Bushwhacking

Hi everyone!

We`ve been all over the place. Last Thursday we went to the capital to learn how to be better Zone Leaders, which was super awesome. We left feeling really inspired and ready to make the world a better place. Then on Saturday we went to Sipacate to help out a little bit over there. The church building over there by the beach is really, really small. But the terrain around is huge! And it`s absolutely full of a kind of tropical jungle. So we brought a bunch of machetes and went to help chop down all of the brush. We spent the morning cutting down everything and cleaning up. We also cut open some of the coconuts that fell from the palm trees to drink the milk. Pretty darn tasty. Afterward we cooked lunch, which was tomatoes, green onions, and currasco with beans and tortillas. Even tastier. But the people were really happy that we helped to much. 

before

after

Lunch

We are teaching some really great people right now. Our friend Ronny says that he really wants to change his life, and he wants to get baptized as soon as possible. Right now he`s preparing for that. Our other friend Mishell came to church with us for the first time last Sunday, and liked it a lot. She prayed to ask God what he wanted her to do, and she had a dream where she was in the church, and she heard a voice that told her that that`s where she needed to be. She`s really excited to keep going and learning about Jesus. Our other friend Clemente tried to go to the US illegally a few years ago, but on the journey through Mexico he met some really interesting people that sort of just showed up and told him he needed to go back to Guatemala. So he knew that God wanted him here for a reason. And he feels like the reason is meeting us and going to church. He went last week for the first time too, and he loved it a ton. He also loves the Book of Mormon, and loves that it helps us in the same way as the bible to understand what God wants for us. Miracles happen, huh?

I remember writing a few weeks ago that we had three people in the zone that were on their last week in the mission. Now we have three people in their first week in the mission. They are all doing great learning Spanish, although it`s hard. It`s really fun to look back and see myself in them, and realize that it feels really daunting in the beginning, but gets manageable as you work to learn as much as you can. Life is like that in a lot of ways, and we just have to push through the hard things to receive the blessings and happiness that come after. But the most important part is helping other people, because if everyone is only helping themself, everyone only gets help from one person, and that`s not very fun. Life is good, and I still have a ton to learn. But I`m getting there!

¡Les amo un montòn!

-Elder Cloward

Our Zone