Hi family. Just wanted to let you know that I love you guys and I haven't completely forgotten about you all. Not gonna lie I haven't thought about home much at all because there literally isn't any time. That's why I haven't written. We've been coordinating with mini missionaries and that's been crazy we haven't had time at all. Today the Minis come and then we're going to have a General Authority here. Whatever time we have we're trying to work in our area. But that's about it. Hope that everything is well at home!
Here in the office life is full of rushes and lulls. Finally, I've got some time to write a solid letter. Honestly, a lot of the stuff we do is busy work, but there is a lot to do. We constantly are running from zone to zone and from area to area to bring them the stuff they need. The biggest reason for that has been opening up new areas. Also, the car has had a ton of problems. The office had to take Jamie (the name of the pickup) to Xela 3 times last week to get it fixed. I only have been in 3 zones that are right next to each other and so we've been getting lost ALL the time.
Love,
Elder Pugmire
Honestly, I hate spending time in the office. We are forced to do a lot of planning and work in the office just for all of the logistics of coordinating with Presidente Ruiz. We've really been working on leaving the office at every spare moment we have to go work in our area. Our goal is to baptize a family before my comp goes home at the end of March.
Two Sundays ago we switched wards. We did a reorganization of all the office areas. Me and Elder Morataya are going to be in Barrio Monterrey now! WOW!!! This ward is super PILAS!!!! Man, they were so excited to see that now there were going to be 4 Elders there. We share the ward with Elder Keck and Elder Ormsby! We had members bring 4 investigators to the Iglesia! So that's super awesome! We're looking forward to them progressing!
Two Sundays ago we switched wards. We did a reorganization of all the office areas. Me and Elder Morataya are going to be in Barrio Monterrey now! WOW!!! This ward is super PILAS!!!! Man, they were so excited to see that now there were going to be 4 Elders there. We share the ward with Elder Keck and Elder Ormsby! We had members bring 4 investigators to the Iglesia! So that's super awesome! We're looking forward to them progressing!
When we're not in the office and not in our area we're on the road traveling. However, we've had a bunch of highlights amidst the seemingly endless hours of traveling. We've been doing a bunch of interviews in all of the areas. Before getting baptized every person needs to be interviewed to make sure that they have shown fruits of repentance. When someone really has a contrite spirit the desire to change, a broken heart, and the desire to get baptized they can do it. Basically, our job is to make sure the people the missionaries have taught have come close enough to Christ to be able to make a lifetime covenant with Him.
Two Sundays ago we went to Pueblo Nuevo y Nuevo Palmar to interview. I got to talk with a bunch of kids that were super pilas!! They already knew so much about the gospel and had such a strong desire to follow Christ. They all wanted to be baptized, but the problem was the parents weren't so supportive of the idea. We decided that we would give them a few weeks so they could see the changes that the kids were going to have in their lives, and then we would invite them to be baptized again. In Pueblo Nuevo, we had a bunch of exciting experiences. I was with Elder Davis, so obviously there was not a single boring moment with him. Man, that kid is hilarious! We went to do interviews but unfortunately, no one was home to interview. So we went to contact, we had been touching doors for like 2 hours and hadn't had anyone let us in. (In Guatemala this is pretty rare.) We felt inspired to touch another door. Except where you don't touch the door or the doorbell you just shout ''BUENAS!!!!!!!'' (Like Buenas Tardes, Buenos Dias, or Buenas Noches.) basically as loud as you can and someone is bound to come out to receive you. We were greeted by the mom and we told her we were impressed to touch her door and we told her we wanted to pray with her. She was all for it. So we got into her house and we asked her if she could bring all of the members of her family as well so that they could be part of the prayer. By the time she was done bringing all of her family in, there were like 12 people in their tiny room. We had a kneeling prayer and the Dad was so grateful afterward they told us to come back the next week because they wanted to talk to us again! I haven't heard how they're doing but I hope they came to church!
Two Sundays ago we went to Pueblo Nuevo y Nuevo Palmar to interview. I got to talk with a bunch of kids that were super pilas!! They already knew so much about the gospel and had such a strong desire to follow Christ. They all wanted to be baptized, but the problem was the parents weren't so supportive of the idea. We decided that we would give them a few weeks so they could see the changes that the kids were going to have in their lives, and then we would invite them to be baptized again. In Pueblo Nuevo, we had a bunch of exciting experiences. I was with Elder Davis, so obviously there was not a single boring moment with him. Man, that kid is hilarious! We went to do interviews but unfortunately, no one was home to interview. So we went to contact, we had been touching doors for like 2 hours and hadn't had anyone let us in. (In Guatemala this is pretty rare.) We felt inspired to touch another door. Except where you don't touch the door or the doorbell you just shout ''BUENAS!!!!!!!'' (Like Buenas Tardes, Buenos Dias, or Buenas Noches.) basically as loud as you can and someone is bound to come out to receive you. We were greeted by the mom and we told her we were impressed to touch her door and we told her we wanted to pray with her. She was all for it. So we got into her house and we asked her if she could bring all of the members of her family as well so that they could be part of the prayer. By the time she was done bringing all of her family in, there were like 12 people in their tiny room. We had a kneeling prayer and the Dad was so grateful afterward they told us to come back the next week because they wanted to talk to us again! I haven't heard how they're doing but I hope they came to church!
