Tuesday, October 26, 2010
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
Monday, October 18, 2010
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
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
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
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
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
Monday, October 11, 2010
"Conference is like better than Disneyland" 10/4/2010
Hola Familia
Man oh man this was probably the best weekend ever! conference is like better than disneyland. This was probably the best session of conference I have ever been to. They gave all of the Gringo elders in my zone a special english room so that we could listen to it in english. it was amazing. I loved preisthood session, especially at the part when the choir sang. I actually saw one of my friends from BYU singing in the choir. THe saturday morning session was probably my overall favorite however. I was just eating all of the talks up. It seemed like I could apply everysingle topic to something in my mission.
I attached a bunch of pictures, the chords I have work perfectly on the computer Im using plus this computer is actually really fast to so I was able to attach alot. We also get more time to email here in the mission field. I attached photos from the guatemala MTC which I took outside of the temple. I also attached the photos I took on our little mini vacation the mtc president took us on. I also attached my baptism photos, as well as some landscape pics and some pictures of spiders to.
I read nelsons letter which was really interesting. I definetly want to exchange bug and jungle stories when we get back. I also thought it was funny that the missionaries in Japan are suffering from the always hungry pandemic as well. I think pretty much every elder in a foreign country is destined to be hungry forevor, hahaha.
So we have 4 baptisms set up for this month, and we may find some more people to baptize. My spanish is improving, I know pretty much what everyone is saying I just cant transalte it exactly. I am also adjusting better to the culture, I just wish my stomach would catch up with me. I didnt throw up this week which is a plus. THere are alot of foods here that I really like. For example at nighttime everyone here drinks something called Atole which is like hot milk, rice, suger and cinnamon. I have yet to figure out how to make it, but I love it! THere is also this soup that people make here which is like chicken broth with big eggs in it. THe equivelent is basically top ramen with eggs in it, I love IT! I also really like jsut eating beans with bread or tortilla with a little egg, creme, and avocado. People here eat tortillas for breakfast lunch and dinner, everyone always has a tortilla in their hand while they are eating. I am also starting to get to like a popular drink down here called Horchata which is really weird but good at the same time. Oh yah, people eat a ton of chicken here as well. One thing I dont like is that people never feed us beans, because they think its like a low class food, but its like my favorite. Another thing about Guatemala is that they suck and baking cakes, holy cow I havent had a good pastry in forevor, that is something I am going to miss from home. OH yah and they dont sell rootbeer here.
Tommorow our zone is going on a field trip to Antigua for our P-day. ITs supposed to be really cool and authentic. I guess it used to be the captial for something big but I dont remember. THere are alot of really old colonial buildings from when the spanish came that are still there. Plus I heard they may sell rootbeer there.
This week should be good. OH by the way I have gotten all of grandmas letters I just havent had time to write back yet, I am going to buy some letters tommorow. I have officially been in the mission field one month and I love it!
Love Elder West
p.s I will always be taller than Kevin, bahahahaha
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