Letter #15 - "Be the One", Los Brilliantes, Guatemala

hola todos

this week i have been thining a lot about the power and influence that one person can make.  it all started when i finished the book Jesus the Christ and OH MY GOSH!!! that book is amazing!! to me it is amazing knowing that without Christ all our lives mean nothing because we couldnt return and live with Him and God again.  without the One nothing matters.  while of course this is the most obvious and biggest impact that one person can make i saw it first hand this week in Brillantes.  about a year ago a 16 year old boy named Wilder decided to hear the missionaries even though he was a very active member of an evangelical church.  he listened, prayed, recieved his answer and was baptized. this last week I  was able to baptize two of his brothers!! when he joined the church his family was very against it but we have had the opportunity to talk with his fam, and baptize the brothers, and the parents are ready to get baptized we just have to deal with some marriage problems first.  here it is very easy to get married but very hard to get divorced so if people decided they dont want to be together they just move out and dont worry about a divorce, so before they can be baptized they have to get divorced and then married.  

but yeah in addition to the baptisms this week it was also a wonderful week, after last week where we did everything we could but couldnt find numerical success, we were able to do so this week.  it reminds me of the scripture in Ether that says that we recieve no witness, or in this case a miracle, until after the trial of our faith.  last week our faith was tried but we didnt quit, we kept working and this week we recieved the blessings!!

well i dont think i have anything else to say... hope all is well there.  be the one that makes an impact on others lives.  

love

elder meyer

Letter # 14 - Los Brilliantes

Hola!

 

well the weeks just continue to fly by here in Guatemala.  yes it is still as hot as ever, but it is raining less which is not good because that means it is super hot all day and all night!!! but anyway this week has been a very tough one.  as i memetioned last week the other two elders that galvez and i were living with left to go work in another area.  this doubled the size of our area which means a lot more walking.  but this week galvez and  i really wanted to focus on finding new people, in particular families, to teach, because we have a few very positive people but if everything turns out well they will all be baptized by the end of the month leaving us with no one to keep teaching.  this week i would guess that we spent 30ish hours trying to find people, with zero true success.  i was  so frustrated with this.  i was talking to galvez about this lack of numerical success, every day we report numbers to the leaders of the mission.  and he said something very interesting.  he said: ¨what are you talking about we are not having success?¨ he reminded me of something very important; success is not the numbers you report or the baptisms you have, it is how much you love our Savior and how hard you work to feed His sheep, and in the process of doing this our own conversion to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  this week i was also reminded of the true scope of Christ´s atonement.  He suffered for our sins, but also our pain, sicknesses, fears, frustrations, and every other negative thing we have felt. 

sorry i cant think of anything else this week worth writing other than i really felt like my spanish improved a lot, while i still need to learn more, i think i could get by just find with a latino comp that doesnt speak english... but we will have to see what happens at changes in a couple weeks haha. 

well i hope all is going well for all of you back home.

love

elder meyer

ps for those of you that are members do your missionaries a favor and give them a name of just one of your friends that isnt a member, i have learned the hard way how much more difficult it is to work without references this week haha

Letter#13 - Los Brilliantes

hola todos

well it has been another week here in guatemala, and yup i am sweating even as i write this email.  this week i saw the continuation of a miracle that started a month ago.  the first sunday in july and man came to church with his wife.  everyone was shocked because he had been very anti-church his whole life, even though his wife was an active member.  a few days later we started to visit this man and then on saturday i had the opportunity to baptize him!! i feel like i did nothing to help him but i am just so grateful for the opportunity to witness the miracle of the change in Erick's heart.  and this time i baptized him right the first time!!! attached is a picture of me, my comp, Erick, and his family at his baptizm.  also are three pictures of parts of my area, because mom has been wanting pics for so long and i finally got a chance to write at the same time as someone who had something that would let my memory card connect to the computer! 

beside the baptizm the only notable thing this week is that the other two elders in my house are gone.  they have been sent to work in an area that needs a lot of help with reactivation.  with them leaving the size of my area and the number of my investigators just doubled, meaning that i have a lot more work to do this week.  everything else in life is going along just fine without any complaints.

well i dont think i have anything else to say.  hope all is well at home.

love

elder meyer
 

Letter #12 - Las Brilliantes, Guatemala

hola fam and friends,

so this week i completed my first change in the field, meaning that i have been hear for almost 3 months, which is SUPER CRAZY!!! but anyway that also means that missionaries are on the move... i was assured by just about all the missionaries i know that me and segard wouldnt change, and then on tuesday segard was told he was having changes... so yeah elder segard is no longer my comp.  he is now in the mountains (lucky).  i was shocked when i found out that i would get a new comp, but i guess that is the mission for ya!! my new comp is named Elder Galvez.  he is from guatemala, in the capital.  he is a super hilarious guy and thankfully is completely fluent in english!!!!!!!!!! but yeah i am still here in Los Brillantes.  

