Dear Family and Friends,
Oh hey! Welp, changes came and went, (does that make sense in english?), anyway things are going great and I´m still here in Amatitlan! I´m so excited to still be here, I love my area and all the people here and Im still with Hermana Marin! Our district leader Elder Musick left and now we have a Latin Elder as a DL, but he is awesome too and very animated about the work. So, that´s life in Amatitlan.
As for: Hermano Rene, a few of you asked about how he is doing, and the answer is, GREAT! He was so cute in church yesterday in the gospel principles class he goes,¨I just got baptized and I still just feel good. I like when the hermanas come because they bring the word of God and I feel good.¨ Hes so cute.
La familia Santizo.....they are doing great and I got to see them this week!!!!!!!! No way they came to La Mariposa again to visit us (the missionaries and La familia Samayoa) and boy was it a joyous reunion. I havent seen them for over two months and Im not gonna lie, I screamed a little bit when I walked in and saw hermana Santizo. We had an awesome family night with them and everyone was just so happy. Hermana Santizo told me three things that made me want to cry (for joy) 1. that the first thing she tells me is that they are reading the book of mormon and have the goal to finish it by April, and that her biggest worry is that they arent going to finish because they are still in 1 nefi! I told her not to worry, all things were possible and that if my family could finish it, so could they! ( love you family, I didnt really tell her that, but was thinking about how long it took us!) 2. Hermano Santizo is now the elders quorom secretary in their new ward and loves his calling 3. she asked me when i was going home so they could make plans for when they were going to the temple and if they would have to do it in guatemala or in the new temple in Xela! ahhh! That was the best! so they are all doing great!
Isabel, familia aguilar, everyone is doing great! La Mariposa continues to flourish and we see miracles everyday. Hermana Ingrid is another one of our investigators that was a reference from another investigator. Ingrid is the mother in law of Jaquelin, the one who cant get baptized cuz shes not married and her papers are in Nicaragua? Welp, she referred her mother in law to us and Ingrid accepted a baptismal date in the first lesson we taught her last week! And since then she has been telling us stuff like ¨Oh well, when I read this chapter for the third time, I liked this¨öh and when I was reading before you came, I liked this part in 3 nefi¨and we hadnt even assigned her 3 ne 11! she is awesome! Im telling you, references from members and investigators is the only way to work. I hope everyone is being pilas and talking to all the neighbors and friends about the gospel! So, that´s part of the update from La Mariposa. There have been some crazy stories that have happened, and Hermana Marin and I just continue to laugh every single day.
I have to tell you about our P-day last week! We went to Panajachel! I know that means nothing to you until I tell you that it´s the lake where they think the waters of Mormon were! I will for sure send pictures soon, because this place is incredible! Panajachel is the little village surrounding one part of the Lake with an incredible view of these two huge volcanoes and a Market enough to please a girls heart for hours :) I just love Heavenly Father! I couldnt help but have a prayer of gratitude in my heart when I was looking out at the Lake, imagining what could have taken place there thousands of years ago and seeing how gorgeous everything looked. With the noon day sun and the blue water, Im not gonna lie, our pictures might look fake. But it was an incredible experience even though we were only there for three hours in the village because its a three hour bus ride there and back! But, just incredible and breathtaking, a little different than my appearance spork.
I hope everyone is doing well, loving life, having a grateful heart, enjoying the scriptures and serving others! Love you all so much, hasta luego!
Hermanita Wetzelita
Monday, January 17, 2011
Monday, January 10, 2011
Pipeline
I can´t even believe another change has gone by....time is psycho, it goes by way too fast! But Im here in Amatitlan and I will let you know what happens next week. Remember how in my farewell talk I said that I hadnt even started yet, but 18 months didnt seem like it would be long enough? welp the scary thing is how true that statement actually is! I was talking with my comp the other day during companion study, trying to help her figure out a study plan for her mission and what had worked for me etc. I told her what things I had done and liked to do and didn´t like to do and it just made me realize that I have so much more to learn! Between Preach my gospel, the scriptures, Jesus the Christ, modern day prophet talks, etc...there are so many things we can read and do to learn more about our Savior Jesus Christ. All of these resources prove that he wants nothing more than for us to be happy and come to know him, and of course help others to do the same. What a blessed people we are to be living in the fulness of times with all this information about our Senor Jesucristo. The word of God,o sea, all of this is like a huge pipeline that we have the choice to tap to be able to know exactly how to live our lives happily, safely and be able to return to our father in heaven! So cool, so thats my insight for the week that I hope everyone is taking advantage of and reading everyday something that will strengthen your testimony of this gospel!
