Hey Family!
As for as investigators go, we had six non-members in church this week! I think the members have been wanting good missionaries for a while now. The members do such a good job at helping in the missionary work. Of the six we had only talked with four of them. One of them is a son in an inactive family. The Valensuela family, we are working with them to get reactivated, they have been inactive for five years. One of the others was Carlos who has a baptism date for Saturday, he is the one who already had the desire to be baptized from the last missionaries but had not been taught any of the lessons. Then a couple people that were invited by members, we made sure to talk with them and get their address so we can visit them and hopefully teach and baptize them. We are also teaching the Leti family. Brother Leti is a member but his wife is not, so we have been teaching her and they have been attending church. With Maria Luiza I think we cleared up that the LDS church is not the Catholic church. We have now been able to teach her the Plan of Salvation and have another appointment with her tomorrow to hopefully introduce lesson three, the Gospel of Jesus Christ. She is an older lady, but not super super old.
Thank you for those pictures, I’m happy to see that the car is good:) Tell the cats to stop it already! That is an awesome picture of William and Mariam. They look so happy together. As far as the other pictures go, just whenever you get them. I think I knew that about a Temple sealing but had forgotten. It is kinda nice that they did the reception in Boise then will have one in Sandpoint in May. It would be cool to get some of the video that you made for them, sounds like it turned out really well.
We do interviews with President and his wife once every exchange, and I was talking with sister Shumway about being able to find where we are on the map and she showed me meetinghouse locator. It is on lds.org. If you do meetinghouse locator and then Milagro, then find Cuidad Quetzal. Then find the church that is closest to that. That is our building that we share with the Quezal area. Our area is to the left of the building.
Dad, last week you asked about spiders. Luckily there really are not too many at all. We have only had one in the house, and it was big but no bigger than the spiders at home. Did Chad Coon’s water fix work in the church or is the water still brown? Mom you have also asked about service opportunities. We have a service project this Saturday and next Saturday for the Golindo family. Sister Golindo is in a wheelchair and cannot really get out of the house much to go to church or anywhere else because their yard area is really rough. So we are going to be building a cement path for her to be able to use. This Saturday we are preparing the way, then next Saturday we will be pouring the cement.
That should be super fun when you guys go shooting! I really do miss the hot tub, just chillin’ and lookin’ up at the stars.
I’m doing good with the stress, I really do have to just go with the flow quite a bit. But little by little I am understanding more, so that is really nice. There are some gringos in our district and zone, which is really nice, because when we are all together I can ask questions and its nice to be able to speak some English. Good job dealing with the Spanish session. Kinda frustrating but still awesome. Now just imagine being somewhere where everybody speaks that... It is awesome, I really am enjoying it.
So my companion has this thing called a NEO2 by ALPHASMART that allows you to type messages and then when it is P-day you plug it into the computer and transfer the file. It would be really sweet to have one. He got his on Amazon. I know last week I asked Kylie about a calendar and now this and I know that the mailing system is kinda spendy so please just transfer money from my account. Speaking of the mail system, there is also Mayan express, which is the same idea as Mission to Fly, but might be worth checking out for pricing. From everything I hear the regular mail system is really not that good for being able to get mail. Maybe those things could be put in with the Easter package.
A quote that I heard in the MTC that I really like, “comparison is the thief of our joy”. This week I was doing some studying in the scriptures about faith. I really like 1 Nephi 7:12 which talks about how the Lord is able to do all things according to the faith that we have in him. This reminded me of the story of the Woman with the issue of blood in Mark 5:25-34. She had faith that if she could just touch the clothes of the Savior she would be healed. And she was. I think you guys should read those scriptures, faith is truly an amazing thing.
I love you all so much and hope that you are doing great with your different goals and efforts!
