Week 89...4/18/16...Don't come down the mountain! And Don´t Drop the Ball!

Me and my companion in Coatepeque with the office

Alrighty, what a week! This week was insane! We started off on Monday where we had San Felipe, Reu, and Las Palmas together to play some great soccer. It was a blast and I totally surprised myself scoring two goals! Ya, I know. . . I´m not sure how it happened either!  They kinda just bounced off my head and foot and went in. But apparently, that counts as a goal too! So that was a great start to the week! 

The 3 Zone soccer squad

Me and Elder Villalobos…. Apparently, it was Pajama day

Me and Elder Kahl

Then we started off with the week of interviews with all the missionaries. We started here in the office with Reu and then on Tuesday we had Las Palmas and San Felipe come. On Wednesday we headed to Tecun Uman and Malacatan.  Thursday we were in the Mountains of San Marcos and San Pedro and we finished Friday in Coatepeque. 

Did you know they sell pure water in disposable cups? That makes two of us…

My companion. Notice how he has the phone... 0 energy need to talk on the phone.

Me and Elder Kahl

Me and my companion above San Rafael. The sun was really bright if you can't tell.

San Marcos

San Marcos

San Marcos

We spent the rest of Monday working on what we were going to share that night. It sounds like it was a last-minute planned lesson but it wasn´t we had been listening to talks and gathering lots of thoughts and we just put them together in the best order on Monday. This was basically our message...We started off talking about Resisting, what is RESISTIR? Well, it's basically maintaining yourself where you are until you can rise above and reach more.  (Which is what we want to do this month and next. . . have a good month this month and just explode next month.) 

Then we started talking about Alma 47 We talked about the story of Amalickiah and Lehonti. For those of you who don´t know it you should definitely look it up but I´ll explain it briefly. Basically, Amalickiah was a Nephite that wanted to be king of the Nephites but they said ´´nooooo WAY!!!!'´ So they kicked him and his followers out. Then they joined the Lamanites and Amalickiah and said ´´Hey let's go fight the Nephites!  Half of them were like ´´YEAHHHHH!!!! Let's DO IT!!!!!´´ And the other half was like ´´NOOOOOO!! All we ever have done is fight the Nephites... We´re not going."  The second half went to the top of a mountain to avoid going to fight. They named Lehobti to be king of them and they had ´´fixed their minds that they wouldn´t be obligated to fight´´ so they decided to stay. But Amalickiah sent 3 embassies to go and tell Lehonti that he should come down to talk with him. But he never did. However the 4th time Amalickiah went almost to the camp of Lehonti and told him just to come down a little bit. Lehobti did and he fell into a trap of Amalickiah where he ended up going all the way down the mountain and ended up being poisoned by Amalickiah. Brutal right? Gotta love the Book of Mormon war chapters!

Anyways..... we talked about how we could relate this story to the plan of Salvation. Doesn´t it sound familiar? Someone who wanted all of the power presented his plan and then was cast out with all of his followers.  Then he seeks to lure in others to his level by subtle and cunning plans. That's right, Amalliakiah in this story is a pretty good relation of what happened in the premortal life and what happens in this life with Lucifer and now Satan.  So we talked about that a little and then we just related it to the need we have to find new people to teach every week.

But we talked about how we need to keep opening our mouths to everyone. We have a goal in the mission to find 18 new investigatores a week, which is pretty good! But we know that our common enemy wants us to find 0. But we know we aren't going to do that so he tries to tempt us to find 12 or 15 or less. We talked about how we need to resist and do even better and find even more people to teach each week.

Then we moved into the talk of 1994 that Presidente  Hinckley gave, called "Don´t Drop The Ball."  It's really good! I´d invite everyone to read it! It talks about a few people that in the crucial moments of their lives how they ´´dropped the ball´´ then he speaks about how we are not to be these types of people. Then we share a story of his talk... this is it.....