As for events, this week was a lot more tranquila than the past couple weeks have been! We still got a lot done and saw some miracles! The Lord´s timing is perfect, I just want to start out with that.
So yesterday, we were walking and we had just left our house after lunch. Like, literally just stepped out of our house when we saw to of the ym walking down the street and we were talking to them for a sec when within seconds of talking to them, this family comes walking up the hill from the little park we have down the street.We talked to them for a sec and then the Ym left and we saw this family that was struggling, carrying two toy cars and two toy boys. haha no the kids were real but they looked like dolls squirming around in the moms arms and so we asked them if we could help them. Luckily the dad said yes and so Hna Marin and I helped them carry their stuff to their house which happened to just be 2 streets above ours. They were just returning from the park and werent going to do anything else, so we got to their house and asked if we could share a message with them and they said, yes of course! So hna Marin and I are like yes! So we go in and teach this cute little family, the mom,dad and two little boys, 4 and 2 years old about the restoration. They were way positive and you should have heard the prayer the dad gave after the lesson! He followed all the steps of the prayer perfectly and Im pretty sure this was the first time he had prayed out loud, but it was spirit filled to the max! Love this gospel, love that I know that my Savior loves me enough to let me be an instrument in his hands to help his children like the familia hernandez that we found, and I just love tender mercies! I wont go into all the details about how this wouldnt have happened if this wouldnt have happened before, but it was a pretty incredible chain of events!
Love you all so much, pray for you always and hope you have a great week! Tell Nar hi for me and i hope you land safely in Madrid! thanks for all your support and love!!! the gospel is true, we´ll see where Im greeting you from next week!
Love always,
Hermana Wetzel
As for events, this week was a lot more tranquila than the past couple weeks have been! We still got a lot done and saw some miracles! The Lord´s timing is perfect, I just want to start out with that.
So yesterday, we were walking and we had just left our house after lunch. Like, literally just stepped out of our house when we saw to of the ym walking down the street and we were talking to them for a sec when within seconds of talking to them, this family comes walking up the hill from the little park we have down the street.We talked to them for a sec and then the Ym left and we saw this family that was struggling, carrying two toy cars and two toy boys. haha no the kids were real but they looked like dolls squirming around in the moms arms and so we asked them if we could help them. Luckily the dad said yes and so Hna Marin and I helped them carry their stuff to their house which happened to just be 2 streets above ours. They were just returning from the park and werent going to do anything else, so we got to their house and asked if we could share a message with them and they said, yes of course! So hna Marin and I are like yes! So we go in and teach this cute little family, the mom,dad and two little boys, 4 and 2 years old about the restoration. They were way positive and you should have heard the prayer the dad gave after the lesson! He followed all the steps of the prayer perfectly and Im pretty sure this was the first time he had prayed out loud, but it was spirit filled to the max! Love this gospel, love that I know that my Savior loves me enough to let me be an instrument in his hands to help his children like the familia hernandez that we found, and I just love tender mercies! I wont go into all the details about how this wouldnt have happened if this wouldnt have happened before, but it was a pretty incredible chain of events!
Love you all so much, pray for you always and hope you have a great week! Tell Nar hi for me and i hope you land safely in Madrid! thanks for all your support and love!!! the gospel is true, we´ll see where Im greeting you from next week!
