Week 62

September 16, 2014

X-ka k'ij. I hope everyone had a most excellent 15 de Septiembre, the Independence Day here in Central America. On the 14th I was in Zaragoza, where there are always fiestas and man, they were getting ready for a pretty great celebration. Everything here in Patzicia always seems a little more gloomy and drizzly. I don't think the people threw quite a great a party (at least I didn't see anyone dancing on top of buses in motion like I did last year). However, I can't talk since we used the day (which was our P day) to defrost the freezer. It was as fun as it sounds.

Things have been going well in our area. Too well in fact. A few days ago the stake president talked to us and said that he was going to ask President Markham to put missionaries back in Zaragoza. Pretty sad because I love that city so much. We've just started teaching a big, really prepared family there in Zaragoza that came to church for the first time this Sunday. They're really prepared and it's well worth the 10 or 15 Quetzales we have to spend to travel out to their aldea (a little group of houses a ways away from the main city).

Also, a few days ago we knocked on the door of Antonio, the really great grandpa who we used to always have Family Home Evenings with but who fell back into his old addiction to alcohol. He answered to door and we found out that after 6 weeks straight of drinking he was finally sober again. He certainly looked a little the worse for wear. He had lost a lot of weight, hadn't shaved well, and was wearing dirty clothes, but I was so incredibly happy to hear his normal voice again. I think I experience a little bit of the joy our Heavenly Father feels when we repent. I was sad for all the suffering he had passed through but all that was forgotten in how overjoyed I was to have him back again. I felt the Spirit really strongly as I taught him about how it is only through the Atonement of Jesus Christ that we can overcome our weaknesses and faults. We can't do it on our own. That was something I really needed to hear myself. These things are always easier to recognize in other people. Accurate introspection is really hard. Ay yayay (not sure if that's the right spelling in English, but we'll do it.)

P.S. here's a picture of Elder Hintze and me at a meeting we had with Elder Ochoa last Thursday. He's one of the elders who entered the field with me and is probably one of the most pilas missionaries I've ever met. Yep, we finally ended up wearing the same tie we both brought from the States. Awkward...