Last Letter in Mariposa

Hey Fam! How goes it! You´re all freezing, sorry! Im here in about 78 degree weather and getting ready for changes this wednesday. La Mariposa has been an awesome area, we will see where I go next or if I stay. Some fun things happened this week. Sorry I dont tell very many funny stories, but most of them are kind of just like, ´i guess you had to be there ´ experiences but I will try to remember more of them to tell you. Something funny happens at least once a day, we are always laughing and enjoying our time walking up and down and up and down the hills of La Mariposa.

Some good news is that Hermana Izabel Arroyo got baptized on Saturday! She is so pilas! We couldnt pass by to bring her to her baptism because she was coming straight from Palin after taking care of her grandkids about a half hour away in bus. So we call her at like 530 when the baptism was supposed to start at 5 to see if everything was ok. she was fine and said she was on her way with La familia Juarez who are members and her neighbors. So that was great and a huge answer to prayer. This is nothing abnormal to start a Guatemalan activity 30 mins or an hour late, and dont worry, there were only three people there at 530 and we finally started at 6 pm. Before the baptism we had an interesting time trying to bake two cakes because no one from our Relief Society could help us, but we didnt have an oven rack. Part of the cake was burning, and it was during lunch and luckily our district leader lives in our area so we had to call them to bring us their oven rack. It was quite the series of events to get this cake together, but everything turned out in the end, thanks to our Heavenly Father. So everything went well with the baptism, man the look on their faces when they come out of the font does not get old! I love being there to hold the towel for them and to just see them beaming! They are just taking the first step to be able enter in God´s kingdom and they have no idea how many blessings they will receive from doing this and being faithful to the end. This gospel is so true, I just love it! Another thing about Izabel, she tells us not to pass by for her on Sunday morning because she is going to go with an inactive member who actually offened her many times and accused her of doing some bad stuff, but she just said ´it doesnt matter and Im going to pass by for her!´ pilas ella, passing by for inactive members on the day of her confirmation.

I got your birthday packages and other things, thanks for sending them! The treats and letters were great, thank you so much!!! We had an awesome opportunity this week to go paint a school! It brought back great memories of Peru! The principal I guess you could call him, of the school isnt a member but he was so grateful for our help and so humble, he lives in the elders area, so I think they are going to go visit him. Guate is great, love this place. La familia Santizo are still progressing we talk to them every week, miss them but they are doing good.

One interesting thing that did happen yesterday, is that Sebastian, the little rebel kid that was running up and down the aisles in the Primary Program, remember him? Hes so fantastic, but we were about ten minutes into our Gospel Doctrine class yesterday and all the sudden, hes eating a marshmellow and just vomits...I know mol will be upset if i give too many details, but you can imagine that it wasnt the most pleasant experience. So hna Jaquelin freaks out and leaves to go get the mop and then the little girl starts bawling her eyes out and yelling for her mom to clean it up in spanish of course, and then sebas throws up again. Poor little guy. He just spent the rest of the class in his underwear eating a sucker. Life is great, the church is true, if it werent, I wouldnt be here! Love you all and hope you have a great week! Tell Rach Larson Happy bday!!!! a christmas package is on the way for all ya´ll that says ´keep´.

love you! adios! Hermana Peach Wetzel

Thanksgiving

Hola! Greetings from Amatitlan! Things are great here in Guatemala, missionary life is the best. I hope everything is going well there and that everyone is enjoying the season of gratitude. We have so much to be grateful for! The Lord is so aware of each one of us and our needs and he always blesses us according to our obedience to his gospel. This Thanksgiving I am so grateful for so many things. First and foremost for my Savior, Jesus Christ. I know that He lives and is the central part to the plan of our Heavenly Father. I am thankful for the grand opportunity that it is to be a member of His true church! There are so many people that don´t have the gospel of Jesus Christ to make them happy in their lives, and for this I am here. I am so grateful to be a representative of Jesus Christ. This time in the mission if short, but jam packed with spiritual, funny, sad, and exciting experiences that I will never forget. This week we celebrated the week of the family with our stake. We started off by having everyone have a family home evening in their own home, focusing on the talk from President Monson on gratitude from last conference. The whole week was centered on being more grateful. The activities were amazing and we had lots of investigators telling us that they loved the spirit of these family activities. The family is really the most important thing we have in the world. Our Heavenly Father wants us to return to Him with our familes to live together for eternity. I know that this gospel is true, I am grateful for the family that I have, my ward family and the support from all of you that I have received. I hope all is well and that we can always have an ´attitude of gratitude´ and look for more ways that we can be grateful! Have a great week, hasta luego! Love all of you and know that this church is true!