"At Brigham Young University we have had some great athletic coaches. We have them now and we have had them in the past. One of these of long ago was Eugene L. Roberts. He grew up in Provo and drifted aimlessly with the wrong kind of friends. Then something remarkable happened. I read you his own words. He wrote:

“Several years ago when Provo City was scarred with unsightly saloons and other questionable forms of amusement, I was standing one evening on the street, waiting for my gang to show up when I noticed that the [Provo] tabernacle was lighted up and that a large crowd was moving in that direction. I had nothing to do so I drifted over there and went in. I thought I might find some of my gang, or at least some of the girls that I was interested in. Upon entering, I ran across three or four of the fellows and we placed ourselves under the gallery where there was a crowd of young ladies, who seemed to promise entertainment. We were not interested in what came from the pulpit. We knew that the people on the rostrum were all old fogies. They didn’t know anything about life, and they certainly couldn’t tell us anything, for we knew it all. So we settled down to have a good time. Right in the midst of our disturbance there thundered from the pulpit the following [statement]:

“‘You can’t tell the character of an individual by the way he does his daily work. Watch him when his work is done. See where he goes. Note the companions he seeks and the things he does when he may do as he pleases. Then you can tell his true character.’

“I looked up toward the rostrum,” Roberts continued, “because I was struck with this powerful statement. I saw there a slim, dark-haired fierce-eyed fighting-man whom I knew and feared; but didn’t have any particular love for.”

As he continued, “[The speaker] went on to make a comparison. He said: ‘Let us take the eagle, for example. This bird works as hard and as efficiently as any other animal or bird in doing its daily work. It provides for itself and its young by the sweat of its brow, so to speak; but when its daily work is over and the eagle has time of its own to do just as it pleases, note how it spends its recreational moments. It flies in the highest realms of heaven, spreads its wings and bathes in the upper air, for it loves the pure, clean atmosphere and the lofty heights.

“‘On the other hand, let us consider the hog. This animal grunts and grubs and provides for its young just as well as the eagle; but when its working hours are over and it has some recreational moments, observe where it goes and what it does. The hog will seek out the muddiest hole in the pasture and will roll and soak itself in filth, for this is the thing it loves. People can be either eagles or hogs in their leisure time.’

“Now when I heard this short speech,” said Gene Roberts, “I was dumbfounded. I turned to my companions abashed for I was ashamed to be caught listening. What was my surprise to find everyone of the gang with his attention fixed upon the speaker and his eyes containing a far-away expression.

“We went out of the tabernacle that evening rather quiet and we separated from each other unusually early. I thought of that speech all the way home. I classified myself immediately as of the hog family. I thought of that speech for years. That night there was implanted within me the faintest beginnings of ambition to lift myself out of the hog group and to rise to that of the eagle. …

“There was instilled within me that same evening, the urge to help fill up the mud holes in the social pasture so that those people with hog tendencies would find it difficult to wallow in recreational filth. As a result of constant thinking about that speech, I was stirred to devote my whole life and my profession toward developing wholesome recreational activities for the young people, so that it would be natural and easy for them to indulge in the eagle-type of leisure.

“The man who made that speech which affected my life more than any other speech I ever heard, was President George H. Brimhall. May God bless him!” (Raymond Brimhall Holbrook and Esther Hamilton Holbrook, The Tall Pine Tree, n.p., 1988, pp. 111–13).

We talked about how we need to be diligent at all times how this work was not our time but The Lord's. So we need to give it all to him. 

That basically is what we did all week. Then on Sunday Jose came to Church again! Remember that Joven that We found a few weeks ago? He almost has a baptismal date! We're so excited for him! Hope all is well. Love you all! My companion is amazing by the way! Elder Kahl Squad!

Love,
Elder Pugmire

Where Berly lives. We sat outside waiting for her to get ready to go to church but at the end of it all she didn´t come… ;(

Mangos Season is here! I LOVE MANGOS!!!!!

Mangos and fajitas, we had a pretty good lunch I'd say!

It Snowed in GUATEMALA!!!!! Haha Just kidding!! It's still 100 degrees, sunny and humid as ever! We just got coated by a blanket of Volcano ash!

Week 88...4/11/16...SORRY ITS SO LATE!!! THIS WEEK HAS BEEN INSANE!!!!

