Week 11...10/20/14...Weddings, Baptisms, and Exchange Miracles

Wow. Time is flying by it feels like! On the 29th I will have already had my first change in the mission! How Crazy is that!? This week was really good! This Wednesday we went down to Reu for a training meeting with all of the new missionaries. It was super awesome because I got to see Elder Elggren and Elder Mattson who I haven't got to see since I've gotten here! So that was awesome! The bus ride to Reu was actually a lot better this time so no complaints there!

Much Better Bus Ride to REU

The days really are starting to fly by and they seem to blend together even more! Its tough to keep what happened yesterday and what happened two weeks ago separate!

On Tuesday I went on divisions with Elder Fickes, an Elder who is just as new as I am. We went to his area and just started receiving blessings left and right. We went to teach this family he had in mind and we both taught with no problems at all with the Spanish! Truly a gift from God as the gift of tongues. The family we taught have obviously been prepared by the Spirit. After our message they told us just how happy they felt and said that they couldn't wait to hear more. We testified of the Holy Ghost that was present and then set up our next appointment. Later that day we ran into 4 more people who seemed to be ready for the Gospel of Jesus Christ. One guy had read all of the Book of Mormon,  Doctrine and Covenants and Pearl of Great Price and wanted to learn more about the church. IT was incredible. It was a testament to me of the quote ¨Obedience brings blessings, but exact obedience bring miracles!¨

Trying to be creative with selfies is no talent of mine. But it is always raining here.

This week we had two more baptisms! The parents of Jilda who we baptized last week! They weren't married so we held a wedding for them before their baptism!

Wedding

They seemed to be super happy but its hard to tell because the people here just hate pictures. I don't know what it is! Everyone will be smiling and laughing and then you say that were gonna take a picture and bam! All of the smiles disappear or they put on an expression of who knows what. It is really a mystery to behold. I'm sure you can all see it in the pictures.

When I was baptizing Hilda (the mother) I realized that there was a lizard the size of my hand just sitting on the wall about 6 inches from us. I didn't want her to freak out so I just turned so she wouldn't see it and then went on with the baptism! Kinda crazy but that's just another day of life here in San Pablo!

Noe and Hilda's story. This family is incredible they live pretty far away from the church and its usually 3 quetzales per person for a one way trip from their house to San Pablo. So to make the trip to San Pablo for church is usually around 30Q for their family. What's crazy is that Hermano Noe works as a coffee picker and is really limited on the work he can get. So he said he gets paid about 10 quetzales per costal, or huge bag of coffee. Usually that's about 1-2 a day and he can work maybe 4 days a week. So on the best weeks he's having to use 30 of his 80 quetzales to get his family to church. What their family is all about is knowing that this life is a time to be tried and prepared to meet God. It's in Heaven where we can receive all the blessings not necessarily this life.

We are going to break the record for our zone with the number of people joining the church! Truly this is the time where the hastening of missionary work is going forth. We meet prepared people almost every day! For example yesterday I was on divisions with Elder Black, one of our Zone leaders. We just got done with teaching a lesson and were walking down a path. We saw a guy carrying a bunch of bags and so we asked him if we could help him. He just sat down on a rock and started to cry. he said he had just lost his job that day and that he was looking for someone to help him in his life. We walk him to his house and then set up an appointment to meet with him the next day. It seems like everyone I'm with gets some awesome people looking into the church! I'm sad that I won't be with them to teach them the gospel the rest of the way. But hopefully they continue to progress!

I made a pretty sweet bench press at Elder Black's house today as you can see from the photos. All of the cheap soda and food is starting to take its toll I'm afraid.... But next month were going to start going to the gym Malacatan, so I can keep getting Stacked! ;) 

 Life is good as always and I have no complaints! Except for this chicken we had for lunch the other day. ME and elder Black were eating lunch and the chicken just was like luke warm and we both feared that it was not cooked very well. But we both knew we had to eat it so we just prayed really hard. It seems like our prayers were answered because neither of us got sick from it!

Hope everything is going well, I love and miss you all! Look forward to hearing from you all next week!

Love, Elder Pugmire