Week 37...4/21/15...Training Elder Nahum Lagos

Let's just say it was one of those weeks. I accidentally brought a shoe from each pair to Reu to use after p-day last week and forgot my black socks... Typical me so you all know I haven't changed a bit.  Editors note:  I asked if he polishes his shoes and he replied, "I  usually polish at least once every week but they're just so dusty all the time!" 

ITSSS MONDAY... Alright if any of you have seen Ghost in the Stalls by Olan Rogers you'll know what I'm talking about. But it's Monday and so here's another email from me!

Tuesday we had the greatest lunches ever. 2 pounds of ribs for a total of 8 bucks included drinks and mashed potatoes. Almost everyone else barely finished because it was a TON of meat, but the sisters that were with us ordered two pizzas and I helped them finish it off by eating two pieces.

We went out to eat this big lunch because it was that last lunch for a lot of people here in our zone. 

More of the ribs = DELICIOUS!!!!

The two pounds of ribs we bought for $8.  They came along with drinks and mashed potatoes.

Me and a coconut!

So this week had some big changes and crazy news!

And by changes I mean another change already went by and Tuesday we were supposed to get changes in the morning to give us time to say goodbye and everything like a pack and stuff. But they told us they weren't gonna send them until 6 at night. So we headed to work and neither of us was expecting anything. Especially because it was 7 PM when we got a call telling us that..... MY COMP HAS CHANGES!!!!! With only three months here in El Codo he's headed to another place in Mazatenago. And other Big News... I'm TRAINING! AGAIN! We headed to the meeting to pick up my new comp who's also from Honduras! That was awesome! 

Me and my new comp.  None of the people from Honduras like to smile for pictures but he really is a happy guy.

 He doesn't speak any English but really wants to learn! I feel like I'm learning a ton of new Spanish because every country is different in how they speak! Man his accent is tough. He speaks really fast and has a really gruff way of speaking Spanish. We learned the English ABC's the other day so that's fun! He has only been a member for like a year and a half and he has a crazy conversion story where he turned his whole life around. Basically, his whole family is Evangelico, and he was always smoking, chasing after girls, he never would drink, but he avoided any religion because he thought that his family members were "fariseos" or Pharisees in his words. Basically, they would try to teach him about God, but not live the commandments. One day while he was going to ask his cousin for a lighter for his cigarette, he found the missionaries in the room. They set up a meeting with him. Long story short, he got baptized, quit smoking, never missed a day a church since he started taking the lessons. His girlfriend who was a Jehovah's Witness told him, look it's either the church or me, you decide. So he said, alright I guess you can move out. and then he got baptized. Super cool dude.

My ''grandpa" or my trainer's trainer and my two "sons" or elders I've trained.'

The changes! Elder Sherwood, Elder Fickes, and I  are ALL training this change! Elder Raymundo, Elder Vides, and Elder Lagos are our kids.

Me and Elder Black, my Old Zone leader Who's now one of the APs.

  Elder Saunders, one of my bros that went home Wednesday.

But this week besides that we don't have much more to report on except that we worked way hard. We got to our area and I told my comp to hang up his suit and we headed out the door because we had plans. We met a ton of new people to teach this week and we had 3 investigators show up to church! So we were pumped about that!

We are teaching this family ''Ramos'' and have been teaching them for a while. We had been trying to focus on the mom but this week because we were not progressing we focused on the Grandma. She ended up coming to church and accepted to be baptized! We are now working with her a ton and all of the family is super pumped! We got to their house and everyone was asking if they could go to church today! Not in the next week but the next day! It was pretty exciting but we told them the next week we'd send a bus right by their house to pick them up and they were stoked. I know the Lord is working in their lives and blessing them with answers to prayers. I know He loves us. I know He Lives. I know He listens and hears us.

