Guatemala City South

hey mom, thanks for that letter. i like your letters better that way when you tell more about you guys and what you guys did through the week. so you should be writing more like that.  but yeah i am loving it here and i cannot believe that the year mark is coming up. right now it is raining really really hard and the thunder is really cool. i feel like im back in tucson haha. normally it doesnt thunder here.

but yeah, the ritual is to burn a shirt and a tie for the year mark, so we´ll see what we can do for that. haha. we may be having a couple of baptisms coming up soon so we will see. satan always does his freaking work but i have faith that the good lord will bless us. we have been working really hard lately and we are being blessed here with great people. anyways here is a little about my week.

so first off ill talk about the family reyes the members. i love that family and me and my comp decided to invite them to pizza this past week. i feel that something is passing by in their lives and they just needed something really nice to happen for them. the mom then told us afterwords that she really really happy that we brought the pizza by and that they were kind of struggling a little bit but that every single little thing that happens to them they know it is a gift from god, so that was really cool to hear.

then there is another family reyes that we found and they are investigators. they are super cool and super nice. they have tons of questions for us always and they always are so interested to learn from us. last time they had the question why wasnt joesph smith in the bible. so we explained that to them and then afterwords they understood perfectly why he wasnt in there. haha, then we went on and taught them the first lesson, the restoration and they loved it. they understood it and they said that it was really legit how we explained it. they are a super nice family and really cool.

we also have this one guy named hermano alvarado. he is super nice too and really cool. he is a guy who has a problem in his left side of his body so he cant walk normally so he uses crutches a lot but he is just super humble and pretty dang smart. so anyways when we went this past week he was just telling us about his week at work and then he asked us a couple questions. like how we do baptisms and how someone can become bishop. haha he was like, so can i just like run for office or something. can i be the prophet. haha we were just like yeah you could be the prophet but you can't run for it. we explained to him how god shall choose them to be the leaders of the church. after he really understood it. but yup he is a cool guy.

so there is this other guy named angel. he is a super cool teenager and he is really hungry to learn. he lacks quite a bit of faith in god but we are helping him along the way. it is so awesome to see it in his eyes as he continues to grow and as we teach him. this last week it was cool we were teaching him about the atonement and he was not getting it. at that moment i said a prayer in my heart for god to help us explain it and this man came around the corner pushing his son on a bike. my comp saw him and was like the atonement is like this. we are to weak to be here by ourselves in the world, and we can not do all the things by ourselves. we are all sinners, so what we need to do is we need to give it our best and then jesus comes, and through his atonement he takes care of the rest. so with the bike guy we were just like the kid tries his hardest but he cannot do it all by himself yet. so his dad comes and helps push him the rest of the way. it was amazing and the angel kid totally understood it afterwords. he´s getting it peterrrrr, as you  guys say. haha.

also something cool that happened this week we had our zone conference on saturday and it went really really well. president stay is wonderful and i learn so much from him every single time.

 he knows so much it amazes me. anyways he gave us some really good teachings for baptizing so i will be trying to apply those new teachings and we´ll see how it goes. i love that guy so much. at lunch he was playing a hand game with me and it was so much fun. him and his wife are just so nice. i want their love in my marriage too. haha you can throw President stay on that list of guys i admire. one thing he ended with the zone conference. he said something to get us thinking. he told us the mission is 10 percent of our lives and that this is like  tithing. then he asked us, are we paying a full tithe. it really got me thinking and i need to work harder and be the best i can. i have been doing really good lately and i learned a lot of really good things from elder mabey and im so glad he was my companion. i have really learned a great way to work here on the mission and the importance of obedience. for example on sunday this lady came to church and told us she wants us to baptize her son next month for her, and that she was lost and she had no chance of being baptized and that she was too bad. i explained to that lady that it was not to late and jesus died for this reason. satan wants her to think it is to late but it is never to late. it isnt to late until jesus comes, then it is to late, but it was really neat to see a sense of hope in this ladies eyes and now we will start teaching her and her son together. so neat. this gospel is so amazing and can really help and bless people if we are obedient. not just missionaries have to be obedient.

anyways i saved this part for last because it was really cool. there is this cool girl we are teaching now who´s name is erika. she is super nice and really loves the teachings about the church. we were teaching her about god and she started crying. i didnt know why so i asked her what she did. and she just told me that at one point in time in her life she lost her faith in him and thought that he really didnt exist. but then she said that when we were teaching her about him she could feel his spirit and could feel that he was with her and that he loved her really. she could feel all those things and she knew that these things are true and that for the first time she wants to do what is right for god. that was a really touching moment for me and i loved it. it really helped my own testimony of god and i know that he is always here with us and he is helping people in the exact moment that they need it. God does love us and no one can convince me otherwise. Sorry if i offend someone but i get mad when certain religions say that we will not be going to live with God after this life and that we will never be worthy enough to be with him. I know My god loves me and i know that my savior Jesus Christ died for me and for my sins so that i can literally be clean from my sins and that i can return to him. I love them so much and just as i am excited to come home to you guys, i cant wait to return with my god and my savior. I want to live my life to my best and i know we can only do that if we are really in the church with our full hearts and brains and that we are really dedicated to all the things the church teaches. I know this is the true church and i know that God loves us. I love you guys and i hope you have had a great week. and that you have a great week to come.

love your son
daniel shipley

ps yes changes are this wednesday, there are 25 new elders coming in. should be interesting.

(I really felt the Spirit when I read this letter and sent it around to friends and family)