Letter #95 - "...an effectual door shall be opened unto you!" Palo Gordo, Guatemala

hello again

so it was a pretty good week.  we really started to look for people who the Lord has prepared for us, and as we looked we found them.  monday we were contacting by our house and no one wanted to talk to us but two or three of the people that we talked to told us we should try to visit a certain house, so we did. when we did we found a lady named brenda who is so cool.  she had a lot of questions so we helped her get the answers, she is reading the book of mormon and she came to church this week!! so that was really cool.  besides that we just always tried to talk to everyone and invite everyone and it is really helping.  we are also preparing for the general conference and we are hoping to bring a lot of people to conference so that they can hear the prophet and feel the spirit.  we are going to share this scripture with everyone we talk to (2 chronicles 20:20)

Believe in the Lord your God, so shall ye be established; believe his prophets, so shall ye propser.

besides that i would just like to share something that i learned this week.  i was thinking about what i could share to motivate the zone because we had a bunch of trials this week as a zone. that plus the attitude of most in the mission is that it is impossible to baptize in the mountains. as i was looking for what to share i found these scriptures.

 

D&C 112:19

Wherefore, whithersoever they shall send you, go ye, and I will be with you; and in whatsoever place ye shall proclaim my name an effectual door shall be opened unto you, that they may receive my word.
 

D&C 118:3

Let the residue continue to preach from that hour, and if they will do this in all lowliness of heart, in meekness and humility, and long-suffering, I the Lord, give unto them a promise that I will provide for their families; and an effectual door shall be opened for them, from henceforth.

 

1 Corithians 16:9

For a great door and effectual is opened unto me, and there are many adversaries.

 

i love how God promises us an effectual door that He will open for us so that we can do His work.  if we are with God we cannot fail.  i hope we use the effectual door of general conference to listen to God as He talks through His prophets and that we use this door to help people who arent members of the church to listen to the prophet and feel the spirit

 

 

answers to moms questions:

 

changes will be this week and i will be leaving. the last i have heard is that i will be going to the office to be with the assistants, (not sure if i will be an assist to Pres. or if i will just work with them until the normal changes).  ereiser has become impossible to find.  (FYI Ereiser is a young man Charlie and his companion found a couple months ago who was making great progress but was always afraid to get baptized.  He finally did commit, then cancelled and they have not heard from him since.  Charlie is super sad about it.)  sadly i wont be here when he gets baptized, but hopefully in a couple months the missionaries will teach him again and this time he will accept baptism and really do it! its really sad, but we have done all we can. the zone finished the month with 6 baptisms which for 10 missionaries in the mountains is very good.  and april will be even better for the zone!! the best service of the week was we helped build a house. there is a member who is having a house built and she asked us to help so all morning long we were mixing concrete and moving cinderblocks,  it reminded me of belize :) iim not sure what the funniest thing of the week was, im sorry im forgetting everything.  

well it sounds like the tourney in vegas was tough for sam and john but it was at least an excuse to travel :) well i hope everything is going well

i hope you have a great week

love

elder meyer

GO HEELS GO AMERICA

GO ALL TEAMS NOT NAMED KENTUCKY 

 

 

 

Letter #94 - "Doing the right thing always takes courage!" - Palo Gordo, Guatemala

well hello there its been a long week. lots of divions lots of baptismal interviews, so if all goes well soon there will be a lot of baptisms.  as far as specific things that happened, it was a fun but hectic week.  because that this is going to be a short email....

i just want to share something that i learned this week with all of you. i love the story of Abinadi (in mosiah 11-16) i love the courage that he had to not just teach, but after being kicked out that he had the courage to go back and do it again.  after all of that i love how alma had the courage to then stand up for abinadi to try and protect him. and it was king noahs lack of courage that was the reason that he had abinadi killed.  doing the right thing always requires courage!!  thanks to the courage of abinadi and alma we have the BOM because without them the story would be so different.

