Saturday, October 1, 2011

Final Testimony

As a full time servant of the Lord I testify with all my heart that Jesus is the Christ. This is the true church. THERE IS NO OTHER WAY to find happiness and eternal life. We need to keep the commandments. This gospel makes so much sense. Heavenly Father has given us everything we need to be successful, why are we so silly sometimes and don't do what he asks. It so simple. He's given us the answers to everything, it is my plea and desire that we can all do everything we can to do what he requires of us, even when it's hard, thats what faith is. I know this gospel is true. I have been so blessed and strengthened to be able to share it with the people of Guatemala. I can't express my gratitude enough to my Heavenly Father for all that He has given me. Peace and blessings to all...Have a great week. Go read your scriptures, all of you! Do something good today and Heavenly Father will POUR OUT HIS BLESSINGS..Love you so much and think about Moroni 9:6

In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Hermana Wetzel

Monday, September 12, 2011

Final Days

Hola! Wow time sure does fly, its Monday again! This week was crazy, but so fun and incredible. Is it weird to anyone else that i´m a missionary? Sometimes it still gets me! I love it though!

You should definitely hear about this experience we had yesterday. So I promised myself and have asked my Heavenly Father with a lot of faith my whole mission that I would go home with a baptism the night before I end my mission. We are going to have that, but not the night before. Our investigator Juan Jose wants to do it sooner! I called him yesterday to see if we could visit him later that night and he said yes. I knew we were running out of time and we hadn´t put a fecha with him, but on the phone i simply asked him if he would think and pray about his baptismal date for the 20th of sept. before we got to his house that night. He said with anticipation in his voice, ¨My baptism? Really?? Que Alegre!!!!!!!!!¨He was so excited and all I did was, more tell him thats when he was getting baptized than really asking him, but he said yes!!!! We went that night and confirmed everything and he even wants to do it one day sooner so his family can be there, they can only do it on Monday. So thats how we put a fecha this week, everything is good to go. We will have a Noche de Hogar en la case de un miembro tonight, and we think he might marry this lady in our ward, so its kind of like we have a family. But we will continue to look for more families that can enjoy the blessings of the gospel!

We also had an incredible training meeting this week in the capital. I got to go on divisions with the nurse and i left my daughter in another area for two days! It was intense. But I learned so much and I am so grateful for continuing revelation. Our mission president is truly inspired! This gospel is amazing.


I just want to say a big THANK YOU!!! I can't believe what awesome family and friends I have been blessed with. My mission has been the greatest blessing of my life and you all have helped it be so much better! These last 18 months have been such a ride, but something that I wouldn't trade the world for!!! I will miss Guatemala so much, My heart really will be staying here but I will be excited for what the future brings for me, more blessings that my Heavenly Father has planned for my life. We truly are so blessed to be living in this time, with the fulness of the gospel on the earth. Heavenly Father's plan is so perfect!! We are all part of it and I know that through obedience to God's commandments we are blessed. Yo se que esta es la iglesia verdadera. Tengo un gran testimonio de la Restauracion de la iglesia de Jesucristo. Se con todo my corazon que Jose Smith fue llamado como profeta para restaurar esta iglesia. Fue tan necesario que tuvieramos una restauracion de estas cosas, porque si no, hubieramos perecido, todos nosotros. Estoy muy agradecida con mi Padre Celestial por haber enviado a su hijo Jesucristo para pagar por nuestros pecados. Testifico del amor de Nuestro Padre Celestial. El es un Dios de milagros. Se que Jesucristo vive y El es nuestro Salvador!!!!!!! Espero que esten bien, nos vemos pronto!!!!

Con amor,
Hermana Erin Jane Wetzel

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Lovin Guate!

Hola! Como estan?! Mi querida familia y amigos especiales.....

How are you! Guatemala is great as usual, who knew a girl could fall this much in love with such a crazy place! Oh will I have stories for you! I didnt get to share my experiences that I had these last two weeks in the TEMPLE!!!! I went two p'days in a row.What a blessing! There is no place like the temple. I talked to Hna Santizo and she is so excited!!! She cant wait for October.

