July 26, 2010 More Baptisms!!!

Sorry... My new comp´s name is Elder Solórzano. He´s from Nicaragua and he knows no English at all. He has had the same time in the mission as I have which means he has had one change in the field more than me. There are a few challenges, but he´s a good comp.

We baptized Francisco, Blanca and their son this week! Francisco has been doing really well with not drinking and now that he´s baptized and has the gift of the Holy Ghost and the Aaronic priesthood, we have high hopes for them. We´re going to keep teaching them. We spent most of our time on the baptism as suggested by our Zone Leaders, so we made invitations for the baptism and even used a big thing of clear tape to makeshift laminate them.
Then, on Friday, we took them to the... ¿Olvigado? to get them married.
Saturday, we had the baptism. I baptized Genaro Francisco Gomez Perez and his son Francisco Gudiel Gomez Gomez. I have pictures so...
It went pretty well. I switched the names of Gudiel because that´s what they call him, Diel, so I had to do that over again, but other than that, it was good. Hna. Esteban has been coming to everything so far. It´s been great. After the baptism, we had refreshments of course. But the thing that wasn´t normal, was that there was no morcaff! (I don´t like morcaff by the way) They had made a big huge pot full of it but spilled it all over the floor. Luckily, there´s no such thing as carpet in this paiz. It was pretty funny. We took pictures of that too.

That´s about it. Thanks for the recipes. I´ll see what I can do. Meat is kind of sketchy here but I shop in a pretty safe place. I love you all and am very grateful for all your support and letters.

Elder Landon James Crapo

July 19, 2010 The Best Day Ever!

I love that something that sounds so hard was described as the best day ever. That's my boy!

My first week in my new area (which is actually my second week) has been interesting.

We've had a bit of some work done in our area from missionaries from different areas. First of all, Elder Ririe, who is a really good friend of mine since the CCM, baptized a family in my area in piedras niegras. (My area is positioned like this... Huehue to Victoria, then there's this triangle T in the road and you go left to Tojocas and then mas arriba to piedras niegras and then another part of my area that I haven't even been to.) The problem is that family Esteban does not go to our branch, they go to the ward in the center of Huehue where Elder Ririe is still. Normally I wouldn't have a problem with this, but it's a little different than in Utah where you can change your records to somewhere else. The Branch is struggling from a boundary division that left the area with almost no members attending church. We had 38 yesterday. We need the people who are strong members to help the branch grow. Missionaries are practically hopeless without the help of the members.

Also, there's Hna. Blanca and Hno. Francisco. The Zone Leaders have been teaching them until we got there. Hno. Francisco has a problem with drinking and they aren't married. Those are their problems. We have a baptismal date for them on Saturday if he doesn't drink. We're am a little concerned that he might not yet be ready. The thing is, we taught him Saturday BECAUSE he drank the Saturday before. So we thought that if we occupied that time, he wouldn't drink that day but we can't keep visiting him for forever. I just hope that we don't baptize him just so he can be baptized and then he falls. I want to be sure he can stand on his own.

So here's the thing; we've been working contacting a few people and we've started to teach a few but, even though Hna. Esteban has a problem with coming to the branch because she doesn't "conoce" the branch (and I can't tell her that it'll be better than the ward because it's struggling to have people come in the first place), still she is going to be key in getting to a bunch of people. We saw evidence of this Saturday when we visited her. While we were talking to her about coming to the Rama instead of the Barrio, one of her friends came to the door and then, from what I can tell, tried to sneak away when she called him in and she went out to bring him in. She explained to him "these are the elders and they are going to teach you and change your life and touch your heart as they have touched mine." She was also the one who has referred Hna. Esparanza who we have been teaching since day one as well. Hna. Esparanza isn't as positive as her Daughter Lesbia though. It's been a great line of people that I can just tell will turn into a web of members that can all help each other in the future ward Tojocas. If we could only get her to come. Maybe it'll just take baptizing some of her friends to get the group of them to go to church. I'm just afraid that if she keeps going to the ward in Huehue, all the people we baptize from her will just keep going to the ward. It's quite complicated, but right now I'm just focusing on teaching those we have received so that we don't lose them.