For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.
2 TImothy 1:7

 

answers to moms questions:

 

well ereiser still hasnt gotten baptized... im not really sure what is going on... it is driving me crazy. he knows he needs to do it and he says that every time we ask him if he commit. he wants to say yes but then he gets scared and doesnt do it,... im kinda lost for ideas, we have done like everything i can think of.... but i guess we will just keep working with him... things are going good with Contreras; we are doing a bunch of divisions to help out the whole zone and that has been good but exhausting.  im sorry i dont have any pics of the suit, im thinking im just not going to let you see it until i show up at home in it haha!  the house pic i forgot but i will send a funny random pic.  the best food of the week was this really good grilled steak type things that i ate on divisions.  the best thing that i have learned from president is that excellence is not an action but a habit.  what i love most about guatemala are the people.  still not sure when they are going to combine zones, but it is driving me crazy - i just want it to happen already so that i can go to my last area and get to work!  

 

that's sweet that the ward is going to go to martins cove again!! i love that trip - if i could go i totally would haha.  

i love that quote from pres uchtdorf. i feel like that's exactly what i need to do...have more patience.   I have been kinda frustrated because we havent had a baptism in a really long time, and ive been super frustrated but i guess i just need to be more paient and just keep working and have faith.

 

well i think that is it for this week, i hope you have a great week

have a great week and enjoy march madness

love

elder meyer

GO HEELS GO AMERICA

 

Sweet very large baptism dress we found in a closet at the church!!

 

Letter #93 - "we had 16 investigators in church!" - Palo Gordo, Guatemala

Tuesday night, 10:17 -

 

Hello!  yeah i know, this is a crazy time to write, but we just got back from reu (just had a 2 day conference with pres.) and we found this internet café open so we decided to write right now.  we were going to do it tomorrow but this gives us the opportunity to work all day tomorrow.  so changes were last week and hutch is gone.  I am really missing him!  im still in  palo gordo, but now i am with elder Contreras. he is from honduras, and he came into the mish with me - we were in the ccm together and he was one of the few latinos that i tried to speak with in the ccm so that is kinda cool.  he is a good guy, it will just be an adjustment cuz I was so used to hutch! im trying to adjust - im sure things will get better.... yeah we are still living with mendez and guitierrez. im way happy to still have them.  im not quite sure how i feel about staying in palo gordo; president announced that he is going to combine our zone with another because they are both really small for zones (they each have 10 missioneries, and sometimes zones have like 26) but yeah, so for sure im not gonna finish my mish here, so i would just like to know where im gonna go to end and go there so that I can go work hard there, it makes it really hard to focus here sometimes.

 we went to the gym on monday and we are going to go tomorrow - its gonna be hard to keep going but i am going to do it!! the best miracle of the week is that we had 16 investigators in church as a zone!! and we are going to have 6 baptisms in the zone this week!! yeah, my new suit is sweet, but im sorry this writing wasnt planned so there are no pics, next week i promise. the best thing i learned from an investigator this week is how to trust in God. we are teaching a lady named Irma who woke up one morning and couldnt see anymore, she just went completely blind, but she trusts God and is just awesome.  ereiser accepted baptism for this saturday!! please pray fror him so that he will do it!! we have a couple other people that we are working with but we really need to start finding more positive people

yeah we are still with mendez and guitierrez. im way happy to still have them.  im not quite sure how i feel about staying in palo gordo, president announced that he is going to combine our zone with another because they are both really small for zones (they each have 10 missioneries, and sometimes zones have like 26) but yeah, so for sure im not gonna finish my mish here, so i would just like to know where im gonna go to end and go there so that I can go work hard there, it makes it really hard to focus here sometimes.

well, its late and I need my beauty rest!

have a great week,
love,


elder meyer

GO HEELS  GO AMERICA
 

Letter #92 - "God works in His way and in His time...." Palo Gordo, Guatemala

well hello there

so it was another week here in palo gordo, and sadly it was my last week with elder hutchinson.  he leaves to go home on wednesday so i will have a new comp, but no idea who it will be.... this week we worked like crazy so that ereser would get baptized before hutch went home.  we had like 3 sweet lessons with him and he was so close, but sadly it didnt happen..... it was really sad especially for hutch, but we know that soon he will be baptized.  it was a good reminder to me that God works in His way and in His time, and that it doesnt really matter how many people Hutch and i baptize. all that matters is that they get baptized so that they can be saved.  so yeah it was a good lesson to remember but at the same time a hard lesson to learn.  going into sunday i was pretty bummed, then all of the people that we had committed to come to chruch didnt show, so i was super bummed.  then i got texts from the rest of the zone and as a zone of 12 missionaries we brought 17 people to church!! it was a huge miracle!! in all of my time in palo gordo the most that the zone had every brought was 10, so 17 was a HUGE improvement.  i realized that this was the miracle for working so hard to get ereiser baptized; although the result we were hoping for didnt happen, God blessed us for our hard work.  