Love always,
Hermana Wetzel
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
First Post of the New Year
hola hola!!! family how are you! thanks for all the updates, sounds like there still never is a dull moment in salt lake. welp i just have to laugh telling you how much I love guatemala, especially the times of the holidays. We have a had nothing but a crazy month starting in december until now! Everything turned out great with Rene´s baptism, did i mention that he tried to baptize himself? well, hes a little hard of hearing and the first time he was baptized his toes popped up, so we all told him he had to do it again, but before Elder Musick could say the prayer again, Rene was already on his way back down into the water with his nose plugged and everything! It was funny but not, but Elder Musick was trying to lift him back up again while everyone was telling Rene to come back up...whoa , it was an epic thirty seconds. But he´s baptized, confirmed and has had a change come over him in his countenance. love that.
Then this week, after all the Christmas festivities and everything, we went on divisions and I went to the hottest place in the mission, La Gomera. It was way fun, but let me just tell you a little about La Gomera. So we have to take a 2 hour bus ride from Esqunitla to La Gomera, which is fine, everyone just gets real cozy on these hot, crazy buses where you can sit 6 or 7 people across the seat because your bottom is over the aisle, but guess where hermana wetzel was sitting? I´m sitting towards the back of the bus talking to this guy while the bus was still loading when little fisherman juan walks on the bus and puts like a five gallon tub thing full of fish, dead or alive Im not quite sure, and their guts on the rack right over my head! You just know Im waiting for the juice and fish from this bucket to spill all over my head at some point in the ride, but it was a joyous ride through the coast and resulted in the smelly fish staying in their tub. I was so grateful for that! Needless to say, its always an adventure, but if you want a picture of what Im doing, thats what we go through sometimes! Then, yesterday, this is pure coinsidence but my luck with animals this week was not so great. We were talking with Victor and Fernando outisde Victor´s house because Victor was a reference from Fernando. So we are chatting with them, no big deal, when all of the sudden I feel something wet fall on my nose, twice! It hasn´t rained in Guatemala for months....and all the dogs in guatemala live on the roofs of people´s houses. Even though I didn´t want to, I put two and two together real fast and looked up to see the drooling puppy dog from up above looking over the roof at us with tongue hanging out and panting. Victor was pretty embarrassed and ran upstairs to take his dog in the house. I didnt care, I just thought, ´what good timing satan has´. No, but Victor came back and we taught him about the five steps of the gospel of Jesus Christ and he really liked it and understood that his baptism as a child in the catholic church wasnt what Christ wants. He´s way pilas. We also had an amazing lesson with Wendy yesterday, who was also a reference( this is what the power of fasting can do, 2 references received and appointments set in one day to go contact them with the members that gave them to you!). Wendy is having marital problems right now, but was in tears after watching ¨together forever¨ and just said how grateful she was for her neighbors concern for her and even though she didnt need to say it, her tears said that she was grateful for this bit of hope that she could try to save her marriage and that she was going to do it. Her husband wasnt there because he had just left the house a few days before with all his stuff. But is was incredible to have this testimony strenghtener again of how the Lord´s timing is perfect. When people are on the very edge, or maybe they have already fallen, Heavenly Father puts them in our path because he knows they need help and that the gospel is what they need. Everyone needs the gospel, but time and time again I have met people in my mission that in the very brink of their darkest days, the Lord has shown them the light through their friends, neighbors or family and we have been able to meet them and help them. I know that the Lord is so aware of us! He is the one that gives us out trials and our blessings, both for our benefit.
New year´s was great here! ill explain more next week! have a great week! nara, have fun in spain, write me when you get there! dad, way to be the grinch, gongrats to ben and nate, and who is nell engaged to? love you all, you´re in my thoughts and prayers! oh and mol, yes i would stll love the red shoes. thanks! muah!