I also got to go on divisions the other day because Evellyn, our cook´s daughter who is just too great, tells the bishop to call my mission president to ask him if I can miss church in my ward and go to their ward conference to play the flute! I was shocked when President gave me the ok, but it was a great experience and the spirit was so strong in this meeting, I missed my own ward but my little hija took care of everything in our ward and she was with an ex missionry too so I felt better abou it. But that was the big adventure of this week. I also met a girl who was companions with my MTC companion, hna mellor over there in Nicaragua. small world. We also went to Panajachel this week, what a gorgeous lake!!! The spirit is so strong there too, guatemala is just too much, so beautiful! Life is so great, hope you´re enjoying everything! You´re in my thoughts and prayers. love you!!!

hasta luego...
Hermana Wetzel

Monday, August 15, 2011

Still in Antigua

Hey!! Greetings from Antigua...I didn´t have changes! Well I did, but Im still in my same area. This is a tender mercy. I knew Hna Johansen wouldnt kill me, that would have just been too good to be true, but at least I got to stay here to finish out my mission in a place I Love!!!!!! And especially now that Pres Brough says we cant leave our areas, ha thats luck because Im in the area where everyone wants to come and we never get bored here! President Brough has instituted a lot of new rules which is only to be expected, but we have already seen blessings from these changes. So, they werent gonna let me go without a fight. When I got my answer to be here until September, I didnt know why, I just knew I had to èndure to the end¨. And now, upon receiving my new companion, I knew the Lord had something else in store for me. My new daughter pretty much explained that to me when I was the only sister missionary at trainers interviews Wednesday morning....that was interesting- ill explain more when I get home, but needless to say I am so grateful for the opportunity to be here with my first latin daughter! Its been fun to just jump in to teaching without the language barrier that I know my trainer struggled with when she was with me. But life is good, she is from Honduras and her name is Hna Cuellar.

We saw tons of miracles this week, especially with the familia Bautista!! Thats gonna be a good story for the grandkids. Let me just tell you about this week.
so MOnday night we get change calls, pretty sure that if anyone is leaving, its me. But no, hna Johansen got the call. Then tuesday morning we were going to the temple, everything went great there, i learned sooooo much and had an incredible experience in the clestial room. ba. then, on Tuesday night we got back from the temple and may or may not have had to run straight to a baptism we had planned....and we made it on time. It was pouring rain but so fun. Then, that night we had to pack hna johansens stuff and then we woke up at 330 in the morning!! our ride was leaving to the cap at 515 am and we had to go with him. sweet evellyn came with us just for the ride because we cant be alone with a man in a car. so we arrive at 615am at the chapel and just plopped ourselves down on top of her suitcases trying to make sense of what was all happening. It was nuts. We´re just chillin there for about an hour and a half until the zone leaders come to open the church. mind you this chapel is right next to the highway and theres people passin in cars, honkin wavin, and whos idea was it to run on the freeway? we saw like ten people run by just on their morning jog. anyway, we have interviews at 8. the real meeting doesnt start until 1 pm- thats great. so we try to make ourselves useful til then...we have change meeting and then we´re off again to Antigua. I was exhausted at the end of this day, because we had a full afternoon of appointments but got back late and so we were running around...amen to being on the mission. i love it! THese last five weeks I know will be wonderful, thank you for your prayers and concern, I am fine!!!!!!!! love you all, lets live consecrated lives. love yoU!


hermana wetzel

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Christ

Hey!!
Greetings from Guate! I havent been able to write very much, but things here are great. The Lord continues to bless us, perfrom miracles and test us everyday. I´ve been thinking a lot about Christ like attributes lately and one that I know he had and that the scriptures testify to us that he had, was integrity. If you think about it, thats probably a huge part of what made him perfect! He did everything when he was supposed to, even when he was ridiculed or no one was watching! What if he would have gone into the garden just to sit there and pretend to do the Atonement, his apostles were sleeping, no one was there. That might be a little extreme, because he wouldnt have done that, but if we really think about it, if we have integrity we do whats right always because we know HE is watching us. We are all responsible for our acts, judgment day is not that far off from the looks of things down here haha. I know I need to change a lot of things and be more Christlike, but I just wanted to share 3 nefi 27 27 with you. I know Christ came to visit the Americas and that these are His words to US today. Love you all so much, thanks for the support and write me lots, you dont have very much time to write me as Hermana Wetzel!!!