With love,
Hermana Wetzel

Temple

Holita familia! como estan?! Ojala que esten bien! people, you all are too kind to think of me and remember me on my birthday. Lets just say that if I were ever going to change religions, not that im thinking about it or anything, but I could never be a Jehovah´s witness, because they dont celebrate birthdays, Christmas or anything! And you all know how much I love celebrating anyones birthday. I feel very spoiled and blessed to know that I have such wonderful family and friends that are at home supporting me. The day was great, it started at 5 am when we had to wake up to get ready to catch the bus at 7, and to bring our investigators too. How cute is this, la familia gonzalez bamaca are a family we are teaching right now and they wanted to come to the temple just to see the outside and be there to feel the spirit. Some people in the family are members and some are not, but one of the daughters said when they got to enter the reception room that she could feel something so special, i dont know how else to describe it but she just said ¨mmm que rico! ¨someone else who can figure out how to translate that can tell you, but some things are just better said in spanish. This family is bien pilas but the only problem is that the dad has to get divorced in the states before he can get married here and then be baptized.

Ummm, what else, so much happened, it was incredible! oh yeah, did I mention that this was a stake temple day? They get on the bus to go to the temple for the whole day, and the members just stay there the whole day doing one session after another, how cool is that! They do it to take advantage of being there because the temple is so far away, but why didnt I ever think of that when we live 15 mins from one temple and we are within 45 mins of 7 or 8 others. Just to spend the whole day in the temple, what a feeling, what a day that would be!

But saben que? Im sorry I just have to share this because you all will laugh that we joke about me always having special priveleges, not special priveleges but sometimes things like this just work out for me, you know what Im talking about. but we got to do initiatory too, even though missionaries dont usually do initiatories, but I thought, it doesnt hurt to ask and we didnt have time for another full session, but the hermana told us no at first but then when I was changing, she came and handed me the clothes and said ¨the temple president gave you permission to do 5 temple names!¨ ha! I took the clothes so fast and it was awesome, incredible, amazing! It just goes to show that Heavenly Father loves us so much, not to mention that those people had been waiting since 1825 for this work to be done and they probably couldnt wait a second longer! I havent had a better birthday than this one. I even saw Hna Noriega! She ran up to me and gave me a huge smile and hug and I was so excited to see her! She is always so cute and nice and tiny! She sends her love. * We had an awesome lesson with hermana Isabel when we got back from the temple. The miracle was that she was home! Supposedly she was supposed to be out of town, but we had a feeling that we should call her to check up on her cuz thats all you can do when they arent at their house and she goes, oh yeah im in my house, come over! We taught her the ten commandments and the importance of the sabbath day especially, and she goes, oh yeah so im going to start buying my bread and tortillas on saturday. ha! those answers are the best. The Lord truly is preparing people to accept his gospel! We also met with our bishop after, and his little daughter vanessa, has the same birthday as me and she is my favorite! they are so cute.

Im sorry I havent sent pictures for awhile, I promise a package will be on the way soon. Love you all, love this work, love that I can actually speak and share the gospel from whats in my heart, love spanish, love Jesus Christ, love this gospel, love all of you and pray for you daily! Have a great week! muah!