Hermana Wetzel
Then this week, after all the Christmas festivities and everything, we went on divisions and I went to the hottest place in the mission, La Gomera. It was way fun, but let me just tell you a little about La Gomera. So we have to take a 2 hour bus ride from Esqunitla to La Gomera, which is fine, everyone just gets real cozy on these hot, crazy buses where you can sit 6 or 7 people across the seat because your bottom is over the aisle, but guess where hermana wetzel was sitting? I´m sitting towards the back of the bus talking to this guy while the bus was still loading when little fisherman juan walks on the bus and puts like a five gallon tub thing full of fish, dead or alive Im not quite sure, and their guts on the rack right over my head! You just know Im waiting for the juice and fish from this bucket to spill all over my head at some point in the ride, but it was a joyous ride through the coast and resulted in the smelly fish staying in their tub. I was so grateful for that! Needless to say, its always an adventure, but if you want a picture of what Im doing, thats what we go through sometimes! Then, yesterday, this is pure coinsidence but my luck with animals this week was not so great. We were talking with Victor and Fernando outisde Victor´s house because Victor was a reference from Fernando. So we are chatting with them, no big deal, when all of the sudden I feel something wet fall on my nose, twice! It hasn´t rained in Guatemala for months....and all the dogs in guatemala live on the roofs of people´s houses. Even though I didn´t want to, I put two and two together real fast and looked up to see the drooling puppy dog from up above looking over the roof at us with tongue hanging out and panting. Victor was pretty embarrassed and ran upstairs to take his dog in the house. I didnt care, I just thought, ´what good timing satan has´. No, but Victor came back and we taught him about the five steps of the gospel of Jesus Christ and he really liked it and understood that his baptism as a child in the catholic church wasnt what Christ wants. He´s way pilas. We also had an amazing lesson with Wendy yesterday, who was also a reference( this is what the power of fasting can do, 2 references received and appointments set in one day to go contact them with the members that gave them to you!). Wendy is having marital problems right now, but was in tears after watching ¨together forever¨ and just said how grateful she was for her neighbors concern for her and even though she didnt need to say it, her tears said that she was grateful for this bit of hope that she could try to save her marriage and that she was going to do it. Her husband wasnt there because he had just left the house a few days before with all his stuff. But is was incredible to have this testimony strenghtener again of how the Lord´s timing is perfect. When people are on the very edge, or maybe they have already fallen, Heavenly Father puts them in our path because he knows they need help and that the gospel is what they need. Everyone needs the gospel, but time and time again I have met people in my mission that in the very brink of their darkest days, the Lord has shown them the light through their friends, neighbors or family and we have been able to meet them and help them. I know that the Lord is so aware of us! He is the one that gives us out trials and our blessings, both for our benefit.
New year´s was great here! ill explain more next week! have a great week! nara, have fun in spain, write me when you get there! dad, way to be the grinch, gongrats to ben and nate, and who is nell engaged to? love you all, you´re in my thoughts and prayers! oh and mol, yes i would stll love the red shoes. thanks! muah!
Hermana Wetzel
After Christmas
Hola! It was so good to talk to all of you! I hope you enjoyed the rest of your Christmas! Everything went smoothly with Rene, i attatched a picture of him, the fact that he is doing this peace sign with a huge smile on his face is fantastic. He is too great. I forgot to tell you we went carolling in our area on Thursday night to all of our investigators and it was a huge hit! We had about 12 young men and young women come with us and we split up into two groups to go sing to everyone! I love how involved the jovenes want to be, they are all such a good example to me and they really got into the true spirit of Christmas with us, love them! The rest of my Christmas was great, I love Christmas in Guatemala. I think I pretty much told you all the details in the phone call, everything is going great and if I could stay here forever I would, being able to talk to everyone every six months of course! But I will explain a little about the pictures. **Red alert: I got all the packages, thank you thank you thank you! See pictures below...
Hermana Baldwin, Hermana Marin and I at a training meeting we had in the coast
surprise birthday party with me, my comp and the elders that Hermana Blanca and her daughters planned for me! they are so cute!
my last moments with hermana Ramos(old comp) before she went home!
Pablo and Gilda Aguilar´s wedding! We were kind of like her bridesmaids in brown skirts?!
Love you all, hope you have a happy new year! Remember to make your spiritual goals too, how you can include the Savior more in your life and how we can look for more opportunities to serve others. Love you and pray for you all always! This gospel is so true and I am eternally grateful for the chance that I have had to be a special witness of Christ. Stay pilas! muah!
Love,
Hermana Wetzel
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