Love,

Elder Pugmire

Week 36...4/13/15...The power of the book of Mormon, A museum

Hi guys! Hope that everything is going well with you all! This week I don't have much to say but I do have a bunch of photos! You can all enjoy those! This week we finally got back to our area! We found it in shambles. Basically, all of our investigatores didn't want to listen to us anymore. It was really sad to see that some of them were affecting Hna Flor. Her husband started going to another church and she feels like she needs to support him. Uhhhhh it's frustrating. We are working super hard with him to help him stop drinking but it's tough.

We were teaching this lesson when I spotted this pig. It's ENORMOUS!!!!

 The Lord has been sooooo good to us. We decided we were going to just contact a ton of people this week and we prayed that The Lord would guide us to the people prepared to listen to our message. He sure did. We met a ton of people that seem really positive and we're gonna continue teaching them all! 

We went to visit a recent convert named Hno Santiago (James in English). He is so strong in the gospel even though he has only less than a year of being a member. His family speaks Mam and we are trying to teach them and learning a little bit of Mam in the process. So far all I've got is the word "aaa" which means Agua (water)! So at least I won't die of thirst if I wind up in some place where only Mam is spoken! The problem is that his wife doesn't like the church because she thinks the songs are boring. Here it is hard to tell the difference between a concert and a church. That's how much noise they always make.  Were working with that here.

We helped Hno Santiago put some palm leaves on his Rancho!

OH MY GOODNESS! I actually have a ton to write! I almost forgot! We ran into this old investigator family. We were teaching about the restoration when my comp started talking about The Book of Mormon. Usually, we wait till the second lesson but the Spirit was obviously with us. We were teaching and I just had a little bitty feeling that I should ask if the Hna Teresa had prayed about the Book of Mormon. She said she had and then told us this story.  She said she was trying to read the Book of Mormon but couldn't because all of the letters jumbled up. She tried three more times and then later decided to pray about it. She said she told God that if the book was true he would let her read it. She then picked up the book and read it like it was nothing! She told us she knew it was true! I testify that the Book of Mormon is true and really is another testament of Jesus Christ. I Invite all to read, meditate and pray to know for your selves if it is true.  I promise that you will receive an answer if you ask with faith.

Also this Friday we went out working with Hna Florinda. She about 60 but super Pilas! I just want to tell a little about her story. She was a member of another church for 16 years.  She preached in it and everything which in Guatemala to be a female and preach in a church is usually a big deal. But then she tells us that a little light lead her to follow the example of her husband and within a month she was baptized in the church. Now she always is helping the missionaries giving referrals and inviting everyone to church! She's amazing! She died once. She had a heart attack and was dead for 7 hours. But obviously, God needed her in his work. Because she is such a help to us. She makes bread and has won the lottery before and man, she just loves doing missionary work.

This P-Day was awesome! WE WENT PAINTBALLING! We went to this movie/comic/museum thing and it was awesome! Then we went paintballing for like 8 bucks each! SUPER CHEAP! So that's the highlight of the p-days of the mission!

Zone Activity . . .paint balling and karaoke

ME Elder Saunders, Hermana Carcamo and Hermana Santos

Elder Dial, ME, E. Saunders, E. Berrios, Hna Carcamo, Hna Santos, Hna Kantrow

Thanks for all of the love, prayers, and support.  I love you all!

Elder Hill and Elder Saunders just on a casual 50mph bus ride.

Me and Elder Hill in our area attack in Champe.
Just a lake where they dump a ton of garbage. Really a great view.
Editor's note. . . When asked about wearing his keys he states. . ." It's just safer to know the keys are still on the belts and not stolen out of bags or pockets."

Love,

Elder Pugmire

Week 35...4/6/15...Conference and Easter

Alright first off I just want to express my love to you all, thanks for so much support. Secondly and more importantly, I want you all to know of my love I have for our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I know with more surety than anything else that He lived and died for me and for every one of you. He loves us more than anyone of us can imagine. HE LIVES. I want to invite you all to go look at the video at http://www.mormon.org/easter  It's only like three minutes and won't take much time at all. I promise that it will bless your lives and if you share it, the lives of others.

