Week 49...7/13/15...BACK TO MALACATAN BABY!!!! ELDER TUMBACO, Carlos, Marlin, Julisa and Lucia, Noelia

UWHOOOHOOO!!!! IM BACK IN ZONE MALACATAN! I'm pumped!  I love this Zone! My first area, San Pablo, is like 20 minutes away from my new area, Libertad 1! So that's awesome!  All of the missionaries are new except for Elder Kanahele who got moved back here to be our Zone Leader. But I better give you all an update about how crazy this week was. I'll start with Tuesday... Here we go. . .

Tuesday: So we got up and headed to the reunion de Districto and we have had the meeting and during the meeting, they told us that the changes wouldn't be in till 2:00 pm. So we ran to eat lunch and then came back to watch the presentation of the changes.

Guamex. The place we always used to eat in Reu. 

That’s a torta that we always ordered. It's soooo good! 

The red furry ball is called Rambutan it’s a fruit that’s super good! But looks crazy! The inside is like a peeled grape and it's got a seed in the middle. 

Me, Elder Dial, and Elder Hill all had changes and we're leaving all of our comps to defend the areas for themselves. I was kinda sad to leave my area because this Saturday they had 4 baptisms Carlos, Marlin, Julisa, and Lucia all got baptized! They're the daughters and son-in-law of Hna Gloria and next week we have a family of 4 lined up to get baptized too but I won't be able to be there for it. I love all the people in El Codo, and I'm unfortunate to be leaving Elder Lagos, I love that kid. But anyways after the district meeting, we took off to get home and say goodbye to everyone. We got home on a bus late so we had to get off at La Colonia and walk with all of our clean clothes to say goodbye to everyone.

That picture is the last photo of me and my comp Elder Lagos at the change meeting.

Then we walked the 3 miles home to eat dinner and say goodbye to the rest of the people we could. We got home and I started to pack. I'm such a slow packer! I had just so much stuff to do and
I didn't get to bed till like 3... 

Wednesday: We were up at 5 and on the bus and in Reu at like 7am. We got breakfast and then we headed to the changes meeting. They did them a little differently this time. Basically, I got sent to Libertad 1, Zona Malacatan to be the District Leader there.  I'm feeling like I've got a lot to learn, which is true.   The thing is,  I don't have very much time to learn it because I feel like all I do is run, run, run. We got to our house and then left to work on Wednesday and when we got back I realized how filthy it was. It's probably because there's a huge hole in the middle of it where the member we're living with keeps a garden of types. So I cleaned everything up a bit and then we headed to unpack and I got to bed late again.

Thursday:  I've never been so tired. I'm absolutely exhausted but we went to the Zone Meeting and I got to meet the district.  It's crazy being back in Malacatan.  Everything is super familiar!  I've seen a ton of familiar faces and even a few have recognized me as ELDER PUG-Mago. (mago means magician in Spanish). 

Friday:  We just worked all day, but in the morning I was super pumped because our area has a gym close, so we are going to be going there in the morning every day! OH ALSO, THANKS SO MUCH FOR THE BIRTHDAY PACKAGE MOM! It was perfect. The last Sunday in El Codo we were cleaning out the Capilla and stumbled upon like 8 old Conference Report Ensigns! I was super excited to read them but I had changes and felt like I should leave them there. But cabal, in the packages, was a huge list of conference talks! I'm so excited to read them! The only thing is there is not any time at all! Right now as a mission we're trying to read the Book of Mormon in a month so any free time I have, I spend reading the Book of Mormon. It's been amazing and I've learned so much from it!

Saturday: WE HAD A BAPTISM! The Elders here have been teaching a girl named Noelia. She made the decision to be baptized and my comp insisted that I be the one to perform the baptism. OH... MY NEW COMP IS AWESOME! His name is Elder Tumbaco! He's from Ecuador and he's a great teacher! I'm so pumped to get to work with him here!

Sunday: The church was great and we had a few investigators come. It was awesome to see all of the members I had met on divisions a few months ago. Also Elder Garcia, a missionary who just finished his mission stopped by our ward with his family to say goodbye to everyone. Then we jumped in a Tuc Tuc and I realized that it was one of the TUC TUC drivers we always would ride within San Pablo! It was soo cool that our paths crossed again. I invited him to church and then we headed out on our way. He always would charge us fairly and more than once saved our lives when we were coming home late from playing soccer, somehow he'd be there to give us a ride even though it was so late.

Monday: We played volleyball as a Zone and it was a blast!  

