challenge to keep control of the lessons, but its a good growing oportunity to learn how to control lessons. This week we set 2 baptismal dates for the 26 of December happy birthday Megan.

ME and my companion are pretty much like best buds now we make sometimes I think that we have too much fun while preaching but thats ok. all in all, all is well, the weather is beatuful and sunny and my belly is full. And I we are having success. Happy birthday mom I dont remember how old you are turning but its ok.

Adios familia!

Elder West

Zone CHimaltenango 12-8-2010

Hola Familia!

Well I had changes this week. I recieved a new area and a new companion. I am now in the Zone CHimaltenango, area San Andres Itzapa and my new companion is Elder Otuafi, he is of Tongan decent. I think at this point in my mision I may have had just as many tongan companions as Elder Spencer Hoffman has who is serving in tonga. He is a really funny guy and I am a really funny guy so we have had some pretty funny times togather thus far. This area is in the mountains and it is also a bit cold, but I know that to Kristen it would be like paradise because its like below freezing there. My new companion has 7 months in the mission and I have 5. WE are both still learning spanish so teaching is sometimes a challenge. In my area there is a second language caxiquel and its like some kind of clicky mayan language where they like make cliky sounds and stuff. I dont have to learn it though because everyone can speak spanish as well. When I first got to my area I learned that there has only been 3 baptism here for the entire year! Also they currently did not have any investigadors. We are basicaly starting over fresh. Another challenge in this area is that there are no directions, no house numbers, street names, and no signs. WE have to work completly off of famous landmarks and stuff. Despite these challenges me and my comp found 11 new investigadors in the past 4 days, and committed 2 people to baptism. You have only to acheive what you wish to believe, that ryhmes unintentional.

Good news! in this area I eat for Freeeeeeeeee! There are some really really nice members that give us breakfast lunch and dinner. I nearly cried when I learned this. ITs mainly just beans and eggs but thats all I want anyways. THis also means that I now have more money leftover to eat at Mcdolnads and stuff on p'days. We live really close to Antigua which is like one of the best tourist destinations in guatemala so there are alot of good restaruants there, and alot of tourists as well that we can look at. Most of the tourists are dirty hippy people that walk around with huge backpacks.

Ahhhh I dont have much time because I want to put on some pictures talk to you guys later!

Elder WEst

November 2010 Pics

Marlen Garcia Lopez and Juan Manuel

Christmas Tomale's 11/29/2010

Hola Familia!

Ok I attached all of the photos I took this week as well as the photos I took last week. Sorry I didnt send a letter last week, the computer turned off while I was still writing and I didnt have enough money to pay for more time. Thank you so much for the packages! Merry Christmas! I got the packages from grandma as well. I also got a bunch halloween themed letters from grandma, thanks for the chololate bar! Im not sure which arrives faster pouch or normal mail. Sometimes it takes forevor tt get here and sometimes it gets here really fast. Me and my companion loved the food that was in those packages! especially the beef jerkey. My companion has never tried beef jerkey in his life and he likes it alot. I also really liked the salmon. Iam going to try and not open up the gifts until christmas but I cant make any promises.

This week was awesome, we found 14 new investigadors, three families, and we had 2 baptisms. We baptized a 19 year old kid named Juan Manuel, he is really cool. But he always laughs at me because of my spanish, hahah, he especially thinks its funny when I say prayers. hahah, but hes a good guy and he really wanted to get baptized. WE also baptized the sister of his girlfriend, her name is Marlen Garcia Lopez she has 3 kids and has tons of problems with her husband. After her baptism she gave a really emotional testimony about how the gospel has and will continue to help her through her problems.

WE also had interviews with our mission president on friday. We have interviews with our president every 3 months. The interview I had lasted about 5 minutes, I was expecting something alittle bit more but thats ok. I also had to turn in my Ipod because I just learned that President clark of the area authrority seventy made it a rule that no missinoary in central america can have an I pod. SO I turned it it. The wife also did cleaning inspections on all of the misionaries houses, except for mine because my house is the farthest away in the zone. I cleaned for like 3 hours on p-day, bummer. but thats ok. I completely forgot about thanksgiving this week, the only reason I remembered was because Sister Baldwin made us pumpkin pie at our interviews.

