I Love Carmelitas!

This week was good, but very different.  I love the fresh weather in Coban, and I even wore long sleeve shirts a few days this week! It's so beautiful and green and I love seeing the culture cuz there is a lot more Q'eqchi here.   

However I had forgotten how hardhearted the people are here. In Peten you knock on the door and they welcome you with happy arms (usually) and kindly tell you they don't want anything to do with the church, but would love to give us some juice. Buena gente. In Coban they are a little a lot different. You offer them a folleto and they completely ignore you or hide. They are literally just very rude... grosera. (is there a word for that in English?) One lady we contacted just told us straight up she already had a church and that  we would be wasting our time with her. We explained to her that our message only talked about Christ and we knew would benefit her life. She just turned around in mid sentence and left us standing there. We kinda just started laughing as we walked away and she shouted at us that we needed to beware of false prophets. We visited an old investigator that the other sisters had left here and after singing a song she just kinda looked at us and then said, "You know what? I don't like you guys very much."  I literally was dying of laughter. Funny lady. I bought her bread after that for the next visit and I think we are slowly winning her over. Needless to say, I am basically making BFFs on every corner!

But I LOVE Carmelitas. The ward here is amazing and our ward mission leader is SUPER helpful.  He just returned from a mission in Peru about 2 or 3 years ago and he is always helping us and giving us good advice of how we can be better. Hermana Coello and I are learning the area fast and making a lot of plans to get some baptisms here because they haven't seen a baptism in our area in about 8 months. AKA we will be ECHANDO FUEGOOO PRONTOOO! Boomshakalaka I am very excited and motivated.

All in all I am so grateful to be here! I know that God is giving me a wonderful opportunity to develop a lot more Christlike attributes during my time here.  I know that here I will be running when I finish and that's all I want! 

I love the Hymn 'HOw Firm a Foundation' and I have been thinking a lot about these words this week:

1.      “Fear not, I am with thee, oh, be not dismayed,
For I am thy God, and will still give thee aid;
I’ll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand,
Upheld by My gracious, omnipotent hand."

I know that God is always with me and that through him my weaknesses can be made strengths. Life is good and I love Preachin' the good word!

Stay kewllll

Alexis

. . .and the work goes on!

 . .and the work goes on!

Heyyooo motha!

Thank you for your 'happy person ideas.' I just wrote them in my agenda so I can start to put them in practice. I have been writing everyday in my gratitude journal from Grandma Bev. It's fun! I think of her every day when I do it and it kinda is part of my routine now.1. plan 2. area book. 3. pray together. 4. write what happened on my calendar we made. (I remember you telling me one of your friends did that or something?) I’ve been doing it my whole mission cuz sometimes im lazy with my journal. 5. I do the gratitude journal. But I also am a slacker with the service thing. I will do better at it too. But mom, I think you are good at that! I remember a lot of times you taking us when we were little to go and visit old people and widows in the ward. You are a champ.

Those questions are a little hard this week... however I will do my best to answer them.

Questions of the week;  Share your favorite thing you see as you walk down the street in the morning in Guatemala that you will never forget.  (Sight, smell, taste, touch. .  ) My favorite thing I see when I walk down the street in Guatemala is the Q'eqchi people (Or anybody... but it's cooler when they have their corte skirts...) walking down the street with a giant bucket of maiz on their head to go and make tortillas. I don't know if I have mentioned but the corn tortillas are life here. Every meal they eat them. So every corner sells them every day. They just stand around the little oven thingy and tortilla all. day. long. I have learned a few times but I'm not very good at it. But that is definitely the best. Their necks have gotta be so strong cuz' I would die. those things are heavy.

What was the most inspirational topic/item that you got from your personal study this week? Hmmm.... Well, this week I have been focusing my studies on the Priesthood. How we have it, the keys, what we can do with it... etc. I started studying and really I just have about 3 pages of MORE questions about the priesthood. ITS SO AMAZING! We literally have the power of God here on the Earth. It just hit me that we literally have the capacity to perform the same miracles that Christ performed.  

