Elder Scotty Pugmire's Guatemala Postings: Week 69...11/30/15...Miracles of Mashed Potatoes and Turkey

I good I'm writing my weekly letter but I think I'm going to have to wait to send it. The power just went out. I might just write next week if it doesn't come back!

Elder Johnson, and the pila water of Pajapita. It's pretty clean. You could drink it whenever you want and be sick for the rest of your entire life.

Me and Elder Elggren and Elder Johnson.

Hot and Knots

Walking through the grove of trees.

I'm not sure what the sap is used for but it could be rubber.

This place was just the perfect place for one of these photos.

Well, that’s what I thought until I had that thorn embedded in my knee.

Alrighty. Sorry I didn't write last week. There honestly isn't time anymore to write. But I told myself that I would write a good email to let you all know what happened last month. This month certainly was a month of miracles, we have so much to be grateful for I just want to list 3 of the miracle that happened this week.

One of them was this Thursday for Thanksgiving! Thanksgiving was actually fantastic this year! Presidente paid for all of our Zones to have lunch! it was fantastic!

The Thanksgiving with the Zone. I didn’t get too many photos because I was getting all of the food organized. But in this photo is Hna Acosta, Hna Gunderson, hna Bustillo, Elder Perez, Elder Sanchez, Elder Wolfgramm, Elder Peralta and Elder Johnson.

Editor's note: Looks like Scotty at the end of this table

We also had a miracle pass. So this is what happened. We were in charge of paying and bringing the mashed potatoes and so we did it. But the place that we were paying to do it didn't make as much as they had told us they were going to make. So we were going to end up really short. We decided to make the most of what we had. We started dividing it all up and we took like 5 solid minutes dividing it all so that we could all have exactly 1 portion. We cut up the 24 squares and then started serving on all of the plates. But then when we got to the last plate we found that there was still a bunch of servings left. We were so confused until we realized that a miracle had passed! Elder Elggren and I started jumping around looking like little 6-year-old girls when they realize that Tinkerbell came to their birthday party. We were so pumped. We prayed and thanked Heavenly Father for the miracle and then we started pulling the turkey. I was doing one half and Elder Elggren was pulling the other. We filled every plate and then I finished my half. Then I came back and it was like my half of the turkey had doubled! I lifted it up to inspect it and Elder Elggren started freaking out asking me where I got all of the meat from because he told me that he was sure that my half had run out! So many miracles! It was like a reenactment of the Bible but not of Bread and Fishes but Mashed Potatoes and Turkey! It was great!

Elder Johnson, Elder Graham, and Elder Alfaro.

That's what happened Thursday! Then Sunday came along. This is a day I will never forget. It was tough Saturday because we had 6 fechas fall, or people lined up ready to be baptized but something had happened when they decided they weren't going to do it. But instead of just letting them fall to next week we decided to do everything we could to rescue them. So Saturday we tried to help Coatepeque with their family that was going to get baptized but they weren't home. That's when I and Elder Wolfgramm decided to just invite a girl to church the next day. She said she'd think about it and surprise surprise when we called her on Sunday she said she was coming! We only got to stay one hour in our church because we had to go help, Genova. So Belen (our investigator that we just invited) came and we decided to just pass her off to the members. She ended up loving church and we went to teach her and had a great lesson! She's so cool!

Then we took off to Genova. Which is like a good hour and a half away. We got there to analyze the situation. We talked with the Branch President and he told us he really wanted that the two youth that the missionaries are teaching to be baptized. So we went to their house which was also really far away. We got there and they decided that they really did want to be baptized they just thought the baptismal font in the church was really deep. But they decided they wanted to do it in the pond they had dug outback. We got the permission of the Branch President and they were baptized and confirmed members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Elders Retana and Diaz with Angel and Carlos

Me and My companion with the Kids

Me, Elder Diaz, Elder Retana, and Elder Aceituno

Then Elder Diaz and I had to run to Reu because he had to get to Guate to sign his Visa papers. We booked it over there but got there a little late and missed our bus. But we sat in the office packing up all of the Cards of ''ha Nacido un Salvador,'' the new initiative the church is doing. It's a great video! you should all look at it and then share it with everyone! Here's the link. https://www.mormon.org/christmas

Then we were all super tense trying to figure out if we had broken the record as a zone of the mission. The Record for the most ever baptized in a month of any zone is 40 people with 6 families. At that point, we had 39 people with 4 families. But the Elders in Colomba were supposed to have had two more baptisms.

I had the chance to interview the two of them. Their family consisted of a son who was already a member and had the priesthood, another son who goes to another church, the dad who is active in his church but had gone to church with us various times, and another kid whose name is Angel. The Mom and Angel were the two baptisms that had been planned. You can imagine our surprise when they said they had had three baptisms with one family! The dad who almost didn't let the rest of his family get baptized had a miraculous change of heart and after being explained that his son had the real authority of God and was going to do a valid baptism in the Eyes of God, decided that he too would be baptized! What a miracle! We finished the Month with 42 and 5 families! A new mission record. We were so pumped! and more than anything so grateful for all of the miracles that The Lord had blessed us with this month!

I testify that God lives, and this is His work. It never stops. It never will. And the miracles will continue to come into our lives as long as we look for them with all diligence and believing fully that God can do them. I love you all. Thanks for all of the support!

Elder Pugmire

Me and One of my favorite dogs I’ve ever seen! It's rare in Guatemala where you can find a dog you even

chancing petting.