Love always,
Hermana Peach Wetzel

Amulek

Hola! Greetings from Amatitlan, Guatemala. Ill tell you something, the weather here now feels like alta in the morning and during the day its like being in lake powell with a long skirt and clothes on! Sorry for the analogy but thats what we´re dealin with here, but I love it. The work is great, my comp is great and sooo much happened this week! First we had an AMAZING conference with Elder Martino last week in Esquintla(the coast). We received some pretty exciting news about our zone and this man is so inspired! I thought we were going to do like practices in front of him in the afternoon, but he taught us all morning and all afternoon, just one thing after another, pulling scriptures out of everywhere, oh man, it was incredible. It was just what I needed because he likened the scriptures unto us as missionaries and the scriptures tell us exactly what we need to do, but muchas veces..many times we have to dig a little deeper. Like who would have thought that when Alma returned to find Amulek waiting for him, that even though he was breaking all the mission rules of staying in a members house for many days, that what he really was doing was teaching and edifying the family of Amulek. We figured that Amulek was like a less active member of the church, but through the visit of Alma, and after a time, the testimony of Amulek astonished the people when he was teaching. It was stuff like that that Elder Martino taught us, that as missionaries we need to have an Amulek to teach with us when we visit our investigators. I hope everyone of you is praying for missionary opportunities so you can be an Amulek in someone elses life and can help the missionaries. I have such a strong testimony of member work, I dont know what I would do here in the little Mariposa without the awesome members. We also talked about miracles in our district meeting today and how really, everything is a miracle in the mission, I have said this before but seriously whenever someone gets baptized, its a miracle. I never knew Satan was so powerful before I had seen the work he has done on some of the people here in Guatemala. But the light of the gospel is always stronger and more powerful than him, we just need to choose which side to be on. But its even a miracle when someone prays! Oh i love it when people pray. This week we found Ester and Sindi and they are evangelical, a mom and a daughter who were interested in Jose smith but said that they had already been baptized. We invited them to pray to know if they should be baptized´ again´ and if the Book of Mormon is true and if Jose Smith was a prophet. The way they thought about it for a minute and said yes after was kind of intense but Im so excited to verify with them tonight if they prayed! We also said a sad goodbye to gregorio our investigator who has to leave and work in the coast for six months. Be grateful for your jobs!
But it sounds like everyone is doing well there, katie, this is scary but i saw that picture of grace in her cupcake outfit and she looks exactly like me!!!! well, i dont know if thats a good thing or a bad thing, but she is getting so big!!!! and ella, as you would say, is a spittin image of you. yikes, give them a squeeze for me! tell gracie that i can feel her prayers and her tears for that matter and to brush up on her spanish from Dora so we can speak in spanish on Christmas! I love you all so much, really, I cant tell you how grateful I am to have friends and family like all of you! Even though Im not perfect and you all give me way too much credit, I am so grateful for your support. Dad did you get my email on your bday? hope so. Read the scriptures everyday and pray to see the miracles in your lives! I love you, ojala que todo este bien! Dan dan gracias cuz for your email, Ill write ya back via carta muy pronto! fam, you´re simply the best! adios!

Hermanita Wetzel, who still thinks I will be 21 for the rest of my life!

Loving Life

Oh Hey!!!! How is everyone? Guate is great, things are just splendid here. I am happy to repòrt that I just love life. thats all. But how are you?mol and jeff i hope your trip was great. Mol, I know exactly what you mean, Im sorry that had to happen with the lady. But thanks to your great example, you dont need to worry! But things are just great here, Im in a new district with a new district leader, Elder Musick from california and my comp is the only Latina! Well, besides me, but I would be chapina as they say here, and she is from El Salvador. But thanks for all your support and love, you guys are the best! The familia Santizo have safely landed in Mixco, officially now. THey came to church on Sunday for the last time here, and are now going to assist their other ward. They were so happy and I was so happy to see them there again! We will miss them dearly, but we always find excuses for them to drive back here, or excuses like, meeting them at the temple!!!! yes! I think this will be the best birthday ever, they dont know we are going as a ward to the temple on my birthday, but I will know that them being in the temple would be the best gift anyone could ever give me, I dont want anything else, so dont send a lot of stuff! I guess you could say that if I were to say something about me that I like for my birthday, it would be that I have recent converts going to the temple...there, I said it, to make you all happy that I said my own comment about me on my bday! haha but thanks for the package, I have been reading the little cards everyday. To give you an update on our other investigators, Gregorio, who has been investigating the church for 8 years now, but is so ready to be baptized, we are just waiting for his divorcement papers so he can then get married to the woman he lives with now, and then get baptized. Noemi, is the mom of hna samayoa, from the pilas family that helped us with the familia santizo. hna samayoa has been praying for 20 years that her mom will accept the gospel. Her mom knows a ton about the church, and actually came to church yesterday! But she has a lot of pent up anger and hatred in her heart. But shes way pilas and I realllly hope she will be baptized soon, even though she tells us, hermanas, we are going to take things slow. la familia gonzalez vamaca came to church yesterday too! Man, there was a really cool series of events that happened with this family that lead to us finally meeting them and putting together who they were. I´ve decided that the life of a missionary is kind of like doing a puzzle. We follow the spirit and the plans in our agendas, and its so cool to see who we were lead to that day, or what people were put in our path, or how this person knows that person, that was an old investigator that lives with an inactive member, or whatever, the Lord is in charge of this work. Sometimes I cant see it until after its happened, but the Lords hand is in every move we make and I love it! The only thing that impedes me from doing the Lords will is, me. I dont like this concept so I am trying to eliminate the natural man completely from my life! Its hard, but anything is possible with the Lord! There are more people I will tell you about next week, i love all the people here in La Mariposa and I am so grateful to be on a mission! love you lots, Id love to hear more of your insights from conference and what talks you liked! love you all like i love this gospel! have a great week, good luck with midterms and know that i will be praying for all of you that are in school!

