Adentures in El Frutal

Dear Family,

This week has been great well you all know I’m in a new zone and a new area and the first day we just wandered around because we had and knew nobody ha-ha but we found all the people we needed and you know one of them is this man that we found named Erik that had been listening to the missionaries for more then 15 years!!!! Well we had a miracle we baptized him!! So that was a great miracle people are prepared where ever you go and it doesn’t matter how much time you have in the area or mission he will guide you to them you just have to have the courage to look listen and respond when you he indicates you. But here in the zone we are doing well we are baptizing here more than normally has happened and the missionaries are working hard this change is going by fast though we are already in the middle of it now. But yeah it’s been a crazy change we have to wards we have to go to which just makes things more complicated because now you have two of everything two bishops two ward mission liters etc. But it also helps you to be more organized that’s for sure. The zone as in missionaries wise is smaller which is nice especially from leaving the biggest zone of them all ha-ha but the areas are father apart ha-ha so we travel for some time now.

tomorrow we will be having a meeting of all the zones in the city because one the seventy Elder Alonso will be coming to visit us and guess who got called to give a talk on obedience with exactness and diligence ha-ha it’s going to be fun talking in front of other missionaries and the president don’t make me that nervous it’s in front of a seventy that gets me going a little bit but I’m not too worried about it should be good.
but everything is good down here we are starting to just see the miracles and find people that are ready if somebody had to ask me what is my secret and how do I do it I would just respond as this Gordon B Hinckley said once said kneel and pray later get up and do the will of God. Something I like about prayer is why we do it in the bible dictionary it says the purpose of prayer is an act in which the will of the father and the will of the son or daughter come together in correspondence one to the other. so if I ask give me people to contact then I need to get out there and the first person I see I’m going to contact because he put them there but if I don’t do it I just prayed for nothing and I lose the Spirit and the trust that he has in me until I work and regain the Spirit and trust again.

But sorry I didn’t download photos my camera died but I love you all see you next week with the next report.

Elder Toma 

Guatemala Ciudad Central Mission 

El Frutal!

Dear Family, 

So you all know that I have had changes well yeah I had to say goodbye to Amatitlan and say hello to El Frutal!! so I am now the new zone leader in the zone el Frutal its pretty close to villa nueva and villa Hermosa which I both I have been in it is in the city ha-ha I think more than half of my mission has been in the capital now. But it is great my companion is from Salvador I think my first from there his name is elder Henriquez he is a good guy has a little bit more time then my last companion. But there are a couple of catches with all of this one is that me and my companion are opening the area so we have no idea where we are and we don’t know anybody in the zone or in the 2 wards we have to assist or the members our first day we just kind of winged it ha-ha you can see how my President likes to mess with me. Also my companion is a new zone leader so I am training him at the same time and also this stake has only been a stake for less than 2 years so it’s super young still. Ha-ha so we got a lot to do here but I have also seen the hand of the lord in all of this and I never doubt that where you go is a mistake. The moment me and my companion have gotten here we have seen nothing but miracles the very first day the lord just guided us and we found so many people that the last elders were teaching by sheer coincidence it got to the point we found one of our missionary leaders by accident and he showed more of the area and the investigators. We also have seen a lot of miracles in the zone we have a lot of fechas for these weeks which is not normal here at all we are going to be baptizing this week alone more than they have baptized in a change so I am just happy right now ha-ha but please pray for us that these people can be baptized that we can baptize these all the people this week,  

 Me and my companion also have been seeing some miracles we are going to be baptizing this week whooo!!! It is a pure miracle of a man named Erik he is married to a member and has a step son that is serving a mission but he has listened and gone to church for a long time for 15 years!! and we didn’t even find him till Sunday we saw him in the area book and I had the impression we needed to find this guy because he will be our baptism for this month well we called him he couldn’t meet us for work but we got him to commit to go to church well Sunday he came we talked to him and this is when it got interesting he told us look elders I have been thinking a lot for a while...I want to get baptized I know that this is the truth and the church that I need to be in. Wow!! Well we definitely told him okay and he will be baptized this Sunday God is a God of miracles.  

 But I love you all see you next week!!!