I tried my first tomale this week! during the christmas time people start breakin out the tomales. and I love it! THe food here is stuff that I love, maybe I ate alot of guatemalan food in the pre-earth life. Saber (who knows), that is a special guatemalan form of the verb saber (to know) but here it can also mean Who -knows. My spanish is getting better, iam starting to get better at small talk, I can actually have fun in spanish now. I can talk to just about everyone now, I just need to increase my vocabulary more.

Thanks for the thanksgiving pictures. I love seeing whats going on down there in visual form. I got really hungry when I saw those píctures. I am really hungry right now actually, for lunch we are going to eat churrasco which is another word for barbaque. This will be our last lunch as a district because tonight we find out who is going to have changes. I have a feeling that I am going to stay in the same area but , Saber (who knows). Thanks so much for the support and I encourage you to continue to send me stuff I like it alot.

Love

Elder West

Committed 6 people to baptism! 11/15/10

Hola Familia!


This week was interesting as usual. I had some really high points and some really low points. To start off with all of the good points, we comitted 6 people to baptism! I am really excited for that, that will mean that I will have 12 baptisms in my first 3 months in the field. These converts are going to be really good to. ONe of them is a 11 year old girl who has been coming to church with her uncle for the past month. We just recently realized that she wasnt a member so of course we had to baptize her. She is really intelligent, she understands better than the majority of the adults that we teach. WE are also going to baptize a nineteen year old kid and his friend who has two kids. We also have a family of three, and they polish and reapair shoes for a living. they have an eleven year old son who had to leave school so that he could help his dad polish shoes. It is really sad here because there are alot of people who just arent educated and cant progress at all in life. I realized that the reason why people werent understanding my spanish very much is because my spanish is grammatically correct and straight from the book. My companion told me that its not that my spanish is wrong, its that they never learned how to speak it properly. So I need to speak very simply.

THe low point I had this week was when a recently converted sister, of my old companion, told us that she wanted to leave the church because another member offended her. It was really sad for me. I think that I bore one of the strongest testimonies to her that I have ever bore. I cried during my testimony which really suprised me. I told her that whenever problems like this arise you jsut have to return back to your roots and rember the reason why you got baptized in the first place. Which is that the book of mormon is true. If the book of mormon is true that means that joseph smith was a prophet and that jesus christ is leading and guiding his saints on the earth as we speak. She could not deny the spirit. She came to church this sunday, but I am still worried about her. I learned an important lesson this week, never baptize anyone unless they have already obtained a testimony of the book of mormon and of this church. This is Sooo key.

On another note, I think that I am starting to get tired of beans a little bit. Which is really starting to worry me, because I Iove beans. I only bought one can of beans this week. Another interesting thing this week is that I got fed Chow Mein 3 times this week, hahaha, which I definetly did not expect. And what did I eat my chow mein with? tortillas. at everysingle meal here you have to have a tortilla in your hand. Its kind of like how dad told us that in england people always eat wit a knife in there hand so that they can scoop stuff onto their fork better. Its the same principle here except with tortillas. I think tortillas are better than knives because you cant eat knives when you are finished eating them.

It was really cool to hear about Kristens first day in Illinois, thats cool that she is in a spanish branch. She will learn fast there. I am so proud that my little bro is a deacon as well, I can just imagine him with his really cute deacon tie passing the sacrament. I attached a few pictures that I took this week. I only took three but I will try and take more this week.

Love Elder West

Missed the 5:30 bus 11/8/10

Hola Familia!

What a great week I have had, I dont even know where to start. This past sunday was awesome, we had testimony meeting and 2 of my recent converts shared their testimony. It was amazing. I also had one of my recent converts receive the melchezedic preisthood! on top of that 5 investigadors came to church. I just feel so good inside. On thursdy we got to listen to Elder Martino speak to my zone wich was really inspiring, I learned that the story about alma and amulek applies perfectly to reactivating inactive members and teaching lessons with a member present. Amulek was an inactive member who turned out to be a really good tag along missionary with a killer testimony.

This week it turned cold, and I mean Cold! I did not expect this at all. My area is seriously up there in the mountains. Dont worry mom my I am warm at night, and my jackets are perfectly satisfactory. But I am sick however. But its ok its just a little cold I can still work. I am trying out blowing my nose in my hankerchief which is something I have never done before. I feels weird putting my hankercheif back in my pocket after I have blown snot all over it. These next few months will be really really cold, unless I get moved to the coast next change, if thats the case I will be really hot.

