Pictures in Antigua

blog! Hey we had a great week this week! You are in my thoughts and prayers! Happy bbirthday tomorrow nate b. naylor! love you!

Enjoy the pics!

1 This would be part of my area. Poorest place we have been
2Hna Rios and I fetching water in a huge field for one of our investigators
3 hna Rios and I at super pday en las colinas
4 top of Antigua, by the cross with the famous volcano of fire behind me
5 theres me with the Sagustume family! you know him! I want you to buy art work from her when we come back
6 after leaders meeting
7 me in the market on pday, the fruit here is incredibly big and amazingly delicious!
8 these are the waterfalls we went to! on the hike...

love,
Hermana Wetzel de Antigua

Rainy days are happy days

Rainy Days are Happy days....

Hey Fam and friends! How are we!? Happy and loving life, hopefully. Sounds like everyone is doing great and busy as ever! ps real quick, dad, did you put jesus stickers on the tie box you sent? I still dont have that and I think its sitting in customs and they have to open it, so just wondering if that was random or because it wasnt insured :) Now because of where Im at, you might want to invest in some virgin mary stickers. Elder Montoya´s mom did that and his package got to him cleaner than a whistle. Im just saying.

Ha! This week was great, lots of stuff to tell. From the fact that we got lost on the side of a Guatemala mountain for an hour and a half hiking down from the waterfalls on pday, the rainy season has officially started here, to meeting Max, an athiest who would rather live in CUBA where there is no religion, but a lot of other safe things..im so sure haha he declined a visit from us because he was married to a woman from the US before and now didnt need anyone or anything in his life, much less God, he says. That was an exciting contact. A bird happened to have really good aim when we were walking with a family to our next appointment, especially cuz my companion is so tall and skinny, but it managed to land a poop right on her jacket by her hip, so weird? We also found a new investigator who basically went through a mini holocaust experience in the mountains of Chimaltenago when she was a teacher up there for 17 years. but she kept going back for the sake of these kids. She´s got a lot of issues but we hope to be able to help her and her Catholic family. que mas....the hike to the waterfall was gorgeous, its amazing what the Lord has gone and created for us, and in the places where we least expect it. These waterfalls are gorgeous, but definitely hidden on the side of a large hill in the middle of Guatemala. Its kind of like the experiences of our lives, Heavenly Father is such a part of our lives but sometimes we are so busy always looking at the outside, we dont take the time to take a deep look into our lives to see what the Lord has done. Its like President Eyrings talk says, that he didnt care how tired he was or how early he had to start the next morning, he always wrote down the miracles he saw in his life that day. What a great council and example for us as latter day saints!

I hope all is well, miss and love you. Dont go on too many trips this summer without me...haha its ok cuz im on a big trip too! In the most gorgeous place on earth! Have a great week! love you all! Sarah Mabey and Con Con thanks for the letters! Is sar hansen getting married this summer? get excited for a reunion in october!sorry! last second the pictures didnt work! next week!

Love,
Hermana Peach Wetzel

I'm Back!

Dear Blog,

Ok! I´m back! How is everyone! This week was great and it was wonderful to hear from all of you. Psads and Dan thanks for the letters. I ate soup at Luis Cuc´s house yesterday, you ve got to come visit! Their house is awesome. Antigua continues to be a dream, although its a dream with an awful lot of Catholics in it. Funny story, so you know how this city was built on the backs of who knows how many primitive Catholics and there are how many Catholic churches here..anyway, its a blast and Ive learned a lot. But last week we were contacting on the bus and I was standing up, holding on for dear life while talking to this guy that was staring at us the whole way. I finally ask him where hes from and he answers in english. So we talk to him for a second and he was going to same place we were so we walked with him for a bit. We invited him to church but he said he was leaving on Sunday and besides, he was Roman Catholic. I asked him exactly what does it mean to be a ROMAN catholic, because people in Guatemala dont really specify that or not, and he goes, ¨Well, have you ever talked to a Catholic question mark.¨ haha we busted up laughing and this time my companion did too cuz she understood haha, we were laughing so hard that we left it at that and he gave us his email address to send him some church literature. I dont know if you had to be there, but it was pretty funny and ironic considering that we casi only talk to catholics every day. Hermana Johansen and I are just loving life.

Anyway, speaking of Catholics, we actually had a really cool experience yesterday with a family that are Jehovahs Witnesses, that was weird and different to hear, here in Antigua. But this family was great. We were out with a cute returned sister missionary who was helping us find references in this one part of our area and we found the kids outside and asked if their mom was home. They all screamed yes and we got to go upside. They live in this cute little house on the side of a very large hill. But it doesnt matter where you are, the Spirit can go anywhere. This was a short lesson but probably one of the most spiritual of my whole mission.