Elder Toma 

Guatemala Ciudad Central Mission 

Hay cambios!!!!!!

Querido familia 

How are you all doing? I am doing fine. well it is official I am leaving.  Where and what I will be doing I don’t know exactly I could just be going to a different zone will see what happens tomorrow but it has been great being here in Amatitlan I learn something new every area I get and I have learned a lot here in Amatitlan that I know will be helping me in the future.  

 

I am doing better now thanks don’t have to worry about me. 

But this week has been really great we had a miracle baptism of this other lady named Elvia she is older to ha-ha I never was much for baptizing older people but here I am doing it a lot but it’s great to see these people no matter how much time they got being willing to change their lives and commit themselves. It was a miracle though with her we haven’t been able to see her for over a month and then one day we found her we visited with her and we challenged her to be baptized and she accepted and was baptized this last Sunday!!! We as a mission have changed a lot we now challenge people to be baptized on the first visit and it is really working a lot of people are just simply waiting for the invitation to change you just have to have the sweet boldness and courage to invite them to do it. 

Today I did my last zone training here in Amatitlan and we focused a lot on Jacob 5 which talks about the vinyard right everybody knows this parable but as we talked about it we focused on the inspired questions that God asks what more could I have done more for my vinyard and who has corrupted it and why did it get corrupted? And we asked these questions to the missionaries and we talked about how the vinyard doesn’t have to be the area it doesn’t have to be the people it could just be us and our hearts. Satan doesn’t have to corrupt the area or the people he just has to corrupt the worker (missionary) so that the vinyard doesn’t grow. We talked about a lot how we need to stay focus on the savior and we read in 2 Nephi 25:25 and focused on where it says that we are alive in Christ and we asked what does that mean to you? To be alive in Christ? We talked about how Satan is really attacking this zone because we are the biggest and most successful but also the most with potential and there are plans to divide the stake so that it is two and because of that Satan is throwing some punches to stop us. I started to think  a little bit how we really are a little bit like rocky ha-ha if you pay attention he had all of his success because he kept remembering what his trainer taught him and it gave him the strength to get back up when he was down. We also have a trainer and master and if we remember him he will pick us back up and tell us to keep throwing the punches and get in there and give it your all!! That’s how I feel we are alive in Christ because he gives us the breath and strength we need to get up and keep throwing the punches even when we are so tired we can barely stand like rocky. 

I like a lot what mom told me that God takes you and makes you better then you really are he makes the things you do better you take rocky who was a bum and really was a nobody and he goes up against the champ of the world and gives him a run for his money and everybody just sits there shocked wondering how does he do it. I have seen missionaries that I really didn’t think could do much and they should me I was dead wrong. These type of missionaries have something in come they put their trust more in God there trainer more in themselves and that’s what makes them so successful I have seen it in myself going to areas I really didn’t think I would have success but I would just keeping going along just taking the hits and giving it a little till at the end we had success and I can only look back and realize that the whole time I had someone holding me up and not letting me stay on the ground to long and just telling me to get back in there and fight. That to me is what it means to be alive in Christ. And I love the scripture in Samuel 1 Samuel 16; 7 that talks about how God only looks upon the hearts of man not in their stature or looks or you could say in their positions or any of that stuff and that is what I try to look for in the missionaries and in my investigators. 

But I love you all I’ll tell you where I am and what is going on the next week!!

 

Elder Toma 

Guatemala Ciudad Central Mission 

 

CHINKINGUEA the dreaded plague!!!!

Querido Familia, 

This week has just been a week of craziness first we started of our pday going to a auto safari which is like a zoo but in car that was really cool and I have never gotten so close to a lion before I started to freak out when our guide started to just go right for them and get close enough that I could pet it if I wanted to. It was awesome. 

but with that.....there is a sickness here that is called chinkingua it’s a sickness that you get from mosquitos well I got it and it absolutely wrecked me for three days ha-ha I was walking around like a zombie just trying to teach everyone that we could. It got pretty bad though and the first time in my mission I stayed home a day and just slept ha-ha I felt pretty lazy but it felt awesome to sleep this sickness takes it out of you. So my pour companion just worked all day with other members while I just slept ha-ha I love the guy. 