On thursday me and my comp went on an excursion to our areas that really far away. It took us like 40 minutes to get there by bus and then 20 minutes of walking by foot to get to where we needed to go. I I think I must have like one of the largest areas in the mission because that is just insane. These areas are out in the country, we actually drive over the mountain that I live on and go down into the other valley part. It was really good because we ended up putting another baptismal date for the end of this month. However in the process of doing so we missed the last bus of the day that goes back to our house! hahaha. Apparently the last bus is at 5:30 pm. So me and my comp were stuck one hour away from our house it was completely dark, except for a few scattered street lights, no flashlight, no phone, and it was really cold. So what did we do? we started to walk, with fe. after walking for about 30 minutes we hitched a ride in the back of some guys truck, but he was only going half the distance that we needed. SO we walked some more. After about 15 minutes we hitchiked ourselves another ride in the back of some guys truck back to our home base. That was my really fun experience for the week. And now we know that the bus leaves at 5:30.

I think I am fully acustomed to the food here now, which is awesome. I ordered some peanut butter and jelly from the mission office as a little treat for my self. I didnt have any cool food stories this week, but I sohould have more because we are approaching the holiday season.

Anyways, It is good to here that kevin recieved my letter. Happy b-day brother! and its good to here that he is also developing some guns like his big bro. It really cool that Kristen is leaving tommorow for chicago, I cant wait to hear what her experience is. Oh and HI Grandma, I recieved a pile of letters from you today. Thanks for sending those I like them alot! It is amazing how time flies, in december I will have been on my mission for 6 months! there are a whole lot of people I need to baptize still. Thanks for writing to me. I love hearing about whats going on at home.

Love

Elder Barry Michael West

10/25 pic

Trip to the Coast 10/25/10

New Companion Elder Gutierrez 10/25/10

Hello Family,

I didnt get to ride on top of any buses this week but thats ok this week was still really cool. I got my new companion! His name is Elder Gutierrez from panama. He doesnt speak english, It is the strangest feeling not being to speak english with anyone, I literally cannot speak english except for right now because I am writing in english. Iam really glad that I got a latino companion however becaus now I am going to see my spanish improve alot! In the past week My spanish really has improved. My companion is a really good guy, who wants to work hard. I am glad, I really lucked out with my new companion. My district was credited for getting more than half of the baptisms and me and my old comp had the majority of those, I expect to hold this standard througout my whole mission.

Here is my number one spiritual experience for his week. Me and elder gutierrez had an appointment with the family that me and Elder Misini baptized. The moment we walked into their house I saw one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. There entire family was reading out of the Book of Mormon! They each had their own copy, which we had given them, and they were reading as a family! This has got to be one of he happiest moments in my life. It made me realize the impact that I had actually had on their lives, they have changed. They are now on of the most active members in our tiny little branch. I am just so happy right now just because I saw the faith that has grown within their family.

My favorite food experience this week. I have found my favorite food here. It is called a Tomale! except the tomale I ate was not just any ordinary tomale, it was made out of MASHED POTATOES! I almost started to cry when I was eating it, its almost like I have been searching for this food item my entire mission. It was so good. How they make tomales is they take a big banana leaf and inside of the leaf they pile meat, spices, some kind of dough made out of corn and a chile on top and they wrap all of that inside of the banana leaf like a giant tortilla. This is what I ate, except with Mashed potatoes instead of he corn stuff! This is another reason for my happiness.

On Tuesday me and Elder Misini got permission from the president to visit his old area in the coast because it was his last p'day. It was really cool, but it was also really hot! it was way hot. I also made the whole 2 hour ride there in the back of a members pick up truck, and I forgot sunscreen. As You can imagine I got really really sunburnt. My red face really amazes the natives. I got to see the beach and the culture down there, it was pretty interesting.

That is really cool to here about the new stake, and the new stake presidency, I had a feeling that bro. Lavering would be in it, haha. It will be really weird when I get back. Anyways I am working hard and walking alot and will continue to do so. Happy Haloween!

Elder West

A New "Game" 10/18/2010

Hola Familia!