Love,
Hermana Wetzel

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Blessings

Dear family and blog-

Greetings from Antigua! I am so excited for you to see this place and meet these people, it just keeps getting better and better! This week was an awesome week for us! Lets be honest, every week is great on the mission, but this week we had some really powerful lessons with investigators. It was what I like to call a free flowing week....with tears. My testimony this week grew of how important inspired questions are in lessons. I dont know why but every time we asked a really inspired question, the investigator started to cry. Two of these experiences have been my favorites in this area. Irma, the first experience, was a widow who lives with her daughter in that new area I told you about. We were just talking, everything tranquilo when her daughter wanted us to share something with her from the Book of Mormon, if we we going to leave it with her...she was kind of apprehensive. But I said, it would be better if you asked us a question of the soul that either of you have so we can answer if from the Book of Mormon....then the tears started coming. The mom who showed no sign of being emotional before, started to cry and cry and just told us, ¨all i want to know is where my two sons are that died and if they are ok.¨ ha! Thank you Alma 40. Immediately the spirit testified to all of us that this scripture was true after her daughter read it to all of us. This truly was a remarkable experience and we hope to see this family progress so she can be with her two sons again and her husband. The other experience was with a 48 year old man who has been drinking since he was 8 years old. He started to cry when we testified of the Atonement of Jesus Christ and how grateful he was for the help of this member family and us and Jesus. It was incredible..he now has a fecha meta for the 31st of this month if he stops drinking. Pray for tino!


If I could talk about anything in my homecoming talk it would be the power of the Book of Mormon..this book...incredible. So stk pres if you want to mention this to Bish Gessel that would be great...hahaha. Im not trunky I promise! But you know how I like to plan ahead.

We also got to do divisions with the Mission Presidents daughter and that was really fun. It has been raining cats and dogs in the afternoons, we love it.

Katie, way to be a trooper, thanks for the quote and you example! and baby ella, why do I love them so much!! whats gracie doing with her life these days? tell them we´ll celebrate bdays again in september haha. Tay, thanks for the email tu eres la bomba haha pero de verdad, gracias por tu apoyo. y nara? que haces con tu vida? and mol and jeff, everyone is excited to meet you, the famous parents of hna wetzel.

Love you all, hope you have a great week!! Keep reading your scriptures every day and learn and live like today was the last.

Love,
Hna Wetzel

Needless to say, Heavenly Father blesses us so much everyday.

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Merry Christmas & Happy July 4th!

Dear blog...

Merry Christmas and Happy 4th of July! ill explain the Christmas thing later, but I hope you all enjoyed the parade, thanks for the pancake mol! love you. Im making some tomorrow on pday in honor of the big day. We will celebrate Guate´s independence in september.

Well this week was intense! Everything from meeting the new president to opening new areas to listening to guatemalan women talk to their dogs in tu asking them why they are interrupting her appt with the missionaries and what their problem is. soooo funny. But yes the Baldwins left on Friday, but the last time we saw them was a week ago friday in the training meeting for the newbies. Luckily we had the meeting, because it not, we wouldnt have been able to say goodbye to them. Sister Johansen and I knew we werent going to have changes because the church now wants every missionary with their trainer for 2 changes and we have a special study program to follow and everything and so if it goes well with us, then the church will start implementing it worldwide. But this program is awesome and we are so blessed to be a part of it. We also had a way tight lesson with Kevin, yes the kid who runs down the street to catch us a tuc tuc and then rides it back to us and says, here ya go hermanas! like an at your service type of thing. too funny.
President Brough is great! He and his wife are very loving. They came around and shook every companionships hand and talked to us so they could hear how our area was and everything. They will be and are fantastic.


This week we had lots of miracles, like always. But my most spiritual experience was yesterday when we were visiting the only member that lives in this one part of our area that is huge and kind of far away. Anyway, we have been praying a lot about where we can start working in our area to really find a gold mine of investigators, and yesterday we found it. This young couple lives in Milpasaltas and invited us over so they could show us this part of our area. They said the missionaries have never really worked over there and so we basically be opening this area with the help of this one family and everyone they know! I love this though, opening areas is almost better than getting to an area thats already been going, but not really been going if ya know what I mean. But the Lord is blessing us everyday, thanks for your prayers!

It was literally like christmas as I sat and listened to this member just list off every neighbor and friend he had there. He goes, Juan, Karla, the person on the corner..etc oh yeah, and Juan, el pastor. haha it was incredible, who knew they had Christmas in July!!! It was incredible. We have plans to go contact all these references this week.

Keep the area milpasaltas in your prayers, even if you dont, Heavenly Father knows where that is and what the people need. Thanks! from a great movie we watched as a zone the other day...the dad of the missionary said, having never been to the country where his son was serving...¨I dont know anyone in Guatemala enough to love them, but I guess God does and thats why he sent my daughter there.¨ how cute. I know Im here for a reason, thanks for all your support and love! I have the best friends and family a missionary could ask for. You´re in my prayers. The church is soooooo true! Go share it with all those new fams on stansbury! as my cocinera says....con mucho, mucho, mucho, mucho amor!

º hermana wetzel º