Happy Turkey Day!

Puchica. It's Thanksgiving already?! The year is almost over!! AHHHH!!!

HEY!! So Happy Thanksgiving everyone! What a great day we have to remember all the many blessings God has given to us - by eating a ton of food! Best holiday ever! Haha. I am so thankful for the opportunity I have to be here in Guatemala serving these people. I am grateful for the blessings I have in my life. I am thankful for my family. I am thankful that God gave me the opportunity to learn spanish. I am grateful for my religion and all that it brings. I am grateful to be an American. I am grateful for everything! Everything is a blessing! How blessed we are. Everything that God has given us is a blessing. We have so many blessings! I invite you to think about all the blessings you have and to thank God for them! All of them you can think of! It will be a rewarding experieence. I promise :)

 

This past week has been good. To answer your questions, the earthquake didn't really do anything in our area, just shook it up a bit. So there hasn't been any opportunities for service or anything like that. But right now we are teaching a family named Familia Valles. They are really great. The mother, Maria, is very pilas and has already come to church with her kids. For her, God is the most important thing in her life, even though she doesn't even have a religion. she is looking for a stable church that she can attend every week that has great lessons for her children. After going once, she wants to get married to her husband and get baptized. Her husband on the other hand, Rodolfo, is a bit more hesitant. He likes to sort things out and think them through. So our biggest challenge is with him right now. But we have faith that things will go good.

 

Me and Elder Finch are working extra hard. This change is a week shorter because of Christmas but that doesn't mean we cant have the same success. Congrats on all the mission calls! Missionary work is the best. Everyone in the world should be a missionary because they will learn so much and have an awesome adventure! If its the Lords will, they may even get to learn a new language: a lifelong blessing. Take advantage of the opportunity God has given us to serve him! Missionary work is the most important thing in the church. Just pray and ask God if that is what you should do. I promise you will receive an answer. :)

 

I love you all so much and hope you have the best Thanksgiving ever! keep Christ in your thoughts and eat a ton of food. And think of me too!! And don't forget to laugh everyday!

Elder Yates

 

Making Tortillas

Tortillas

District Meeting

Cool Pic

Turkey Hats

 

¨shakin¨ things up a bit‏

We have changes tomorrow!! and.......I am staying in the area and Elder Finch is too! Another change together!! haha

 

So I imagine that some of you may have heard that there was an earthquake down here in Guatemala. the truth is..... there was. It was last Wednesday. We had to go to another area in my district called Ribera del Rio. My companion and I were just walking in the street and the all of the sudden we stopped. ¨do you hear that?¨ I asked him. ´´Yeah what is that?¨ he asked. Then we looked down the street and we could see that all the telephone polls were shaking and rocking from side to side and people began running out of their houses. ´´Is this an earthquake?´´ I asked. ´´I think it is!´´ he tells me, and sure enough, it was. We just stayed there in the middle of the street watching the people run around and the telephone polls shaking. The earth didn't shake, it just moved, it was weird and hard to describe. And as quickly as it started, it was done. So, we continued on knocking doors and talking to the people. The last I heard, the death toll was just over 60 with over 100 people missing. But I'm not sure if that number has changed. Every missionary in the mission is great and unharmed. The earthquake hit the hardest in Retahuelu so I'm not sure about the missionaries there. The earthquake measured 7.5. and there was another 6.4 earthquake on Sunday. The earth is restless! Preparing for the end of the world ;)

 

As for other news, we had the baptism of Blanca on Sunday! and my companion Elder Finch got to baptize her! Everything went great. She was happy and her mother was too. Now everyone in their family is baptized. So that was a great blessing. It was a great service and Elder Finch now has his first convert. Hooray!

 

As for changes, WE ARE STAYING TOGETHER! but this next change is a week shorter because the Area Presidency wants all the missionaries to go home BEFORE Christmas. So this change ends the 19th of December instead of the 26th. It definitely has its pros and cons. We'll see what happens at the next changes! Tomorrow will be the first change meeting I HAVENT been too. So that'll be kinda weird. haha. As for other changes, I will have a brother in the mission! Elder Lagos is going to train again. I have been an only child for so long that it is going to be weird. And Elder Finch will have an uncle in the mission that has less time than he does haha.

Well that's about it my friends. I forgot to put the picture of me eating the chicken foot in the last email so I will do it today. Thanks for everything and all your support. I love you all so much. right now I am reading in Mosiah 27 about the conversion story of Alma the Younger. I challenge you all to read and ponder it. Read about the love Alma had for his son and read about how after he was converted, he suffered persecutions and afflictions, just like a REAL missionary :) laugh everyday and say your prayers. Have a great week!!

 

Elder Yates

 

 

Chicken Foot

 

Me eating it.....

Blanca's Baptism

 

 

and the last week...

in this change is here. We have changes next week!! How fast this change went by. en serio.