His family so we're heading back from the interviews with San Marcos and San Pedro and I thought I’d take the long drive to write. We’ve been helping President all week with interviews and I finally got a chance to write. It might be a weird email because I’m writing without looking at the screen. After all, the light hurts my eyes from riding in the dark and writing. So this week is about last week. We’ll see if I can remember it…. (just a little addition, I would not suggest trying to type a letter while driving down from a mountainous area. I got a little sick and I lost all of our dinner…. Lesson learned.   Well maybe not because I’m back at it today only it’s in the daytime we’ll see how it goes.)

This week was full of councils and planning sessions. We went to La Maquina last P-day so that we could get the projector and everything. 

Long drives, Make you tired. I´m not quite sure what was happening here….

Elder Wilcox´s invention so you´re fingers don´t get stained while eating taquitos.

Then on Tuesday and Wednesday, we had a meeting with the Zone Leaders and Hermana Leaders and District Leaders as well. On Tuesday we had a meeting with the ZLs and HLs. We had an awesome message. We decided to talk about how to teach ‘‘BY’’ The spirit instead of only ‘‘with the spirit’’. Everyone has felt the spirit testify while we testify of the truths. But it is a rare experience you can feel the Spirit literally putting words in your mouth. So we decided to teach how we can teach following exactly what the spirit wanted us to say. Teaching, finding, and testifying by The Spirit. That was the theme.  We used 2 Nefi 32:2-3, 2 Peter 1:21, and 2 Nefi 33:1 to emphasize teaching by and not just with The Spirit.

The plans we ended up coming up for the meeting were resisting all the month of April, and the BRILLANDO in May. So our plan is that every companionship baptizes the first Semana of May so we’re working on finding lots and lots of new people to teach!

On Wednesday we had a District Leader meeting for all of the District Leaders and their companions. We had a big meeting and then we broke up into groups. We taught them about how to have good reunions.  The Zone Leaders from Las Palmas and Reu taught about doing interviews and as well as telephone calls. Basically, we talked about how to be an effective District Leader because we have a lot of new leaders this change. But they are all super good missionaries! Like Elder Smith and Elder Ormsby, they are excellent missionaries! And my son Elder Lagos is now a District Leader! So Fathers joy I feel pretty good about that! Also, I don’t know if I mentioned that Elder  Fickes, Elder Steiner, Elder Camargo, and Elder Keck are now Zone Leaders which is super cool! They’ve been doing miracles in their Zones! 

The big focus of the mission has been learning the Living Christ.  It’s given the mission a ton of strength teaching, testifying, and preaching of Christ. I’ve now memorized it both in English and Spanish. You feel such power just barring that powerful witness of Christ to everyone.

On Thursday we had to deal with some issues in some zones. We have started a new thing of attacking all forms of disobedience at the moment it occurs. So we went and visited Reu and San Felipe.  We talked to the Zone Leaders and the people we needed to talk to.

Friday,  we had a meeting with President Ruiz to go over some emergency changes.  We shut an area and put Hermanas in it and then we took the Elders to their new areas. 

We moved Elder Adams to Mazate with Elder Shupe and then we brought Elder Damas back to the office. We then had some time to work in our area. Well actually my companion worked in the area and I went with Elder Cancino to El Codo to do an interview with a sister that was so prepared! She was amazing!

Our Chapin Photo going to El Codo with Elder Cancino elder Elggren and my companion.

Then we ate hocotes! They’re little fruits and they can be super bitter and sour when they’re green and really juicy and sweet when they’re red and ripe. 

Bananas bananas and bananas!!!!!

On Saturday we had another meeting with President to plan all of the Interviews for the next week which has been crazy! It has literally taken up every second of the day for a full week! Then we headed to take the clothes of Elder Adams that he had forgotten.  Then we headed to plan our message and we finished the day working in our area! It was great! 

This week we actually got to go and work in our area 3 times! The three people we found are pretty cool! Berly, is pretty cool the only problem is that she lives in a church. Yah…. it’s pretty common here. But the good thing is she doesn’t attend there! So we’re going to see what happens. Walter seemed pretty cool, he said he had been to church a bunch of times! However, the second time we went we found out that he wasn’t really an investigator but a less active member! So we’re going to keep working with him! We had a couple other people we had been visiting but they haven’t been progressing so we’re still on the search!

