Conference and Birthday wishes

Date:  October 5, 2015
Area:  Tanchi, Guatemala
Companion:  Elder Torres
Week 93

For those of you who do not know this week was the General Conference of the church of latter-day saints. It´s a conference we do as a church twice a year to hear from the church leaders as a whole church all over the world the talks are inspiring, and the counsel is always worthy of following and meditating  as they all are focused on Jesus Christ and his teachings.

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/sessions/2015/10?cid=HP_SU_10-4-2015_dPTH_fGC_xLIDyL1-C_&lang=eng

My favorite talks include the talk by Elder Holand where he talked about mothers, they´re important roles in the lives of their children and how impactful their prayers and love can be, I love my Mom!

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1997/04/because-she-is-a-mother?lang=eng

There was another talk all about Women specifically, and although it was mostly directed to Women it was very clear that one of the main messages was that keeping sacred covenants gives us protection and gives us the power we need to help other.

In many of the talks I heard the words ´Need to´ and it is apparent that we need to step it up and become better than we were before to help others and to withstand the many temptations that exist and are increasing in this world.

The last talk of the general conference was very powerful by Elder David A. Bednar where he shared his love for those in the quorum of the twelve that he has seen pass and their testimonies and the invitations to study their teachings from their ministry because they are truly words inspired by our heavenly father.

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/watch/2015/10?lang=eng&vid=4531928836001&cid=12

Another teaching that I felt like was said a lot but not exactly in the forefront was about how much our Heavenly Father loves us and wants us to progress and succeed in our lives, He is always there and is always willing to help us despite our many mistakes. I´ve been learning through my mission a better understanding of the love parents have for their children, whether it be our Heavenly Father or our earthly parents, it is incredible how much children are loved and I am very blessed to be born of goodly parents that have taught me the gospel and have withstood my rebellious behavior at times and have loved me despite of me.

So, if you missed conference sessions or if you saw them, go and review them and study them and meditate some of the teachings and apply them in your lives. What use is learning something if it isn´t applied?

So, this week was all about preparing for the general conference, visiting everyone we had invited and making sure that they went, we didn´t have that big of a turnout on Saturday and only a few of our investigators came Sunday, but oh how much they learned.

I would like to thank all of those that have given me wonderful birthday wishes, I am turning 20 this coming Sunday and have planned a little dinner with some awesome member because it might also be my last week in Tanchi, changes are coming up again, but with changes I might stay and end my mission here, we´ll see about that.

No mail this week, but that´s alright, and just a reminder, due to the delay that comes from sending mail to another country this week and next week are probably the last weeks to send me mail because after that the mail will probably get here after I have gone home and that would be a little sad. So, that doesn´t mean that one cannot send me a letter, just send it to my home and I´ll get it once I get there.

I see my president face to face about every two weeks now and it´s always a pleasure. A lot more than when I was farther away.

I look foreward to family time, feeling cold (although I think once I feel cold again I´ll want to come right back to Guatemala weather.) food. Probably one of the biggest things I miss is carpet. The first two things I will do when I get home are 1. Go to the living room and make a carpet angel and 2. Take a long hot shower. In all my time here I have had two hot showers.

I love you all! Go getcha some!

Elder North

A hard week

chicken head soup

Date:  September 28, 2015
Area:  Tanchi, Guatemala
Companion:  Elder Torres
Week 92

This week was hard, missionary work is hard work, but that happens sometimes, we´ve been keeping our spirits up and moving forward, despite the hard week and feeling like no progress we have been keeping our spirits up and have found many of new investigators and we are excited to continue teaching them.

spider

We certainly saw a change Saturday, we started to actually tell the investigators how serious we are, that we are here to help them be baptized in the true church of Jesus Christ and that we may joke sometimes and have fun sometimes but our purpose is to help them learn the truth and if they don´t want to listen or act then we need to switch our priority to others that are ready to hear the word of God. We started doing this to our older investigators and the spirit in the lessons have really changed and has gotten stronger. we have been able to have several powerful lessons and we hope to have many people come to the General Conference this coming weekend.

Just think, we do this General Conference only twice a year and we get to hear from the mouths of Prophets and Apostles of Jesus Christ, the people in the Old Testament traveled very, very large distances to listen to the Prophets and to Jesus. What comes to mind is the story of Naamaan the leper, he went a large distance to hear to words of the prophets to be cured of his leprosy and because of his faith and action he was healed. In these days we don´t have to walk or travel nearly as far two times a year to hear directly from the Lord it would be a very large waste to let this opprotunity pass. Invite others so they can recieve answer to the deep questions of their souls even if they don´t realize yet that they have such questions.

I love you all, I got three letters from my Mom, three from Grandma Mary and one from Grandma North. I very much enjoyed the little baby me that Grandma Mary sent. I keep you all in my prayers.