Alright, here we go. So the update for this week is a little crazy. We really didn't do anything to work in our area. For the Semana Santa or Holy Week here, things get crazy. The tradition here is everyone goes to the beach to swim and there are a ton of parties and plenty of alcohol, unfortunately enough to need to move us out of our area for a week. Good thing too, apparently a guy got burned alive in Champe for stealing.

Semana Santa . . .a ton of parades of statues of Jesus and the Virgin Mary

More people in masks going nuts. It's basically like Halloween! Everyone dresses up but carries around clubs, chains, and scary stuff. But they're all still kids!

So there's this one day called the Day of Judas. Everyone basically builds a scarecrow of Judas and they go in the streets with masks and everything. They go door to do to ask for money and if you give them money or bread they dance like crazy with the statue. Here's a picture of some kids dancing with Judas and a ton walking with a mask. It can get pretty rowdy. We were eating dinner and a group of Judas came in and wanted us to give them Pizza we had just got. There were like 20 of them and 4 of us but Elder Saunders was pretty ticked and probably would have gotten in a fight if he hadn't been sitting on the inside after they lunged for a piece and knocked the coke all over our pizza then took off. 

Oh! This week we went to Coatepeque to take another PMG test I'll let you know how it all turns out when I know.

So for that reason and the because our area is pretty close to the beach the leaders of our Zone made the decision to take us and the Elders from Champerico out to go spend the week in Reu. Elder Rodas and I spent most of the time with the ZL's while the DL's hung out together with their comps. 

It was really hard working this week since we were out of our area. I got put with Elder Saunders for most of the week but he's new to his area too so we just contacted all week and basically walked around lost. But I got to get to know him really well which is awesome since he goes home this next week. He's a great guy and a super hard worker from Morgan Utah. He's a stud.

Someone, we're still not sure who had an operation in the bathroom. 
We sent Elder Saunders in to fix it.

The biggest thing this week obviously was the General Conference. A chance the entire world has to listen to the words of God given through his Prophets.

We listened to the first session in Spanish and then some member generously gave us her laptop so we could listen in English! Man the size of my notes tripled in like 3 talks! It was just SOOO good!

I loved Elder Holland's talk even though halfway through it the computer died so we missed the rest of that session. But I did love a bunch of other talks.

Some of the themes I feel like we're hit really hard were Family, Marriage, and Looking through an Eternal Perspective. Honestly, the first two themes were pretty interesting viewing it through the missionary perspective. 

It's crazy to think that in a few short years I could be married and starting a family. I'm not looking to push it too fast but it is a crazy thought. One of my friends on the mission just told me that he's getting married when he goes back. Both he and his girlfriend watched the conference and had the thought to get married to the other... CRAZY!!!!! 

But that's about life I love the conference and the prophet and the opportunity that we had to listen to all of the talks. I hope you all had a great Easter! Love you all so much!

Love,

Elder Scotty Pugmire

I did get general conference and loved it!  So I'll clarify what happened to our area in my other letter.  I loved conference so much! More to come in the other letter.  Seeing everyone sleeping made me feel right at home. (I had sent him a picture.)  You'll be happy to know only Elder Hales talk had me snoozing a bit.  I guess I'm ready to get married with all of the marriage and family talks. I decided I'm going to propose via email to.... hahaha just kidding! I don't have anyone in mind yet! I'm planning on at least two or three years but we'll see what The Lord has in store. Is that weird for you guys to think that I'm gonna get married someday and that day could actually be soon because it sure is crazy weird to me!

Love you all! HAPPY EASTER!

Love,

Elder Pugmire

Week 34...3/30/15...Miracle and Hard Work

Hey guys! First of all, I just want to let you all know that I feel like I'm the most loved missionary ever. Thank you all so much for all of the letters, love, and everything. I really can feel all of the support and prayers they help a ton! 