Well I had another fantastic week, I baptized my first complete family on sunday! That was really great I got to baptize Juan Jimenez Fernandez, the dad. My comp baptized Luisa (mom) and the son Brian who is Kevins age. I love this family so much I feel at home whenever we visit with them. they have 3 other children aswell. I baptized one of them last month, which is how we were able to find this family. they have two other kids who are older who will baptized as soon as they stop having classes on sundays and stuff. I have officially finished my first change in the mission field, on wednesday I get to figure out who my new companion is. Chances are that he will probably be a latino. I have been given the respnisibilty to be the guide for my area so I have to show my comp where everything is. My area is so huge there are alot of areas I havent even seen yet. But thats ok. My goal is to have jsut as many baptisms as I did during this last change. I had 6 baptisms in this last change, which is extremely awesome, for only one change.

I am also going to nickname this week the fishy week because we got fed alot of fish this week. They way they cook fish here is really cool, they gut it and then stick it in a frying pan with the head tail and everything. Or they stick a pot of broth and cook it like soup. you have to eat it with your hands and pick through the skin to get to the meat. It tastes pretty good, but one of the fish that I ate tasted like dirty water which probably wasnt a good sign, but i didnt get sick so I m good. I really really love beans as well, it even comes with a very comical side affect which me and my comp share very frequently. Beans and eggs, the guatemalan signiture dish, mmmmmmm!

OH yah this week I had another really fun experience on the bus. Actually 2. One time our bus was so full me and my comp had to climb on to the roof and ride up there, hahaha. It was so fun! we had like a 35 minute ride to. We figured out a fun game while we were up there, it was called ¨try and dodge the overhanging branches while sitting on top of a bus going 60 miles per hour¨ it was actually really fun. There was like 7 other guys up there playing with us, hahaha. I managed to snap a few pictures while I was up there, but there not very good because I was trying to hard to hard not to fall off. That was one of the highlights of the week I hope I get to do it again. The other fun experience I had on a bus was when Me and my comp were coming back from Zone Conference on a really long bus ride with some other Elders. One of the latino elders motioned me to follow him up to the front of the bus, he handed me a book of mormon and we then proceeded to teach the whole BUS! That was nuts, After he finished talking he looked over to me as if he expected me to say something, haha, so I did. Man that was a good learning experience, Afterwards I learned that if we do that we get a free ride. We also got some good references to. HOly moly that was scary though. One thing that i learned in my mission so far is that if you are not uncomfortable you are not growing and learning. So basically I also learned that the job of my trainer is to put me in uncomfortable experiences, haha. Lets jsut say that I have a good trainer and I have grown a ton. This is a good principle that I think megan and kevin should employ at school.

This next week I wont have another baptism, but I should have a bunch of other cool experiences with my new Comp! Keep up the good work at school Megan and Kevin, I got my eyes on you. Thats really cool that dad is going to meet with a seventy as well, I have run into my area authority presidency a few times and it is always a really good experience. Anyways I love you guys thanks for sending me emails and stuff!

Love Elder West

A New Game

Hola Familia!

Well I had another fantastic week, I baptized my first complete family on sunday! That was really great I got to baptize Juan Jimenez Fernandez, the dad. My comp baptized Luisa (mom) and the son Brian who is Kevins age. I love this family so much I feel at home whenever we visit with them. they have 3 other children aswell. I baptized one of them last month, which is how we were able to find this family. they have two other kids who are older who will baptized as soon as they stop having classes on sundays and stuff. I have officially finished my first change in the mission field, on wednesday I get to figure out who my new companion is. Chances are that he will probably be a latino. I have been given the respnisibilty to be the guide for my area so I have to show my comp where everything is. My area is so huge there are alot of areas I havent even seen yet. But thats ok. My goal is to have jsut as many baptisms as I did during this last change. I had 6 baptisms in this last change, which is extremely awesome, for only one change.

I am also going to nickname this week the fishy week because we got fed alot of fish this week. They way they cook fish here is really cool, they gut it and then stick it in a frying pan with the head tail and everything. Or they stick a pot of broth and cook it like soup. you have to eat it with your hands and pick through the skin to get to the meat. It tastes pretty good, but one of the fish that I ate tasted like dirty water which probably wasnt a good sign, but i didnt get sick so I m good. I really really love beans as well, it even comes with a very comical side affect which me and my comp share very frequently. Beans and eggs, the guatemalan signiture dish, mmmmmmm!