WE did though have a great Sunday we had what we call a white Sunday were everybody in the zone baptisms and it turned out good it wasn’t all of the baptisms that we hoped for but it was a lot. I’ve learned a lot this change like our President likes to say that pain is the greatest teacher and that is so true and well I can say is that I have learned a lot this change. 

Well changes are next week and.... they’re going to be interesting ha-ha  we’ll have to wait and see but my time here in amatitlan is coming to an end. It will be sad to say good bye here but ha-ha it will be nice to through off this huge rock of stress but I think I’ll be putting on one that is even bigger ha-ha so I don’t know which is better. 

 

We as a mission have been changing a lot we are now challenging people to be baptized on the first visit and because of it we know have 2000 people that have accepted to be baptized on a specific day which is just incredible and we hope and are working on getting more of these people actually committed and ended up in the water just imagine 2000 being baptized at the same time it would be another Pentecost. But it has taught me the power to have the faith that god is preparing these people and they are waiting for you and with the sprit you need to invite them and if you do it with love and the spirt they will accept and then before you know it they will be in the water being baptized one example of this is this lady we baptized last week in the white Sunday her name is Villma or in English (Wilma) she was a lady we just found she had a friend that invited her to go to chu8rhc and we saw her there we started to talk to her and the very first visit we challenged her to be baptized she accepted and got baptized the next week so you can see THEY exist there are people that God knows and wants in his Church and there isn’t really anything we can do to stop that all we can do is be a part of it by inviting others to be a part of the true church of God. 

We have another baptism of a lady that is the grandma of the first counselor of the bishopric we just started teaching her she started to go to church and she now has accepted to be baptized and she will be baptized this Sunday her name is Elvia Menendez so please pray for her that she can be baptized this week and that the zone has right now planned 13 others that will be baptized this week pray that they all can do it.

I love you all so much see you next week!!! 

Elder Toma 

Guatemala Ciudad Central Mission 

Dear Family, 

Yeah so the reason that I wrote in the morning I was sending in the dates of the zone and I took advantage to say that tomorrow will be our pday so I won’t be able to write tomorrow but it will be today surprise!!! But this week has been a week of just miracles and fighting for mircoules ha-ha. We have as a zone planned out to baptize more than 30 this weeks and this is the last week of May so it’s all for nothing so please pray for us that we can help these 30 souls. 

We had ourselves a great miracle we had a baptism whoohoo of a man named Angel he is from the family Hurtarte that we have pretty much all baptized little by little that whole family will be members. This week has been pretty much work we have been working hard to find news and working hard to help the people we have to be baptized and doing lots of divisions which are always fun ha-ha I got to do divisions with Elder Johnson which was pretty fun actually it was the first time I have done divisions with the Assistants that’s pretty lame they just never worried about us I guess or they just never wanted to hang out with me ha-ha one of the two.

You can see in this photo that I sent of a pizza absolute wrecked well my companion and I were running to the house with this pizza in his hands and I could hear him moving it around a lot and I kept telling him hey be careful or you are going to ruin the pizza and he would just keep saying that it is fine don’t worry about it well we got home I went to the bathroom and all I hear is my companion screaming (in Spanish) what the heck and then I come in and just see the pizza destroyed...I learned a lesson that day never let your Latino companion carry the pizza. I feel that in this change I have really been learning how to have patience with someone and help them to be better and to also accept them for who they are and that they are not perfect I love my companion he is a good guy and very humble.. at times ha-ha but he definitely taught me those things. I have learned something new with every companion I have had all of them I have gotten along with but some more than others and some you just click right away and you are the best of friends and those are the best changes you have. 

It definitely taught me to be careful with who I chose to marry that’s for sure I can get along with just about anybody but it doesn’t mean that I like to be around them all the time ha-ha the mission definitely teaches you what to do and what to look for in someone (especially when it comes time to live with them in the same house). 

I have a question for you all and let’s see if you can answer it in D&C 103: 9-10 it says that we are a light to the world but also saviors so my question is this How can we be saviors of men? So you can write your answer to me and I have one and we will see you got it  ha-ha. But I love you all see you next week!!! 

Elder Toma 

Guatemala Ciudad Central Mission