Elder North

Here comes the 'lasts'

Date:  September 21, 2015
Area:  Tanchi, Guatemala
Companion:  Elder Torres
Week 91

It has now come to that point where things start happening for the last time in my mission, there are still a couple months left so there´s no time to be thinking about home.... It´s almost an impossible task to keep every single thought about home from coming in, but as long as we´re working hard it´s not too hard to keep focused.

This week I had the last of my Multi Zone conferences. They are always pretty awesome to go to, this time we had a three main subjects that were talked about. One was our focus on our goal for the month of October, which is 100 baptisms mission wide, I do believe I already mentioned that. We talked about how to focus different aspects of our work and day to accomplish his goal. Basically we made goals to reach a goal. breaking things down.

We then talked about finances, it´s apparently a problem in the mission. I havn´t had trouble with finances, but we were able to get some awesome advice that will help in the mission and after it.

Last thing we talked about was making the Sabbath day a more meaningful and spiritual day for us and for our investigators. Making the sacrament meeting a better run affair so that the spirit can be there in full force. We were able to find a couple things that can help our little branch here, having back ups for the sacrament and other little things. With some things in life it´s not about the big things but about the little things and little changes and corrections.

The weather is getting a little colder, but not nearly as cold as back home I´m sure, it means I sleep a little more comfortably but I´ve never had much trouble with sleeping. This week we have the plan to invite everyone, and I mean everyone, to the coming General conference. we already printed out about 150 invitation cards just to give to people and to help us contact. I recommend that all you guys out there should do something similar, by that I mean invite people to this special event. We only get the chance twice a year to hear directly from the prophet today and the apostles in this time, so don´t you miss it and tell your friends!

We´ve been doing wonderful here and I want to thank all of you out there giving me and all the other missionaries out in the field support, we all very much appreciate and your prayers and thoughts really do count.

I love you all,

Elder Jered North

P.S. Sorry for the lack of bug pictures, and pictures in general, I´ll get plenty next week.

Another week in Guatemala

Date:  September 14, 2015
Area:  Tanchi, Guatemala
Companion:  Elder Torres
Week 90

The start of our week was pretty interesting, we had dentists come over to Tanchi and I got to help them with a bit of translating, the four older guys know some Spanish, so I didn´t have to do some translating into Spanish but I got to do a little into Q´eqchi´, although the basic vocabulary you need for a dentists appointment is ´Open your mouth´ or ´close your mouth´ so it wasn´t that complicated to do, but it was fun. We got to see a whole bunch of teeth get pulled out and I really realized how great it is that we have dentists and we have things that help us take care of our teeth. I didn´t have anything done on my mouth because nothing is hurting me and so I thought it wouldn´t be that bad to just wait until I get back home and do the whole dentist appointment.

This week went well, one of the biggest happy moments of the week was Patricia came to church, she is the daughter of my converts  Hernesto and Matilde. We´ve been trying to get one of their other children to come to church focusing on the importance of families being together and that in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints we believe that families can be together forever which is a wonderful blessing and I really want them to have that. We hope to be able to put a baptismal date with her soon. Our mission also has a goal for the month of October to get 100 baptisms mission wide. We´re all actually pretty excited to go for it.

I also had the opportunity this week to go on divisions with Elder Reyes in Chicojl. It was nice to meet new people and to see a new area, I´ve been in Tanchi for a while and I love the area and the people but sometimes you just need a break from the same thing for a day. Elder Reyes and I were able to do some awesome work and we walked a lot, but we were able to find a lady named Zoila and she was really interested. She wasn´t able to go  to church last week due to an activity in the school she works at, but she´s awesome, it was also a little odd teaching in Spanish. It was a fun day.

In other news, no new mail that I know of, but that could change as I go to the office. Time is going by rather quickly now but there are still plenty of things to do and lots of people to teach.

I love you all and I thank you for all the support.

Elder North

Your vote counts

It´s time to start another awesome change in Tanchi and this week went by quickly, yet slowly. One of the reasons it went by really slowly was because we didn´t have a district meeting so we didn´t have to go to Cobán during the week and that in turn made it feel like the week was a little longer, yet it still went by.

We´ve been contacting a bit more than usual, gotta find those people that are ready to get baptized. We found a man named Raul this week and he seems pretty chill, we didn´t teach him much when we first past by his house because he was busy but we were able to introduce ourselves and put up a time for a return visit.

We have roadkill here too

On our return visit we went over the Restoration and he really seemed to understand really well that there needs to be a prophet on the earth so that God can talk to his people and give his commandments. God talks to the prophet directly and gives him his commandments and then the prophets gives it to the rest of us.