it was exactly what i learned this week.  i found the story in Mosiah 8:

 8 And they were lost in the wilderness for the space ofmany days, yet they were diligent, and found not the land of Zarahemla but returned to this land, having traveled in a land among many waters, having discovered a land which was covered with bones of men, and of beasts, and was also covered with ruins of buildings of every kind, having discovered a land which had been peopled with a people who were as numerous as the hosts of Israel.

 9 And for a testimony that the things that they had said are true they have brought twenty-four plates which are filled with engravings, and they are of pure gold.

king limhi had sent them to find zarahelma, and they couldnt but they were DILIGENT, and they did find the 24 plates that became the Book of Ether.  they probably thought they were a failure, but without them we would not have Ether.  their diligence over 2000 years ago has blessed us with 15 more chapters of the Book of Mormon, and they are amazing chapters. it was the same with us - in spite of our diligence with ereiser, he didnt get baptized but there were many blessings for other people because of our diligence.  

 

answers to moms questions:

 

ereiser is SO CLOSE, he is ready but is scared. his brother who has really been helping him is going to work in canada for 6 months in less than a month so ereiser is scared about what is going to happen when his brother leaves.  arnoldo is still cool; we are just trying to figure out what we need to do to get him to church. erlin came to church, this is the weirdest thing ever.  when ever we go visit him he seems super cool and so close to baptism, but then doesnt come to church for like 2 weeks after we visit him.  if we dont pass by, he goes to church and seems really happy there but still hasnt been baptized..... irma is super cool but she had to go to the captial to take some health tests (she is like 40 and heathly but just out of nowhere lost her vision, now she is completely blind, and doctors have no idea why, she reminds me a little bit of Job), because of that she didnt come to church , but is still super cool.. besides that we have to start look for some new people to teach.

hutch leaves on wednesday, he is excited but sad to leave also. im really sad, he has been my best comp, we have had so much fun together and i have learned a lot from him.  he is going to work in utah and is trying to get into byu so hopefully i can see him there. i have no idea what will happen, i hope i can stay in palo gordo, but i think there is a 50-50 chance that i leave. i have some ideas of people who could be my comp ( as a zl there are a lot less options of comps, so i know basically anyone who could be my comp) im excited for a change but nervous at the same time.  the best thing i learned from pres was this ¨excellence is not an action, it is a habit¨ - love that!  the suit is sweet, im sorry i dont have any pics in the suit... the best meal of the week were dobladas (potatoes and chicken folded inside tortillas and fried.)  at the restaurant we eat fried chick, carne asada (a steak cut really thin and grilled) or chuleta (pork chop that is breaded).  there is a lady named leti who is super cool who does our laundry we pay here 125 quetzales per month each (like 20 dollars)  our branch pres. is super cool, he is named Roel.  he has been a member his whole life but was inactive for a long time.  he drank a lot but then 4 years ago he came back to church and then less than a year after reactivating became pres.  i havent got the package from dori yet but i have to go to the office this week, so hopefully it will be there.  that is crazy that the homecoming talk date is set, any idea what my topic will be???

well i think that is it, i hope you have a great week

love

elder meyer

GO HEELS GO AMERICA

pics 

-  us riding up to Ixtagel (a huge mountain that is part of our area)

-  us with an amazing family from Ixtagel,  they have been members of the church for 10 years and have to walk for an hour and a half to get to church, they are always the first ones to show up

-  view from Ixtagel

-  elders from the zone checking out a local market

 

 

 

 

Letter #91 - "2 showers and 2 toilets!!" - Palo Gordo, Guatemala

hello

so yes i know i am writing in the morning and that is because we have to go down to reu for a meeting with president today.   this was a good week. we worked hard and started trying to find new people because all of those people that we were teaching arent progressing.  we started working more with the members to be able to find more positive people, and little by little it is working!! the coolest thing is that we found this family this week that is super cool, that i am super stoked to work with.  ereiser came to church again and has totally ready to get baptized just that he doesnt feel ready, so we are going to work very hard so that he can get baptized this week before hutch goes home.

this week i also had to talk in sacrament meeting - they asked me to talk about tithing with was very weird because we are always asked to talk about the missionary work.  i found a scripture in Psalms that i loved.  the english translation isnt as good as the Spanish, but it says that we should prove God to see that He is good.  i loved that because it is so true  - for tithing or whatever commandment.  so yeah that was cool. 

