Guatemala City South

Hey mom,

dang i cant believe you guys are in carlsbad, i cant wait to be there next year with you guys again. that will be so so much fun. garrett says that he wants you guys to put it in september so he can go too with his family maybe. and wow what a coincidence that you guys saw the family of elder montegomery. i miss that guy. haha i remember me and him would hang out in the library of the pima library while he wrote his family. haha how weird. and now i feel like im in his shoes as one of the members from my ward is sitting next to me here in the computer place here. so weird to think about. but anyways im glad to hear you guys are happy and healthy and doing well. i wish so badly that i was there but in one year i´ll be there with you guys. that is soooooo weird to think about. where is the time going. 2 months and i´ll have 1 whole year in the mission. so crazy. and dont worry when i go home i´ll still work hard until the end. anyways here is my week.

Monday - so monday for pday all we did was played soccer and it was pretty fun. like i told you i have gotten pretty dang good except i was taken out of the game this last week because one of the elders who is a stud i call him, elder rodriguez kicked it really hard and right now we are questioning whether or not i can have kids. were not too certain. haha so i had to sit out for awhile but then i jumped back in and played again. then we played a little bit of football too which was fun. so it was a pretty fun pday. then that night we went to a family home evening wtih my convert here hermana jeniffer. it went really well. and my comp taught the lesson. he taught about how we need to know our god and we need to have a perfect knowledge of his love for us and we need to accept him as our savior so that we will use the atonement more. then i just shared with them about my favorite scripture in mosiah 5 about how if we know god he will know us as well and there will be no question that we were faithful and that he loved us. i love the book of mormon and it's teachings. but more importantly mom i love my savior. i am so grateful every week for the chance we have to be forgiven of our sins and that if we do something wrong we have that chance to be clean. he died for us so that we can return to him again. so that we are not going to be stuck in the pit hole forever but instead he gives us a ladder to get out, we need to do our part and climb out. but yeah it was a good lesson with them. then we ate dinner with them and hermana jennifer gave me 2 ties for my birthday, that was really nice of her. but yeah. so that was monday.

Tuesday - was kind of a bummer of a day and not too much happened. in the morning we had our district meeting and it went pretty well. we just did some practices and we had a lot of fun doing so. we had a subject that we had to teach and use a scripture. haha mine was easy i just had to teach the law of tithing and use the scripture about how adam was praying and the angel asked what are you doing, and adam said, i dont know but i do know that the lord commands it. so that was pretty fun. i taught my buddy elder walker and i just asked him what he was thankful for and if he could give something to the lord what would he give. and he said he would give all. and i said, well elder walker that is really generous but the lord has a lot of love for you. he doesnt want you to give it all back. he wants us to have it and enjoy it. but the lord does want us to give 10 percent of our money so that we can help build his kingdom here in the earth. and if we do that we have the lords promise that he will bless us with his blessings and that all will be ok. but yeah that was really cool for me. i love the practices and i learn so much from them for myself. they are really neat. anyways after that we went contacting a little bit and didnt really have too much success but they were alright and then we had a family home evening that night and it was really fun. it was with all the elders in our zone and we just played games with a small meeting. but it was fun and it was good to build some of that unity. so that was our tuesday.

Wednesday - On wednesday it was really cool. we went with this guy who is a recent convert.  so anyways we were with this guy and his name is jaime. he is interesting guy and is about 65 years old. he was telling us about his life and he told us that he had a wife who died then he got married again and now has his wife now. he is sealed to his second wife but not to the first. we told him. jaime do you know that you can be sealed with your first wife too. and he just started crying. and was like are you serious. i really can. how is that possible. then we explained it to him a little bit about how he could do that. and he was just getting so excited and we were talking to him about all the things in the temple and the beauty of the temple work and that he can do the work for all his family so that he can see them again after this life. he just got really excited and it was really neat to see that. i love that guy and we are helping him alot so that he can get sealed with his wife. that is one of my goals here to see that happen and im going to make sure that it goes through, cause if not he is kinda iffy and lets people push him around so i want to help him get that accomplished and i know he will be so happy to be sealed to her. he was just telling us how much he loved her and how badly he wants that, so im happy we can help him with that. so that was cool then in the night we had our class of english and it went really well. i just taught a little bit and then we watched a clip from Jeffery R. Holland about the book of mormon and the class loved it. they were all like, wow who is that guy, how is it that he speaks with such power, what is the book of mormon, who is alma, who are these 2000 kids. and etc. haha so we ended up talking about the book of mormon a little bit that night. so that was really neat. but yeah that was wednesday.

Thursday - On thursday we went with a couple more members and it was really cool. one who sticks out to me is this family called the family sosa. we had fun visiting with them and getting to know them. they remind me so much of jon and kate and they are a really cool couple. they are going to have a baby here in august and they were telling me how they wish that i am here so that i can get to know the baby. that will be really neat. but yeah so we had fun talking to them and then we talked a lot about the mission from the husband and he had fun remembering back to that time. so that was cool to hear those stories. i cant wait to invite the missionaries to my house so i can tell them about my mission and etc. haha. but yeah so we put a fhe with them for another night and then we were on our way. but that was pretty much our thursday.