Sunday was pretty good, however, we had to send a missionary home. So that’s what we did on Sunday. Hopefully, he comes back to the mission in a couple months though. 

Life’s been good! My companion is amazing and we’ve been working super hard with all of the mission. The church is true! 

Love, 

Elder Pugmire 

Addition:  

I just realized that I haven't said anything about conference yet! This week we've been able to listen to conference everywhere we go! My favorite talks have been Elder Bednar's about Baptism the talk about going to the Rescue by Mervyn B Arnold about going to the rescue. I loved it because there are so many times where plans are made or people meet up and talk about doing something but it never actually gets done! We need to just go out and get it done! I loved it! Also, Elder Nelson's talk about priesthood power was amazing! I loved it so much and I decided that I am going to constantly do the little thing so that I can achieve the priesthood power that he spoke of. I also loved the talk about WHERE ARE THE KEYS!? We've started teaching everyone about authority using his example and it's helped a lot of people understand it! Life is great! I LOVE CONFERENCE!!!!! 

Love,

Elder Pugmire

Week 87...4/7/16?...Out with the old and in with the new, April Fools, ELDER KAHL

CHANGES!!! Alrighty, what a week! This week was crazy! We started off by receiving all of the new missionaries on Tuesday! We got 6 new Hermanas and 1 Elder! We got to stay for the meeting and then we delegated the training meeting to all of the Hermanas and some other missionaries.

New Missionaries

Then I and my companion went to tell all the Zones the changes. Then while my companion, Elder Morataya, went to a family night I was companions with Elder Heath for a few hours! He's the new Elder that came into the mission! HE'S SO COOL! He's from North Carolina and is the man! We went and ate at the mission house and then I cut his hair. Yes, that's right mom! Finally putting those hair clippers to work! It didn't turn out that bad either! It wasn't anything too special though. He and his trainer are going to be the best companionship out there! 

Then on Wednesday, we had changes! MY NEW COMPANION IS SO AWESOME!!! His name is Elder Kahl and by far is the best companion I've had so far! He's from Fort Collins, Colorado, and man, what more can I say? It's going to be the greatest 3 changes ever!

Me and my new companion elder Kahl!

Elder Kahl counting some coins

Me, Elder Kahl, Elder Ramos, and Elder Sandoval

We ran to get all of the changes done, and it all went really smoothly, except for the fact that somehow Elder Medina never got notified that he had changes so on Thursday we had to go and help him get to his new area. But on Wednesday we had the testimony meeting of the missionaries that were going home and then went to the mission house to eat with Presidente and Hna Ruiz.

The missionaries that left. (Editors note:  this appears to be a serious photo but it looks like Elder Solorio,  must be standing on something.)

Me and Elder Peterson

Me and Elder Solorio

I'm going to miss Elder Morataya so much! I haven't said too much about him but he really is incredible. He is the most animated missionary ever! Even to his very last minute in the mission he was smiling and animating everyone to give their best! He's been such a good example to me. 

Elder Morataya

Thursday we had to run up to San Marcos and bring ELder Medina to Coatepeque and we helped the Zone leaders move some stuff from the Pajapita house. Since that we were working on the new welcome to the mission video that we are going to make and we have been fixing all of the data of the mission for the next meetings we're going to have this week. 

General conference was amazing! We haven't heard all of it because my companion and I were delivering lunches to all of the Zones and also looking for investigatores to bring to conference but we have them downloaded and we're excited to listen to conference on the long car rides!

We had one miracle happen in our area! the last 30 minutes of the last session of conference we were out on the street trying to bring people in to watch conference and we contacted this one lady in her house and invited her. She told us she would have gone if she had known earlier but that now she didn't have time to get ready and get to the church. So we said, "well how about we just put it on your TV and we can watch the rest of it right here with you?"  She disappeared into her house and we thought she had just left us hanging but she came right back and we got a little conference session going with her! And she loved it! We watched the last two speakers and then we taught her the restoration. Then as she was giving the closing prayer she started to cry.  The spirit was really testifying that what we were teaching was true. She told us she worked in the Capital but really wants us to come and visit her the next time in town. She accepted a date to be baptized! If she comes to church a few times she can totally be the miracle we've been looking for! Hope conference was great for you all! 