 

answers to moms questions:

 

yes i am starting to feel better - i am taking some medicine that has been helping me a little and i am using a bunch of vitamins - hahaha. the weather is the same but i am finally getting used to the cold.  yes i have talked to chase every week and he is doing well and really excited to go to byu.  ereiser is so close to baptism.  he was the only investigator who came to church.  bummer!  we are teaching this person named arnoldo who is so cool.  we are still trying to get sulma to come to church besides that we basically dropped everyone else.  the zone is doing alright,  i feel like there are 2 or 3 companionships that are doing really well and the other ones are struggling a little.  ..... the new house is like 3 blocks from our other house but is 3 times bigger and we pay the same. the best thing is that it has water!!  it is still the 4 of us.  we dont have a mircowave of an oven but we do have a 2 showers and 2 toliets.  the suit is finally done, i am wearing it today to go with pres. 

 

well i think that is about it. i hope you have a great week

love

elder meyer

GO HEELS GO AMERICA

Letter #90 - "We had a miracle baptism!" - Palo Gordo, Guatemala

well hello

it was another week it and to be honest it was pretty uneventful.  going into this week we knew that we had a lot of people that could progress but we weren't really sure what was holding them back.  we worked hard this week but saw little success... one thing that we did that worked very well was that we tried hard to give service every day, and we succeeded .  we chopped wood, de-kerneled a LOT of corn, and even flattened a big piece of land so that they could build a house on top of it.  even though we have been kind of stressed out this week we realized that when we were giving service we were able to forget about ourselves and our worries when we just focused on serving others.  well yeah besides that the only note worthy things are that 1. ereiser came to church again and he really liked it; we are hoping that he can get baptized this week, and 2. that we changed houses. for a few weeks we had been having problems with water in our house and thing were getting pretty bad (went 2 straight weeks without water, we had to go to the house of other missionaries to shower) so this morning we moved to a way nicer and way bigger house, so that was pretty exciting.

as far as what i learned this week, i really liked something that i read in Jarom (i feel like often we over look Enos, Jarom, Omni, and Words of Mormon because they are each only one chapter long, but they are all so good!!).  the scripture that i liked said this

 11 Wherefore, the prophets, and the priests, and the teachers, did labor diligently, exhorting with all long-suffering the people to diligence; teaching the law of Moses, and the intent for which it was given; persuading them to look forward unto the Messiah, and believe in him to come as though he already was. And after this manner did they teach them.

 12 And it came to pass that by so doing they kept them from being destroyed upon the face of the land; for they did prick their hearts with the word, continually stirring them up unto repentance.

 

it really reminded me as a missionary that i have to work diligently so that i can help this people prevent their own spiritual destruction.   i thought that was way cool!!

 

answers to mom's questions:

 

Update on investigators:  ereiser came to church again, hopefully he will be baptized this week or next.  erlin is so confusing, we had a sweet lesson with him this week, where he almost comitted to get baptized and then he didnt come to church.  we are working with a guy named avelino who wants to change but usually drinks saturday which makes it really hard to get him to come to church.... we are still trying to teach sulma and also a girl named edith but things have just been kinda frustrating;  they seem so positive but then we it comes to acting, they put excuses.... irma who came to church last week is still going well but she couldnt make it this week. hutch leaves on the 4 of march to go home.  yes i will be very sad to see him go home.... yes i have enough warm clothes.   the zone is doing alright, we had interviews with pres. this week and he told us about a few problems in the zone that we didnt know about, but then last night we just talked for no joke like 2 or 3 hours about what we are going to do to help the zone out. yes we are safe dont worry about it.  i dont feel sick very often, but right now i have a bad cough and feel very congested.... no it isnt that often that there are safety problems here, there are a few dangerous area in the mish, but not many.  yes there are some very dangerous spots in guatemala but they arent here in the mish.  i stopped by with the suit guy this morning.  the jacket is almost done, we fitted the vest today and hopefully by wednesday it should be done.

