Changes!!!‏

You won´t believe... because I didn´t believe and am still in shock... but I´m with a GRINGA! It´s a big deal, because this doesn´t happen with the hermanas in this mission, just when people are training. Sister Park has 14 months in the mish, is from Orem, Utah, and is loving La Gomera. She´s pretty dedicated to Spanish, so we hardly speak english at all.

Hermana Wetzel is training for the third time, but this time my sister is Latina! Cool, huh. Hna Wetzel is still in Antigua and goes home in a little less than 6 weeks :(

I must admit that I´m a tad bit worried about my Spanish. 1- I´m in the coast... and they are not the most correct speaking-speakers, actually the grammar´s real bad sometimes. 2- I´m with a gringa... haha... but the Lord will provide!

There are cool, little things that help me realize the progress I have made with my Spanish: seeing Sister Wetzel, showing my area to a new missionary, being with a gringa again, etc.

Yesterday was a great day of miracles. 2 of the (REALLY) less active members that we visited during the week came to church, the same thing happened a few weeks ago with a different person, too. It´s amazing what a visit can do.

We met a bolo on the street and talked to him for a good while... I gave him some loving chicote... it´s okay. It´s just the second time it has happened. It´s really easy to talk to drunk people sometimes.

There was a PSYCHO storm Saturday night. Not too bad, just TONS of rain and a bit of thunder and lightning and wind. It started around 8 in the capilla, but we had to get home by 9 and by 8:30 it still hadn´t stopped, so we had to go out :) Don´t worry, we got home safely. It´s just that I didn´t have my umbrella (seriously... the ONLY day that I didn´t have it with me), so I got drenched :) And we usually have plastic bags to put our scriptures in, but I didn´t have those either, but I have an amazing backpack and cool book covers, so my scriptures just got a little wet.

We usually don´t knock doors that much, but yesterday we dedicated a little time. One family of a door we knocked let us right in and just started pouring out lots of questions. It was awesome. Hna Park is a little more on the quiet side (very opposite from Hna Angel), so I have been talking LOTS more lately and it´s fun to realize that I can actually do stuff and that I actually have a personality in Spanish. Crazy.

I gave the talk by Pres Monson from the sacerdocio session of general conference to a family that is having a few marital problems right now. It´s so hard sometimes, because we really aren´t the people who can or should be giving marital advice... but the prophets can! It´s an amazing talk.

We are dropping one of the families that we have been working with. Family Cristales. It´s not out of the ordinary to drop people, but dropping this family hurt a LOT more than anyone else has in the past. It´s just so hard to do all you can, truly want the best for people, knowing that our message can change their lives and bring them eternal happiness, but for whatever reasons have to leave them, at least for a time.

It´s amazing how roller coastery the mission is. Don´t worry, heartbreak still happens all the time. I remember talking and writing a lot more at the beginning of the mish how much heartbreak there is, but I don´t do so as much now. I don´t think it´s because there has been less, but tampoco do I think that I am getting used to it... I think it´s because my perspective and faith is changing, for the better. I still have way too much to learn... and I learn lots everyday. I just know that this message is true. I also know that we all have our agency. Heavenly Father truly just wants to the best for us and He has given/does give us everything that we need to return to Him some day. We can´t think for a second that we don´t have a huge responsibility or lots to do.. because we do. It´s not gratis.

Sorry for the tangents.

Love you all!
Hermana Marin

Anyhow...

1938 - a typical backyard where we teach :) We taught/teach Fernando here most of the time.
1950 - the chapel is Sipacate
1970 - Fernando and Presidente Telón (Sipacate branch president - who actually lives in La Gomera, but there isn´t anyone else in Sipacate able to do it...)
1995 - If you look closely, you may just see a real big lizard in our window... and it was not outside.
2028 - BEACH!!! I hadn´t seen one in over 10 months!
2085 - This is what happens when previous missionaries don´t stay organized...
2094 - Our recent convert, Ana, had her bday. It was one of the most humbling experiences... she has never had a bday celebration (and what we did was real small, but she was overjoyed), never received a wrapped present, and had never cut a cake before....She didn´t even remember or realize that it was her bday!!
2119 - Chapel in La Gomera
2089 - We share our backyard (technically our part only is a small part with a pila, but the owners of the house are real nice and let us share, Faustino and Evangelina)... we had a nice lunch the other day under a palm tree.


Really... those pictures are just a taste of life in La Gomera. I have not done any justice. I can´t wait to share all of the great photos and experiences someday... and even drag a few people back to Guatemala with me :)

This week was a tougher one with one of our investigators who was going to get baptized. I have just really been having a tough time understanding the choices of others. I want to be able to help people truly understand the importance of the Gospel... That´s probably the biggest challenge here. Satan just really really sucks. But hope is never lost. Heavenly Father is infinitely more powerful.

