The light of the body is the eye

¡Hola todos!

We did a lot of really awesome stuff this week. We found a ton of new people to teach, got super wet, cut a lot of firewood, learned a new teaching technique, and my companion got a new toy dinosaur...(?)

We made a goal this week to find as many new investigators as possible. And we found more that ever before. We found more than two new people to teach almost every single day, through doing service, asking friends, and just talking to everybody. For example, one day we were walking down the street, trying to evade the rain that was about to come, when we saw a lady with a TON of firewood that she was taking into her house. We decided to help her. She said the usual "no no, you guys are gonna get dirty! I´m fine, honestly," but we just helped her anyway. And it´s a good thing we did, because the rain started coming down really hard while we were working. We finished it all a lot faster than she would´ve alone, and while we all got completely and utterly soaked, we saved them a ton of work. After finishing and while waiting for the rain to pass, we talked about how powerful God is that He can just send mountains and mountains of rain, and there´s literally nothing we can do to stop it...but at the same time, this all powerful being wants nothing less than the best for us. We had a really good conversation, and now they want us to come back so they can learn more. 

My companion went to another area for a day this week, and I was with a my friend Elder Loaisiga for a day. But when my companion came back, he had this huge dinosaur toy that´s like a foot tall! He said he traded it with someone for one of his ties...? I was really confused but it made me laugh a lot. 

We´re learning a really cool way of teaching more with the Spirit of God. Jesus said that (translated from Spanish because I don´t know it in English very well) "The light of the body is the eye, so if your eye is pure, your whole body will be full of light." It´s similar to the phrase "the eye is the window to the soul." So that means that if you have something good inside, it will show through your eyes. For the first part of my mission, I couldn´t speak Spanish confidently enough to hold eye contact with the people. But now that it´s a little more natural for me, I´m finding that making full, direct, and deliberate eye contact with someone allows them to feel that you really love them as a brother, and want the best for them. And when they realize that this love comes from God, they can feel the love that God has for them. It also makes them realize that the things that we´re saying are true, and when something is true, people can feel the peaceful and happy Spirit of God. We´re getting a lot better at asking really good questions while looking people in the eye. And we can tell that they can really feel it more too. 

We´re working hard here, and finding lots of little miracles everyday.

Love you guys!

-Elder Cloward

My comp is such a goof :)

Swimming down the street

¡Hola gente!

I couldn´t write until today this week, but it should go back to normal next week. This week...winter started. And here that means RAIN. Every single day pours rain really, really hard on us. The mornings start hot with clear skies, and then all of the sudden dark clouds come out of nowhere and start pouring! The streets become literal rivers, and sometimes we just have to walk through. We´ve gotten really wet, but it´s really fun and definitely worth it to be able to help the people. Last week we helped build a wall for some of the members of the church. This week we helped them to move, because they didn´t put walls on all sides, and so the house flooded anyway. It reminded me of helping out in Houston Texas after hurricane harvey struck. The water had gone up to the people´s waists. So we helped them to move out, even though it was still raining. They were all okay.

This week has been full of teaching my companion what it is to be a missionary. He´s learning how to get over the fear of talking to people in the street, and we´ve actually found a ton of new people to teach! Some of them are true miracles, and really excited to learn the gospel of Christ. My companion is super excited to be able to teach people too, and he´s actually really good at it. Now that I have a latino companion, I speak almost no English all day, which is crazy to think about. But it´s going great and it´s super fun. 

One day when we were eating lunch with some members of the church, we were given some chiltepe peppers. Chiltepes are VERY spicy, but my companion didn´t know yet. Ther´re really small (one is about half the size of a pea), so he wasn´t really worried and promptly put one in his mouth. I then got to watch him run around for like ten minutes breathing heavily and drinking water and talking without stopping about the flames in his mouth. It was really funny, and I ended up eating one too just to make him feel better. But I was still laughing so hard that I hardly noticed mine. 

We went to teach some people this week that haven´t come to church in a long time. They live with a guy who isn´t a member of the church, and we´re starting to become really good friends with him. He gave us each a coconut yesterday from his tree so we could drink the milk (something that´s really common here), and we started talking about the scriptures. It was a really good conversation, and the investigator was really interested, asking lots of really good questions. All of a sudden, out of nowhere this really old, wise member of the church showed up and sat down next to us. He started explaining the Book of Mormon, and how nobody can read it without knowing it´s true. The Bible talks about it multiple times, and the only thing that it does is testify of Christ. We started teaching about the truths of the book, and my companion helped us teach too. And then the old guy said he had to go and just disappeared. Reminded me of Master Yoda. It was a really cool lesson. 

There was another time this week where we passed a bunch of kids playing soccer in the street. We made teams and told them we´d buy them all water if they beat us. It was a really fun game, and they ended up winning. So then we sat down with all of them and read the scriptures with them and taught them about how they need to serve their families and be kind to others. It was so great. On the mission, we just want to be more like Jesus. And while we may never get there, we´re getting better everyday.

I have another son

¡Hola todos!