HEY EVERYONE! wow what a busy week. So, this last Sunday, we had Stake Conference. They are going to make ANOTHER stake here! They are going to split the stakes of Villa Hermosa and Villa Nueva and make the stake El Frutal. and we will be in the new stake! So they came this week to annouce that, and when I say they, I mean Carlos H Amado of the Seventy and ALL the stake presidents and the mission president, President Brough. We had 6 investigators there! It was great! What an awesome day.

 

Something else that happened during stake conference is that they annouced everyone that would be receiving the Melchesidec (sp?) priesthood! Hermano Jose Luis Hernandez that got baptised in June (when I was with Elder Streeter) got the priesthood as well as Hermano Jorge Argueta!! Hooray! And remember Hermano Jorge Gomez from Villa Nueva? Jorge and Lydia? yeah. HE GOT THE PRIESTHOOD TOO!! Best day of my life, for serious.

 

What made the day even cooler is that in the night, we went by Hermano Jose Luis Hernandez and I asked him to give me a blessing with his newly acquired priesthood and he did! I love them. What an awesome day. and when you are asking why I needed a blessing, yes I am sick, with a really bad cold, to the point where I lost my voice. But I am doing great now. :) I even contacted the bus today :)

So on Monday, we made papusas! A very El Salvordanian food that is DELISH! They didn't turn out so hot becuase we had never made them before and well, we actually AREN'T in El Salvador. But we had tons of fun and even watched the movie 17 Miracles. Best movie ever. What a fun pday!

 

This morning we had a zone training, so that was fun. We learned how to contact better. We did lots of practices and learned how to do an effective contact in every place that we are able to contact, in church, at a door, in a tienda, or on a bus. Everywhere we are, we should be contacting! always. This last week, Elder Finch and I did over 400 contacts again, so it's easy to contact and we should ALWAYS be contacting.

And finally today, my companion cut my hair. It actually didn't turn out that bad and it was cheap too! Best comp ever award, oh and at lunch, we ate chicken feet. pictures attached.

Well my friends, that's about it. Everything is going great up here in Santa Elena. I love it. I hope to stay one more change. Please pray for that haha. Have a great week. Start thinking about Thanksgiving! Not for the food, but for the the things we are thankful for! ok and the food too. We sadly don't celebrate it here in Guatemala so everyone is already starting to think about Christmas! So I'm ok with that too. haha. Smile everyday, say your prayers and laugh everyday, and as my grandfather says, don't forget to wear clean underwear. :)

Elder Yates

Elder Yates and Elder McQueen in a bike taxi

 

Making Papusas

 

Eating lunch after divisions

 

Happy Halloween! year 2.

Happy Halloween ya´ll! Hope everyone is having a spooky time! Me and Elder Finch are for sure. Thanks to our mothers, we have some super scary costumes! I have some pics right now but the rest I´ll send next week. Send me pics of your costumes please! I would love to see them!

 

On Sunday, David was confirmed and Elder Finch confirmed him! How awesome is that? Something even more awesome is that Sunday was David's birthday! What a great present: the Holy Ghost and on top of that: the priesthood! How pilas, anyways, so on Monday, Elder Finch and I decided to go buy him a cake and celebrate with him. It was so much fun and he was so happy that we were there to celebreate with him. His family was very impressed and even cooked for us, pollo frito con arroz. mmMMmmm. so good. que buena honda. So that was a nice little treat. David is awesome!

A funny story about him, I mentioned a few weeks back that he was doing a lot of stuff that he shouldn't have been doing in the past, before we started teaching him, and he almost died from it. He told us that when he was between life and death, he promised God that he if lived, he would become a Priest in his church. Well he lived and went to go be a Priest for the Catholic Church, but they denied him saying that he was too old. So he left disanimated. But this Sunday, he recieved the priesthood and was confirmed to the office of Priest! haha. Wish came true he said. how cool is that?

So we have been working out with him everyday. We run to his house and do about a half hour of weights and then we run home. So it's been great. I'm getting stronger! or weaker depending on how you look at it because I am ALWAYS sore now haha. But it's a good sore. This week sadly, we won't be able to work out with him beacuse some members invited him to go camping up in Coban this week. So he wont get back until Friday. But oh well. It´ll be good for him to go hang out with some members.

 

This pday was fun. We went and played kick ball as a zona in Villa Hermosa. It was fun but I got sunburned. Should have thought that one through huh? puchica. oh well. haha. It's good for my complexion right? ....or maybe not.

 

But this week has been great. Right now we are also working with a girl named Blanca (who I accidentally called Hermanca because I combined her name with hermana and she couldn't stop laughing for like 10 mins. haha oops.) and she wants to get baptized on the 11th of November. Her parents are both memebrs but she studied every Sunday and could never get baptised. But right now they are in vacaciones and she wants to get baptized. So pray for her that everything goes good!

 

I can't believe this change is almsot over! How crazy. They just keep going faster and faster. Keep up the good work ya´ll and keep an eye out for some letters that I may have sent ;) I love you all so much and pray for you. Behave well and pray everyday. Follow the spirit and laugh everyday.

Love,

Elder Yates

 

David's Baptism

David's Birthday Cake

David's Birthday

Halloween