Anyway, we had a lot to do today as well because of Hna. Esteban. Saturday as well, while we were talking, we came to an agreement that if she came to OUR meeting on Sunday, we'd help her haul rocks up the mountain to a house in construction. She didn't come, but of course we weren't going to turn down a service opportunity. So... we woke up this morning at 5:00 to go haul some rocks. I knew it'd be hard work but I didn't know still what was coming. We went and there were three piles of dirt, rocks, and boulders. We filled somewhere around 80 or 90 pounds worth of rocks in these sacks and started up the dirt road of the mountain. This whole time people we didn't know were saying stuff like "Es cancha!", "Pobre gringo" and "no puede trabajar." I found out later that all their comments were completely justified... I can lift 90 pounds onto my back. Hiking straight up a mountainous hill with 90 pounds on my back or shoulders is a different story. First, they tried using the weird forehead strap thing that everyone here uses, but my neck muscles were just not built to work like that. It was very imbalanced as well. I stopped using it when I slipped in the mud (which is everywhere present, all the time) I just carried it on my shoulders until we got to the top of the hill to cross a stream to go up another steep hill to the top. I finally said "Tengo que descansar" I waited for a while and then my comp. offered to carry both. Of COURSE, I refused and we started back again. About half way up the hill, the branch president came back down, done with his sack, and carried mine the rest of the way. I couldn't do it. My legs were shaking because we were going up the mountain so fast and it was just too much. So, we half ran down the hill so we wouldn't slip in the mud and started once again. This time though I was determined to make it to the top, by myself, without taking a rest. So we started and the first few steps, I slipped and sat down in the mud, and stood back up and started again and went 1 mph up the hill, if that. I got within about 1/8th of the way up and then the Branch president came once again and I almost said no but I was exhausted and let him take it. It made me feel even worse when he carried my bag up the rest of the way faster than I could walk myself. I had to concentrate really hard not to fall because my legs were so wobbly. I failed and made a fool of myself in front of all those people, but I'm just glad I was able to help, and that I don't easily pass out. I'm glad we only did two rounds of that. After, we went home, I bought an ice cream and a fruit drink and we went home to shower and leave to come do e-mail. BUT, first we played soccer for a couple of hours. I don't know how I had the strength to even play, but we did pretty well. So now I'm writing to you with sore shoulders thinking this has probably been one of the best days so far. Next time, I'll be even more prepared to do that.

Thanks a ton for the letter. I'm out of time. I love you all.

Tired,

-Elder Crapo

P.S. I can't quite sleep yet. I have to buy my food for the week (yes recipes would be great. We decided to cook for ourselves.) Then, I still have to write a letter to someone. Then, it's work as usual at 6:00. This is the best day EVER!

July 12, 2010

Wow, that sounds like a really busy week! It all sounds really fun though too. Mine was really crazy too. I did get changes and it was a little frustrating for me because it was extremely haphazardly done, probably because of all the crazy stuff going on in the coast.

So, first of all, Monday they didn't tell us our changes, so when we did shopping, we only bought food for two days, something that has changed for me now. I may just get extremely thin this change. In my old area, the ward members made us lunches for free and then I still used all my food money. Now we either have to pay for a cociñera, or learn how to cook ourselves with only a two burner electric stove and a pot and maybe a pan if we decide to buy one, but we´ve already spent a ton on stuff. I guess I should really explain now.

Tuesday we were doing the usual, getting really excited for all the families that we were teaching, Dionicio Chajchalac and his family and José with his two little kids Alfredo and Jony. They are most likely getting baptized. That night, though, we got a call at 9:30 telling us that we had changes and to be at the terminal at 8 in the morning. So we spent all night packing ang getting ready to go. We did get pictures with Hyrum, a recently returned missionary that was kind of like our best friend while we were in the area. (he can speak English too so there wasn´t that barrier).

