Belt Buckle & Birthday

 

 At first he told me this was his new belt buckle that he was going to wear every day...

but then he said the belt was a joke, that it belonged to the 
Gonzalez family and that his mission leaders would probably 
shoot him if he wore it, but he thought it was pretty cool.

 

The  Gonzalez family

(Notice Donavaghn's lovely pink tiara) 

 Elder Nawahine with Dora the Explorer

 

Would love to hear the story of that tiara...

LOVE that cheezy grin!

 The Portilla family

 Birthday Pancake

Easter week is always the worst here.  Everyone leaves town and there are huge Catholic celebrations.  We didn't see too many here, just one or two in the beginning of the week.  But it's rough with everyone being out of town.  There were a few people who stayed.

   

The family who we brought to church last week came this Sunday too.  They are amazing! We put a baptismal goal for April too.  The only thing that's a little hard with them is that the dad works for the police, so he has to work Sundays a lot.  But they are an amazing family.  They came all by themselves this Sunday.

   

Your lesson was from last conference right?  That was a good talk. (It Works Wonderfully by Pres Uchtdorf) I really liked "A summer with great Aunt Rose." (or something like that)  It was from the women's session, but it was really good.

   

That picture of Kennon is awesome.  How much longer is he in the MTC?

   

This week was my companion's birthday.  Saturday the Gonzalez family is a family who always invites us over to eat, for my companion's birthday they bought a cake.  The little girl cut her hair short and kind of looks like Dora the explorer, so in one of the pictures we took we made her hold the Dora backpack.  Fun fact, in Spanish Dora the explorer does rhyme.  It's "Dora la exploradora."

   

The Portilla family put candles in some pancakes when they found out it was Elder Nawahine's birthday and sang to him.  It's kind of funny that one thing everyone knows in English is the Happy Birthday song.

   

I think if I send really short videos they can go though, or maybe just turn the quality down.  So ill try this week, because I'm sure that would be fun.  I think there is like a 35 mb limit or something like that. 

Oh and one day we did a service project with a school (I think the manual says we not supposed to do that, oops) Sister Portillo is going to pass me some of the pictures, so if it's true one of these days I'll send you some pictures of us with legions of little Guatemalan kids.  We were handing out school supplies.

   

It wasn't really all that eventful of a week.  We went to the hospital a few more times.  They've done all the tests, so they should know what my companion has pretty soon, so he doesn't die.  The highlight was definitely the Godinez Perez family though.
   

Well that's all the time I have, talk to you all next week, love you guys!

-Elder Jarvie

Parasites

  
This week was a little tough because my companion is sick with parasites, so it was pretty hard to do anything.  We had to go to the hospital like three times, so we didn't accomplish much.  And on top of that, this week is one of the hardest because everyone is going to leave town or carry around a giant statue of Jesus.

On the bright side, there is a family that we started teaching last week that came to church.  They are a great family.  The picture I sent you with the big hat was at their house.  They like giving us food too.  Saturday we went and they gave us lunch before the lesson and after they gave us more food.  And Sunday the same thing.  We passed by in the morning to bring them to church and they gave us pancakes and invited us to lunch afterwards.  They are amazing.  The dad talks a ton though.

   

Hopefully, my companion will get better this week because we were doing so good.  We have to go back to do some tests this week, but hopefully after that they can get him medicine for the parasites and we can get back to work.

   

Oh by the way, I wrote a letter, so I'll get it sent this week.  We really didn't do all that much this week.  The best part was the family we taught.  They are the Godinez Perez family.  One thing that's different here is that everyone has two last names,while us gringos only have one.

   

The pictures of the beach trip are awesome.  It's always funny telling people about the coast at my house.  Nobody believes that it really is cold.  The size of the redwood trees are fun to tell people about too, that's one of my favorite places.  I'm going to have to get used to all the new people when I get back.  I guess I'm kind of used to getting used to people now.  I'm not used to them being so white though.  I'm one of the whitest people here.

   

Other than my companion being sick, things have been going well.  I've been doing pretty well, every once in a while my stomach will feel bad, but that's pretty normal here.