Anyway, this week was pretty great! We had a bunch of emergency changes within all of the leaders of the mission this week. We had our District Leader, Elder Saunders, move up to Zone Leader, and our Zone Leader, Elder Krueger, moved up to Assistant to the President. They also closed an area in our district that had our District Leader.  So Elder Dial is now our District Leader. They're all fantastic missionaries and I'm so stoked to be able to work underneath all of them. 

We had a small set back this week though. We had a girl named Yeisi scheduled to be baptized this week but when we went to visit her she told us she didn't want to anymore. It seems just like the teenage girl drama but we're gonna give her some time to think about it and I think that she'll realize what she's missing.

The biggest highlight of the week requires me to tell all of the week and some of the weeks farther back.  So the Husband of Hna Flor is named Abel. Their family is super poor and they can't afford much.  He is an alcoholic but the thing is he never buys alcohol.  It's always his friends that invite him and buy him drinks.  A few nights ago we found him in his house just wasted.  We caught him a few times from falling on his face and then brought him in from sleeping off the street a few times. So that was like Wednesday. On Saturday we went back to visit them and we found him sober which was surprising.  What he told us next was even more shocking.  He told us that he was done drinking and that he had taken a look and realized that it was destroying his life.  So now he's not going with his friends when they invite him to drink.  Then he told us he had been thinking and he told us that in 8  days he was going to be baptized.  We were so shocked.  Because he's been the reason the missionaries have been working with this family for over 3 years!!!  But now I guess is his time.  We just kinda sat there stunned for a little bit until The Spirit started kicking us to say something. So we started to studder out what he needed to do and how we were gonna help him progress. But really I think he's going to do everything on his own.  So we scheduled his baptism for the 11th of April after General Conference.  Really this was the biggest miracle I've seen The Lord work here on my mission.  I know that He can touch the hearts of people even when we can't. He knows his children and what they need and how they can progress.  I'm so happy to be blessed enough to be a part of his work and to be a tool working in the Lord's hands. Hopefully, he can continue to give up his addiction but his desire to do so is real.

The other big part that we were working on all week is inviting anyone and everyone to the General Conference. This is gonna be such a huge challenge for us because the General Conference is going to be in Champerico (Champe for short).  It's kinda far away and we aren't going to be able to go because the Zone Leaders are pulling us and the Elders from Champe out of our areas for Semana Santa. So we are only going to get like 2 days to work with the members so they can help us so everyone can make it to the conference. But this Sunday I made the announcement with my companion, Elder Rodas, and the whole Rama started getting way pumped about it so hopefully, they help us out.  We had them all promise to bring at least one person each to the conference.  We're really excited to see how it all turns out this next Sunday.

Mom, you asked me if I was losing weight and I'm going to have to say yes. I left on the mission weighing 180. Leaving San Pablo I weighed 190.  In one week I dropped 5 pounds just from sweating so much.  'I'm not sure what I'm at now but I'm guessing less than 180. My comp is always telling people how hard we work. With his first trainer they didn't do as much is what I'm guessing but I'm working him really hard.  Like way hard. We are on our bikes all day long and barely have time to eat or rest.  But The Lord Blesses those who put the work in his Vineyard, even one as dusty dry and hot as this one. This week we were in the area to baptize the most people in the zone. So we were pretty excited about that. Really this work is inspired and changes the lives of millions, mine included. I'm extremely grateful for my Savior Jesus Christ. I've been reading in the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.  I have been reading about the last week of the Savior's life and I'd invite you all to do the same.  Especially this week that comes being Easter. 

I love you all so much, and you are all in my prayers!

Love,

Elder Pugmire     

I thought this was funny for Grandpa.   They do this so they don't drink from the mom's udder anymore.

Last week I drank my first coconut and actually enjoyed it! My comp opened it for me. 