Friday - So friday we went with latina crystal and her family, the family reyes. they are a really cool nice family. the 3 boys are the 3 of 5 in the young men so we really like working with them and helping them out. i asked them all where they want to go on their missions and for the most part they want to go to south america or to spain or to america. so that was fun getting to know that. and then just finding out what they like to do and what not. they are really nice family. so we put a fhe with them too for another day and then we were on our way. we then went with the new ward secretary who is a really cool guy and his name is hermano david. his son has david i think but im not entirely sure anyways we ate dinner with them. my goodness we´re not liking getting good with the ward. ive learned something, you can tell if missionaries are good in the ward if they get invited to dinner. but heck im eating a ton of food lately. its killing me and here i am trying to lose weight. haha. but i finally wrote a plan of working out so hopefully that will help me stay slim. haha or get more in shape. so we had fun with that family and they are a good family and really really nice. we also put a fhe with them as well. so that was our friday.

Saturday - So on saturday we went with one of my investigators who is a really really cool guy. his name is Danny. I have a lot of love for this guy and a lot of hope but there are just some little things that are keeping him from moving along the road. anyways me him and my comp had a pretty deep talk with him about him and his spouse and it was pretty serious. he is a great man and i have a lot of respect for him and im not going to lie, we share the same views for what we want in a wife so i felt like i could kind of help him a little bit but i really hope he can figure out what he wants to do and that he can move on with his life. his wife is a great women so i really hope they can work this out but there are just little things that freak him out, but i know he loves her and has a great love for her so im sure all will work out, but if it doesnt well then i told him to just pray to god and ask him what he should do. because we all know the big man upstairs knows all. so that was a really good lesson with him. i really hope this man can work out these little things. then we went to lunch and with the son of the hermana with whom we eat was about 5 rms. haha it was so funny. to be honest all i could see was me and my friends after the mission sitting around the temple talking about the mission and laughing and joking and just having a lot of fun. i cant wait for that day. by the way has riley entered in the mtc yet. wow when he leaves i will have a year. haha. poor kid. haha kidding. but yeah that is so crazy and i still feel like im living in a dream sometimes. but yeah so then that night we went with the family Ruiz. they are one of my most cherished families here. they are so nice and just so loving but they sometimes have little problems. we have them coming to church now, which before the were menus actives but now they are coming to church and sure are seeing the blessings of it. the mom has now found work and is doing well in it and it is just really cool to see the blessings of the lord work for the people who are obedient and want to be better and work to be better. so with them we ate some churros that she made and they were really really good. like the ones you buy from the fair. so that was fun. but yeah that was saturday

 Sunday - So on sunday we had meetings like all day and it was a bummer. in Church though that was really good and i loved it. in testimony meeting there were a lot of testimonies about the book of mormon and all that stuff and it really helped my testimony too. i really have learned so much about the book of mormon and i love that book mom. it is the best book ever. oh and also me and this kid named kevin are reading the book of mormon all the way through the month of June. about 25 pages a day. you guys should do it too. its not to late to start so get reading it. haha. but read it together and finish it before June 28th. thats when were going to finish it. anyways i love that book and i have a really strong testimony of that book now. there is no doubt in my mind that it is the true book and that it is the book that we need for our salvation. it is the only book in the world that we can use along wtih the bible and we can learn about the gospel of Jesus Christ. i love it. but yeah so that was really neat. anyways after all those meetings, we then went with the family estrada and it was fun over there as well. with them we watched these two videos that were really cool. one was about this one missionary who was going home and he was just telling this one guy on the plane about his mission and how it impacted him and the people that he helped and all that stuff. and it was really cool. i hope i sit next to someone who is not a member so i can talk to them about that stuff. anyways after that was this other video about this guy who was just really lost in life and didnt know what to do. and he had a lot of problems but then something happened and he turned his life around and went back home and his family accepted him but his brother didnt. and then it turned to the brother and how the brother had to give up his pride and realize that people change and that people really can change for the good. i know that for a fact mom. i remember in high school there was this girl named samantha. and from what i heard she was bad news. she was partying and doing crazy stuff but i just remember one day i saw her in church. and i asked what are you doing here. and she told me the missionaries taught her. she knew it was the truth and she knew what she had to do. she changed her life around and now she lives such a better life. i dont know what she is doing right now or where she is at but i have a feeling that she is in the good and is with better people who are helping her. that is what is so cool about the gospel. it can help people so much and change their lives around it is amazing the stuff i learn here and other missionaries are learing too, these are things one can only learn if they are here on a mission. i love it here mom and i wouldnt go home in a million years. i love my president and im going to miss him for sure but i know when im obiedient the lord blesses me. it is amazing. i love it. i love when i can see his blessings work in other people and how he blesses them. i love you guys so much and i know that you guys are doing what is right. i miss you guys alot and pray for you always. im so thankful for my family and friends. i wouldnt change you guys for one second or for anything. alright well i´ll talk to you later

love elder shipley