We went to the terminal and got herded around. I got on a bus with my new comp that I knew nothing about, Elder Solórsono, and rode for 5 hours to huehuetenango. I had to go to the bathroom for 3 hours on the bus before we got there, then we got all of our stuff (after searching for a place to go to the bathroom and having to pay to go) and found out that we are, once again, opening up an area that has been closed for more than a year, and that we didn´t have a house yet. So, we stayed the night in another house in the area Victoria. The next day, we did a ton of going around with the zone leaders, first to get to know the wives of the Branch President and first counselor, and then split up and I went to work in the Zone leader's area. I stayed that night in the zone leader's house.

That morning, the other elders came to the house and the four of us had breakfast. There was a crazy dog in their house that we had to run away from every time we went in and out of the house. After that, we went to our house that was finally ready with beds, desks, and such. Since then, we´ve been buying stuff we need, planning and doing our best to get to know the area to figure out what to do. It´s been a long week.

I don´t have any pictures of the house or my companion yet but we´re going to play futbol (not to be confused with foot ball) today, and I´ll try to get some pictures. The name of my area is Tojocas and has two branches in it. I´ve only been to one but we plan to start visiting the other one in a few weeks when we get to know the place better.

In my new area, we don´t get mail unless we have a conference, so I won´t get letters for who knows how long... one month maybe.

I love you and I´ll write next week. Thanks for the pictures. You´re right, I do like the color of the flower and I really like the new look of the flower beds. It makes me super happy to see that the thorny little devil bushes are finally gone.

Love,

-Elder Landon James Crapo

Hey Family,

It sounds like you guys have had an extremely fun weekend, especially Hunter. I found I was really missing not celebrating with the family yesterday. It kind of hit home how much stuff I will miss and how much I care about that stuff. It makes me feel better to know what happened and all that. I can´t wait to see Toy Story 3. My comp and I walked past a building that had a commercial for Toy Story 3 on it and it was really tempting to stop and watch it for a little bit but... oh well.

Apparently, we don´t get changes today. We get them later this week or something. I don´t know why, I think it´s a little weird but I guess you won´t get to know until next week where I am.

This week there have been a few excitements and a few disappointments, just like a normal week of a mission. Juana, Maria, Abraham, and David... Familia Camacho moved to Guatemala City for 6 months right when we got Juana and Maria to agree to get baptized. They were the most optimistic family we´d encountered so far and they had to move. To make it worse, their aunt is major evangelico and will probably undo what we´ve done. All I can do is hope that they can be strong and stick to their testimonies that I know that they have now. They both prayed and know that what we were teaching is true. In their own words they both felt, "paz y tranquilidad en [su] corazon" about being baptized and coming to our church.

The HUGE family that we contacted last week we´ve given one lesson to. Out of the 12 adults that were there, we´re thinking maybe 3 of them are taking us seriously and may end up being positive investigators. We´ll see, it´s really tough to teach 30 people all at the same time, 12 adults and around 20 kids running all over the place.

Dionicio didn´t come to church yesterday even though he said he would. We offered to accompany him to church too, but he said he´d go himself. Now he´s probably feeling down on himself and probably will avoid us. We just want to help him because he is really receptive and despite the disbelief of his relatives, that are members of the church, I really do think he can go far if people would just give him the chance.

Finally, we found another familia Paiz Coyoy that seems promising. We needed something after being torn apart after finding out that fam. Camacho was leaving. It´s a family of an inactive mother who stopped going to church when she got married. They have two kids named Alfredo and Joni who are just awesome kids. They both come up and give us big hugs and say,"mi amigo" whenever we come over. The husband is very positive and we´re almost certain they will end up getting baptized and coming to church. That´s it for now. I´m just really hoping I get to stay to see all these people come through, but if not, I know I´ll be able to find people to love and help wherever I go.

I have this odd feeling in me lately of longing to be with my family and friends again, and yet not wanting to ever leave these people here. It´s a feeling of joy that I never want to forget. Joy, because I know that there are people I love who love me too at home, and that I´m making friends that are almost family here in Guatemala. What brings the most joy, is knowing that in the end, I will be able to stand at the end of judgement in the Celestial Kingdom with all of you and all of them together, with a feeling of love and peace and gratitude that is comparable to none other. Thank you for your love and prayers.

-Elder Landon Crapo