We talked and found out that the mom was baptized when she was a teenager because her dad took her to our church. But when she got married, because of the culture here, the man always decides and she had to drop being LDS and now her and her husband with 8 kids are all Jehovah´s Witnesses. I dont know why, but I just felt something so special about her, like she still new and had her testimony of the Church. We got started talking about the church and how they really could know just by praying and we really tried to emphasize the fact that the mom knew these things and she kept shaking her head in the affirmative. Then I felt impressed to bear my testimony with her about Joseph Smith and the fact that he saw Our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. I looked straight at her when I was saying it and I dont even remember everything I said, I just know that when I was telling her these things, my eyes filled up with tears and my heart was about to burst. I felt like it was just her and my compaion and I in the room and that we were telling her straight to her face that she knew these things and that they are true. I have never wanted to tell anybody so badly to come back to the church. I think the tears were from the Spirit being so strong, witnessing to me in that moment and to her and everyone in the room, they were tears of sadness because of what her life had become without the gospel and tears of desperation trying to tell her to come back. The Spirit filled the room so quickly and so strongly for those few moments that I knew she and all the others felt something so special. She too teared up a little, and then my tears of course stopped, because what..im definitely not a crier. Dina Cuc, the member then bore her testimony and my compaion did too. But this was a moment that I will never forget. I dont know if this family will progress, we hope so but even still, we know that the mom knows the truth and we can only pray so hard for the family Garcia to see the light. It was awesome. I know that this work is real. I spoke in church yesterday about the power of members and the missionaries together and that with the words and testimonies of the members are so important. This lesson was only possible because we had a member who knew the mom with us. Miracles happen everyday, look for them! I know this gospel is true, with all of my heart. My testimony of Jose Smith has been strengthened a hundred times because no other church or pastor has what we have. The knowledge that a 14 year old was foreordained and called to be a prophet of God to restore his gospel to the earth in its fulness. This truly is the biggest blessing we have. I hope we dont take it for granted, share it always and dont do anything to impede us from receiving all the blessings that God has for us. He truly has given us everything. I testify of that, in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

I hope you have a great week! Mol, I will pray for no rain, everything will work out just great! Heavenly Father knows what needs to happen, heñll probably just send the rain straight down here and its more than welcome! Thanks for sending that stuff. Oh ps, talked to the familia Santizo a few days ago and they are right on track for getting sealed on the one year mark! They are so excited about their temple class that starts in July and they are the ones taking the initiative to organize the families to clean the chapel because the other ward didnt do it! pilas, love them.

Love you all, hope you have a great week!!!

Love,
Sister Wetzel

Easter

Hey! this is just a quick shout out to the fam and everyone at home! how are you! I hope you enjoyed the week of remembering th final steps of our Savior and what he did for us.

This was quite the week! Semana Santa here in Antigua is unlike anything you have ever seen! There were people everywhere in the street, with their processions of Christ and the Virgin and the whole bit. I think the pictures will be able to explain better. We had a ton of success this week and I actually wish every week was Semana Santa because the whole country has practically the whole week off and the dads are actually in the house! Families are spending time together and we got to contact a ton of pilas families in the street.

We had an awesome Zone Conference this week too. I love Zone Conference!! It´s like Thanksgiving for a missionary. We got to see a talk E holland had just given in the MTC and when I heard his words my heart was on fire!!! I felt the whole time like he was talking just to me and I received so many answers to questions I had. To Dan Johnson or anyone else teaching at the MTC, Im sure you know the talk im talking about, its incredible and I hope you can all see it! Im going to attach a picture for Dan too, tell me if you recognize this companion....

Some interesting events from this week were, on Saturday night, we had thought the processions were over because they celebrate Friday as the big day because Jesus has died. We find it ironic that they do nothing to celebrate on sunday or the resurrection, which is sad but true. So we walked through the center to get back to our bus stop. It was crazy!!! there were still processions going on and we were right in the middle of it! It was nuts. WE made it back to the bus station just fine and were waiting for the bus to leave for about 15 minutes. It finally left, only to break down when we had just pulled out of the bus stop place!!! So we sat and waited while some guy, by himself pushed the bus to the side and we ended up having to walk home!!! I know I dont do these stories justice, but ill retell them when i get home. just know that there arent many dull moments! also, a dead spider came pouring out of our water pitcher this morning into my cup. I didnt do anything, i just looked at it, thought to myself, ït´s Guatemala¨and went and got another cup. I scare myself sometimes at how calm i guess you could say that Iñve become. You see so much in the mish that you just kind of get to the point where nothin really phases you anymore....haha life is great on this side of the world. I´d love for you all to check out Alma 13 27-29.

Hope you have a great week! Keep praying hard, know that Im praying for all of you. Love you and love this work!

Love,
Hermana Peach Wetzel

Conference

Hello family!!!!!

We haven´t had changes yet, but tonight they let us know where the Lord wants us. I have a feeling I´m leaving and everyone else does too, but its been an emotional week! but none the less, Wow, this week was a blast.