What has Hermana Gomez taught you? Let me tell you something about Hna. Gomez-she is like a walking Bible. Seriously she knows EVERYTHING about the gospel. The 3 pages I had of questions about the priesthood I thought would never be answered, but that lady just whips out her bible and I feel like I am in a personal study session with an apostle. But she really helps motivate me to not only learn and apply the gospel in my life, but really study it and know it.

 What has your mission president taught you?  President Curtiss is probably one of the most patient and loving people I have ever met. But something that I have been learning from him and Hna. Curtiss lately is the importance for us to never act tired. Just always be happy. Trust in the promise that God will give us the energy. It's hard to live the gospel and obviously we will be tired, but we don't need to show it! Christ never did. So these past couple of weeks when my feet don't want to walk more or the sun is attacking me and I just want five seconds to breathe before starting a lesson, I try not to show it.

What did you do this week that stands out and makes it different from the other parts of your mission? This week we did 3 divisions in 1 week. We stayed 2 days in Poptun and we slept on the floor. It was surprisingly comfortable. Also, on one of the divisions I was in we went to go visit a family for the first time. We were finishing up and the hermana I was with started to do the invitation to baptism. 'Seguiran el ejemplo de Jesucristo y.... Bleeeeee....' She puked right on their dirt floor. I did not quite know what to do with myself so I just awkwardly patted her back while everyone watched and our member almost joined her. Sooo... we put a return visit and she went home and slept. However, It was something that has never happened to me before!

 I have a question actually, There is this less active lady here who loves the heck out of me. She has been trying to sell this hammock that is GIGANTIC and SUPER cool and never been used. It is 1200 quetzales. But The other day we went there and she gave me a big hug and said her kids wanted to buy it for me cuz they were grateful we had found her. She said I would just have to pay 400 quetzales and then I called the mail people of the mission and they said they could mail it for probably 400 quetz also. So.... I donno if You guys could put money in my account for that or... how you feel about that like if its a good idea? I hate to go through the trouble but I feel like it would be mean to reject the gift and also ... it's really cool haha. Let me know

The church is true and the BOM is the best.

LOVE YOU!

Talking Loudly. . . a method of teaching?

This week went by super duper fast so I am jsut going to share some highlights with you.

This is Hno. Sebastian and his Family who speak Qeqchi 

Waterfight Activity this morning, P-day.

This week Hna. Gomez and I walked to one of the barrios farthest away in our area called the Granja. Most of our area is pretty cityish but the Granja is all just trees and jungle and tin roofs and dirt floors. It's about a 45 minute walk from our house there but since its been cooling down a bit and we have hardly worked there we made the journey. We were knocking doors and we found this little old couple. I cannot describe how hilarious they were. The husband was this short old Guatemalan with a t-shirt with corn on it, and he was basically deaf, His wife was this tall old lady and had something wrong with her mouth that made it difficult for her to speak. Both of them couldn't really understand my accent but we had a go at it anyways. We said a prayer and started to explain who we were, 'We are representatives of Jesus Christ and he sent us here to share a message with you.' The Hermano just stares at us, 'huh'

'We are representatives of Jesus Christ!'

'Huh'

'WE ARE REPRESENTATIVES OF JESUS CHRIST' 

'oh yes... yes... that's nice.'

I seriously could not contain myself, I was dying laughing. The whole lesson was basically like that us just talking as loud as permit until they understood a little......

Also this week we went to go and share with Hno Sebastian and Candelaria (The Family of Q'eqchi.) They are so stinkin' cute! They are praying to know if they should be baptized on the 18th of this month. When we were in their house they other day Hno. Sebastian taught us some things in Q'eqchi... like how are you? and what's your name (aka I'm basically fluent in the language now...) but is was so fun. I'm so grateful we can share with them.

I love you all a lot! Don't forget to read your book of Mormon this week cuz it's the best!

Lexi

Dont worry about my Dangue. That's why I didn't tell you guys sooner cuz it really wasn't that big of a deal. Just a few days of lost work haha.  (Lex did not tell us, but she did tell her sister that it was boring being int he hospital.)