Drunks Beware!

Date:  February 16, 2015
Area: Sacsuha, Guatemala
Companion:  Elder Menjivar
Week 60

I`ll just tell you all what the title of my email is all about first so that you don`t have to wait. We were walking back home for the night and in front of us we saw a drunk guy walking in his drunky kind of stumble-walk and Elder Menjivar thought that he recognized him so we walked faster so that we could walk past him and see who it was. It turns out it was the brother of one of our investigators which makes us really sad, but as we were passing by he seemed to take an interest in us and amazingly walked a little faster to keep pace with us as we tried to ignore him. He reached out and grabbed the back of my bag.

 Now I don`t like it when people grab me from behind so I reacted and turned and pushed him away, the push was effective as he stumbled back and fell down due to his drunken state.

I`m not really proud of this `mighty achievement of strength` because it was a bad reaction and he could have been hurt more than he was, but drinking is bad, it causes you to look silly and perhaps a missionary will push you down.

Anyway, a very happy event happened this weak as well, we had a baptism! Elder Menjivar had the privileged of doing the ordinance for two young girls age 10 and 9 named Maria and Vilma. They are just really awesome and were ready, they both have people to support them and they were really anxious to get baptized even when the baptism got delayed for two hours because the president of the branch was delayed, but it was done and it went well and they got confirmed the next day.

We have one more young boy up for baptism and we may be possibly putting another date for another young girl, we are also working on a couple of young men, ages 18 and such, we meet with all of them together every Wednesday and teach them together so that they can build off of each other, the sad thing is they didn`t come to church yesterday, but hope is not lost, they`re just starting to really search for the truth and they will come around.

Brand New Puppies

This week was really good although we didn`t find many new people to teach because we were busy preparing people for baptism and preparing the baptism itself, but next week we will be more focused on finding those that are ready. Prayers help.

Sorry I didn`t answer any of your questions, I got caught up in other things. I`ll answer them next week. But it`s awesome to have a fridge again!

Thank you all, I love you!

Elder North

First week in a new area

Date:  February 9, 2015
Area:  Sacsuha, Guatemala
Companion:  Elder Menjivar from El Salvador
Week 59

My first week in Sacsuha has been really great, my new companion Elder Menjivar from El Salvador is awesome.  I never really got to know him before, but he's a good worker and has gotten me to workout in the mornings.  I have been doing my daily workouts but now I am doing more intense and better focused workouts and that has been pretty fun, even if it does hurt a little.

This week was filled with getting to know the area, asking peoples names and then forgetting the names and asking them again the next day.  They think it's pretty funny.  Sacsuha is a great place, it's a large area and there are plenty of members.  We have two baptisms coming up and we know we're going to place another baptisms next week.  So exciting things are happening.  It's fun to be able to tell these people that I know Kekchi.  Before I told people I was still learning or I knew a little, but now I realized that I have hit the point whee I can say I know it.  That doesn't mean that I don't have much more to learn though.

I'm sorry that I haven't been able to send pictures for the last two weeks, the computers I have been at have been being really weird and won't let me send them.  I'll be getting those out as soon as possible.

I got one thing of mail this week.  The family calendar with choose and another Kekchi dictionary.

My companion is going how in about ten weeks, which is always an interesting thing to see because as a missionary you get to a point where you never really believe you're going to go home even though you know you are.

I'm doing really awesome!
Elder North

Unexpected news

Date:  February 2, 2015
Area:  Korral Pek, Guatemala
Companion:  Elder Sierra

The unexpected happened this week when we received the call for changes (transfers) Elder Sierra and I both are leaving Korral Pek to go to different áreas. So, my new área is Sacsuha which is right by La Tinta my first área. Sacsuha is mostly Q´eqchi´ if not all. Elder Sierra is going to El Estor where there is Little Q´eqchi´.  My new companion will be Elder Menjivar from El Salvador I think. I´ll be able to give you more exact details after being with my new companion. It feels wierd leaving Korral Pek because I never thought I would be leaving it so early but it was a really good time being up in the mountains, and now I return to the valley.... The unfortanate part is that we´re entering into summer again, and the summer in the valley is very hot. I have a month or so of cooler weather left though.

 

We only worked in our área for two days this week because while we were going back home Monday afternoon we got a call from our Zone Leaders to tell us that we needed to go drop by the capital to fill out some visa stuff for Elder Sierra so Tuesday in the morning we started our journey there. We slept in the house of the Assistants and then Wednesday at 3 in the morning we got on a bus to go to the capital, during the four hour ride we got delayed by an accident in the road for two hours which wasn´t that enjoyable.