Week 33...3/23/15...REU Meetings, Hna Flor y Wellington

Alright, so we're here with another episode of my speed writing because I'm short on time again and still have to go get my hair cut and do some shopping. But man this week was crazy!!!!! I just got an adrenaline rush. . . I'm pumped up to be writing this email!!! Each week for P-day we have to take a bus that goes over some gross dirt roads and would be like a 45-minute drive on nice roads but on the bus can take up to 3 hours!

Alright, so this week let me think.....

Tuesday! Ok, so Monday nights we always stay the night here in one of the other elders' houses because our area is so far away it's pointless to get home, eat, sleep and come right back for the District Meeting Tuesday morning.  But this Tuesday was crazy because we were gonna have to spend the night AGAIN here in REU because Wednesday we had a Multizone Conference. 

Tuesday after the meeting, Elder Saunders, our district leader, and I headed back to my area to do some interviews. We rode on the bikes which was pretty funny because he's a huuuuuuge dude. . .like super buff and everything on this little bike that we have. But we got all of the interviews done and then we headed to try to catch a ride to the bus station. We left at 5 and we started walking to get to the bus station at 7.  We walked and caught some ''Jalons''  but at 6:45 we were still walking and getting nervous. Then another Jalon appeared and we barely made it to the bus in time! So that was just a miracle! We spent the night in Reu Wednesday.  We had the multizone conference that was just incredible! We ended up spending the rest of the day with the ZLs because once again it was late so we stayed to go to the Zone Meeting the next day. The last bus to El Codo leaves relatively early in the afternoon.

Thursday we had the meeting and got some work done.  Friday we worked way hard and taught a bunch of people but in the night my comp started feeling sick and Saturday he was sick all day we only left in the night to make sure the baptismal clothing fit.  Sunday we had our baptisms! 

OK so let me tell you about this lady Hna Flor.  She's from Honduras and has 3 kids.  Her husband has an alcohol problem but we're working with him and he's making progress I think. We invited her to pray and she told us she had a dream that she knew she needed to be baptized in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. So she did and now she just loves it.  She introduced us to 2 of her friends that if all goes well they will be baptized on the 11th! So she and her youngest son, Wellington got baptized this Sunday and it was super awesome!  I'll send pictures next week because this week the computer doesn't have an input so I can't send any. 

Hermana Flor y Wellington y Hermano KEKO

But today we played dodge ball which was super sweet! Then we went to eat at McDonald's!!! So that was dope!

But all is well here we found 2 more tacuatzines living with us here so we're gonna go for them soon. Someone told us we could eat them so we might cook the next one up. I'll let you guys know! ;) 

Post mission insert. This area killed me. It was so hot, and all the water is brought from pumps and it's just super dusty all the time. I got way sick with Chikungunya and ended up having BU (short for butt urine in mission slang) for like 3 weeks. I lost 20 pounds in 2 weeks and constantly was carrying a fresh pair of shorts, underwear, and toilet paper because I just couldn't make it to the bathrooms. The worst night was when I had a 104-degree fever and just had a pool of sweat under me in the hammock I was sleeping in for the night trying to cool down. All of my bones hurt, and my old injuries from soccer or sprained ankles in lacrosse swelled up and were super painful. A few really close calls involved me running to the bathroom behind a member's house, unfortunately, the member was showering behind their house as I did so. I closed my eyes, shouted "los siento Hermana" and made it with moments to spare.

Have a great week!

Love your favorite,

Elder Scotty Pugmire

Response to my letter . . .

Ok, I always thought opossums were cute and cuddly. No worries someone just told us that some of the tacuatzines you can eat so the next one we're gonna cook it up! My health this last week was a little bad, but I'm better now and my comp got a case of the chikungunya but is recovering really quickly. My comp is good. He's the only member of his family and it's tough for him some days but he's doing good and going to be a great missionary if he works at it. I'll let him know though!

OH my gosh, I'm dying right now and all of the people around me are trying to figure out what's so funny. That Grant is a funny kid. Basically here all I want to do is drink water so that's not a problem.

Thanks for everything Mom! I love you a ton!