I think it was last week that we had a leadership meeting. It was on Tuesday night for the Zone Leaders, and oh! We had another one with all of the Hermana Leaders and District leaders. It was awesome!
Elder Morataya is awesome. We've had some great studies and preparing for the meeting we decided that we wanted to share a message about being mensajeros de salvacion (Messengers of Salvation) like it says in D&C 93:1-11 when it talks about all of the names that Christ has, one of them being a Messenger of Salvation.
We talked about how we could become these types of messengers, and one of the ways we could do it is by becoming one with the Father, The Son, and The Holy Ghost. They are 3 separate beings but one in purpose. Likewise, we need to unite our purpose with that of the Son's and we too can become this type of Messenger of Salvation, like it says in Juan 17:20-23 It actually went really well. Then we watched the movie Miracle! It was super good! There were definitely a lot of good memories of Super fanning, and some good Minnesota references in the movie. We all got really pumped to meet our goal of March and we made a bunch of plans of things we had to do to meet it. One of the things we are going to focus on is finding more people to teach every week. We were averaging as a mission around 8 news a week for every companionship. But this last week we are at an average of 13 news! It's awesome because we also had a ton of people come to church! We have one more week to prepare and then March is going to be crazy!
To help us with this goal I and my companion decided that we were going to try and get mini missionaries to work with us! Basically, we sent out a call to all of the youth 17 and up that if they wanted to go on a mini-mission for 5 weeks we would take them with open arms. We set up everything and Presidente told us that we would be in charge of everything. So on Monday, we had the reception of 14 Mini missionaries from Coatepeque, Reu, Mazate, and San Felipe. We got them all assigned and they headed out! Only that we had some issues and they're only going to be able to be with us for a week. The minis are kinda sad about that but we are going to try and get them extender. So we're super excited we have two mini missionaries that are working with us now. So we are going to do divisions to go and visit everywhere in the mission.
Monday we ran cots to everyone that had mini missionaries so that they could sleep. Then we got back to the office to find that the hotel that we were going to put the leaders from 3 zones in didn't get reserved and that also another zone of leaders was there! So we had no place or plans of where they could sleep. So we had to do some last-minute planning and we got everyone into a house. We planned for a little of our message and then headed to bed.
I've had a bad cold for the past 3 days so today it was pretty tough to teach. But it was awesome listening to Sister and Elder Lopez! He's from the 70! I remember hearing somewhere that behind every great leader in the church they have an amazing wife. And that was clearly shown today both the Hermana Lopez and Hna Ruiz had some amazing talks. Elder Lopez also was awesome! We learn a lot about what they talked about in the worldwide training. I really liked what he said when he said '' the first companionship of this generation was God the Father and Jesus Christ, the first leccion was when they taught the restoration of the gospel to the first investigator, Joseph Smith'' Then he told us that we needed to be bolder in testifying of Jesus Christ and challenging people to baptism. He also told us that we needed to work more with the members and that our goal of Marzo of 300+++ is possible! So we are all super excited!
Monday we ran cots to everyone that had mini missionaries so that they could sleep. Then we got back to the office to find that the hotel that we were going to put the leaders from 3 zones in didn't get reserved and that also another zone of leaders was there! So we had no place or plans of where they could sleep. So we had to do some last-minute planning and we got everyone into a house. We planned for a little of our message and then headed to bed.
I've had a bad cold for the past 3 days so today it was pretty tough to teach. But it was awesome listening to Sister and Elder Lopez! He's from the 70! I remember hearing somewhere that behind every great leader in the church they have an amazing wife. And that was clearly shown today both the Hermana Lopez and Hna Ruiz had some amazing talks. Elder Lopez also was awesome! We learn a lot about what they talked about in the worldwide training. I really liked what he said when he said '' the first companionship of this generation was God the Father and Jesus Christ, the first leccion was when they taught the restoration of the gospel to the first investigator, Joseph Smith'' Then he told us that we needed to be bolder in testifying of Jesus Christ and challenging people to baptism. He also told us that we needed to work more with the members and that our goal of Marzo of 300+++ is possible! So we are all super excited!
Anyway, sorry for the timing of the letter and everything. Hope all is well! Love you all!
Elder Pugmire
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