Week 65: Comedor, Kisses & Butter from Coban

hello my family!!

well, mom, speaking of your coworkers i read something interesting this morning. the people we work, talk and walk with arent just mortal beings, they have the potential to be gods. every single one of them. that was a mind opener for me.

How are you this week? Happy?
yessums. very.

How is your companion this week?
he is good too.

How are the people in your branch/wards?
great. progressing. we had a bunch of people who have been inactive come to church yesterday.

Do you ever have activities with the ward members?
i havent been here for one. what type of activities though?

Do you need any mac n' cheese, mashed tatoes, etc?
no but i dont know if you remembered my flashlight, i have people down here that would like some. i bought it at riteaid for 15 bucks. they said they will pay for them. you can take money out of my account. and how much did those people offer for my car? i may think about it. the only thing is what will i do when i get back?

2 flashlights is what they want.

Who are you working with now? Any more baptisms scheduled?
yes. we have maria luisa's mom and mother in law of sara scheduled for the 9 of october. she is awesome.

we have a nother baptism for the 23rd of october. a kid of 17 that wants to even go on a mission. we found him this last week and even set the baptismal date in the first lesson. he came to church yesterday too.

How did it go with Kristina this week?
good. she didnt get to make it to church. she went to go drop off sara at the bus and she didnt make it in time for church. that household was pretty sad this week with sara going back home an all. i guess she left yesterday at like 2 in the morning.

Do you know your family loves you so much??
yeps :) i love them too.


well i was thinking yesterday. i feel like taking the sacrament while fasting is more filling than eating a meal. not physically, persay, but spiritually. concentrate on the feeling next month. it is noticeable.


so ricardo- the guy whose son was coming to church and came last week, say they will be joining the church! the members have to tell us that i guess cuz we can NEVER find them at home. we go all the time but the dad is never there. family is the focus. but they have some great friends that are members. so now we are taking them to visit with us. they get along great and its positive they will enter the waters of baptism. i just dont exactly know when.its gonna happen though.

we found some new investigators this last week. they are very receptive.
we made our own chicken soup this last week.

there were a lot of people here from Coban last week haha. including girls. and they wouldnt leave us alone. we went in to eat in a comedor (little cafateria) and the second elder fadel and i walked in they started making noises and almost cheering. so we went and hid in the kitchen and ended up eating there. they asked the lady working why we didnt go sit out there. and they even blew elder fadel a kiss! the lady working (who is a member) said they were on us like flies on a cake. haha. it was a funny experience. people are always taking pictures of elder fadel too. it cracks me up.

so i realized the other day just how mayan these people are. these are the mayans. there is a place here called trece aquas or oxlaju ha. its a mayan archeological site i guess world famous and recognized by national geographic. and its just down the road. and you guys should go online and order the mayan special edition of national geographic or something. it is very cool.

i remembered also this last week what they say in the Road to Eldorado. the place of hell for the mayans was called "xibalba" or "place of fear." well here it is called "xbalba." to me that is not a difference at all. how cool is that. i'm gonna know that language when i get home.

elder zepeda brought me butter from coban this last week. there is nothing better than butter! it really makes all the difference and elder fadel agrees with me on the subject.

there was a huge "gringo" in church yesterday. his name was "canche" which means blondie. i guess he served here a couple years ago. the guy is way tall and knows qeqchi very well. i guess he is building a house here and will be living here now. its weird but it would be way cool. what an adventure. i dont know if he is married though.

elder fadel and i were thinking the other day. all the churches here are just loud mariachi bands. what if salvation were as easy as going to a rock concert? what if it was as easy as listening to a screaming pastor? what would we be on this earth for? what a sad existence we would have.

unfortunately that is reality for the people here. satan is dilluting the doctrinal essence so entirely that people dont even know how to pray anymore. he makes them think that salvation is only a step away. that it isnt hard. and includes just going to listen. that dude ticks me off. that satan guy.

so what are the plans for hunting this year? any? and elder fadel wants to go rock climbing and hunting and "mountaining" when we get back.

and yes there has been a lot of rain. this last week i finally slipped on my big rubber rain boots. i have a blister but i like it haha. nothing bad has happened here. the waterfalls have only gotten bigger :)

how was granite lake?

and ben ziemann and nick croissant wrote me. they are doing great! thanks for writing!

my stomach is good mommy.

and we only had two baptisms that counted for us. the other one was already a member.

and i may have to look into being some kind of doctor or a PA like you said. i dont know. we'll have to see. i have no idea what i wanna do with my life. :)

i miss and love you all!!!

elder tay

Week 64: Three baptisms!