This week was crazy! We ran around meeting and helping tons of people. We met some really, really cool people to teach, and we had five people come to church this week for the first time. We had to wait a while for a family that we met, but we brought them and they were really happy. I´m really excited. 

Me, Elder Lopez (one of my zone leaders), and Elder McArthur. Before my haircut

Quick story from this week. There was this one moment where we were in the house getting ready, and I was waiting for Elder Myler to finish preparing. I put my head on the desk and closed my eyes for a few seconds. And then I hear "now´s my chance!" And then a sudden buzzing sound right above my head. I looked up and saw him with an electric razor, right about so shave my hair off! And when he saw that I saw, he instantly closed it up and pretended he wasn´t doing anything. He´s one of the funniest people I´ve ever met. 

Me and Elder Torres! We both got haircuts today.

This week, we had changes. Elder Myler was sent to Villa Nueva, to be with Elder Eborn. I´m gonna miss him a ton, because we got really close and learned sooo much together.  But I´m really happy for him, because Elder Eborn was my companion for about 10 weeks, and I love him a lot. So I´m staying here in El Palmar in the coast for another change, but...this time I have a companion who is BRAND NEW to the mission. Today is literally his second day in the mission field. Crazy! His name is Elder Torres, and he´s from Ecuador. He´s actually the greatest guy ever. He´s super goofy, but also super pure and good. I can tell he really wants to learn and serve everyone, which is the real purpose of the mission. It´s really funny how different his Spanish is though. He keeps saying words and making hand symbols that are normal and fine in his country, but happen to be really, really bad here. He doesn´t even know until he sees the shock in my eyes from the huge swear words he´s accidentally saying. It´s really funny how different the culture is. But he´s going to learn quick. I´m super excited to be with him. 

I´m also district leader now, which means that I get to serve over the missionaries around our area. It´s super exciting to be able to help them with everything and make them feel awesome. The truth is that the mission is all about learning to show the love of God to everyone around you. And that´s something that I really love doing. Making people feel like they´re important, that they´re powerful, and that they can do the things that they set their minds to. It feels really great to help other people to see their worth. The way they react is really the essence of making their eyes shine, because you can really see the happiness in their countenance. It´s the greatest thing.

Love you guys!

-Elder Cloward

Quicky

Hey! 

Don´t have almost any time this week. We had some great experiences with service and teaching lots of people this week. The clouds are getting really, really dark without raining, because WINTER IS COMING. "Winter" here is basically just rain and rain and rain. So much that it floods if you don´t have a wall around the house. So my comp and I helped some members build a wall. And we worked so hard we broke the pickaxe of the members. It was really funny. 

Today we went bowling in the capital, and then we got to go eat lunch with the President of the mission. That was super cool, and now we´re here serving in Villa Hermosa for the rest of the day so that we don´t have to go three hours back to the coast again before the multi-zone conference tomorrow. 

Love you guys!

-Elder Cloward

La Semana Santa

¡Hola todos!

This week was the Semana Santa, or "holy week." Here they don´t celebrate Easter as one day, but they celebrate the whole week leading up to it as well. Each day is a different part or the last week that Jesus lived on the earth, with Friday as the day that He was crucified, and Sunday as the day that He was resurrected. And so the week is full of really cool traditions (mostly Catholic) to celebrate, each one with symbols of Jesus. 

One of the traditions that they do here is making alfombras, or carpets. They use lots of different types of dyed saw dust to make these really beautiful intricately designed "carpets" on the road. Then, a procession of people bearing a float will come and walk on all of the alfombras as they pass through the city. They were really cool to see, and while we aren´t Catholic, we still really appreciate the things that other churches do to celebrate the life of Christ. 

We also got to go play soccer as a zone this morning, and my companion and I are really tired from that. Latinos are really, really good. We found this really cool field in the middle of a bunch of really huge green trees, and played for hours. 

This week we accomplished all of our contacting goals and met more people than we ever have before, even though my companion was still getting a little bit better from his sickness. So we celebrated by drinking the last bags of water in the house...which sounds kind of sad. But we were super happy though :). 

We are already almost done with this change. And I have a feeling I might be leaving this time. I´ve been here in El Palmar for over 8 weeks already, which is really crazy to me. But we´ll just have to wait and see. And we´re going to be working harder than ever to help all of these people to come to church and find true happiness in their lives. It´s definitely an adventure, and we´ll just have to see what happens. 

Love you guys!

-Elder Cloward

My family was doing this challenge to ballance 5 oranges on top of eachother without them falling. So I found a supermarket and bought some. Success!

Also, there are lots of intresting Guatemalan fruits and vegetables that don´t exist anywhere else I´ve seen. Some of them are super tasty.

"Like a piece of horse meat burning on someone´s porch"

¡Buenas!