It's crazy how time goes! But I'm pumped to be able to serve here in my new area! Hope all is well! Love and miss you all!

PS. This is probably the reason I got changed out of El Codo. I've gotten sick a ton there, I got Chickunguya which is a mosquito illness, I had a 104 fever, and it's a disease that actually attacks all of the past injuries which is why it is such a terrible disease for the elderly. It really affects the joints and such. But my wounds from my stitches got enflamed as well as my ankles from when I sprained them in lacrosse. Also from the heat, I've had some really bad rashes from sweating constantly. It spread from my legs onto my arms and I've got little red dots all over my arms. We thought they could have been bed bugs but I went to Xela to a skin doctor and he said it was just heat rash and I needed to get to colder weather. So I'm really sad to go leave El Codo, but I'm hoping that I can not be super itchy all the time. 

Love,

Elder Pugmire

Week 48...7/6/15...They walked and walked and walked andddd WALLLLKKKEED

HEY GUYS! HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY! Every day that I'm here it makes me appreciate the great country that I can call my home. God has, does, and forever will bless America. I love the United States of America, and all those that have, do, and will give something to defend our country.

Here they carry everything on their heads. I'm not quite sure how. This is Yanet who we are teaching.

This week was probably the hardest week of my mission. The problem was that last week our bikes broke. So we have been borrowing bikes from the members but finally, everything we were using or borrowing developed a problem and we had to just resort to walking. Unfortunately, that meant that we needed to walk around 3 miles to get to La Colonia and then another 2 miles down another street. Then we had to walk all the way back to make some of our other visits. Needless to say after 5 days of that we were exhausted. We barely got back to our house before falling asleep. I remember various times this week just walking down the road with my eyes closed.

Me on divisions with Elder Dial. This is a very unique situation. None of the DL or ZL's want to do divisions in El Codo because our house is so Ghetto and it's so hot here.

Borrowing bikes from the members

But really the Lord blessed our hard work. We have been talking a lot with Hermana Gloria's Family and Marlin and Carlos are going to get married next week! And on Saturday or Sunday Marlin, Lucia and Julisa are going to get baptized! Carlos is gonna get baptized the next week if all goes according to plan!

We also are teaching this family that has been receiving the missionaries since like 3 years ago but we taught them this week and challenge them to get married. And they accepted! And Teresa came with her daughter to church and everything. 

We found these huge leaves on these trees!

Me with some ducks just sitting in the middle of the road.

This Friday we had a great conference with our Presidente Ruiz. He came to our zone to talk to us about how we could do more work as a companionship in our own respective areas. He talked to us about how to help our investigator Carlos. He has been really trying to know if this is the true church or not. The problem is that he has a bunch of families that love to talk badly about the church. We've heard from him that they say that we are spies. They say that we are all just terribly raised children from the states that Obama has shipped us out to talk about the Bible to make us better behaved, or that we are the Church of the Devil and do tons of terrible things. Really the hate against the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints here is pretty prevalent. Usually, we sit and clear up all of his doubts. But President taught us something just awesome. He reminded us that God is love and contention is of the devil he told us to teach everyone the Doctrine that God is love. When people talk bad about the church, it doesn't come from God. We have been teaching everyone that now and it's really helped! Our mission president is the best! I know that our Heavenly Father blesses those that are diligent and devoted to his cause!

I love you all and miss you! 

Love,

Elder Pugmire

OH! Great story! The lights went out again for a few days (no electricity). When they go out all of the Chocobananas get ruined. So the member that sells them told us to come and help her eat some choco bananas.  We ate like 25 each.... and then went home and almost died.

Hna Gloria's kids built this zipline in their back yard with a rope, a tire, and a pulley! It is awesome

I thought you'd enjoy this mom. We played matches with this kid like we always used to play with the missionaries when I was young.

Another one of our investigators hit an owl and we were there to help it get better

 so they could keep it as a pet.

Week 47...6/29/15...Birthday in the mission, Hot, Hot, Hot

So this week has been pretty great but also kinda average! The only crazy thing that happened Wednesday. We announced Sunday that we were going to be showing Meet the Mormons on Saturday. We had clearance and everything and everyone was super pumped to go! But then on Wednesday, we got a notice from a member that they had gotten an invitation to a birthday party and they were going to use the court outside the church for it but they had never said anything to us. We ended up getting a ton of people worried about if the movie was gonna get canceled. So we went to go talk to the people and long story short.... we had to cancel. The birthday parties here are huge. 