Have a great week! 

Love,

Elder Pugmire

We had to clean up this leaf that fell inside the church grounds. It wasn’t your average-sized leaf.

Taco salad. Elder Kahl and I started a fitness group! We have like 18 missionaries going to the gym in the morning! Presidente and Hna Ruiz might start coming too!

OHHHH STORY OF THE WEEK!!!!

APRIL FOOLS DAY!

So we were driving home from Coatepeque when Elder Kahl remembered that it was April 1st the next day. So we quickly formulated a plan to prank the office. But we needed it to be realistic so we called Presidente Ruiz and first, we taught him what April Fool's Day was, and then explained our plan. He was so pumped!

Our plan was that at 7:30 in the morning get a call from Presidente saying that a General Authority was coming and was going to be in the office at 8. Causing us to scramble and get ready and rush to clean up the office a bit. And that’s exactly what happened. Presidente Ruiz called Elder Taylor and let him know and that just set off chaos!  We had people showering in the pila and we booked it over to the office. I’ve never seen an office get so clean in so short of a time!  But finally, Presidente came and announced ‘’April Fools!’’ It was pretty great! We had some fun calling other people and telling them they had changes as well. It was a great day! Anyways. That's the other story of the week.

Week 86...3/31/16...Temple, and a week of Christ

Hey Everyone sorry for another late letter but man this week was busy and this is going to be another busy week! We have changes this week and they're done, but we've got a lot to do! 

So let's start with last Tuesday, 3/22/16.  (Good thing that I wrote that down in my journal because honestly, it's hard to remember what happened last week.) We headed to work with the Zone in San Felipe! I went with Elder Wilcox and Elder Taylor from the office and my companion went to work in Coatepeque. We went to San Felipe and we stayed in their meeting.  There were a lot of heavy hearts from the news of Elder Fifita and we read the letter that went out the whole mission. We then made plans on what we were going to do for the day. We made a great plan and we were ready to have an amazing day full of interviews. But just like with all great plans there are always great obstacles. In today's case, it was like 3 hours of traffic that separated us and the areas that we needed to go and visit. So we had to cancel that appointment and I went with Elder Myers to do some interviews in Brillantes! Elder Myers is a super cool kid! And is going to be an amazing missionary, better said, he's already a dope missionary and he's going to be a fantastic leader.

We had two interviews and then we decided to try and go to Mazate to escape the traffic and help that Zone out. Honestly, it was ridiculous. The traffic was all the way to and back from Mazate. We just got to Mazate, ate dinner, and made the long drive home. It was kinda frustrating because we actually had made some really good plans for the day.

Wednesday was a blessing. It was the day where everyone that goes home goes to the temple. With a lot of luck, I got invited to go! So that was awesome! I learned that God always answers our prayers, not always in the way we want them or in the time we want it but He always answers. I was looking for revelation for my life trying to figure out what I should study, but as I was reading and praying I kept coming across the word patience. Patience, patience, patience. I realized I need to just keep working and the answer will come. That's what I learned from the last General conference too from Elder Larry R. Lawrence which talks about how we can learn from the spirit through our prayers asking ''what lack I yet?'' It's a really good talk. Then we had to run Elder Heyrend and Elder Petersen back to Malacatan to also drop off the videos we used for Friday's conference. We stayed the night in Malacatan. 

Me and Elder Peterson heading up to the temple.

Elder Morataya and I

The temple for the last time with Elder Morataya.

Elder Morataya, Elder Quispe,  Elder Peterson, and me

Thursday, we went up to San Marcos and we stayed there for their Zone Meetings. We have meetings here a bit different than many other missions. We have a district meeting every Tuesday and a Zone Meeting every Thursday to train, practice, and better our skills. Then we came home to work in our area where we met a pretty cool guy! His name is Marco Antonio. And this is how we found him...