 

i would like to thank you for fasting, it helped!!  we had a miracle baptism in the zone because of it!! it was the guy whose son got kidnapped, but he got married and baptized this week!!

well i think that is about it. 

i hope you have a great week

love

elder meyer

GO HEELS GO AMERICA

 

 

Cake bake-off with some investigators!

Letter #89 "...do the small and simple things..." - Palo Gordo, Guatemala

well it was another week here in fat stick (palo gordo) and it was kind of a tough week.  we had some good things that we were hoping would happen in the zone but because of some problems it did not go as planned..... but I guess even with that it was a pretty good week. it was my first week in more that a month when i had a full week to work, no meetings in reu, no long buses going down to the heat, just work.  so yeah that was great!!  besides that we worked really hard to try and find new people to teach and bring to church. after having so many problems finding and teaching a few of our old investigators we had to look for other people to teach.  things turned out pretty well because we were able to find some really cool poeple including a lady named irma who we found on saturday and she came to church with us on sunday so yeah that was great!!

this week we also tried really hard to focus on planning better. it has been a struggle for us because we come home tired and hungry and then we have to call the zone so that we can see how their days were, so it doesnt really give us that much time to plan but we focused on doing it and things got so much better. we had way more things to do and we were able to work way more effectively.  it is such a testimony to what it says in Alma 36:

 

 

6 Now ye may suppose that this is foolishness in me; but behold I say unto you, that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass; and small means in many instances doth confound the wise.

 7 And the Lord God doth work by means to bring about his great and eternal purposes; and by very small means the Lord doth confound the wise and bringeth about the salvation of many souls.

if we do the small and simple things that we should, the Lord blesses us.

one thing that i learned this week was  from a video we watched in church on sunday.  the branch president showed a video from the area presidency that was talking about how to help people come to church or how to help them come back.  in the video Elder Ochoa said that the purspose of a visit is not to just visit someone, but it is to bless them.  i loved that it helped me remember that what i need to do is bless so many other lives while im still here in guatemala.

answers to moms questions:

 

me and hutch are getting along really well.  we live with elder mendez and guitierrez.  mendez is from honduras and has 8 ish months in the mission (he came into the mission with godinez), guitierrez has like a month in the mish now and is from california but his parents are from mexico so he already speaks really good spanish.  yeah we get along really well and have a lot of fun.  the branch president and his counselors and super cool,  i really liked the mission leader but he just got a job in xela which is like 2 ish hours away and so apparently he is going to live there and now we need a mission leader.. every week i play the piano in church.  besides that i dont really have any other callings, i was going to teach sunday school this week because our mission leader gave those classes but they had some one else do it for this week.  the funniest event of the week, well im not sure to be honest. with hutch we are just about laughing constantly, haha but yeah you know we are still boys and at that very immature age, so you can imagine some of the stuff that goes on - hahahaha.  the best book besides the scriptures that i have ready is The Peter Potential. i know it was way short but it was so powerful.  the one thing i wish i would have done before the mission would have been share the gospel with my friends.  there were so many people (christina, quinn, trevor, mason, and others) that i should have invited to church and helped them see and learn more about the truth.  this week i didnt feel that cold except for one day when it poured rain (which is really weird because usually it doesnt rain until may...).  yes we are still working out, hutch wakes me up everyday at 5:30. i usually am not to happy to be up (you remember from the seminary days) but i go, and then afterwords im happy that i went. as far as the suit goes, it should be done this week. i havent seen it yet, but who knows if it will actually be done this week - guatemalans have the reputaion of procrastinating and not getting anything done by deadlines, so we'll see what happens haha!!

its sounds like the normal craziness back home and that makes me happy. i would be worried if things got normal and boring haha!

 

 

so yeah i think that is about it for this week, i hope you all have a great week.  on a seperate note, im way sad that Dean Smith died; he will always be the best basketball coach ever

love

elder meyer

GO HEELS GO AMERICA

ps the fotos are from some waterfalls that we went to today