 

Once in the capital we went to the imigration office got the paper signed and then returned to the bus stop where we ate lunch and had the opprotunity to talk to some other missionaries and I got the opprotunity to show of my Qeqchi badge to someone. Hehe.

 

On the way back to Cobán we got delayed two hours again which made for another very long ride, we then had to get up really early in the morning again to go back to Chulac and we made it in time to have our interviews with President Curtiss, tired, but we made it and the interviews were really great!

 

The days we worked were very unexciting, plenty of service though and that is always an awesome thing to do, even if it´s something Little. We said farewell to our friends and family in Korral Pek and went to Chulac for what may be my last time as a missionary there. We´ll see, I may go back up to the mountains some day but for now I´m returning back into the valley.

 

We got mail as well, I got one from Sister Barnson, 2 from the stake and 2 from Grandma Mary and one from the Larsens. Good time Reading those.

 

Well, onward.

Elder North

A really fast week

A little animal gopher type thing called a taltuza

Date:  January 26, 2015
Area:  Korral Pek, Guatemala
Companion:  Elder Sierra

This week went by incredibly fast as some weeks do, nothing too exciting happened or significantly special happened this week either, we went, we taught, we also learned some things from studying and such.

Although I´m starting to get a little annoyed by some of the people. Actually I think it´s kind of funny for the most part, but there´s actually many people that lie about where they live, you start talking to them and think ´yeah, they want to listen and are at least a little bit interested, we could havea great lesson with him and his family.´ Then you find out that they lied about where they lived. That´s the annoying part, when we go and try and find them and it turns out that they lied, but then you end up contacting some other house so it´s not really a complete waste of time.

On one occaision this week we were leaving a house and a woman was walking on the path and we started talking with her and asked her where she lived, she said that she lived way down in Rio Negro (about a forty minute walk from where we stood) we said farewell and went down the path and this path curves around a house, we went around the bend and caught her going in to the house, her house. Silly woman!

We found a great family this week that live fairly close to our house, they let us in and listened to us but these people are not the kind to change from habits that easily and it was quickly apparent that they were like most and didn´t think it convenient to change quickly. We visited them Saturday to ask them to come to church the next day again, turns out they´re going to Honduras to visit and work for a year.... Oh man! We bid them farewell and a good, safe trip and told them that they could find missionaries like us over there as well, although they probably won´t speak Kekchi and only the father of the family will understand, not important, spirit language works just as well and we encouraged them to continue investigating the church.

Tortillas

Spider

I did get letters this week four of them, one of them was from the Holdens, one from Grandma Mary, one from Kenn and Amy and another from an unexpected writer. John Moore, a former missionary that served in Polochic, and I intend to write him back as soon as possible, I´m sure if he reads this that it´ll be exciting news to know his letter was recieved.

Thank you all for your support and prayers! Keep them coming, not for me but for the people I serve, I guess you can pray from my language skills to get better so the people will understand me better, but focus on the people.

Love,

Elder North

Faith and action, because you can´t move mountains while you´re sitting on your backside

Date:  January 19, 2015
Area:  Korral Pek
Companion:  Elder sierra

This week´s highlight is faith and the importance of acting with faith. This week was an interesting week, it felt like it went by quickly and yet at the same time it went by really slowly, I find that that is the case with missionary work and life in general, that it goes by really quickly and you look back and there was actually so much that you did.

I started this week of with divisions with my District Leader Elder Wilson, we spent two days together and it was really great as I got to have someone else to teach with me in Kekchi and my leader was able to see the area and it´s progress and of course he got to see my own progress. I feel like I past the test. (Not really a test, we had a great time)

Elder Willson and I

So I´ve been working on faith recently, it´s something that we all need to be able to pretty much do anything within the gospel, and as we read in the Bible ´Faith without works is dead´ and how true is that? I can spend the whole day saying I´ll find someone new to teach, yet if I don´t do anything there is no way that I can find that person unless they are very specifically led to the house of the lazy missionary, knock on the door and ask for the gospel. The spirit is powerful and certainly God is capable of carrying out such a feat, but that would defeat the purpose of having trials and learning. I also remember another quote. ¨God can only guide your steps if you move them.¨

The good news this week was that we found a few new investigators and we were able to also find some less actives and we have a family that is contemplating getting baptized, unfortunately thay didn´t come to church, but we will be working with them so that they can progress and feel the love of God and Christ in thier lives.

Found a shirt that reminded me of home.

I bought a little camera stand.

We´re working to get some more traction on investigators, it´s been a fairly tough week as we found some people who really didn´t want anything and in one case I found myself more of arguing instead of teaching and that wasn't good, sometimes you just get annoyed that people don´t seem to be getting the point even though it´s right in front of their faces, and due to my logical mind I find these people to be quite illogical, but we work with it and we have faith and work with that as well.