Getting everyone ready for conference was so great! To invite people to come listen to a prophets voice is truly a remarkable experience. Sometimes we watched the video clip of President Monson and some of the other living apostles from the movie ¨Special Witnesses of Christ¨so that our investigators would be familiar with their faces and voices and then we would bare our testimonies that these men were called of God. Then to have nine investigators hear the real voice of the prophet, live was quite the incredible testimony builder. One of our most pilas investigtors said last night that¨I didn´t even have to question if President Monson was the prophet, I could just tell and I could feel that He was a man of God.¨ Then Franciso Obregon and his wife proceeded to tell us that they both want to be baptized! I truly was so happy for them that they had obtained their own testimonies strong enough about the prophet and the gospel of Jesus Christ to take this step. I know that Conference was the extra push that they needed.( I´m cnvinced more people always get baptized around conference time, its great). I know that they simply can´t deny what they felt or comply with some of the things they said before like, ¨We´d like to know more, we want to wait, we want to be able to explain everything when our friends ask us¨, things like that and we just keep re-emphazising faith, conversion, prayer, answers to prayer everything. But now, through the prophet and Apostle´s messages and testimonies, we have a family getting baptized. They are praying about their date for this month and we will check with them tonight. But this week turned out to be a great one and we are on the uphill climd t ohaving many baptisms this month.

I loved General Conference! One of my favorite quotes was one that somebody quoted president Benson saying, ¨I love this work, and it IS work!¨ That´s exactly how I feel! Elder Christofferson and Elder Grow´s talks were excellent for me. I have been trying to study the Atonement and repentance more lately and these two talks were answers to my prayers. I also received another big answer to prayer through President Monson´s talk. I wondered what we needed to do in my area to motivate the members and our investigators and prayed to know what they needed. The answer came in the form of temples. We are going to encourage everyone to go to the temple as often as they can and teach more of our recent converts about temple work, so they too can take part in the rich temple blessings. I am always impressed by Elder Bednar´s talks. At least in my experience, he has always hit it right on they money for our investigators. I feel like he is speaking directly to them! We also are going to focus on helping the people here in Amatitlan, or whereever I am serving, to establish ¨celstial traditions¨. These are the special things that we as members of the Church do, like FHE, family scripture study and prayer, to strengthen home and family. And can we please just talk about Elder Scott´s talk??? How cute is he!! I would someday like to meet his wife, but I know that I too have great examples of incredible women that are the best wives, mothers, grandmothers, friends and relatives. We definitely have a new and redediacted sense of enthusiasm for the work and I know this will be another great week, wherever I am.

Did you not all just love conference???? Im so excited to hear your insights. I can´t believe another six months have passed, but I sure am grateful for general conference. I know without a doubt that this is the true church of Christ. Thomas S. Msonson is the prophet of God and he is the person, who if we look to him and abide by the words he and the other apostles and leaders of the church have just spoken to us, we will be able to gain eternal life. After all, that´s what it´s all about right? Remember to keep the end goal in mind and that ÿour future is as bright as your faith.¨ah! there were so many good quotes from this conference, i cant wait to get the liahona. I love you and leave you with my testimony that this gospel is true and we are numbered among the most highly blessed of God´s children to have it. Go share it with everyone!!!!

I´ll let you know where the heck I am next week! Pray for me! Love you all, you´re in my prayers!


have a great week, love you all like I love guatemala.

con amor,
Hermana Wetzel

Light

Dear friends and family,

La Mariposa is great! Can I please just say how grateful I am for light. I love the word in spanish for light, it´s ´luz´. i just love it and it has so many different meanings. We needed some serious light from heaven this week as we passed for some difficult situations when Satan wanted us to feel bad. But it´s like what we told one of our investigators this week, that the light of the gospel is always going to win and be stronger than the darkness of satan. we all liked that idea.

Also with the idea of light, we talked about d and c 50;24 that talks about if we endure, we will receive more light, more lknowledge about the gospel and ultimately, Heavenly Father will guide us day by day with the light that we need, when we need it.

Then right when we had some weird things happen, we had other appointments with our ´luces´ like heidy ochoa and Blanca Escobedo. I hope we can all be a light for someone this week and look for opportunities to serve others, especially people who we think don´t need it or that we always serve.

General Conference is coming!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I hope we´re so excited, I´m excited to be here for two general conferences in Amatitlan!!! yahoo! have a great week! happy birthday mol!

Love,
Hermana Peach Wetzel

Quick Update

swimsuits and hotdogs...hna Ch.

we had an interesting week. there´s so much to do!

Hermana Rezzio left for her mission.

We are happy for her but sad that now we won´t get to work with her anymore.
It´s a good thing she left about the same time I m leaving, if I do leave next change.

there´s a package on its way!

Love you all, have a great week!

Hermana Wetzel of Guatemala