Beans & Pigs

 Sorting beans with the Pineda family in Los Pinos

 

 A place in our area called Nacahuil.  There are a lot of pigs there.

Hey everybody!

 

So this week was fun.  One day we went to Nacahuil.  It's part of our area but it's like half an hour in bus to get there.  A lot of the people there speak Kekchi, one of the Mayan languages, so that's neat. Luckily, everyone speaks Spanish too.  There are a lot of animals and people wear different clothes.

   

On the way back we stopped by a place called Los Pinos.  Pinos are pine trees.  They told me it's named that for the Pineda family, who were the first people who lived there.  Like 70% of the people there have the last name Pineda, including the family we visited.  They do a lot of farming stuff so when we got there they were separating beans from some of the plant that came with it.  They gave us food too.  The fun thing there is that they always say if you want peppers there are some on the bush over there.  One thing I've gotten used to is eating peppers.

   

One really cool thing is that almost all the recent converts came to church this Sunday.  One of ten didn't come and only because he was sick.  So that was legit.

   

Reading your letter I thought of two things.  I've never had a companion that speaks English, and I've never had one younger than me.  Also I've never trained, so those are a few new things that could happen.

   

This time around there will definitely be changes because I already have three with Elder Barrera.

    

The house is looking amazing.  Make sure you guys have a laptop for Christmas so I can see it all. Y'all have a rich people house.  Well I guess you are grandparents now.

 

Well I'm pretty much out of time.  I love you all and I'll talk to you next week.

 

-Elder Jarvie

Baptism Interview

It sounds like you guys had a fun week.....mixed with a boat load of traveling... lucky dogs! I want to go to the coast. I miss swiming, though I don't miss cold water.  I get that every morning when I shower.  The beach is a ton of fun.  We will have to go there one day when I get back.

   

It's fun to hear that Moroni and Gordon are in the MTC now, or CCM and who knows how to say MTC in Cantonese.  Throwing in wrong words for me is mostly if I pray out loud in English.  The MTC is a struggle sometimes.  Though I guess there are struggles everywhere you go (they are just a little worse there).  Right now I would say my biggest struggle has been my companion.  My companion is the devil.  The good thing is that we have changes in two weeks.  I've been with him four and a half months already so we will definitely have changes.  That and I've learned a lot of patience.

   

This week we had divisions with the zone leaders.  We did it after weekly planing, and it ended really late so it was a short division, but it was good.  I got to interview someone for their baptism, so that was neat.  It was the first time I had done it. 

   

Things here are honestly going alright - there are a few things that drive me crazy sometimes, but there are good things too.  I really like the area I'm in right now.  It's really big and sometimes we take buses to visit people, but it is a great place.  And our house is good too.  The only down side is the shower.  Saturday I got to take a hot shower when we had divisions with the zone leaders.

   

Anyway, that's what's up over here.  I love you guys!  And I'll talk to you next week.

-Elder Jarvie

Conference & UNO

The last four days have been some of the most legit ever.

  

Number one:

Conference, I enjoyed it a lot.  There are a few ideas that I liked, and plan to apply.  The talk about ponderizing really stuck out for me.  I like the idea.

   

There is an elder in my district called Elder Hocket and when the guy started talking about the super long dark tunnel he started yelling that his family goes there every year. (When we watch conference there is a separate room for the people who speak English, so there were only like three of us there. So it's not like he was talking in the main room with everybody.)  But he told us a lot about it and it sounds like a really cool place.  Definitely somewhere I want to go when I get back.  Maybe I'll convince him to come with me.

   

That is super cool that you guys got to go there to see the conference.  It was a really good one. The weird thing is that this time around people only talked in English.

   

As missionaries we pretty much stayed in the stake center all day.  We would watch two hours.  Eat something and play UNO for two hours and repeat until the end when we went home right when the day ended.  Us especially, because we live far away.

 

Number two:

We went to the temple today!  That was great though there isn't too much to describe about it.  We also bought a few things at the distribution center there.  And we ate Taco Bell before coming back to write.  I bought a Book of Mormon en English, because I wanted to mark scriptures and mine is pretty well marked.  We also bought scriptures for some of the members here who don't have them.