So this week was kind of anti climactic. I got all better and now I can hear fine in both ears. And we finally got to go out and start actually working. But then my companion got sick again. He has a really bad fever, and he actually started hallucinating in the street one day...so we have been stuck in the house for the last couple days. My companion is really, really hardworking, and a lot of the time he doesn´t mention how bad he actually feels until there´s no avoiding it. One day he said he actually felt good enough to leave, and so I called the laundry lady to tell her we´d stop by with the clothes in a few minutes. And then I heard my companion say he felt like "a pile of horse meat burning on someone´s porch." And I looked back and he was asleep on the floor, in the exact place he found me when I was sick. And he stayed there for the next five hours without waking up. I read a lot of things and learned a ton, and got some sleep, and solved the Rubik´s Cube around 500 times, and he was still asleep. He did wake up eventually, and he was really confused. Yesterday we were in the house too, and I actually taught him how to solve the Rubik´s Cube because there was so much extra time. 

He stayed here for a very long time 

Before he was sick, we got to go on divisions, which means that we switched companions for a day. I went to Rio Santiago with one of the zone leaders, and my companion stayed in El Palmar with the other. Also, one of the mission president´s assistants was with us in Rio Santiago too for that day. His name is Elder Tadje, and he´s a very white, very tall missionary from Utah. It was really cool to see how he worked. He really changed my perspective of some of the normal, everyday things we do on the mission. He had fun with EVERYTHING. No matter what, he was joking and making people laugh. But he was always doing things right and well, and he wasn´t ever lazy or slow with anything. At one point, we came to talk to a lady who was wearing corte and was clearly from the mountains, which isn´t uncommon to see here. She said she was from Solola, and all of a sudden Elder Tadje, who had been up there for a year of his mission, started speaking to her in this OTHER language. She brightened up and started speaking back, and they had an entire conversation together. I think he introduced us too, but we were totally lost. The truth is, Guatemala has around 23 languages that are spoken by people throughout the country. And the ones that aren´t Spanish don´t sound anything like Spanish, because they come from Mayan influence, not from Spain. He was speaking Cakchiquel with her, but I´ve also heard of Quekchi, Quiche, Pokomon, and a couple others. The culture of this country is really cool, and it makes me super excited to learn even more as I get to travel to other parts throughout my mission. 

Speaking to people in their native language always gets to their heart, and that´s why I´m here speaking Spanish every day. The bible says that the gospel will reach every person in their own town and tongue, and I am here to do just that. It´s fantastic, and I´m excited to be able to do more of that...once my companion gets better.

Love you guys!

-Elder Cloward

Who needs hearing anyway?

¡Buenos días todos!

This week was super strange, but made us laugh a lot. We both finally got better from being sick. And then the next day I woke up in the middle of the night with an ear infection. I ran around trying all kinds of things, but nothing really fixed it, and my companion found me the next day sleeping on the floor in a different room. He said he really freaked out. It was all good though, because the next day I got some actual medicine which helped it to feel a bit better. I still can´t really hear out of my right ear, but it´s all good. My companion also got sick again, and he´s been coughing a bunch. We weren´t very fortunate getting sick again, and some of the week we felt like we were running on fumes the whole day. But, we´re getting a lot better and we´re happy to not be quite as bad anymore. 

Jeremy

We did help a lot of people too this week. We did a lot more work building the well, and I found myself digging in a hole that went over my head, which was actually really hard. But it was really fun to do with everyone. We did have to do something sad though. When we teach people, we invite them to act. To change and to do things to bring them closer to God. But when they don´t follow the invitations, we can´t really help them very much. It´s like when a kindergarten teacher explains how to read, but the student doesn´t want to. The teacher is limited to teaching and inviting, but the real learning is up to the student. And for us, when the people don´t decide to do things, we can´t keep visiting them. We had to do that with a family this week, and it was really hard to do. We´ve been visiting them since I got to this area, and they always listen and love having us there, but they just haven´t really progressed and chosen to follow the things we teach. So we had to tell them that we couldn´t keep visiting them. It was kind of sad, but I know that as we spend our time with people who do want to change their lives, we will bring a lot more happiness to the people in this country. The mission can be hard, but the things I´m learning are incredible. Even though there are sad things that happen, being here is worth every minute.

The conference invitations we made.
Lots of people came to watch because of these!

This week we got to watch the general conference! We were super excited, and we enjoyed it a ton. I´ve watched it twice a year my entire life, but I´ve never been able to focus this well and learn quite so much from the things that the prophet and apostles have said. It was really fantastic, and it really helped me to feel that God is really watching over us and guiding us through everything we do. One of the things that stood out to me most is that we need to focus on the simple things that will help us to be happy. Prayer, the scriptures, going to church, and serving people can make a huge difference in our lives. Also, Christ brings peace. He suffered everything we did, and so He knows how to help us to feel better if we ask Him for help. And when we ask Him to help us in our times of stress and sadness, He helps us immediately. He gives us peace, and helps us to feel loved. And sometimes the full blessings He has for us take longer, but there are always blessings He gives us instantly. I know that God loves us, and that He will always help us if we look to Him.

Love you guys!

-Elder Cloward

Oh yeah, also today marks 6 months of being in Guatemala! I can´t believe I´m already a FOURTH of the way done with my entire mission! I literally feel like I just got here still, and I like it that way. This is my life right now, and I´m gonna try and not think about how fast the time is going by.

Our little house