Nakatinra (meaning: I love you)

Name tags in THREE languages!

Date:  February 10, 2014
Area:  La Tinta, Guatemala
Companion:  Elder Aguero from Peru
Week 8

This week I have some pretty neat stories to tell you, but first a few things about what I have been asked.

My zone leaders are Elder Hill and Elder Cadena and our zone is called the Zone Polochic.

It is not cold here at all.  I am thankful for the fan I have which when I'm in the house I am usually sitting on my bed to read while the fan cools me off and reminds me of better times when I didn't sweat a lot.

I'm blessed to be in La Tinta where there is a dispensa familiar, which is pretty much a very small Walmart.  I can buy fruit or meat or cereal which I need, so I eat and cook pretty well here because of it.  I hear that it's heavenly to have it, but I don't know life without it.  I'm really blessed to be more eased into things rather than thrown into the very deep end.

I have not had any type of health problems.  I'm a North and we're a pretty healthy and hardy breed.  I do take my vitamins every day.  The food outside of the house is mostly eggs, some chicken and tortillas are always.

The lee Family does our laundry.

I have had a little problem with mosquitos, but in La Tinta I don't have to sleep with a mosquito net.  I have not seen any snakes, but I have seen some lizards.  Not too exciting in this area.

I received mail from:
- Mom
- Grandma Mary
- Jessy

from about January 11th I believe.  Mail goes through a pouch system.  I believe it is sent to our zone leaders and then they give it to us when they get the opportunity to, about every two weeks or so.

My Triple Combination in Kekchi

My week had some pretty interesting happenings.  First off, my biggest problems are mornings.  I don't like them because they're kind of monotonous, and just sometimes I get feeling very down.  It doesn't last long and you just have to think about work or investigators.

I study hard and I do learn something new every day that I can apply in my day.  Recently I have been reading the conference report from last conference, some good stuff in there.

You have spiritual experiences every day out on a mission.  Not necessarily large or profound but they are there.

The best lesson this week was a lesson with a new investigator Amirani.  She's bright and we gave her a Libro de Mormon, but we used several examples with coins which helped quite a bit.

Elder Aguero and I way up in the mountains
above La Tinta.

We hiked up to Palomar, which are where the pictures of the mountains I sent are taken from.  We went

to visit a man who is sick.  We had planned to give him a blessing, but didn't because he would receive one on Sunday.  Which he did, and if he wasn't going to get a blessing I wouldn't have left without giving him one.  What makes this interesting is that a doctor was there and his methods are kind of odd. He took the guys shirt off, dipped a frog which I'm not sure if it was alive or dead, and rubbed the frog all over the guys chest and back and especially his neck which had a rash.

Me in the mountains.

Another experience this week, which was yesterday, was after the lesson with Amarani this drunk guy talked to me and was babbling something about Christ and how he's important and such.  It was kind of hard to understand him because he was speaking in drunken Spanish.  He pretty much asked me if Joseph Smith was more important than Christ.  I said no, but he was a prophet.  He pretty much accepted my answer and went on his way, fairly politely I must say as he said con permiso, shook my hand and walked off.

My feelings, it was weird and incredibly funny.


I received my Kechi name, which is a tradition here for missionaries speaking Kekchi.  My name is
aj Tz ak, which means wall, which I received because I'm a great goalie.  Yes we play soccer every week and I'm the goalie.

My two complaints so far.  Sweating, and sweating.  Yes...That's pretty much it, I'm not allowing myself to get frustrated or annoyed with not talking the languages.  If anything not being able to communicate has driven me to study a lot more fervently.  Why complain when I can do something about it?  I'm still considered new and training, so I don't care if I don't do the lessons all the way correctly, but I'm just happy with how much I have been able to contribute.

Thank you all of your support and your prayers.  I hope to receive more physical letters and hopefully I'll be able to get some started on their way to the States sometime soon.  With all my adjustments I haven't been doing that well with physical writing, but I have not forgotten.

You're prayers give us strength, we remember those we love and it pushes up through the times we feel kind of down.

- Elder Norte

PLEASE WRITE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Elder Jered North

Guatemala Cobán Mission

6a Avenida 2-36 zona 1

Cobán

Alta Verapaz

Guatemala

It costs $1.10 to mail a letter to him. You can use regular envelops and stamps just make sure they equal $1.10. If it weights more than a regular letter you should take it to the post office to have it weighed.

OR

Use Dear Elder (www.dearelder.com)

its Free to my mission. Just got to

dearelder.com, create an account

and it will track the letters you send

so you can go back and view them.

On the drop down menu just put in

Guatemala Cobán Mission and then

address it to Elder Jered North.

They get mailed out once a week.

This will be the best way to contact

me since I don't have that much

time on e-mail each week.