Here they don't have lawnmowers just machetes and a stick with a little stick on the end to pull the weeds to a good position to cut them.

My wrist tan photo that you asked for.

Speaking of birthday parties I had probably the best birthday any missionary could ever ask for. We happened to have our Zone Meeting changed from the 25 to the 26th! So that was awesome! We ended up waking up at 3 and walking an hour to go wake up some Jovenes so that they could get on the 5 o'clock bus for the youth activity.

Early morning walk. Notice the times. 

We left around 3:45 am and got there at 4:45 am and notice that even though it's 4:45 am and we're only walking I'm already dripping from sweat.

From our branch 12 of the Jovenes went and seems like they had a blast! 

The meeting ended up being combined with Zona Las Palmas! When we got there Presidente Ruiz and Hermana Ruiz wished me a Happy Birthday and after the meeting, they brought out a cake!!!! Presidente Ruiz had his birthday on the 17th but we just celebrated together! So that was awesome! 

Part of the cake!

Me, Presidente Y Hermana Ruiz for my birthday.
They also said that their youngest son was turning 22 that same day!

Then we got back to our area and we went to visit Hna Gloria's. She surprised us by telling us she made us dinner and we helped make the tortillas! They killed and prepared 2 of their chickens which was super special for me because their family really doesn't have much. It was awesome! 

Me and Hna Gloria tortillando! That tortilla right there is my 1120 tortilla eaten in the mission as of 26-6-2015

Birthday dinner ''mole'' she gave me two plates of this I was so full I almost died.

Saturday we helped out with the birthday party and ended up having to stay extra long to clean it up. Supposedly my comp, who worked as a clown, was supposed to help with all of the games during the party but didn't prepare anything. So with some quick thinking and some of my Birthday Party Hero-ing experience whipped up some quick games and the kids loved it! So that was great! This Sunday we had a super great Sunday meeting where I and my comp gave talks and we had 5 investigators come to church!  Today for p'day we played kickball and frisbee which was awesome! 

Some tough parts of the week have been the heat and bikes. The heat is almost unbearable! My bike quit working on Tuesday from all the mud and my comp's bike hasn't been working since last week but we've been borrowing the bike of a member.  I had to carry my bike about half a mile to get home, but with some engineering and part swapping from my companion's bike it was back on the roads on Wednesday. But soon is going to be ruled unusable because of the crack in the mainframe.

But it's been great! Life is good and I'm living the dream! Please tell everyone thanks for the Birthday Wishes though I'm sure I wasn't able to see all of them.

Love you all!

Elder Pugmire

Rain!!!!!  it finally rained today! Thank goodness... however, the question is whether or not it rained in El Codo sent in the next email...

How they get rid of dead cats here...

Week 46...6/22/15...Xela, Temple 2nd Trip

Alright! I'm late for writing so this letter is going to be short and sweet! 

Panorama of Temple Grounds

So this week was a little crazy! We had originally planned to go to the temple Tuesday, but the APs called and told us that we were going to have to go on Wednesday instead. That basically destroyed all of our plans and made us have to stay the entire day Tuesday in Reu to be able to leave in the morning for Xela. But we got to go out and help Elder Dial and Perez in their area so that was great! 

Then on Wednesday at 4 am we were supposed to get up and be at the church ready to go. I set my alarm for 3 to be able to shower and get over there. But, just a classic move by me, slept through all alarms and woke up at 3:45 am.  But thanks to the training I received from Seminary, ie: waking up 10 minutes till class started, I was able to shower, shave, get dressed, brush my teeth AND be at the church at 3:57. That's pretty impressive if I do say so myself! 

Xela Temple

Elders Pugmire and Lagos

But honestly, the temple was amazing. The peace, love, and presence of God is honestly so strong there. I love what Elder Hill told me. He said to me while we were in the Celestial room ''Man I can't wait to live here.'' He is so right. It is my greatest desire that everyone could reach the glory of the Celestial Kingdom to be able to always feel that joy of being so close to our Heavenly Father. We went to go buy some stuff at the Distribution Center and guess who I ran into!!! ELDER HICKEN! A friend of mine from Minnesota that was with me in the CCM! His area covers the temple and just by chance he was there! So that was awesome!

Elder Hicken and Elder Pugmire. . . friends from MN . . .Missionaries in Guatemala.