Love, your brother and son,
Elder Marks
P.S. I’m not sure what they call my sickness last week down here, but I have also heard it called the double-headed dragon, and Rocky Mountain Quick Step. Glad that I’m all healthy now. :)
As for as investigators go, we had six non-members in church this week! I think the members have been wanting good missionaries for a while now. The members do such a good job at helping in the missionary work. Of the six we had only talked with four of them. One of them is a son in an inactive family. The Valensuela family, we are working with them to get reactivated, they have been inactive for five years. One of the others was Carlos who has a baptism date for Saturday, he is the one who already had the desire to be baptized from the last missionaries but had not been taught any of the lessons. Then a couple people that were invited by members, we made sure to talk with them and get their address so we can visit them and hopefully teach and baptize them. We are also teaching the Leti family. Brother Leti is a member but his wife is not, so we have been teaching her and they have been attending church. With Maria Luiza I think we cleared up that the LDS church is not the Catholic church. We have now been able to teach her the Plan of Salvation and have another appointment with her tomorrow to hopefully introduce lesson three, the Gospel of Jesus Christ. She is an older lady, but not super super old.
Thank you for those pictures, I’m happy to see that the car is good:) Tell the cats to stop it already! That is an awesome picture of William and Mariam. They look so happy together. As far as the other pictures go, just whenever you get them. I think I knew that about a Temple sealing but had forgotten. It is kinda nice that they did the reception in Boise then will have one in Sandpoint in May. It would be cool to get some of the video that you made for them, sounds like it turned out really well.
We do interviews with President and his wife once every exchange, and I was talking with sister Shumway about being able to find where we are on the map and she showed me meetinghouse locator. It is on lds.org. If you do meetinghouse locator and then Milagro, then find Cuidad Quetzal. Then find the church that is closest to that. That is our building that we share with the Quezal area. Our area is to the left of the building.
Dad, last week you asked about spiders. Luckily there really are not too many at all. We have only had one in the house, and it was big but no bigger than the spiders at home. Did Chad Coon’s water fix work in the church or is the water still brown? Mom you have also asked about service opportunities. We have a service project this Saturday and next Saturday for the Golindo family. Sister Golindo is in a wheelchair and cannot really get out of the house much to go to church or anywhere else because their yard area is really rough. So we are going to be building a cement path for her to be able to use. This Saturday we are preparing the way, then next Saturday we will be pouring the cement.
That should be super fun when you guys go shooting! I really do miss the hot tub, just chillin’ and lookin’ up at the stars.
I’m doing good with the stress, I really do have to just go with the flow quite a bit. But little by little I am understanding more, so that is really nice. There are some gringos in our district and zone, which is really nice, because when we are all together I can ask questions and its nice to be able to speak some English. Good job dealing with the Spanish session. Kinda frustrating but still awesome. Now just imagine being somewhere where everybody speaks that... It is awesome, I really am enjoying it.
So my companion has this thing called a NEO2 by ALPHASMART that allows you to type messages and then when it is P-day you plug it into the computer and transfer the file. It would be really sweet to have one. He got his on Amazon. I know last week I asked Kylie about a calendar and now this and I know that the mailing system is kinda spendy so please just transfer money from my account. Speaking of the mail system, there is also Mayan express, which is the same idea as Mission to Fly, but might be worth checking out for pricing. From everything I hear the regular mail system is really not that good for being able to get mail. Maybe those things could be put in with the Easter package.
A quote that I heard in the MTC that I really like, “comparison is the thief of our joy”. This week I was doing some studying in the scriptures about faith. I really like 1 Nephi 7:12 which talks about how the Lord is able to do all things according to the faith that we have in him. This reminded me of the story of the Woman with the issue of blood in Mark 5:25-34. She had faith that if she could just touch the clothes of the Savior she would be healed. And she was. I think you guys should read those scriptures, faith is truly an amazing thing.
I love you all so much and hope that you are doing great with your different goals and efforts!
Love, your brother and son,
Elder Marks
P.S. I’m not sure what they call my sickness last week down here, but I have also heard it called the double-headed dragon, and Rocky Mountain Quick Step. Glad that I’m all healthy now. :)