But don´t worry, life is good. We went to the beach in Sipacate :)

Tonight, we find out if we have changes. Most likely (but definitely not for certain) Hna Angel will leave and I´ll receive someone else here in La Gomera. I´ll let you know in a week :)

All my love,
Hermana Marin

Baptism in Sipacate!‏ (Week of 8/1)

Hola hola...

Yep... there has not been one baptism in Sipacate this year. It´s our area that we are only able to go to twice a week, has an attendance of about 15 people, and needs lots more support than what we are able to give.

He´s a niño of 8 years old. His grandparents are members, his mom wants to be baptized, but her husband won´t marry her, so she can´t... so we´ve been teaching him for the past couple of months. He´s the greatest. Yesterday, I helped him pay his tithing (1 quetzal), he gave the closing prayer in sacrament meeting, and he was just all smiles during his baptism! He makes us too happy.

Funny story: the other day we were teaching Carlos and Rosa. Carlos is going to get baptized this Sunday, but his wife still has doubts. It´s the same family that I talked about before... the husband always responds for his wife. We always have awesomely interesting lessons with them. We were teaching them about the Palabra de Sabidurìa (the word of wisdom) the other day. Long story short, near the end she said to her husband "No. ¡Vamos a sequir tomando nuestra cafesito!" We still have big dreams for this family... we´re gonna keep on luchando.

Yesterday, we were visiting a family reference that we had received. La familia Sanchez. When we first started, we only saw one lady, but then a few other people walked in and we realized there were already a couple of people in the room that we hadn´t seen before. So, really there were 5 people in the room. All family. We were mainly talking to the couple (parents and grandparents of all of the rest). By the time we went to say the closing prayer, there were 8 people in the room (still all family members), and when we opened our eyes at the end of the prayer there were 11 family members in the room with us!! They all just kept on walking in. Most of them were teenagers, so I thought they were going to bail out, but they all came in and actually stayed and talked with us. It was awesome.

I love how the families here are all just so huge, most live close to each other (sometimes in the same home, sometimes neighbors, sometimes in the same town, and occasionally some live far away), and they´re always together or getting together to spend time. It´s fantastic.

Life is great. We´re happy, healthy, and trying to be better everyday... even though I can still have my grumpy times... whoops :)

Love,
Hermana Marin

We were almost all healthy‏ (Week of 7/26)

¡Hola hola!

Well, last week, we were both pretty much all cured, but a few days ago, Hna Angel started getting a nice bit of tos (cough) action. She isn´t too bad, but she doesn´t have too much energy and has an awesome horse cough at times. We´ll see how this goes again ;)

La Gomera and Sipacate are great! I´ve been realizing a lot of things that I need to change and improve in the way I teach and be a missionary overall... I know I know... I almost have ten months in the mish and am still trying to get everything figured out... but I know I will not even feel like the missionary I want to be by the end of 18 months... poco a poco and there is always room for improvement. I am learning though. Before, when I had the realizations of the ways I needed to change, I felt bad about myself and what I was doing, but now I see it more as a good thing. We must realize and face our weaknesses and challenges in order to improve. It´s the only way.

I´ve also been thinking a lot about our desires lately. Everything starts with our desires... our thoughts, actions, faith, etc. I´m trying to figure out how we can help people with their desires. If someone doesn´t have desires to change, they won´t. We can´t force anyone to change their desires...that´s the tough part I have been faced with lately.

Hope all is well and all are happy!

Love,
Hermana Marin

Sick sick sick‏

Heavenly Father really doesn´t want you all to worry, because I JUST got all better from my sickness. It´s good when crazy things happen and pass within the email days, because then no one will be worried or anything in the meantime :) Just always assume that I´m happy and safe and healthy!

But this week was a rough one! From Monday until Sunday morning, I was SICK. With lots of good stuff. Mainly, sore throat and BU. The sore throat really didn´t affect my throat too much (so who knows if it was really sore throat), but my whole body was not feeling great. It was so sore constantly, and was playing ping-pong between fevers and chills, complete with headaches and other tiny details. A few nights, I wore two pairs of pajama pants, fleece socks, and a sweatshirt (in LA GOMERA!). I´m pretty sure that I took more drugs during this one week than I have in my whole mission put together, and I don´t think my body was used to it at all, so that was weird. I didn´t receive a Priesthood blessing until Friday night (not the smartest move, I know, but the Priesthood holders here aren´t very accessible, especially when it´s raining haha). Saturday night, we went home two hours early just so I could sleep and Hna Angel says that I was crazy (half asleep), she made me take more drugs and covered me up with her blanket. The next morning I felt so, so much better. I can´t even describe how crazy and funny and painful this week was. The BU still continues, but I feel great! Hna Angel is so sweet and patient. She took real good care of me.