I hope you´re all doing great out there!

Love Elder North

It takes awhile for letters to get to Jered but it usually always eventually gets there and he really really appreciates it.  It costs $1.15 to send him a letter or an international stamp.  He really loves getting mail so send one today.  :)

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

Sometimes people just don´t want to listen

Date:  January 12, 2015

Area:  Korral Pek, Guatemala

Companion:  Elder Sierra

This week was pretty busy yet sometimes I feel like I´m running into a wall, but this week, with faith, I´m going to destroy that wall and how great a fall it will be.

So we got back from Coban Tuesday and the reason we were in Coban was to have a medical test for my companion to see if he has parasites, and he came out positive with little friends in his stomach. I don´t know how it happens, my companion gets parasites and I don´t when we eat and drink pretty much the same thing. It´s a mystery that doesn´t need to be discovered.

We have plenty of people to teach but it just seems like they´re not really wanting anything, they just want to listen and that´s it, nothing more, and for me that is very frustrating. I´m wondering if I need to change how I´m teaching in order to get more results, and this coming week I´m doing divisions with my District Leader and he may be able to help me find something more I can do.

We had a wonderful Zone meeting this week where we talked about having faith, faith is hard for me sometimes because I like to think more logically and so it´s something that I´ve been working on, but we were able to get pumped up spiritually and get out there with goals and plans.

I think something that helps me keep my English up and running is my journal writing, I write daily and I write in English so that those in the future will understand what I´ve written, that and instead of being fully in Spanish I have Qeqchi and I learn from English and Spanish into that so that has me thinking in English more, if I was in full Spanish I would probably lose more English, but as it is, not really. And don´t you worry, I´ll be giving my testimony in Qeqchi, and I also look forward to talking with all the young men about my mission and experiences.

We got our water back! I figured out the problem and got it fixed.

I got some letters. Two from Julie Barnson, one from Grandma Mary, and one from my Sister Amber, keep them coming. I´ll try and get some letters sent out your way as well.

I guess that was this week, not my best email, but next week I´ll strive to write you guys more adventures.

Love you!

Elder North

The New year. Execute plan 2015!

Date:  January 5, 2015
Area:  Korral Pek, Guatemala
Companion:  Elder Sierra

The year of the missionary as I called 2014 as come to an end and we now enter into the year of the returns, first up on the return list is my sister Amber I think and then it goes on from Coy Christ to Bryen and me and Colby Sims in December, but there is work to do and we must execute plan 2015! The plan is to work hard and to work miracles and to return home with no regrets.

My New Year´s wasn´t that exciting, we had something planned for the church here in Korral Pek, we had to leave early to go to bed, but it was pretty good, we left while they were singing hymns and that night at midnight there were some fireworks, not as many as I imagine that were in the capital or in Cobán, but there were a few here in the mountains, we did have a fun time watching our neighbors take kill and then gut and take apart a pig to sell the meat, from having an alive pig to just pieces of meat was very interesting, and up here in the mountains they use almost every part, or at least, they sell almost every part.

I have a couple of New Year Resolutions, one of which is go to the temple again, now that´s kind of wierd to hear from a missionary, but up here in the mountains we´re too far from the temple to go to it and we have to wait untill after our mission to go, I asked a member what his goals were and his was also go to the temple with his wife. What an awesome goal!

Fotos para está semana, pig (chancho)

Another one is just to work hard and to learn and be recepitve.

What are yours?

We had a good week this week in the sense that we found plenty of new people to be able to teach, but they didn´t come to church, so that´s going to be our focus for this week, to bring all those that we´re teaching to come to church, hopefully find some member who are willing to take them to church as well so they have someone to remind them and someone to talk to, because more than half of missionary work is done by the members, we just find and teach and bring them in at first and then the members do all the rest, and they find and teach and bring them in as well. Just don´t be one of those that feel like you don´t have enough time to do a good dead, especially on a Sunday, a simple call to a friend will do if you really don´t have time.

We did quite a bit of walking this week and it was made worse by some diarrea that my companion had, we´re actually in Cobán today to see if it´s something worse than normal because he´s had it for a while, but those things happen, I´ve been very blessed to be very healthy throughout my mission and only a few sick days.

I hope you all have made plans and goals for this New Year! And what a year it will be!

And remember, GO GETCHA SOME! (Some people have asked what I mean by that, it means what you want it to mean, go getcha some food, some pineapple, a job, anything really, just make like Nike and JUST DO IT)

Love from the one and only,

Elder Norte

Found an out house