love always,

Santizo Family Baptism

Dear Family,

That´s what its all about! Im sending all my love and prayers from....La Mariposa again! Im here another change with Hermana Rubio! We are having such an awesome time, and really we had the most incredible experience this weekend because.....ready for this!? The Familia Santizo was baptized!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Friends, lets be honest, this is the best feeling ever, let me just tell you a little bit about how it all went down. how are you all by the way? It was truly a miracle but so many great things happened to make this the happiest, best baptism ever! As you know, they moved to Mixco when they had a fecha for 23 of this month. I always knew they would be baptized, but they surprised me by being so strong. They went the whole week before their baptism without being taught or visited by the members or us! We called them several times during the week to see how they were doing and the bishop had contact with them too, but they were so excited about their baptism and so prepared by the Lord that Satan could do nothing to interfere! Nothing could stop this family. They arrived at the church Saturday all ready and passed their interviews with flying colors, down to the fact that the little boy told elder musick what we do on the sabbath day and why they changed it! I had forgotten that that had been one of the questions the dad had asked us and much less I didnt think Juan Jose, the 9 year old boy soaked all that in too! Another incredible blessing was the fact that the whole family of Hno Santizo came to support them, even though they are all catholic and evangelical. I know they felt something though! I can honestly say that I have never felt the spirit so strongly than when I saw these three amazing brothers and sisters of mine enter the waters of baptism. The whole service was incredible, the talks, the words of the bishop and the actual baptisms!!! Afterwards when we were in the bathroom with Hermana Santizo i asked her how she felt and she goes, ´just so clean! so clean!´she cried after when she gave her short but so heartfelt testimony that with God, anything is possible. This is a choice family, I really dont have anymore words to describe how blessed I feel to have met them. They have the goal now to be sealed in the temple in October 2011! And to top it all off, they drove back on Sunday morning and were in the chapel, seated in the second row, 15 minutes early! The work continues and I know the Lord will continue to bless this family and that he will continue to bless us here in La Mariposa. I wish I could tell you everything but there are no words or time to describe it. Its tough work sometimes to find the lord´s chosen, but i know that they are here waiting for us to find them.

A few other things, mom can you tell the Hales family that Im thinking of them today? Its Madeline´s birthday, i hope they are all doing well, red you too. I just finished reading 3 Nephi, what pivotal doctrine, captivating experiences and incredible promises there are in this book of scripture. I know that Jesus is the Christ and that he came to visit the other children of God here in the America´s. Jesus Christ leads and guides this church and he WILL come again. I only hope and pray that he will receive each one of us and say, ´well done, thou good and faithful servant´. I love you all, life is great, enjoy it! thanks for distributing the letters mol! oh and funny story, im sending you some pictures for halloween of this one house in our area that looks like this guy is ready for halloween all year long, hes a little crazy, way chill and just wants to save the earth- but hes now one of our investigators and came to church yesterday! I am so blessed to be on a mission, Im loving every second of it. hope everything is going well there, katie and Ian im so glad you could relax in hawaii! love you all, the church is true! hasta pronto!

