Rocks

Hi! So this week went well. Im still loving Coatepeque. But seriously, my area is pure rocks! Rocks here, rocks there, rocks everywhere. And it's not as easy as it looks to walk on rock after rock after day. Try it and youll see ha. The elders in my district came to our area on Tuesday to do an Area Attack where all of us contacted for 2 hours straight. We contacted a lot this week and ended up meeting an awesome lady named Flor. She has a little boy named Carlitos and lives with him and her husband. She invited us in and we taught her. She accepted a baptismal date for June and said she wants us to come over and visit with her to teach her more. She also came to church with Carlitos buy herself! So on Sunday, we go and pick up investigators to bring them to church with us and no one was home except for Yadir a thirteen year old boy we are teaching. So my comp and I were a little disappointed and down when we got to church. I was with my head kinda down during sacrament meeting when all of a sudden Jose and Claudia walked in! I couldnt believe my eyes! The day before I had invited Jose to invite Claudia and he said he would, but he usually always says he will and they never end up coming. My comp and I were soooo happy! Then a few minutes after, Flor walked in with Carlitos!!! We were ecstatic and awestruck! The Lord truly provides miracles when you least expect it. You just need a little faith! This week I read Alma 32. 27 a lot and realized how much it applies to the experiences and investigators I have at the moment. There will always be room for our faith to grow stronger and stronger. This week, try to have more faith. I know I will try to.

Hermana Argueta

The Book is Blue

 

 

 

Hello dolls! How was your week? Mine was busy. Busy but good nonetheless. So we have a lot of investigators who are really positive and who accepted a baptismal date during the first lesson we taught them, but none of them came to church. So our biggest challenge right now is getting them to come to church. Its a little sad and frustrating when they dont come to church after teaching them the importance of keeping the sabbath day holy and taking a few hours out of our busy week to sacrifice to Heavenly Father. But my comp and I are not going to give up and we are both really positive about working even harder this week. This week we are going to focus on finding new people to teach and contacting a ton. My comp and I are really good friends and get along soo well, so Im noticing how much that makes a difference! She is always finding ways to serve me and help me. She is sooo sneaky and always makes my bed when I leave the room and then I get mad at her for it, so then she lets me iron her clothes haha. Today I am going to buy a bigger umbrella because it's raining a ton here! I usually tend to not prefer rain or like it even, but I actually appreciate it now since its nice to have a break from sweating 24 hours a day in the heatwave that I felt in Mazate. The weather here is soooo much nicer than Mazate. Its not too hot and it rains in the evening and at night. I can actually sleep with 2 blankets at night and pants instead of shorts. Coatepeque is really calm and laidback. Everyone here is soooo nice: catholics, evangelicos, lds members, everyone! The members in our ward always help us and love coming with us to our appointments. So one crazy intense experience I had this week was when we were teaching Claudia, a nonmber. Her husband is an inactive returned missionary but he doesnt wanna pressure her to get baptized and he doesnt really support her much in wanting to know more about the gospel. We began talking about the book of mormon and we all, including her husband, testified of its truthfulness and importance. So then we offerred her a book of mormon and she said, ¨NO! I dont want it! Please no no no! I can't take it! My comps face was pricesless. Im sure I would think mine was too if I could see it. I really didnt know what to say since no one had ever rejected a book of mormon from me before. Then she started crying and crying. So we tried to explain to her that we werent there to pressure her but to invite her to read it because we know its true. In the end she accepted it and she accepted another appointment with us. Claudia is totally ready to be a member and is SO interested in the gospel, I feel like she knows the church is true, but she is confused. She told us she wants to learn more but shes confused and doesnt want to be pressured. But we want to keep teaching her with a lot of love and patience. So this week we have a LOT of work to do but we have a lot of faith and hope to keep us motivated at the moment! I hope this week is AMAZE for all of you. 

Hermana Argueta

 

 

 

Coatepeque

Hi! First of all, Happy Mothers Day to all the mommys reading this. And it was fun talking to you mom and answering your 1,468 questions. Ha, just kidding love you. So I finally had changes and moved to a new area, COATEPEQUE! So Im obsessed with my new area and zone. Plus I love my companion Hermana Alvarez from Mexico so things are going really well! I LOVE LOVE LOVE my new ward too! This ward is beyond nice and the people are incredible members! So on Thursday we went to the ward mothers day activity at the church but we had to leave really early since we have to be home by 8pm. we were planning and starving. all of a sudden, we hear a knock on our door and its our cook, Wendy´s husband and their daughter who came to bring us the dinner they were serving at the activity! Ive never had anyone feed me dinner in mazate, not once! sooo I was shocked and beyond grateful. The people here are sooo humble but sooo giving and they treat the missionaries soo well. On Friday we went to Reu literally all dayyyy long, from 10am to 7pm because my comp had to see the doctor and I had to work on things for the english program in the mission office. On Saturday we had a baptism for Iris. Iris is a very unique and special person. She lives byherself in a small cement house and has no furniture or kitchen. She just has a lot of blankets for her bed. The hermanas who were here before made her a door out of aluminum and wood. She kind of acts like she has A.D.D. but were not sure if she is mentally not okay or just restless. But she reads the book of mormon and understands the things that she is taught by the hermanas. She has a fear of men and acts a little nervous and timid around them. Unfortunately, she wasnt home all day on Sunday so she didnt get confirmed, but she will be on Sunday. So there is SO much work here in our area. We have a lot of investigators and families so I´m happy to have awesome people to work with and the potential of this area is notably positive. Hermana Alvarez wants to work really hard this change and I told her I do too, so we are gonna get a long perfectly! So Coatepeque is very different than Mazate. There are a LOT of hills and the streets are very slanted, so were practically hyperventilating walking up street after street. Lets just say I will be very toned after leaving Coatepeque. Perfect. The area is also much more laid back and tranquil compared to Mazate and I dont have the noise of buses, horns, radios, vendors, and dogs waking me up like in Mazate. OMG the dogs, how could I forget. There are NO dogs here, I love it. I have yet to see one vicious dog yet! I love my life ha! Milo is the only perfect dog on the planet. There is an inactive family here, the Diaz family, who washes our clothes for free and gives us dinner on Sunday, plus rides whenever we want. They are sooo amazing and I already love them like my own family. The people here are seriously soooo giving and friendly, I am obsessed. Well I'm off to eat Mexican food with my district yumm! love you all! the church is true!