Unfortunately we didn´t have very many people come to church this week because there were elections. Can´t really blame anyone that September 6th fell on a Sunday, (the independence day of Guatemala) so many people were over by the voting houses that were set up, we still had a very good attendance in church. I´m going to be happy not to have to hear all the propaganda anymore. They have posters and stuff and trucks that drive around the villages blaring music and stuff from the different parties.

I did get plenty of mail this week, I got package from Mom, I thought it was humorous that it said it was the last package I would get on my mission. I´m fine with that though. I got another package from Jessy Salas.

 

Letters from Grandma Mary, The stake and Mom and Amber! Thank you all for the letters, they bring a smile to my face.

Love you all.

Elder Jered North

Missionary week

Date:August 31, 2015
Area:  Tanchi, Guatemala
Companion:  Elder Torres  
Week 88

This week ended up being the week of visiting a whole lot of members! Which is just as much a part of missionary work as finding new people to teach and bring to the church, we are here to invite ALL to come to Christ, not just those that don´t know about the gospel but those that do know and are having a bit of trouble staying on, we´re here to help all those stay fast to the iron rod.

As for the title this past week we had the missionaries come to Tanchi. Not us, we´ve been here, but the Catholic missionaries. The Catholic missionaries come for a week and there are a lot of them, we actually didn´t see much and apparently they passed out little invitations the week before and we didn´t get one.  From what the members said they just visited for a little bit and did a prayer and then left, yet we passed some houses which we knew were being visited and they had visits for over an hour. I guess they were here as well to strengthen their members.  We found it a little funny that they were coming only for a week and from distances of about 10 miles from other areas where we come from so far away and we´re here for two years, but hey, everyone has their idea of what missionary work is. So I can´t really say anything about it.  Although I did get kind of annoyed because they had a little local band and during the whole week they would play very loudly late at night and launch rockets and play really loudly at 5 in the morning. I don´t like being woken up before my designated time to get up and I don´t like being forced to stay up late. We don´t even live that close to the Catholic church and it sounded like they were right next to us.  They have their beliefs of what they should do and so I can´t judge them. We believe that it isn't necessary to make a lot of noise in order to communicate with our God and having loud bands playing does not allow the spirit to be present because the fruits of the spirits are love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. ´Galations 5:22-23

I know that the spirit is felt the strongest in quite moments of meditation and study and I encourage all to study the scriptures and to meditate about them and to pray about them so you can learn to fell the Holy Spirit in your life because he will help guide you on the path that your heavenly father wants to be on.

Other news, I did not get a change and neither did my companion Elder Torres, so we will both be staying together in Tanchi another six weeks. It´s going to be a good six weeks.

I love you all,

Elder North

P.S. no mail this week

Noche de hermanamiento drinking some corn drink

Rotting mice and words of an Apostle

Date:  August 24, 2015
Area:  Tanchi, Guatemala
Companion:  Elder Torres
Week 87

This week has had some fun events. So, about a couple of weeks ago we were getting really annoyed with the present of some mice, they were making noises and eating our food, you know. Mice stuff. So we decided to get back at the little critters by putting poison out. It worked! They fell for the trap and ate the poison. About a week later an odd smell started arising, I know that smell, I thought to myself, and started looking around. Sure enough we found some rotting mice. Three to be exact. We won the fight yet they were trying to get back at us in a last ditch effort. We won though.

Our other most exciting event of the week was that we got to hear from Elder Russel M Ballard as he visited Honduras and we watched through satellite as he addressed all of the missionaries in Central America. He had some advice on what we can do to help the people as might be expected. He pushed the importance of declaring and sharing the truth of the Restoration and Joseph Smith as the prophet of the Restoration. He also had some advice on marriage, although that was something interesting to hear in a missionary setting. He said something like. ¨I know your not supposed to be thinking about marriage while on your mission, but think about it for a minute.¨ Some good humor from a wonderful servant of God.

For the work this week we got to find some new people and get them going on the wonderful journey of learning the truth, one in mention is Angelina, her husband is working far away which makes it hard to teach him, but we´re able to teach her and her children. They´re doing great, we have only had one lesson with them but I feel like they´re going to progress. We´ll see tomorrow when we really start teaching them. I´m optomistic though. A good attitude is one the keys to conquering the world.... Or your fears. Whichever one you want.

Other things..... Hmmmmm..... Letters, I did get three letters this week. One from Sister Barnson, although she has now returned home and two from Grandma Mary.

I love you all, send me some questions to answer I feel like my weekly report this week was actually really bland.... Sorry about that.

Elder North

jered.north@myldsmail.net

Or write me a real letter

Please do not use nick names on letters or packages. They have to go to the mission home and then be forwarded on. If you have a nick name on the letter it may never make it to him. THANKS

Send mail to:

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.