OH yah this week I had another really fun experience on the bus. Actually 2. One time our bus was so full me and my comp had to climb on to the roof and ride up there, hahaha. It was so fun! we had like a 35 minute ride to. We figured out a fun game while we were up there, it was called ¨try and dodge the overhanging branches while sitting on top of a bus going 60 miles per hour¨ it was actually really fun. There was like 7 other guys up there playing with us, hahaha. I managed to snap a few pictures while I was up there, but there not very good because I was trying to hard to hard not to fall off. That was one of the highlights of the week I hope I get to do it again. The other fun experience I had on a bus was when Me and my comp were coming back from Zone Conference on a really long bus ride with some other Elders. One of the latino elders motioned me to follow him up to the front of the bus, he handed me a book of mormon and we then proceeded to teach the whole BUS! That was nuts, After he finished talking he looked over to me as if he expected me to say something, haha, so I did. Man that was a good learning experience, Afterwards I learned that if we do that we get a free ride. We also got some good references to. HOly moly that was scary though. One thing that i learned in my mission so far is that if you are not uncomfortable you are not growing and learning. So basically I also learned that the job of my trainer is to put me in uncomfortable experiences, haha. Lets jsut say that I have a good trainer and I have grown a ton. This is a good principle that I think megan and kevin should employ at school.

This next week I wont have another baptism, but I should have a bunch of other cool experiences with my new Comp! Keep up the good work at school Megan and Kevin, I got my eyes on you. Thats really cool that dad is going to meet with a seventy as well, I have run into my area authority presidency a few times and it is always a really good experience. Anyways I love you guys thanks for sending me emails and stuff!

Love Elder West

Antigua Visit 10/11/2010

Hola Familia

What a good week it has been. I had my 3rd baptism yesterday and I got asked to perform the baptism again. It was really cool. I baptized carlos roberto rodriguez carias, I love this guy he is hilarious. He looks like mario and he is like the funniest guy ever. When I baptized him I had to do it twice because his pants werent sumberged. He wanted to bring his own clothes, so he showed up in white shorts, a white shirt, and a really fluffy white robe. The problem was when I baptized him, because there was a big air bubble in his shorts that made is shorts float on the top of the water. THe second time I had to be sure to dunk him really deep. I attached the photos of my baptism. i also attache photos of some of my other adventures I had this week. NExt weekend I have 3 more baptisms, a family of 3. They are our Golden family, man they are definetly prepared and chosen by God to recieve the gospel. IN total in my first 6 weeks in the mission I will have averaged 1 baptism per week, which makes me really happy.

ON p-day we had a zone activity were we got to go to the city of Antigua. Antigua was like a huge center from when he spanizh were here. There are alot of spanish ruins and alo of buildings that have been restored. This ciy is beautiful. It is clean and perfect and real ideal. The governmen actually tries to preserve this city for all of the tourists. there were alot of tuorists there that we got to see. That is a cool city, I found a store that sold rootbeer! which made this trip worthwhile in my opinion. I attached photos of that experience to. The funnest thing to do there is to barter with the people selling stuff in he market. Because I am white they raise the prize so that it is ridiculously expensive, haha, no joke. For example I was looking for a sweatshirt I could wear because it is really cold in my area. I saw one that I liked and the old women told me that it was 130 quetzales! No way! so I used my skills and dropped the price down to 60 quetzales which is like almost 10 dollars. So I got a really good sweatshirt for 60 Q which made me happy.

We had a meeting with all the newbi missionaries as well. President Baldwin was there and everything. They made us teach a 5 minute lesson in front of a camera and would then later play our video infront of everybody, including the president, and they were supposed to judge us on how we did. It was really funny. I think I did well, my spanish is better than alot of the other newbies.

I am really starting to get into a good flow with my spanish and teaching. Right now we have 3 other families progressing and we are planning to find 5 plus new investigadors this week. This is my companions last week so I have to make sure to keep him motivated. I get a new companion next week and he will most likely be a Latino. I will have to be the guide for my area, so I really need to step up my game and work even harder this week. That way I will have a lot of work ready for my companion.

THis week was the first week were I didnt throw up or have severe diarhea, which has been really amazing. I am alot skinnier I think I lost like 15 pounds or something. I can now button up my suit, haha. I also have a really funny tan line half way up my neck because of my shirt collar. ANyways it has been really good hearing from the family. I cannot believe that they are going to organize a new stake up there, that made me smile. This year has been a huge year of change. Change is fun. I can imagine kevin walking around in his spartan armor, hahaha, that is totally Kevin. I started flossing everyday, and I started eating more healthy and stuff. Good luck at college Mom!

Love,

Elder West

More Pictures Fall 2010

Spiders lurk overhead in the Jungle - september 2010