Week 73: Bono, A&W and Fecha's

hello family!
how are you this week? i'm good! i am in the capital right now. after this internet session i will go get my measurements for my suit and pick a fabric. it should be done in a week to a month. we will see. elder jensen got two. one is a normal dress suit. and the other is a light blue. should i get one?

that is awesome about the bakery! i am very grateful that oppurtinity presented itself.

what the heck is a mammoth doing in colorado? that is so awesome though. i would still love to be an archeologist. maybe a minor in that? i have no idea.

i found and bought some A&W root beer!! oh ya. :) funny. today we were looking for backpacks in a tienda called mundoextremo. its like army and factory surplus kinda. but they have crazy things there like tazers and junk. well i want a backpack like my companion's so we went there to look. well as we were walking out i overheard the ladies that work there say..." they are very alike, he's blonde just with the face of Bono." what? the face of Bono? i dont look like him. it was weird though. and i got a good laugh out of it.

we finally put a fecha with ricardo and elena! they should be getting baptized saturday if all works out. yesterday morning we went out to their old house and moved all the stuff into teleman. there metal roofing and some wood. that was pretty cool. he seemed very grateful. i did a division in chulac/sajonte/se'pamac this last week. i did some baptismal interviews. it is gorgeous up there. i would live there. its nice and cold with huge mountains. i went with elder gutierres and elder espana and my companion went to sacsuha and did some interviews there. elder goodwin and elder mortenson are up there too. there is a huge nickel .HERE. mining operation going on right now so the church attendance has gone down a ton. as for the open house and dedication, it changed. it wont be happening until the 23rd ish. the good news is that president clark will be wanting to do it. the area president. so that will be cool. we have alot of work still. president torres should be going up there on thursday to review the church to see if it is up to par. this branch in teleman is struggling. we are working with them though.

we are working with a family called leonardo and gloria. he went on a mission! he has become a great friend of ours. he is the one we painted the truck with. he offered us a fishing trip on a pday too. :) we'll see haha. they are an awesome family and now have goals for a temple marriage.

so on monday after moving ricardo's house we left for coban at 12 in the afternoon. we got a free ride the whole way there which saved us 35 quetzales. the guy was super nice and even let us ride in the cab.its been a while since i've done that.

so i'm a little under the weather right now.probably because of something i ate. so, go up to where it says .HERE. cuz thats where i had to go find a bathroom haha. no worries. nothing serious. if it was i would be sure to tell sister torres.

so what is hunting season looking like? and what am i gonna do for two jobs and weight lifting when i get home?

i'm working on pictures. its hard. i'm always traveling and when i do have my camera to send pics the internet is too slow. what is up with kacy? the meeting with president is tomorrow. well see what plans he has for the mission. i love and miss you one and all.

ELDER TAY

Week 72: Chulac, Christ & Church

hi you people!

this last week was busy.

you already know about zone conference and everything. after that, elder burden and i ran around doing errands for everyone. they are finishing up a huge new church building in chulac. it is enormous and even has padded seats like and american building. so elder burden and i spent hours preparing invitations for the open house and scheduling stuff to do. it was fun. we made a cool invitation for it. we made both qeqchi and spanish. we printed out a thousand of them.
supposedly 90% of chulac is LDS. thats a lot. we only have 10% to go. this open house will be huge! it will be a lot of work but it will be worth it. hopefully lots of people will be able to go.

we didnt get the fecha or baptismal date set with that family. we can never find the people. the good thing is the dad went to a baptism on saturday that elder Lusty and elder Hexem had (from c'anlun). so he was able to see what, where, and how a baptism is done. thats their biggest doubt. they want to know why they need to get baptized and what purpose it serves. i love them. they are funny people. funny things just tend to happen there. we found out he can read. we asked him five times if he knew how to read. each time his answer was no. they didnt know how to pray so we made a huge poster that has the steps to prayer. well we took it to there house and ricardo (richard) starts reading it out loud. it was hilarious cuz he says he doesnt know how to read. they have had it rough. right now they dont really have anywhere to live. they are living with their adult son. (they are in their fifties). from what he told us, which wasnt very clear, they got ran out of their last house. he was shot twice also. qeqchis can be really crazy sometimes. for the most part they live in peace. well he doesnt know why they shot him. and thats all he told us.

we painted a car this last week with a less active guy as service. that was awesome. i would like to do that as a hobby. its a whole new canvas. i would send pictures but cant. it would be a fun thing to do though. custom paint jobs. how is my car by the way? does it even run? how much would it be to fix it?

our branch president is a great guy. he has tons of referalls for us. he tends to find families too. and he teaches well. he reminds me of grandmama kinda. with his glasses.

i cant believe three languages come out of my mouth. it is sooo weird. i am very grateful. :)

we have a guy that lives below us and he keeps asking us to change his life. he knows a ton about the church. he just needs a little push. he is also a school teacher.

so today we all went to chulac as a zone. took some pictures, made hot dogs on tortillas with guacamole and onions, ate tangerines and came back. there are tons of tangerines up there. supposedly they have a contract with walmart. so in super walmart buy some tangerines and see if they are from guatemala. i know the bananas are at least. and thats the picture im trying to attach. i dont know if it will work. the email is incredibly slow right now. it is the zone with chulac in the background. i will get more pictures soon. i will be going up there this week on a division. they will be having some baptisms.