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So we were casually strolling down the road when like every other day we felt like we should knock on a door. We got to the doorstep and looking into the open door (that's definitely something different here, all the people if they're home will leave the main door open and the little gate stays shut.) Anyways we could clearly see a man working on his computer in the second room. So we casually shouted ''Buenas!'' and we waited, and waited. But there was literally no reaction in the guy! We thought oh no, he saw us when we walked passed and we're not going to even be able to talk with him. So we tried again, and again for like 5 minutes. We had the thought that maybe he couldn't hear us because he looked as if he had like 60 years. So we went and talked to the neighbors and they were like, "ya, Profe Maco is deaf." What else could we do? We decided to try again.  We were outside jumping around and waving our arms like crazy but still, there was no reaction. Maybe he really doesn't want to talk to us we thought... But we both had the feeling that we needed to talk to him. We were talking to each other thinking if we could throw something or walk-in uninvited when all of a sudden he looked up and directly at us. To our surprise, he spoke perfectly! But he really did not hear a thing! So we semi-communicated to him that we were going to pass by on Sunday to bring him to church. But that didn't happen, on Sunday, there was a misunderstanding, when we got there at 9 he invited us in and we ended up teaching the Book of Mormon to him. He's very Catholic but he said that the Book of Mormon really had his attention. He had actually always gone to the Church when it first got started here in Retaluhleu! In the very first house! He had a copy of the Book of Mormon but never had read it but we left him with a bunch of chapters because now that he understood what it was he was really excited to read it. He's a professor and very, very smart. But we're excited to go back and teach him again.

LOOK WHAT SHIRT I FOUND!!!! EASTVIEW!!!!!

Friday, Saturday, and Sunday were very Christ-centered. We had a conference in the Zone Reu and every other zone also had a conference we re-watched the World Wide Conference that was shown a little bit ago and had a bunch of workshops. I taught the last message about "Teaching Repentance and Baptizing Converts." But the focus was on "Teaching Repentance." The main focus was on Alma 34: 32-36 talking about how important it was to teach the investigators repentance more than any other thing because this is the only time we have to repent.  I think it really helped the missionaries understand why we teach repentance. Later that night we had an activity where we invited and talked a lot about the atonement of Christ. We showed a lot of videos and the spirit was so strong. we took pictures with a dressed-up ''Mary and Joseph'' (Elder Keck and Hermana Moore).  I and my companion were in charge of the presentation.  It affected a lot of people many people were very touched by the spirit.

Elder Keck and Hermana Moore as Mary and Joseph

Elder Keck, Elder Ormsby, Elder Elggren y Hna Moore, Me and Elder Adams!

Someone left this in the church oven…

We had thought something smelled funny... UHHH!

Saturday, we had a lot of crazy things happen.  We were going to have a baptism in Peru and I spent 45 minutes on the phone with the investigator but he had a lot of doubts so we went and visited him instead. Then we had our meeting with Presidente and started the changes. We had a baptism in our ward! Elder Keck and Elder Ormsby are sooooo pilas!!!!! The guy's name is Leonardo.  He is super cool! I got to interview him last Sunday and he was really a prepared person! He's going to be a great leader in the church. He speaks perfect English and always visits the states right by Elder Keck's house!!!!!

Sunday was Amazing. In every ward and branch in the mission, the missionaries shared The Living Christ. It was such a powerful testimony of Christ the congregations were all crying. All of the missionaries in the mission have learned it by memory. It's helped me be able to testify powerfully of Christ. Then we finished most of the changes and I'll write about those next week!

One of The last photos of me and Elder Morataya!

Dress up day before we cleaned the house!

I hope all goes well! Love you all!

Elder Pugmire 

Alright, so this week was Semana Santa! One of the traditions is called Judas. All of the kids dress up crazy and just go around and ask for money. They make a mannequin all dressed up and you have to dance with it or pay them money! Luckily we escaped the craziness for the most part.

Here's a video! It's so short because my camera died when I most needed it!