GUATEMALA CITY NORTH MISSION February 2010 - 2012
STAY STRONG AND KEEP THE FAITH ~ Elder Smith's Motto
"My son, peace be unto thy soul; thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment; And then, if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high; thou shalt triumph over all thy foes." D&C 121:7-8

Monday, January 3, 2011

I just can't stop counting my blessings!


Hello My Peeps!
Well the answer to your first question (do you have any investigators) is YES! Finally! Well we have 2! One has a fecha that Elder Howard set during church. He taught the Restoration for the young men and women Sunday School class and then asked Waldemar if he would accept to be baptized on the 19th of Feb! So we shall see how that goes. The other is Ismael. He is super pilas! We have only taught him twice. But we asked what he remembered from the first time, and he had actually read the pamphlet we gave him and he UNDERSTOOD IT! He then went off telling about the things we taught him in detail and he also understands that the true church must have a prophet and 12 apostles!!!! The first person who has actually fulfilled a commitment and then some! He is amazing. I hope he will receive a testimony strong enough to be baptized. He also said that many missionaries have passed by his house, so I think we have finally found one of the chosen ones that the Lord has prepared for us and placed in our path....

My Book of Mormon study is going good! I just finished Jacob 5. The manual helped a lot, still kinda hard to get all of the meaning out of it. But it’s going great so far...

Ok just a few things that I have noticed lately about the lives of the people here. I just got to thinking about it all. They live in shacks. Metal roof, bamboo or wood walls, with a dirt floor and they use firewood for fire to be able to cook food that they haul from the mountain on their heads, and they sleep on beds that they made...out of wood, there are no such things as mattresses for these people unless you are ¨rich.¨ And then the kids are super happy when they get to play with a balloon, or use their dad's beat up shoe as a car and drive it around their dirt floor, and they all shower with a bowl and dirty water that they get out of their sinks (pilas). They all have outhouses as well. Yet they all seem happy, or at least content with their lives. It’s amazing to me to see the difference between home and here. How we might get a car or something but not like it because of its color, or something of that nature. I just can’t stop counting the blessings that we have all received in our lives. I am so very grateful to our Heavenly Father for these numerous blessings that we have in our lives. I just want you all to think for a second when you may complain about not having a new pair of shoes, or when the power is out so you can’t use the microwave, or when you are not able to go a couple blocks to the nearest Wal-Mart because your car is broken down. I cannot express my gratitude for the blessings we have in our lives. I just want you all to remember them always and to not take anything for granted, especially clean water that comes out of the tap.

What Bill and Ted's did you see...Excellent Adventure or Journey.?...Because Adventure is where it’s all at! The Journey one stinks.

In church, for testimony meeting, I couldn’t understand a single thing. But I could feel the Spirit so strongly, it was really great. Some members were teary eyed in the congregation as well. It is amazing how the Spirit of the Lord works. It testifies of all truth and will never lead us astray.

Well that is all I have for you all at this point in time! One week from today I will have 11 months. Pretty cool stuff. Q'eqchi' is still one of the most hardest languages in the world, but it's going good, kind of. I will get it one day. Well I love you all and I hope you have a great week.
Neke'xinra! (I love you all)
Tuqtuukilal (Peace)

Stay Strong
Keep the Faith
Love Elder Jordan Smith

1 comment:

  1. I love how much our missionaries learn on their missions! How blessed we all are to have this experience and how amazing their lives will be for alll they are doing and learning!!

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