Why the short letter? I missed having that time to chat too. Although we won’t be able to talk for long today, because today we are going to have two baptisms.
I loved that talk from Elder Maynes too.
Things are going really great here. They are currently working on our house and fixing it up a lot. They have repainted it and fixed a lot of the problems that were in it. I like to think that they are fixing it up for Eric for when he gets here. Other than that everything else is going the same as usual.
We are really starting to have a lot of success and trying new things, we are starting to be bolder. We are just helping the investigators realize the importance of baptism and putting the fecha from the first time that we meet them. We were able to put 2 fechas this last week and our goal is to get up to 20 fechas. We want to have 20 progressing investigators and 20 lessons a week. So hopefully we will be able to see more baptisms from this. I am hoping to finish with another 8 – 10 baptisms. It is very possible, but we need to find some more people to teach and get moving on some things. The most complicated thing here in Guatemala though is that most of the people just don’t realize the importance of marriage. So we need to convince them on that, then get them to want to be married, then we can baptize them. It all has to do with the Joseph Smith story though. If we can knock their shoes off with that we can get them. There is a sister named dulce Maria. We have been teaching her for quite some time now and she is an old investigator. We left her for awhile and then just recently we went back to visit her. We went there the first time and we talked to her about how the first vision applies to her and why it should be so important in her life. After we taught her that principle, she went that night and she was praying. We went there the next day and she told us she received her answer. She knew that this was the true church of God and told us that it wasn’t important to her if we taught her good or not, or if her husband wants to marry her or not, she knew that she needed to be baptized in this church. She just told us, "elders, please help me reach that goal". So we called her mom in Niagara, and her mom is going to send us her papers so she can get married with her husband here. Then we will baptize them the 21 of July. It will be a great day. It was just so amazing to see the Lord work in such a quick manner. He truly does answer the prayers of the people when they ask with faith and a contrite spirit.
That is great that the bishop will have me speak on that day. Does he have a preference on what I should speak on? Would he like me to just talk about how the gospel has affected people here in Guatemala? That is kind of what I plan on talking about, and how the members can be missionaries too. I plan on using tons of stories from my mission. I can think of so many that I could probably talk for like an hour, but I will try to make it about 20 mins. I love these people so much; it makes me emotional to think that I won’t be seeing them anymore. Probably only once after my mission and then probably never again.
So Eric is officially in. What time does he get here on Tuesday so that we can go and pick him up from the airport. Tell him he should probably plan on wearing church clothes, but if he would like to wear normal clothes it doesn’t matter. The people here are generally nicer though to the Mormons. That is so exciting that he will be next to me on the flight home. I will have an elder record the experience when we pick up Eric. I cannot wait to see him.
Wow, that is so interesting that they will move to Minnesota, what a drastic move, ha, are there mountains there so we can go skiing? Sad that we won’t be able to visit them in California.
That is exciting that President Ferguson is the new Counselor, and sad to see the Gardeners leave. They were great, I love listening to his talks. He talked as though he was in General Conference. He will probably become an authority one day. I really think that I can talk to nanny alone and help her realize a lot of things. She needs that and sometimes I feel like I can do that for her too. I would be honored to baptize her, but it is always her choice who she would want to do it. That would be really cool to live there. I would do anything for cheap rent. I still am not too sure what I should do for schooling. I have mixed feelings as to whether I should go up to Utah, or go to ASU. I want to surround myself with good people and have a good environment. I think that will be really crucial as to how I raise my kids in the future.
So in the mission, we are currently at 201 missionaries, and yes I know each and every single one of them. I try really hard to learn all their names and something about them. We have a wall with all the missionaries so we can look at them and meditate about them.
The picture is made of real leather too. I will get the 4 feet by 2 feet one.
I am fine with whatever I have, I am so used to taking the bus too that I might try that out a little bit. See if it works out in Tucson like it does in Guatemala. That way I can save some serious money on gas.
By the way, I didn’t send that picture. That was the secretaries. It was pretty funny though, but yes it was photo shopped.
Well we need to get going now. I love you mom and I will talk to you next week. I love you all and I miss you a lot.
Love Elder Shipley
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