   

Things 3 and 4 could be getting emails today and not dying in a mud slide.

 

We were talking with a one of our investigators who mentioned that where the slide happened was a mountain that was mostly mud or sand, which isn't the ideal place to build.  It's a better idea to build in a stony place.  Which made me think of the wise man and the foolish man.  And that in some choices we make you can loose a lot more than your house.

   

It's also exiting to hear that Moroni is on his way.  There are now a ton of missionaries from our ward.  And a lot of us are speaking Spanish too, though Moroni is going to come home speaking a Spanish a lot different then Jared´s and mine.  From what I've heard they talk in vosotros which is like using thou.  So that will be fun.

   

So I'm pretty much out of time.  This week I had a little more time to write. Thanks for the letters and pictures. I love you guys!

bye!

-Elder Jarvie

Rain and Mud

Hey everybody!

  
Things here are going pretty good.  It's been raining a lot.  And because all the streets here are dirt, there is mud everywhere and sometimes little rivers in the road.  Some times you start to feel a little taller right before you realize it's the little mud cakes under your feet.  It's a good thing I like the rain.

  
The house is looking amazing!   Though I don't miss that tile machine you guys have out there.  It looks like you are all getting pretty close to finishing it.

    
This Sunday was pretty cool.  We had branch council.  From what I've heard they haven't had it here in a long time.  I'm also really excited for conference next week.  We live far away from the stake center here, so I think we are probably going to be there all day Saturday and Sunday.

 
I don't have much time to write today, but I'm going to answer some of your questions: 

-It's just my companion and I in our house. 

-I think I mentioned that I bought a pair of shoes already. 
The black ones died, but my brown shoes are still alive (though a hole is starting to form.) 

-We usually teach a few times a day- sometimes I just don't feel like says and Friday we taught this family the restauracion, and Tuesdays ... and just listing things off.  We don't teach a ton but we have stuff to do.  (I think his mind was jumping between English and Spanish)

-I sleep good but now that I have to call everybody I don't sleep as much.

-I'm pretty good with money and they do give us enough.

Thanks for all the pictures.  Sorry it was a short letter this time.  I love you guys.

Bye!

-Elder Jarvie

P.S.  Remington looks really creepy.

(This is what Donavaghn is referring 
to in case you are curious.) 

Haz Lo Justo

Our zone or in other words our district with the zone leaders.

Hey everybody!

Things here are going good.  I'm almost used to having to call a bunch of missionaries every night.

Right now we have a district of nine missionaries.  So this morning we had to find an internet cafe that would fit us all.

 

The house looks amazing.  Sometimes I miss doing all that.  And sometimes I wonder why is everyone's hair so crazy? (Referring to a picture I sent of Spencer Pratt helping us do stucco.)  Here I thought everybody had crazy hair because Guatemalans are locos, but I guess it's just the style everywhere.  Speaking of crazy hair, Remington's beard is looking pretty good.

 

It's cool to see the five generation picture you took. That's crazy.  That would be cool to live to have a great great grand kid.  There is almost a hundred year age difference.  The other picture that was cool was of  Rick, Gavin, Jared, Moroni, and I (some times Spanglish slips out.  Like right now I almost wrote Moroni and yo.)  (The picture (included at the bottom of this letter in case you're interested)  I sent was taken a couple of years ago at a blood drive one of our young men did for his Eagle Scout project.  The reason I sent it to Donavaghn was because one week from today every one of those young men will be out serving a mission. Pretty amazing!  On a fun note, out ward holds the record right now in our stake for having 11 missionaries out. Technically two leave next week and there are two senior couples.)

 

Let's see what else - I did buy a CTR ring but it's in Spanish so it's really a HLJ ring.  Which means "haz lo justo."  That really means do what is right, but it's almost the same thing. I haven't been doing perfect in journal writing, but I've been doing pretty good.  In fact, I'm nearing in on finishing the one I've been writing in.  Right now I don't have much time to write because after we finish planning at 9:30 I'm on the phone until 10:15 , but i usually get a little more than half a page in.  Really the whole district leader thing only changes what I do at night, and a little of what I do Monday and Thursday. But it's still real;y different.