Well hello family!! glad to hear the first week of school went ok. sorry about zack. incompetence is terrible. :) dont worry though. its over now.

this last week was good!

saturday we had three baptisms! two converts and a little eight year old boy got baptized too. he wanted me to baptize him so i did. in the picture...if it sends, sara is the woman, milton is the taller one in white and the other little boy is danny. the other picture-believe it or not is the baptismal font. we made sure to tell everyone that dirty is ok, in fact the river jordan is way dirty. and that coming out they will actually be cleaner than going in. they seemed to appreciate that fact.

last week i mentioned maria. she is a recent convert and is assisted in the conversion of sara and is assisting with her mother's at the moment. she is an amazing young convert (kelsey's age) and is very faithful. her mother now has a baptismal date for october. she is an amazing investigator and progressing very rapidly. she came to church for the second time yesterday but for some reason doesnt want to get baptized until she has gone 7 times to church. just as long as she understands why she needs to get baptized. last night her question for us was "what do i have to do to see my baby again?" her baby that died only lived 8 hours. she understood it though. she was able to grasp the five gospel steps very quickly. she has an extensive knowledge of the scriptures but now she says that she is finally understanding that the bible is a pattern of what we need to do and what we need to look for. its a volume of scripture to outline the true gospel of Jesus Christ. she is very smart. her baptismal date is for october 9.

we had a couple people come to the baptism. we have been finding lots of families to work with. which is good cuz thats God's focus.

this week was really quite slow. we had some lessons but yesterday there was a huge party here and nobody was home. they were all out watching soccer and going to a huge dance. so we didnt get many lessons in. also this last week the people were all out working an a huge project the church is sponsoring. we talked with alot of people about the work the church is doing.

in my personal study this last week i came across the question of what exactly is the atonement. it is a great subject to study. i think we should all study it :)

haha i wish i could have whip cream fights on my mission! tell the missionaries they are lucky to have a family like you. in fact whip cream doesnt even exist here in the polochik.

sounds like all is well back home. keep me updated on all the details! oh-and we had lots of people at the baptism. they overflowed out in the hall even.

sorry this email looks short. but this last week was way slow except for the baptisms. but it was a happy week!

i love and miss you one and all!

ELDER TAYWER

Week 61: The Church is TRUE!

well hello my familia! que tal estan? ma sa leech'ool?

sa linch'ool arin seamay. yooko chi kanjelak chi kaw.

(im good and we're working hard)


What adventures did you have this week?
not much really. just zone conference but you already know about that. we had a great experience with our baptismal candidate sara. we started off the week thinking that she was leaving. her circumstances are very difficult right now. no money, a three year old boy that has no discipline due to a lack of a father, and a newborn baby. well she has been thinking of moving back to chiquimula, way down south. that is where she is from. we have usually been visiting her in the evenings on mondays and throughout the week but on friday we had planned her for right after lunch. what we didnt know is that she had plans to move( at this time) and that she was praying that we could come see her before she left. the next day after lunch we showed up and she just started crying. she told us that she just felt overwhelmed to even think about leaving without saying goodbye to us, and so, she prayed us there. what really got me was the response her recent convert sister in law told her. "they'll come" is all she said. and we did. well a couple landslides kept her from making the trip. she was still delayed on sunday and so she came to church. she doesnt understand any qeqchi. but yesterday we went with her in the evening and had a very good lesson with a couple young men preparing for the mission who had accompanied us throughout the day. well again at this lesson she changed her mind about moving. she told us that she has been in depths of sadness and this gospel has brought her light. saying that we are angels sent by God. saying this gospel was an answer to all her prayers. her mother in law (non member) and her...grandpa in law? (inactive) were there too. we talked to them about the church and i went to say the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the true church but sara beat me to it. i only got to say " the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is...." and she butted in and said "true!" it was awesome. she will be getting baptized as soon as possible. she has to come to church one more time and then she can get baptized. so well see how quickly we can get it done!

sorry about how sporadic that story was haha.

Any baptisms scheduled? Weddings?
we have four baptismal "fechas" or dates. one for ASAP, one for the 28th and two for september 18th. the two for september 18th have to get married first though.

How are your investigators progressing?
great!

Would you like me to put the $100 in your account for your suit? How would you order it when you are in the Polochic? Isn't it custom fitted?
we'll wait on that. you can go ahead and transfer a 100 from my savings account so when i get to an ATM and figure out how to get it i can take the money out.

I know this is random...do they have pianos in the chapels there?
yes but nothing like a baby grand. i want to be able to make music so bad. elder fadel is very talented on guitars and the piano. i love creating things out of nothing and i feel like music would be an awesome way to do it. imma have to learn guitar and piano when i get back for sure. how is lindsey doing anyway with that gift of hers?

Who are your ZL's?
Elder Gochiz and Elder Zepeda

Did you get the package we sent with your white BYU hat yet?
no. how long ago did you send it?

Favorite part of this last week?
definitely the experience with sara.

Favorite thing about your companion?
he's a goofball. we have a blast. the kid is hilarious!

Tell us your typical daily schedule?
wake up at six thirty. excercise eat shower. from 8-9 personal study. 9-10 companionship study. 10-11 is language study. we go work for two hours then come back for an hour lunch at 1. then at two we leave again and we get back home around 8ish. then plan, eat, shower again maybe and go to bed. We work very hard!

Do you know how proud we are of you? That we love you so much?

likewise!

so we took these two goof kids out teaching with us yesterday afternoon. they are absolutely hilarious. one of them asks all the time, "you know what?" in response to our "what" he says "im dying of hunger" or "im thirsty" or yesterday after a thorny plant scratched his arm all up and it started swelling he says "you know what?"..."my arm hurts, i cant deal with it anymore." the kid is absolutely hilarious and elder fadel and i are always laughing at him. his name is Carlos. here they call him Calich. which is the nickname for carlos.

this week was great and hoping for another great week ahead. we get transfers next sunday night and they will be starting to transfer us on wednesdays. so this could be my last week with mister fadel.

i miss and love every one of you. dont be afraid of school. theres nothing to be afraid of! i did it too.

love,

ELDER TAY