Hermana Argueta

SIX

Hey everyone! So I cant believe I have 6 months in the mission! Wow, I feel like I just got here. Time flies right before my eyes and there´s just no slowing it down. I still dont know if I have changes or not. The assistants will let us know tonight. Today was a fun P-Day. We went to Tulate, a beach about an hour and a half away from Mazate. We ate fish and just hung out. This week was kinda hard but we focused on working hard on finding new investigators and we contacted a lot! So Sunday went really well because we 5 investigators showed up to church. Sundays are the busiest days as a missionary. We leave the house at 7:30am to go pick up investigators and bring them to church. Sunday we went to Santo Domingo and picked up Gerber, Sonia and her 3 little kids, and Iris and her little daughter. Gerber is an 18 year old boy that we contacted on Saturday and accepted our invitation to come to church. Sonia is a lady we met while going to visit Iris and she is also Iris's neighbor. We picked them all up and piled on the back of a truck and went to church. When we got to church, I was happy to see 2 of my investigators, Erik and Otto, already sitting down, ready for sacrament meeting. Those are the moments where I feel like, hmmm, maybe I am doing my job. It was a little crazy trying to give every invetigator equal attention because there were so many (7 in total with 4 little kids) and only me and my comp. My comp and I ended up trying to help Sonia with her kids and taking them to nursery so they could pay attention to the lesson in relief society. In the end, all of our investigators enjoyed church and are receptive to coming back again. Now it is up to us to work really hard with them and get the members involved in creating friendships with them because that is key to an investigator feeling comfortable in coming back to church. Thats why I always mention how important members are! Im grateful for the opportunities I have to spread the gospel. Ive realized that just because I have been here for 6 months doesnt mean there is nothing left for me and that I have seen every receptive person. There are TONS of people who still havent heard the message of the gospel and are waiting for contact with missionaries. Missionary work is NEVER finished and will NEVER be done... EVER! I definitely have a new testimony of that.

 Hermana Argueta

Otto & Ingrid

hello! So this week was rather difficult. We contacted a LOT and looked everywhere for new investigators to teach. Most of the people we talked to were super evangelicos and didnt want to come to church on Sunday. There´s SOOO many evangelicos here its crazy! But a lot of them are SOOO nice! One family gave us a huge bag of limes to take home so that was nice. So the coolest thing that happened this week was when we went over to a random house because it was POURING rain and we had no jackets or umbrellas. Plus the light went out in all of Mazate, so we couldnt go outside because it was pitch black and we wouldnt be able to see. So we decided to find a house to stay in until it stopped raining and the light came back. So we knock on the door and a really nice evangelica lady lets us in and lets us teach her about the plan of salvation. She totally is not willing to change and kept going on and on about her religion and how she loves it. So then we just talked with her and all of a sudden a man about 36 walked in. He said his name was Otto and he started asking us a bunch of questions about our church. So we talked to him and he told us he worked on the lady´s house pretty much every day. So we invited him to come to church on Sunday and he said that we would like to come with his daughter. So Sunday comes and this happened on Friday. On Sunday, we were gonna bring a family to come to church but they were too busy to come. So we went to church and just after sacrament had ended, Otto walked in with his 13 year old daughter Ingrid! That made my day! I was sooo happy to see them there! They ended up staying after for the classes too and Ingrid knew 2 of the girls in young womens so she felt comfortable going to the young womens class with them. So Ingrid loved church and said she wanted to come back. Her dad said he needed more time to investigate the church and think about it. But either way, it was good that they came. So we are going to teach them tonight and then we have a family home evening with an inavtive family. You really don´t know who is ready to accept the gospel which is why it´s soo important to talk to EVERYONE, not just who looks or says they are interested. Everyone is a son or daughter of God. Everyone is welcome. The gospel is for EVERYONE. And that´s why I´m here. To invite everyone to come unto Christ and learn about his plan of happiness for them. Right now, this is my job and it´s the best job anyone could ever have :)

Hermana Argueta