Family History

Hey everybody! Things have been going alright. Lindsay got baptized this week.  I'll try to send pictures but this computer is slower than dirt so I'm not promising anything.

   

We've got more than half the Godinez family being baptized active members of the church now.  Just the parents are left.  Sadly, I probably won't be around here when they get baptized.  (Changes are in a week and I've been here six months already.)  They are an amazing family.  The three main things that have slowed them down from getting baptized is that they're not married, Jorge works most Sundays (because he's a police man) and Elsa is pregnant and they want to wait until the baby is born to get baptized.

   

The house looks super amazing.  I remember when it was more like a crappy shed and we were still bashing walls down.  When I left I think we were putting windows in and I don't think we had even started to put siding on.  It looks great and with the grass it's like a whole other level.

   

I printed off some of the pictures you sent me for my family history booklet.  I've got almost everything in it.  It's fun to use teaching about the temple and all that good stuff.  I would love it if you could send me pictures for the rest of them.  I only have Grandma and Grandpa Walker's side. Family history is something I'll have to do when I come home and have a little more time, and permission to use computers.

   

Any way things here are going good.  Changes are next week so we will see what happens.  Love you guys.  Talk to you next week.

-Elder Jarvie

Deportation Threats

Well I'm going to start with the questions you wrote, because I'm kind of half annoyed with my companion and it's hard to think like that.

   

Elder Hockett was in my district in my first area.  He started his mission one change after me and then we were in the same zone for three changes when I was in Durazno.  There is a picture I sent a while ago when I was in Durazno where an elder was holding up three of us.  We were all on top of Elder Hockett.  I'm pretty sure I've sent other pictures with him in it too.

   

I've been doing pretty good with journal writing too.  I don't know if I told you but I finished my journal in December and I'm a little more than half way through the one I'm writing in now.  I try to write every night but it doesn't always happen.

 

The reason I'm kind of frustrated with my companion is because I let him use my USB right now, because he said real quick, and it's been 45 minutes and he still won't give it back.  He's not the worst companion I've ever had, but I'm not sure if he just doesn't think things through or what.

   

Things here have been going well.  Lindsay's baptism is going to be this week so that's awesome.  We have another investigator named Abigail who might get baptized this week or the next too.

   

Today we are going to climb a mountain and then play soccer.  Oh! Funny story.  We help a quadriplegic guy in our ward a lot.  We are pretty good friends with him.  Sometimes we tease him that we are going to buy Chinese food and eat it without him.  Sometimes he says he's going to call immigration and have me deported.  It's pretty funny.  It's not everyday a quadriplegic threatens to get you deported.  We might bring him with us to play soccer today.  He's going to be the goalie.

   

The Godinez family came back Sunday afternoon.  They had been out of town.  So as tradition goes they gave us more food than we are used to eating, including some things I've never eaten before.  We ate masapan chopped up and fried.  They taste like potato chips.  I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of potato chips were made out of this thing and not potatoes.

   

Well have fun laying grass.  I wish I was there to help. 

   

Oh! Cool thing happened.  I found a legit pair of shoes, slightly used for 50 quets.  That's like 6 bucks.  They're like a wear to church type of shoe, but I like them.  Maybe I'll send a picture next week.

   

Well I'm out of time.  Love you all, bye.

-Elder Jarvie

Bag of Water

Second to the left is Elder Barrera, we were all his companions.

Elder Hockett

Multi-Zone Conference

So I started today out with pretty bad luck.  We were walking down the street to go to the internet cafe to write and I felt something hit me on the top of the head.  I touched my hair and it was a fat gob of bird crap.  So I had to buy a bag of water and wash my head off in the street.

   

I think you're right about the roommate thing.  After some of the companions I've had I think I could take living in the same house with just about anyone.  Oh, speaking of roommates, I've written Dominic a few times.  The funny thing is he says Taylor Hart (who lived a few houses down from us) is in the same mission as him, and they're in the same ward too.  Dominic is coming home in like 6 months now. 

   

Tell Remington he has to wait until I get back to get married.  He can get married the day I get back if he wants.  When I was with Elder Nawahine he told me his brother was dating a girl and planned on proposing in December.  I'm not an expert at this, but I would think if you were really going to get married you wouldn't wait like ten months to propose.  That seems like a long time.  So tell Remington to propose whenever he wants but wait until August or September to get married.

    

The pictures of the house definitely deserve a rich people sign, but sadly it's not part of the English alphabet.  Emerson's drifting event looks like fun.  I'm going to have to learn more about fixing cars when I get home.  The other thing I was thinking about learning was to play the piano.  I think two good life goals are playing an instrument and speaking a second language.  I've got Spanish down, so I think an instrument is next on the list.

   

Some of these cars Emerson has deserve a rich people sign too.  That kid must know what he's doing. When you told me about Emerson drifting and said something about guess what happened next, the way you said it made me think he crashed it and was in the hospital or something.  It's too bad it had a problem, but on the bright side he's still alive.

    

Sunday we got the Liahona.  I got two in English so I'm happy.  Reading in Spanish is almost the same, it's kind of like driving your own car, or using your own bathroom.  Other people's cars, bathrooms, and languages work just fine, but every once in a while you just feel more comfortable using yours.

   

Thanks for everything guys.  It was great talking to you yesterday.  I'll be back soon and I'll make sure you don't end up with hundreds of lemon cucumbers again.  We need to make homemade hamburgers too, fast food is just not the same.  And anything cooked in an oven, very few people here have ovens and those who do don't use them.

    

Well my time is up, love you guys, bye!

-Elder Jarvie

Temple Trip

We had a good week.  We went to the temple today.  That's why I didn't write Monday.  And they just told us Friday, so I didn't have the chance to tell you.  It was great though.  The temple is amazing.  It's also one of the only places in Guatemala where the sinks have hot water.

   

Before I forget I'm going to answer a few of your questions.  I haven't talked with president, but I do know I'm coming back in August, so I'll have at least a week or two.  From what I've heard Meganne is doing pretty good, you really can't expect less from someone serving in the best state ever.  She's been out for like ten months now.  Weird I thought you sent more questions than that, I only found two. 

   

The pictures all look amazing.  You guys put down a ton of cement. It looks really nice, with a bridge and everything.  I bet when you get grass there it will look amazing.  One thing was kind of funny. Looking at dirt sounds like the lamest date ever, just saying.  No, I'm just kidding.  Just not something a lot of people do, and it kind of made me laugh when I read it. (In our defense, we also looked at bark dust and gravel.)

   

I don't think I've ever been anywhere near a tornado.  That sounds like fun.   (Referring to my trip to Kansas.)

 

You mentioned that I've had good heath so far, which is mostly true.  Mostly just stomach problems, that happens a lot here.  But I haven't gotten chikungunya or anything like that.  Somebody gave me mango juice last week and I didn't realize.  I felt awful for like a day and a half.  (Interesting fact - Remington learned that he was allergic to mangos when he was on his mission.)

   

Sorry that this one is going to be a little short.  On the bright side we get to Skype in a few days!  Well I'm almost out of time.  Thanks for the pictures and for writing.

 

-Elder Jarvie

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