Two weeks in one, plenty of adventure plus I hit my year mark!

Elder North and Elder Sierra

Date:  December 15, 2015

Area:  Korral Pek

Companion:  Elder Sierra from Honduras

Alright, so all of you are wondering, where in the world did Elder Norte go? I didn´t hear from him last week and it´s been sooooo long since he wrote I just can´t stand it and I just might explode. Well, Here I am! Still in the mountains of Korral Pek with a new companion named Elder Sierra. Elder Sierra is from Honduras and he has about three weeks in the mission, two weeks in the CCM and now one week in the field. That´s right, I have a son, meaning I am training.

First of I didn´t write last week because we had a fantastic adventure to Semuc Champey, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semuc_Champey) it´s a pretty popular tourist site with very clean and pure pools of water where you can actually swim and such, not us, we´re missionaries, it was fun, yet it was a lot of travel and on top of that I didn´t get to write to family, but I´m only really disappointed by that because I didn´t have any time to notify you guys that that was going to happen, but now it´s passed and we´re back on schedule. Semuc Champey was a really pretty place, and I would love to go back there and actually swim in the pools of water.

Semuc Champey

Elder Felix and Elder North

Last week wasn´t that exciting, it was pretty hard because we didn´t have a baptism because it turns out that Emilio is still drinking and smoking, but we´re working with him, we missionaries are pretty persistent, especially when it comes to helping someone with a problem like this, pray for him for me, the more prayers the better, he´s also still having a hard time remembering to read his Book of Mormon, we have stressed the importance of the Book of Mormon because it is a very special book that can and will change lives.

My last companion Elder Vargas left to an area called Chi Sec, he´s going to be opening up the area with three other missionaries, and this is going to change the mission because it´s going to start a chain of opening up new areas for more missionaries and not only that, but there´s going to be changes to the mission itself. (look forward for more details on that.)

So that was Monday, and then we got a call that day that I was going to be training a new missionary, which meant that I had to go to Cobán to get trained on how to train and to pick up my new companion, as I mentioned earlier is named Elder Sierra, which is kind of funny for me actually because I have a friend named Sierra. So I went and got trained how to train and then I met Elder Sierra and soon after we were on our way back to the mountains.

At this meeting we were told that starting July they are going to have Q´eqchi´ in the CCM, and that soon to be missionaries are going to receive their callings for either Spanish speaking mission or Q´eqchi´ speaking mission, and those that are going to be called to Q´eqchi´ are going to those that already speak Spanish so that they´re only learning one language, it´s going to be a nine week program in the CCM, this is going to change the mission. Especially since people aren´t going to suddenly learn that they have to learn        Q´eqchi´.

Pretty exciting news that they are going to start teaching Q'eqchi' in the CCM (Missionary Training Center in Spanish is CCM)  We have always questioned why they don't but it sounds like they didn't feel they had enough areas until now.  Nine week program instead of 6 also which shows that the language is difficult and that these missionaries that have been given the task to learn it on their own are just awesome.  

So Elder Sierra and I got back to our area and he was checking out the area and such, he was feeling pretty bad that he couldn´t talk, we have quite a few people that speak Spanish and I tried to keep him around them when I could so he didn´t feel mute, we then had to walk to Chulac and the walk almost killed him. Partly because he was under lots of stress, he suddenly has to speak a new language and there´s not light in our house all the time. To make a long story short and to not go into detail, his first two days were pretty ugly, I was scared that he wasn´t going to be able to do it, but now he´s feeling better and he´s getting down on the Q´eqchi´ speaking part.

This week we also had Zone conference, it was our Christmas conference which was amazing, and always in conference we get good food, Elder Sierra was able to talk to President and his wife and they gave him counsel and then President and I gave him a blessing that was incredibly powerful, we returned to our area and things were instantly better. More smiles more faith, more hope, more awesome.

zone conference

A mouse at church

Emilio now has another Baptism date for the 27th of December, we´re going to be praying for him and helping him as he discovers that this church is really the best there is because it´s true. Although I´ve learned a lot with Elder Sierra already, one of his favorite things to say is that we´re not here as missionaries to change your faith, but we´re here to increase your faith, that´s true, we don´t want to flat out denounce other faiths because they do contain truth and they do worship God and Jesus as his son, all is good, they´re just missing parts and they simply don´t realize it.

As for mail, I got a lot of it, Christmas letters and a package with lots of pez, I don´t think I can say who I got it from because I actually got quite a bit, one of my favorites was from the Barnson family, they sent me a cute little nativity set that I can set up. It´s just amazing.

Well, I hope that covers just about everything, it was quite a bit, and I´ve been having fun and learning more, we´re going to be starting a class of Spanish for those in our area, that´ll be really interesting. Time to see what more awaits me in Korral Pek.

Until next week, I love you all.

Elder Jered Lamont North

Elder North loves mail so if you can take the time to write him he would really appreciate it. Thanks to all those that have written him and continue to support him.  It is appreciated.

Elder Jered North
Guatemala Cobán Mission
Apartado Postal #34
3ra Calle 2-02, Zona 3
Cobán AV 16001
Guatemala, Central America

It costs $1.15 to mail a letter to him. You can use regular envelops and stamps just make sure they equal $1.15. If it weights more than a regular letter you should take it to the post office to have it weighed.