Hola!!!!!!!!!!! Ok so I am.................STILL in Chimaltenango and with Hermana Guaranda!!!! Hooray!!!!! I am very excited. I guess my work in Chimaltenango still isn’t done yet!!!! I am glad to hear that all is well and that Andrew started school. Yippeeee!! Hope Andrew LOVESSS it and lives it up because soon he’ll be in Nicaragua swimming through sewers like me.....yaahhhahahhahhyy!!!!!!! haha. Nah, but really hope all is well with everyone!!!
Ok so this week, I hit my wall!! It was such a hard week for me and I broke down and cried for 3 hours straight...no joke! But I feel a lot better and am still determined more than ever do just give all I can to the Lord. Ok sooo, why did I break down. It was a combination of things. This whole change has been really hard for us. Sicknesses, Hermana Guaranda is STILL sick and poor thing just barfs and poops her brains out. It is ROUGH!!! We are going to the capital Friday to kill these animals that she has in her stomach or whatever the heck is going on. I got sick before her, but mine was for like one day I felt like I was going to die and then after that I only have diarrhea. I don’t feel sick, but I have forgotten what it is like to just normal go to the bathroom. I am SHOCKED everyday at the things that come out of me. I know that sounds gross and I am so sorry but I gotta be real. I just think WHAT THE HECK!! THIS IS NOT NORMAL!!!! but hey I’m not barfing, don’t have a fever anymore its just a never ending cycle of constant diarrhea!!!!!! But
Hermana Guaranda just cries and cries because she just feels so, so sick!!
I FORCED her to take a break and come home and sleep. She didn’t want to, but I told her sister, I know you want to work. I do too, but soon you will be preaching the gospel to the spirits in the spirit world if you do not rest your body!!!! So that has been hard. 2. We are in August and in the PEAK of the rainy season!! I think this is probably why we are sick because all the missionaries are right now. I’m not even joking; we SWIM through sewers....literally. It is disgusting and I can’t lie whoever said that would be fun.....LIED!!!! For some parts I enjoy the rain because it is like Guatemalan Lysol. It kills 99 % of the odors here. I promise, it doesn’t stink half as bad when it rains, but still the germs and diseases and animals in the water still kill you and tin shacks plus rain are not a good combination for powerful lessons and whoever said that people let you in more when it rains....that hasn’t been the case for us.
We still have been struggling so hard to get good positive investigators....its hard. We’ve had the most interesting rejections people yelling at us, throwing the Book of Mormon in our face. The other day, these people started throwing rocks at us. Don’t worry. Not big rocks to kill us but were shooting rocks at us. I think it was from a sling shot because it was pretty hard. None of them hit me, but they hit Hermana Guaranda. It was pretty interesting, but kinda funny Also, Our investigators and recent converts are passing through hard times. Women that we visit are getting abused. We come to the lessons and their faces our completely bruised and cut. It seriously shakes me. You all know that if there is one thing that just BUGSSS and gets me is abuse! I tell my companion all the time because I don’t think she understands. I told her I have problems with this...when i saw the movie enough I couldn’t sleep for like 3 months. It freaks me out and I am in the land of abuse and it literally shakes me. My body is completely covered in bites. My stomach looks DISGUSTING. It has completely scarred because these bugs here are out of control. I never sleep the whole night through because these bugs literally KILL me!!!! But I was thinking maybe this is Heavenly Father’s way of telling me that No more Bikinis!!! Bikinis are BADDDD!!! haha.
Seriously, I have scars all on my body. it is ugly and Hermana Baldwin told me, Isn’t the mission so fun!! haha. We are lucky because our beds are new and there are people who don’t even have beds. Everywhere in the mission no matter where struggles with this so yayyayayay just gotta suck it up and LOVE it!!! This week also Angelina....oh sooooo sad, her testimony is as firm as ever that’s not the problem, but the government came and took Pablo from her!!! Apparently there are like spies, not really spies but people who watch the children in the street and look at the situations of the people, and if they feel it is a bad situation they take the kids and put them in this home. Well they came and took Pablo because they said that Hermana Angelina couldn’t support her kids and so they took him and her other kids cant leave the house because they are threatening to take them too!! Can you believe that!!
It was the saddest thing ever, but she is just fighting to start her business and figure things out so that she can have her kids. I’m not joking it was the saddest thing ever, but her testimony is as firm as ever and that is something really powerful to see. Soooooo, this week well this change has just been hard and I’ve truly been doing my very best to just be strong, have faith, especially for my companion. But Monday, i hit the wall because on top of all this my family, the familia ajquiy garcia.....I’m going to start crying just writing this decided to leave the church!!! My family! The family we baptized my first change the most pilas family in the world!!! Whenever we have hard days, we just go to their house because we feel happy because they are sooo pilas. But ijgejfle ejfjermfei.
