New Companion

Things have been going pretty well.  I was worried about the whole changes thing but luckily I got stuck with a pretty good companion.  (I'm sure he meant "stuck" in the nicest way possible)  He was in my district when I was in Esperanza.  The one thing I can't stand is a lazy companion, and I didn't get one, so that made my week.

Things are still going good with the Godinez family.  Dominique and Arlette are on fire and Lindsay wants to get baptized too.  Their mom and dad do too but there are a few things that are going to take a little longer for them.

The concrete looks amazing.  It looks like you all poured a ton.  People always make jokes about my family being rich because we're from the US, but I'm starting to think it's true.  That is a nice house.

That's so cool that you guys went to Adam-ondi-Ahman and all those places.  I was just talking to my companion Saturday night about Adam-ondi-Ahman, because somebody had asked a question about the second coming.  We read a bunch of scriptures too.  The scriptures about Adam-ondi-Ahman are super interesting.  And it's one of the names I'll never forget because my seminary teacher talked about it a ton, but it is pretty inportant and not too many people know much about it.

Oh! My new companion is Elder Gaibor.  He is from Equador.  I'll try to take some pictures this week.  We were in the same district when I was with Elder Bonilla.  That was a while ago.  Time goes by so fast.  I'm coming up on like 20 months now.  That's almost hard to believe.

There are way too many stairs in the Cerrito.  That place really kills you.  Our area here is pretty small, but parts are like strait up and strait down.

Thanks for the letter and all the pictures.  You're the best.

-Elder Jarvie

Bautismo de Arlette y Dominique

With his zone leaders and Jorge

Taken at the Godinez family's house, with the zone leaders ("dorkiest guys ever")  when they went for baptism interviews.  Hopefully, that's not what they were wearing when they interviewed Arlette & Dominique!

Jorge is a policeman.  Two of his kids were baptized last week.

They haul dirt a little differently in Guatemala.

The Godinez Perez Family

Dominique and Arlette

Hey guys! Sadly, we have changes and my companion is leaving the area.  That's too bad.  I really got along well with him.

 

Dominique and Arlette got baptized this week though, that's the happy note.  Normally it's good if they're friends with members and they can baptize them, but in the end it's really their choice.  My companion baptized Dominique and I baptized Arlette.  It all went super well and there was a lot of support from the ward.  The rest of their family wants to get baptized too.  With the parents it's going to take a little longer, but they're all amazing.  The only hard thing with them is when Jorge's home it's hard to get out of their house.  He likes to talk a lot.  He's a funny guy.  One time he said he's going to visit us and when he comes to Oregon he's going to fight a bear.  He said something like, "I think I could take a bear."  His nickname is "Jorge the bear fighter" now.

 

I've gotten pretty attached to this area, or to the people here.  Everybody thought I was going to leave this change.

 

We did a little more of our service project, hauling dirt up the mountain.  I remember a movie we watched about a mountain that wasn't a mountain so they hauled dirt up to the top.  (The Englishman who went up a hill but came down a mountain.)   Those bags are heavy, and even worse going up hill. My back hurt all that day.  It's not very often we get the chance to do stuff like that though, I love it.

 

I hope you all enjoy the pictures.  We got some good ones this week.

Love you guys.

-Elder Jarvie

Videos!

 

I love how this video shows Donavaghn's dry sense of humor so well!

Although you have to kink your neck to watch it, I love being able to see what the city looks like.

This week went super well.  We've been teaching a family, I think I've told you about them, they are the Gadinez Perez family.  We have a baptism planned for the kids next week.  Sister Godinez, the mom, wants to wait for her husband though.  He's great too it's just that he works as a police man and only gets like one Sunday off per month if he's lucky.

Saturday we went and helped them with a garden project carrying a bunch of dirt.  The interesting thing is that they do it in big sacks. So Dominic, Elder Nawahine and I spent a while filling up bags with dirt and carrying them up the hill on our shoulders, it was a good workout.  We were pretty sore in the morning Sunday.  Any chance to do service is great though.  There aren't too many people who let us.  Dominic said that that was one of the things he liked about the church.  Some of them have even mentioned going on missions.

I don't know if you remember but in our mission everyone has the goal to do 15 contacts every day and find 15 new investigators and set 2 baptismal dates every week.  It's kind of hard to do it here.  It's kind of a tougher area, but we did it this week.  We finished with the last few things 8:30 Sunday night.  So we met the goal by the skin of our teeth.

Oh and now we know we can send videos just as long as they are less than 25mb.  For my camera like 18 seconds.

Hey, we are coming up on Mother's Day in like a month, and Emerson's birthday.  Also I sent a letter a little while ago, so it should get there soon.  

I was talking with one of our zone leaders a little while ago and I decided if  BYU-Idaho offers it I might like to take a calligraphy class.  I figure I'm going to have to start thinking about all that pretty soon.

Another family we've taught a little is the Vanegas Vargas family, I think I've told you about them.  It turned out that one of them, Vivian, is friends with a girl in the Durazno, Stacy, and she gave her all the young women's books.  Vivian is like super interested in the church, but her dad not so much.  This week we brought the Young Women's president with us and her husband, so she could explain all that stuff.  I don't know much about Personal Progress.

Well I have no time, love you all.  Talk to you next week.

-Elder Jarvie

Kabobs & Conference

Breakfast Kabobs

Stake Pres & Ward Secretary set up room with Conference in English

Delivering School Supplies

This week was really good.  Conference was amazing.  We watched all the morning sessions in Spanish and the rest in English.  After Saturday morning we got into the office to watch it on the internet and Sunday afternoon they were kind enough to set up a projector for my companion and I.

It was amazing.  

 

Sorry if I don't write too much.  I don't have much time but hopefully the pictures will make up for it.

I was going to test and see if we could send a video, but I thought it was a 35 mb limit and it's 25.  So our video was a little too long, 35 was like 25 seconds, so maybe next week we will do a really short video.

 

We've been teaching a family, the Godinez family.  They came to church for the Sunday morning session and a family here invited them for Family Home Evening today.  They are amazing.

I can't wait to see how the grass and patio turn out. I love seeing pictures of the house. 

 

Well I'm out of time.  Sorry it was short this week.  I love you guys!

-Elder Jarvie