Hermana Erin Jane Wetzel

More about life in Guate

Hola Familia!! How are you! It sounds like everything is going great there, I just love you all so much! Being on a mission just makes me love everyone so much more. It feels like the capcity of my heart is limitless, for all of you and for the people here. The fact that Heavenly Father has entrusted me, throuh his prophet, to serve and help his children here in Guate is a privilege that I dont think I will ever fully comprehend and is something for which i will be eternally grateful.

But you want to know more about my life here....welp this last week Victoria Zacarias was !!(9th Oct and was confirmed on dads bday),we saw the familia santizo twice, we went to antigua , I ate chicken heart and neck, and had probably one of the most fun, most spiritual noche de hermanamiento s ever! So let me just tell you a few things. Vicki is our now convert that had been investigating the church for a year. Shes 16 and just darling. Shes one of our best friends and her baptism was amazing. Shes the second sister to get baptized in her family and now her other little sister who is 13, in one of her prayers the other day said , I hope everything goes well with my sisters baptism and that I can be baptized too. So we are working with her now too! I will send pics of Gabby and Vicki soon. Her smile when she came out of the font...ahhhh, so sweet, she was soooo happy. Her older sister Andrea was a little inactive for awhile, but now they all go to church together and have a lot more strength from each other. This is just another manifestation that the gospel really does bless families.

so update on the familia Santizo...remember how they are so pilas, but they had to move to Mixco, which is in the other mission? pues...they drove 45 mins on Friday and on Sunday to come back here to finish up the last couple of charlas that we had to teach them. It melted my heart when Hna Santizo said to me, no Hermana Wetzel we will drive over there to have the lesson cuz we want to see you too, and it would be better than having the lesson over the phone! so the familia samayoa let us have the lesson in their house and it was great. We talked about 10 commandments and keeping the sabbath day holy, they loved it! The dad was asking tons of questions about what they should and shouldnt do on Sunday and everything. He has done a 360! He is totally the head of this family now and knows that its something that he wants for his family. And then yesterday, they came back to go to our ward here in Amatitlan! They came to all three hours and then we ate lunch and taught them the last lesson with the fam. samayoa and now they are ready! they were ready a long time ago, but we have seen so many miracles by the hand of the Lord in our one month of knowing this family. Yesterday when talking about the gospel of Jesucristo, I asked hno santizo what his goal in life was and he goes: Well obviously now its to live with our Father in Heaven again and we need to be baptized and be faithful in this life in order to do that.....umm hello i promise not every investigator says that! Im sorry i cant do it justice in describing the way this family is and how much i love them. Hna Santizo says to me yesterday, and Hna wetzel, what exactly is it that we need to do to be sealed in the temple! ah! so whoever wants to come back with me for their sealing is more than welcome :) love them.

About the chicken heart and neck...i dont want to talk about it much but lets just say thats been my least favorite dish so far, i love all the rest of the food here, the beans the tortillas, the platanos, salads, desserts...its so yummy. And about Antigua...I love that place! We had a blast hiking to the Cross and looking out over all of Antigua, its gorgeous! Its a good thing Im not serving in the area of Antigua because Heavenly Father knows my weakness of shopping, but you all have way cool Christmas presents! And could you please tell teh COndies thanks for their package and letters!

ps we also had zone conference which was amazing, we only have z.c. every three months now, but it was something i needed a lot and i learned so much, awesome ideas to improve my teaching and just everything! IT was also the Primary Program yesterday, and while it wasnt quite as exciting as those of the MP 17, it was quite interesting because one of our other investigators brought her two kids for the first time......and they were, whats the word in english im looking for...tremendous? I dont know, but just running up and down from the stage screaming, crying and yelling mommmy mommy look at me! It kind of reminded me of the scene from Little Rascals where the dance teacher is so mad at the little rascals who arent supposed to be dancing on the stage, nara you will know what im talking about, but it was kind of like that and the mom could not control them, but it was funny too. Life is just great, you live it, love it and learn from it. We have changes tomorrow, we will see what happens. Mom, thanks for the birthday package, i didnt know I wasnt supposed to open it, oops! but i havent opened all the things inside, i promise I will wait. And katie I also got a special package from you, thank you so much! you know how much i love all that stuff, thank you so much! love you all so much, pray fo you daily, have a great week!

Hermana Wetzel