this week has been a tough one. with changes and everything there was not much time to work near the beginning of the week with the need to say goodbye and then teach elder galvez the area, and then after that i got really sick.... i had ameobas.  for a day and a half all i did was lay in bed... it was REALLY BAD!!! but now i am better!!! 

we are still working hard and sweating every day!! the work in brillantes is not easy because there are already so many members, and everybody who is not a member is either not willing to listen or have been talking to missionaries forever and havent decided to do anything about what they are taught... this makes the work here quite tough but fortunately we are still being able to find people. 

this week with being sick and all i had a lot of time to study the Book of Mormon.  i read all about the stories of Alma, Ammon and Aaron. those guys are AMAZING!!!! but anyway it is so awesome how if you read their stories you can find patterns and attributes that i need to develop here.  one of the things that hit me the hardest was when Aaron talks with the Lamanite king.  the king has questions about what Ammon did and said during their unfriendly encounter previously.  when i read this i realize that if this was in a mission like we have today Aaron would get ¨credit¨ for the baptism and conversion even though the work of Ammon was essential to the kings conversion.  this really helped me because i was frustrated that i didnt feel like i was having much success but that reminded me that no effort i make is wasted.  as long as i do my part and share this gospel and my testimony of it with the people here i will be blessed and hopefully i will plant some seeds.

well that is all i got for this week.  i love everything about being here (execpt for the heat and the creatures living in our house haha (last night we found a HUGE SPIDER in the house))  hope all is well back home.  smile always and do great things today!!

love

elder meyer

Letter #11 - Las Brilliantes, Guatemala

hello again everyone.

sorry this week i am writing one day late.  here is why: on sunday after church we got a call from our zone leaders saying that i had to go to the office. so i did.  we got there and i was told that i would be returning to the capital on monday to finish up all the visa stuff.  well, sunday night i went out and worked with elder saunders (yes my ccm companion) and his comp.  then at night we had 10 elders in the zone leaders house there in las palmas because some of us were going to the capital. so the next morning we woke up at 3:30 and got on a bus by 5 for the 4 hour bus ride to guate (what they call the capital here).  we got there and then got in a line in the immigration office and we had our pictures taken.  then we returned to reu at 7. then by the time i ate and returned to brillantes the day was over, so i got permission to write today!! so yeah. 

this week i have seen many miracles in my life.  before this week i had been frustrated because i felt like i was working so hard and nothing was going great.  on tuesday we went to check up on a reference that we had received from the bishop and as we began to speak to him it was so apparent that he was so ready for baptism.  he works a very strange shift at work but he will be baptized on the 3rd of august.  while this was without a doubt the biggest miracle i have witnessed so far in my mission i cannot go a day without finding some sort of miracle in my life.

this last week i also got my wonderful birthday packages.  and THANK YOU ALL SOOOOOOOO MUCH!!!!!!!!! everything in them was wonderful especially the elephant tie, the whoopie pie cake mix, and my favorite thing: THE SIGNED JAVALE PICTURE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I HAVE NO IDEA HOW YOU GOT THAT BUT IT IS AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  

so thats it, im still alive, still working, still sweating, and still loving it.

hope all is well whereever you are too

love

elder meyer

Letter #10 - Las Brilliantes, Guatemala

dear all

first of all THANK YOU FOR ALL OF THE BIRTHDAY EMAILS- I HAD 44 EMAILS!!! HOLY CRAP!!! you are all the best friends and family ever! it was another great week here.  i dont have a lot of time because i took forever reading all of the emails but here is what happened this week.  we worked.   the end. 

haha but really we worked hard all day every day but saw close to zero success.  the worst was yesterday (my bday). we have a bunch of people we have been teaching and none of them went to church; most of them didnt even have a reason not to go..... so we are making some pretty serious changes here to try and find more receptive people.  then that night when we came back to the house we found it flooded........... so yeah it was a rough day but i got a bday cake. in guatemala the tradition is that the person with the birthday takes a bite of the cake before it is cut or served and then someone shoves their face into the cake. NO JOKE. so i was told i had to take a bite of the cake first and then i had a face full. hahahaha i love it. 

so yeah that was my week.  hard work. little progress but all is well.  i am excited to take a new approach this week and change everything up.  this week i also learned how awesome king benjamin in the book of Mormon is. chapters 2 to 5 of mosiah have a ridiculous amount of amazing counsel and oh my gosh i just love it. 

well i cant think of anything else for this week.  still sweating, working, and loving it.  spanish is geting a little better each and every day.

hope all is well

love

elder meyer

First Baptism!

Elder Meyer's first baptism!!