Okay, so about two weeks ago it all started!!! Hermano Garcia is passing through really hard times financially. Struggling and paying tithing is really hard for him. He was doing it but like all of Guatemala, it was hard. But yeah, he told us that that was something really hard and we just did all we can to encourage him to do it and PROMISED the blessings that come from that. BUT then he’s just been bombarded with Anti-Mormon evangelical information. Visitors from his work who are strong evangelicals came over to SAVE him and have given him all this crazy information about Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon and WHY our religion is wrong and that has just left a lot of doubt with Hermano.
So for the past two weeks they haven’t come to church and we’ve been visiting them and talking to him and trying to just clear up these stupid doubts he has. Really it is soooo dumb, the things they say and the way they interpret the bible. But I swear they like possessed Hermano Rosalio. there is such an ugly spirit in that house when normally the spirit is so strong and I just keep trying to help Rosalio, because really it is only him, remember the feelings that he felt when he started coming to church, prayed, read the Book of Mormon etc because I know he felt it!! I told him that his real concern is whether Joseph Smith was a prophet and that he NEEDED to read the Book of Mormon more, everyday and really PRAY to know AGAIN if it were true. But he is so angry with everything because he thinks that we fooled him. And finally Monday night, we went over and it was the same thing and he flat out told us. No more. No more. We cannot believe anymore in this and this man and we will not go to the church.
Family, I cannot even explain to you what I felt. The worst, saddest, most depressing feeling of my life.....I broke down in complete tears I could not hold it in. And my comp and I were just silent. I just expressed all my love I could for them and bore my heart, my most sincere testimony of the reality of the gospel and he literally told me that’s good that you believe that....leave and don’t come back!!!!!
MOM, that broke me to the point I cannot even express in writing. I just wanted to shake the devil out of him. Seriously, it was UGLY. It is the saddest and the worst feeling in the whole world. I CRIED and CRIED and CRIED for three hours straight and writing this makes me cry some more. That was like my family here. the most amazingest family in all the world and seeing Rosalio like that and seeing all his family surrounded as he was just bashing Joseph Smith and the church because of stupid things that the devil told him, literally BROKE ME!!!
I went home and just cried, cried, cried, and just felt the combination of everything just fall upon me where I felt hopeless....ready to just give up. It was just the saddest thing. But my comp told me in the night because I was still crying and crying. Hermana Garcia, you cannot get discouraged because I look up to you so much. You are my example. She started crying and said you cannot get discouraged. You can’t! But that night we just stayed up crying and hugging each other. But at that point, I honestly just felt hopeless, empty just pure sadness. I cannot even explain it and just like a complete failure. It literally freaks me out that I have only a year left of my mission.
Trust me, not because this is the funnest thing in the world and I never want to leave but just because I DO NOT WANT TO GO HOME feeling this way just like a complete failure and empty. I thought really hard about everything and it’s just so hard. I’m trying so hard to just love these people, love everything. I’m trying to just give these people my whole heart, everything I got and it just feels like they just throw it back at my face and throw rocks at me! It is so, so hard at times, but I can honestly say that I am here for the right reasons and pushing through because
I love Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.
I know that what I’m going through is not even an nth of what Christ suffered for us or the prophet Joseph Smith and the early pioneers. I don’t know how they did it.....honestly. But seriously, each day I reanalyze myself and ask myself through all of this....how much do you believe? How much faith do you really have? And, I can honestly say that with all my heart, with everything I am and I can give, I honestly BELIEVE!!!!!!!!!! ALL OF IT!!!!!!! I don’t doubt, that this is the work of the Lord and that the Prophet Joseph Smith really did restore the Lord’s church. I KNOW the Book of Mormon is the word of God and for this reason I am just trying my best so that others can know that too. But, it is really hard, way more than I expected. I neeeed loooooove!
Love the missionaries everyone please. But honestly, I believe so much that this is the work of the Lord and for some reason, I have no idea what it is I’m supposed to be here in Guatemala. I trust that the Lord will show me and let me know if I just continue to try. Above my bed, I wrote, “The church is true!!! Why not miracles?” I just do not want to leave my mission feeling this way!!! Because if I do it is because I failed because I know that Heavenly Father is helping me and supporting me. Otherwise, I would’ve already been lying on the beaches in Hawaii or eating free food at the Canon center with Andrew.
The Lord does not fail us, but sometimes we fail ourselves. I am seriously doing everything in my power to not fail and to just keep going regardless of what I can see or feel. The church is true and that’s why missions are hard!!!! I never expected this, but regardless of everything I can honestly say that I am SOOOOO grateful to serve a mission and Heavenly Father and that Texas is not the best mission! There is a reason I’m here in Guatemala.
Family, seriously just writing this letter, gives me the motivation I need to just keep going. I cannot even tell you how much I love you and how much all your love and support means to me. I LOOOOVEEEEEE you all with all my heart, and just thank you, all for everything. The church is TRUE and for this we have to keep going!!!!!!!!!! With all my heart I love you!!!!!!!!! Prestos todos prestos forever the church is true!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Love,
Hermana G!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
First Companion MTC and CCM, Hermana Williams