 

You also mentioned that I haven't had a companion that speaks English.  Who knows if I'll ever have one.  Most people do though.  I've had a companion that speaks Portuguese, and one that speaks Quiche (a native language in Guatemala) but nobody that speaks English.  In the zone there are 11 missionaries and 3 of us are "gringos."  Also one of the Latinos speaks pretty good English.

 

Thanks for all the pictures. I love them a ton.  Make sure you have Skype working good on a laptop, (referring to our Christmas call) because I want to see more of the house.

 

Well that's what I've got to say.  Love you guys.  Talk to you next week.

 

-Elder Jarvie

 

 L to R - Donavaghn, Lisa Mapel, Gavin Mapel (Philappines), Moroni Beal (Spain), 

Rick Pedersen (New Mexico), Jared Dabel (Guatemala) and Kelli Holcombe.

District/Zone Leader

So between last night and this morning I've been told a lot of things. First off, the whole Carter thing, that is super exiting.  Y'all really surprised me a few weeks back with the whole "Guess what?? Your sister's having a baby!"

The other thing is that they told us about changes yesterday which came with two things I wasn't expecting.  First off, I will be staying with Elder Barrera a 3rd change, that's like 4 and a half months with the same companion.  The other thing is that in this group that is going home a lot of the people were in leadership positions.  Our district leader has had a few problems, so there was a chance that they would have me be the new one.  But when they called me that I was going to be the 3rd Zone Leader I was really confused.  But they explained that for right now I'm going to the district leader, but over the whole zone.  There is only going to be one district, so that's weird. 

 

My companion got Chikungunya so he is kind of a zombie right now.  But for having it he is doing really well.  He can walk and talk and didn't die on the bus, so what more can you ask for?

 

All in all things here are going pretty good.  There wasn't a whole lot to say this week... but the few things were pretty big things.  Well, I love you guys, say "hi" to the turtle for me. (I told him sometimes Michaela calls Carter her little turtle, because he kind of looks like one.)

 

Bye!

President gets the boot

My companion and I with Erick

The house is looking great.  In your letter you said something about a longboard on his head and I was thinking why does he have a longboard on his head?  Then I realized you were taking about a board that is long, and I was thinking about a skateboard longboard.  It makes more sense with the picture.  Speaking of the boat, it looks like Remington has his beard already to go on the boat.

     

The rock stacking looks like it was good fun. (Youth fireside we had)  I'm like 99% sure I've seen that video before. (A man that stacks rocks in ways that should defy gravity.)  Sounds like I'm missing out on a lot of fun, but you guys are too.  They just gave the president here the boot.  Apparently he was a dirty rotten no good criminal scumbag..... or something like that.  So they always call to ask if there are riots or anything in our area.  But we live in a little village on a mountain, nothing like that happens here. (That's what a mom likes to hear!)

     

Dad's machine looks cool too (car rotisserie).  That first picture is fantastic.  Pretty soon now you are going to see a bunch of cars that have a little symbol that says Jarvie or something like that.  The garage looks great too.  A lot changes in a year.  Which reminds me I've officially been outside the states for more than a year.  That's crazy.

     

You mentioned ward council.  Here they haven't done ward council in a while, but we have been talking with our ward mission leader, and we have plans to start the other week, so that is pretty cool.

     

That's cool to hear that Em is going to be studying the Old Testament.  A few months ago I felt bad because I have never read the Bible all the way through.  I finished the New Testament a little while back.  Right now I'm reading the old one (Old Testament) and it's really interesting to hear some of the stories again, and in order.  I'm in Judges right now.  I just finished the story of Samson, which is a weird one.  Up there with Balaam or whatever his name is.  The guy that talks to his donkey.

     

Thanks for the pictures! oh and by the way the one I sent is my companion and I with Erick, he and most of his family got baptized like six months ago.

 

Anyway love you guys.  Bye!

Elder Jarvie