Then we headed back to the scorching heat of the Reu Mission. It's been so hot here! Even though it's the rainy season it hasn't rained in like a week or two. So that's been awful! Friday we showed the movie ''Meet the Mormons.'' We didn't have as great of a turn out as we had hoped for but it was perfect. We have one investigator named Marlin, the daughter of Gloria (who got baptized the other week) she went to the movie and told us after that she too wanted to be baptized and that she really was starting to realize the reality of the Joy of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. So now we just need to work with her Husband Carlos so that they can get married so they can get baptized. So that's awesome! But ya! That's about life here! Sorry for the shortness of the email and thanks for all of the birthday wishes! I love and miss you all!

Some cool architecture in the city

Love,

Elder Pugmire

Week 45...6/15/15...Hmn Gloria, Kimberly, Manuel and the Beach

Buenos Tardes Familia! How is everything going? This week was awesome for us! It was crazy for sure. . .but amazing. . .so many blessings and miracles. To start things off we went to the office Tuesday to take a picture since we broke the record that has been there for  5 YEARS! Then we were on our way to the bus stop in a Tuc Tuc when the oficina called and told us they wanted to come work with us in our area. So we just told the Tuc tucqurero to drop us off on the corner and we hitched a ride with the oficina back to El Codo. I went and worked with Elder Perez which was awesome and then we finished up with a lesson with Hna Gloria and her Family. Hna Gloria accepted to be baptized and so did Manuel! So that was awesome! 

Hno Keka and a guy who we always love to talk to.

Then Wednesday we had interviews with Presidente as a Zone. So we all met in the office building and had a bunch of teaching workshops and then an awesome message From Presidente Ruiz. He is such an amazing man. I love him so much. The oficina asked us to give a taller(workshop) on the Book of Mormon. It actually turned out super well and sounds like a few learned from it. Then we ended super late so we couldn't get back to our area. So we did divisions with the ZL's in their area. I went with Elder Berrios and once again just learned a ton from him. He really is a fantastic missionary. 

Then on Friday we called Elder Hill to see if he could come do divisions in our area to interview Kimberly, one of Hna Glorias daughters, because we felt like she was super close to accepting baptism but just had a little doubt she wouldn't tell us. So I went to Champe and worked all day with Elder Jimenez which was awesome! We had an activity playing Futbol in the cancha out side the church and brought like 20 investigators to come play. The people here love futbol! Then we got word from Elder Hill that Kimberly accepted to be baptized as well! Her problem was she just wanted something to remember her baptism and wanted her dad to send her a dress or something. We showed her the pictures we would be taking and she ended up being super excited for it! So we planned to be back in El Codo the next morning. However, the bus never passed or passed by early or late or something. The thing was we didn't get on a bus to get to El Codo. We made it there with a mixture of Jalons and walking and finally got to El Codo with 2 hours until the baptism. 

The problem is... El Codo almost never has light and without light there is also no water. So my comp and Elder Hill left in the morning without light to go 2 houses away to the church. And by the time they reached the church there was electricity! SUCH A MIRACLE! However the facet in the church takes like a good 6 hours or so to fill and we really didn't have time for that. So we talked with the neighbors to configure some sort of hose from their pump to go pass the fence, into the church, down the hallway and into the font. Needless to say with some crazy engineering the font filled in like 20 minutes. It was awesome. We might have to do that from now on! 

The hose we put together, ran from the pump through the fence, down the hall and into the baptism font.

Also we had the ZL's come down to bring some more clothes because the others didn't fit. And still when they came we didn't have any for Kimberly. But we designed a coat and dress combo that I must say may have been the best baptism outfit ever. I might go into model design when I get back SI PUES!!! 

Elder Jimenez,Elder Fiftia, Elder Lagos, Kimberly, Hmn Gloria, Manuel, Elder Pugmire, Elder Hill and Elder Berrios

Manuel, Hmn Gloria and Kimberly with baptism clothing designed by the Elders

But the baptismal service was incredible. And after the confirmation Sunday Hna Gloria was talking on the phone with her relative and I over heard her say. ''Something marvelous has just happened. Yesterday I was baptized and today confirmed in the Church of Jesus Christ. It has been the happiest days of my life.'' It was a testimony to me that really the true Church and gospel of Jesus Christ changes lives. It was an awesome blessing for me because it was me and Elder Lagos who first contacted their house. So we got to see all of the progress they made. Such an amazing Miracle.

So that was the week! For P'day we went to take photos on the beach.

Elder Hill and Elder Pugmire

  

Elder Lagos and Elder Pugmire

THIS CHURCH IS TRUE. I love this work. Its amazing. I love and miss you all. 

Love,

Elder Scotty Pugmire