where is aunt kacy moving to?

im excited to hear about hunting plans. please shoot me a biggie. and we can all shoot some next year...together :) i miss hunting so bad. not that it would send me home but i miss the mountains and being in them with people i love. being in chulac reminds me of all the time i've spent in amazing places. i cant wait :)

look up the band manà. they are a great band. it is all in spanish. but its great.

i would love the oregon coast! and deep sea fishing. mmmmm. im pretty sure i will like fish now. ill eat anything. maybe.

i'm sorry to hear about our little friend. he is sure a rambunxious kid. tons of energy. and smart! he is in my prayers. as well as his family. let his family know i am impressed by them and their faith. they sure have helped me be better. they have been examples to me and i miss them.

i miss you all and am so grateful to have you as a family. an eternal one. there is nothing greater than that promise. thank you for making that decision a long time ago. i love you all.

this church is the only true church on the face of this earth. it is established upon all the basic principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ. it has everything we need. we just need to grasp it. learn it, use it, and be it. there is no other church.
Jesus Christ is our saviour. there is no other. he paid the price now we have to approve the payment. lets do what he asks of us. i love Him.

ELDER Tay

ps the picture is not working. next time when i get to el estor i will send lots of pichas.
and bailey you are so cute. you look like an elf from lord of the rings. they are considered the most beautiful people around. (hahaha that was so geeky. haha.) looks like with these dang sisters im going to have my hands full beating up boys!
and i have no idea what i want to do with my life after the mission. what education will i pursue? hmm.

Week 68: Teleman and a New Assignment

well heeelllloooo!

if you found christopher colombus in the BOM look for hebrew references in all the footnotes. there are a bunch. i also learned this last week that Joseph Smith learned hebrew.

i would love archeology. whenever i see or read something about mayans it seems to just soak into my brain. qeqchi doesnt do that though. it's work.

the picture i am trying to send is of se'amay. elder fadel and i hiked up a huge mountain and got some good pictures yesterday looking for some investigators.

well it sounds like i'm going to Teleman with Elder Burden. i will be Zone Leader down there. i'm going to miss senahu tons. the weather is perfect here. i love it. it is so relaxed here. elder fadel also has a change to coban. so the elders coming into se'amay will both be new. that would be so tough to come into an unknown area like that.

well in se'amay i'm in a super nice house with a bedroom, a study room, a bathroom with a shower nozzle water heater, a dining room type thing and a kitchen. i'll take some pictures. i gotta pack tonight though.

How did it go with investigators this week?
good. she seems to have overcome her doubts as well. she even went to the relief society session. we were down in our area working and we suddenly felt we needed to go tell her about the conference. so we got a tuktuk and went and got her. she works in a comedor feeding people with her helper friend. its usually just them two. well we went up there and found her daughter was in the comedor with them and was able to take over so her mom could go to the conference. it was cool. kristina knew she had work to do but we told her the prophet would be speaking and she just said "yo'keb" or "lets go." so we took and dropped her off. she seemed to have liked it a lot.

How was conference and please give us details?
it was good. we learned a ton. we watched a lot of "The District." its real missionaries in real situations that get filmed. it is way cool to watch and we learned a lot. basically it was a zone conference but just for the leaders. we talked about personal revelation on behalf of investigators and how to teach more effectively.

How did you get through the tropical storm? Did it give you lots of trouble? Did you have mudslides?
here in senahu nothing happened. it rained all of one night and most of the next day. the road down to polochic had some mudslides but nothing super serious. it was really mild here. maybe its the mountian cover i dont know. there wasnt even that bad of lightning. saw a cool cloud that looked "funnely" but was nothing.

When were your baptisms scheduled for?
Kristina for the 9th and William for the 23.

Can you have someone in the office look for your package?
i will be going there in about a week so i'll take a look. every month i will be going to the capital for meetings with the president now. so i'll be able to get a suit and my mail. finally.

Have you heard from anyone this week? G&G Larsen, Megan, etc.
i heard from megan. G&G Larsen not this week. last week i did though. and nick croissant!

Are you emailing Brenton? How is he doing?
can you get his email for me again?

Did you know Keiffer will be home in November? Wierd, huh?

that is way weird then how much longer after that will i be home?

this last week was good. i went on divisions with elder Gochiz. elder fadel and elder zepeda went up to seritquiche. i stayed around senahu and worked. it was a good division. someone brought us pizza from Coban and we enjoyed it thoroughly.

it was a good week. we have lots of people interested in hearing a prophets voice so we will be capitalizing on that.

i am so excited for conference. not being to the temple in a while makes me at least crave conference. i cant wait. it will be weird this conference, i will be in sacsuha to see it. i will see all the santo domingo-ites again. it will be cool though. i just need to get them some pictures. they are all asking.

how much are the suits that are on sale? the brand i have is Billy London. i love it and it fits me very well. super comfy too.

i dont want to be ZL. lots of responsibility. we'll see if elder legua and or elder schone come back this change. there are lots of places opening up. i sure hope they do.

i love you all and miss each and every one. dont worry about the storms. thats one thing i like about the mountains. they are protective. im gonna miss senahu. :) teleman is hot! :/

did the homeowners association approve the kitchen?

thank you for the temple pictures :) and can you start sending pictures of the family weekly or of the house or town. idk something interesting.

love you all,

love, ELDER TAY