Anyhow, for all of that, we really missed out on a lot of opportunities, but still had some great ones. We went on divisions with the hermanas from La Mariposa. Hna Winder (one of my comps from the CCM) came here with me! It was awesome. It was so good to see how much we both have improved in our Spanish, teaching, etc, and how we have changed personally. She´s an incredible missionary. It felt so natural and good to teach with her. She is so incredibly obedient and truly loves the people. Plus, she is pretty much fearless.

We, as missionaries, always hear LOTS of excuses. Hna Angel says she hardly believes any of them anymore. Yesterday, we were with a less active member and they were telling us why they haven´t been coming to church. I just started to think about standing in front of our Savior and giving excuses. It changed my perspective on lots of things. Excuses won´t fly. Not with Him.

Anny goes to the MTC on Wednesday!!! Holy cow. Tell her I love her to pieces and that she is going to be INCREDIBLE!

Thank you for all of your emails, love, prayers, support, and everything!!

All my love,
Hermana Marin

Booo... or BU?‏

There´s not even much time, but life is GREAT.

I´ve had BU and gripe for a couple of days, but we are happy and having a good time. Life is too funny on the mission. Last week, we got ATTACKED by mosquitos. Holy cow. It was unreal. You won´t even believe me, but they come in swarms in Sipacate and we were seriously screaming and jumping up and down when we were in the area late one day last week (we usually go back to La Gomera at 5 pm, but had an activity at 7). I´m getting real good at killing zancudos!

It hasn´t been raining much at all in La Gomera. We are able to see all the ugly, threatening rain clouds from La Gomera, but they are all in towns more inland. It´s pretty cool.

We are working with an older couple right now and they are doing great. It has been interesting to be with and teach them. The wife is very quiet and most of the time when we ask her a question, her husband always answers for her. He says that she is a bit of a rebel and not too intelligent. So we have had some fun talks about how each child of God has value and the ability to understand and learn :) Hna Angel is hilarious and awesome when she does not agree with something. We´re a fun duo. But, really, this couple is great. They truly both want to learn and we always have good lessons with them.

I wish I could share so much more with you all!!!! There isn´t any time to think and write about these amazing experiences how I would like :(

Hope everyone is happy and good!

Love,
Hermana Marin

Dry, scraped, red knees‏

Hola...

Okay. All is well. I´m still in La Gomera and my wonderful Angelita is still with me! One crazy change: one of my comps from the CCM, Hermana Winder, is in La Mariposa now! She´s going to rock that place. Plus, I´ll be able to see her lots more now.

We met President and Sister Brough and their daughter, Gansy (spelling?) on Thursday! They are incredible. He is going to be a great president. 3 of the 9 zones (us - "the coast") of missionaries met, and the rest were going to meet the following two days. They each took the time to meet each and every one of us. They´re very young (in their 40s), they hunt, he owns his own company, and it was great...

Happy Independence Day!

I need hair tips, please. My hair is all sorts of out of control. It is constantly up, because it´s basically impossible to have it down in this heat, so easy up-do ideas would be great :)

We met the most amazing woman on Saturday. We were looking for a house reference that we received, but the addresses are pretty hard to find here (if they even exist), so we knocked on a random door to ask them if they knew the person we were trying to find, but no one was home. We went back to where we thought the house was, knocked, and a lady walking down the street "ch-ch"ed us (basic Guatemalan way of getting someone´s attention - I love) and waved her finger (meaning: "no one lives there"). We asked her about the person, she said the house was abandoned, we asked if we could visit her, and right then and there she took us to her house... the house where we had knocked at! It was awesome. Her sister is a member of the Church that lives in Los Angeles and had told her that if she ever saw the missionaries, to "Invite them in and take care of them." We talked for a bit and she fed us lunch. Her name is Coni (Cone-y). Thought of Connie Soptich real quick. When we left, Hna Angel said that she had seen Coni and said "buenas tardes" to her before, as we were on our way to contact the reference. "Coincidence? I don´t think so" - Hna Angel.

Okay folks... half-way. Ya. That´s not okay. I can´t be half-way. I go slightly crazy when I think about it. There is still so much to do and change and improve!! But it´s okay... it´s okay.

That´s all for now :)

Love,
Hermana Marin