    

I'm lucky right now because we have a small district and I don't have to call many people, but I still don't have a lot of time.  I always sleep like a rock, but I've been pretty tired.  We walk a lot, and a lot is up and down hill.  Well keep praying hard, because this week right before Easter nobody is home and it's a hard one.  But I guess my companion chose a good week to get sick.

   

I'll keep taking pictures, and I'll try to take a few videos too.  Oh and I think I'm going to need to buy some new clothes.  All of mine are getting old.  Some of them are alright, but a few of them aren't doing so great anymore.

   

Well, I'm out of time.  Thanks for everything.  I loved the pictures.

-Elder Jarvie

Leg Day

Things here are going good.  We've seen a lot of progress.  We've been finding a lot of new investigators this week.  We found 16 - that is pretty good for this area.  The problem with Guatemala is that there are a lot of people who will listen to you, but don't want to put forth an effort after, especially in coming to church.

   

It's too bad you guys are having so many car problems.  I don't think it's as bad as some of these Guatemalan buses can be.  One thing I do not like about Guatemala is the transport, it's horrible.

   

You guys are going to have to send me Kennon's e-mail.  I've been thinking about writing letters to my friends who are in the mission, but there isn't much time.  I am trying to get a handwritten letter sent pretty soon though.  The bad thing about being district leader is that there is almost no time at night, and I've been trying to always write in my journal too.  It doesn't always happen, but I think I've been doing pretty good.

   

It rained a few times this week.  I love the rain.  It's been just hot enough to start sweating, especially because half our area is the side of a hill.  We do a lot of walking upwards.  Sometimes at the end of the week I feel like it was leg day or something.  Which reminds me I was reading some of the letters you guys sent me.  When I was reading one from Emerson, my companion asked what he wrote about.  That's when I realized Em writes about the broest things.  It was actually kind of funny.

   

Have you guys seen the new card and video thing the church did?  It's pretty good.  Sometimes it's easier contacting with little cards like that.  The only thing is that they didn't give us very many.  If y'all havent seen it you should watch it.  It's called Hallelujah or something like that.

   

Well I'm out of time.  Thanks for the pictures and everything.  I'll talk to you guys next week.

-Elder Jarvie

Rough Start, Great Finish

A guy in our ward who can't move from his neck down. 

We help him get into his wheelchair all the time.

This week started out rough, but it turned out to be one of the best weeks we've had here.  This area was at a really low point when I got here, and I struggled a lot with my first companion here, but since Elder Nawahine got here we've been working really hard to get it moving.  In our mission we have a goal to do 15 contacts every day, find 15 new investigators and set two new baptismal dates every week.  Which especially with the 15 new investigators is super hard in this area.  We had almost nothing Friday but we ended up finding twelve new investigators Saturday and four Sunday. We ended up finding 17 super great investigators and setting 5 baptismal goals.

 

A fun experience I had was when we went on divisions with a bunch of guys from the Elders Quorum.  Three guys and I went to teach a lady that my companion and I had contacted.  We taught her and her daughter.  Both are super great.  The fun part though is that when we explain priesthood authority we almost always use the example of police authority, but it turns out she is a cop and understands the whole authority thing perfectly.  So we found some amazing investigators this week including like three families.

 

Changes are right now but there are only three of the twenty or so missionaries that are going to have changes, so Elder Nawahine and I are going to be together another six weeks.

 

There is a missionary in our zone from Provo, Elder Proby, he has a Provo City temple pin.  When I saw it I was like, "Wait what? Are there two temples there?"  That's so cool that you guys got to see the open house.  It sounds like some of Meganne's family were ushers there.  Who builds two temples in one city?

 

I don't think I remember Brigham Young's house, but I remember some place that had an old Angel Moroni and a pioneer museum.  And one time when we went to a temple open house, but I don't remember where.

   

Tell dad to keep up the good work on all his crazy machines.  I want to see them all when I get back.

   

Hey do you know what we are going to have to do for the whole signing up for classes at BYUI?  Now that you told me when I'm starting I could only have like two weeks between getting home and leaving.  We still got a while I guess though.

    

Thanks for everything.  I'm out of time.  Love you guys, bye.

-Elder Jarvie