2010 Dec 28 Canquixaja, Momostenango

2010 Dec 28

Hey Family!

It sounds like you guys were busy last week! And fun so that´s good. It was really great to have had the opportunity to get to talk to you guys on Saturday for Christmas! The time just flew by! So that´s cool.

Yesterday we were able to meet with the branch president and get some activities in the thinking stages. There are a lot of people here who don´t really speak Spanish that well so it´s sometimes kind of hard to communicate with them. Like for church yesterday, I don´t really know what was going on but basically what they did was the spoke in Quiche the whole time and they translated it into Spanish every once in a while as they remembered to do so. But I think that us two were the only ones who didn´t really understand what was going on so for them it really didn´t make that much of a difference. From what we have heard from a lot of the other missionaries who have been in Momostenango is that contacting really doesn´t work at all so that means that we just mostly do a lot of service to get the members` trust. And then after that we will start asking for references and stuff. And we talked to the Branch president yesterday and we have a lot of stuff planned that will hopefully bring in the references.

But I`m really excited about everything that we are going to be doing in this area. The people here are really great. And friendly and when I try to speak the really, really limited Quiche with them (good morning and thank you and yes) they seem to be really appreciative of it. And whenever I give them one of those goodie cups that you sent to me, they are so appreciative of it. But I like Canquixaja a lot.

And Canquixaja is really, really rural. I can´t really think of how it could be any more rural than what it is right now. Just about all the people who live there are either farmers or their family lives there while their husband or brother or something works somewhere else so that they can bring in money. They have a couple of little tiendas where you can buy things like eggs and beans and panaderìa bread and chips and stuff like that. But we have to go to Momostenango centro in order to use internet stores. And the members feed us basically every time we go over to their house. Not really as appointments but they give us like this tortilla drink that I can´t really describe and sometimes bread after we give them service.

And we talked to some people and I guess that the Capilla will be opening up in about 2 weeks and after that we will be able to move into it. So I am excited about that.

Well, I can´t really think of anything else to say so I will talk to you guys next week!

Love,

Elder Froelich

2010 Dec 21

2010 Dec 21 Tuesday

Hey thanks you guys for the calling card information! I accidentally dropped my other planner in water that had all of that information in it. And I forgot our phone number so that was good to have as well. :)

And the baptism with Francis went really well. My companion went into the barbaria where he works to get a haircut on Monday and Francis said that since his girlfriend was leaving on Friday for business, he wanted to get baptized on Thursday. So a lot of the week was spent going around to all the members´ houses to tell them about the baptism. Guatemala is funny though because the baptism was supposed to start at 7 but Francis himself walked in right at 7 and there were only two other people who had shown up at that time. So Elder Sigler and I were getting kind of worried because we had set up a lot of chairs and it looked really sad. So we ended up starting the baptism at around 7:40 and by the time that the baptism had ended at around 8:30, the room was completely packed at it was hard to find somewhere to stand and all of the chairs were taken up. So I´m glad that that worked out. It was a really good experience for everyone.

And with the activity with the references, we started off with just having regular fin ward activities (ha, and by the way, we started that activity about 40 minutes late as well because nobody ever shows up until then) and then we had everyone divide up into groups and we all gave them reference papers to write references on and then we showed them cakes of 3 sizes (1st 2nd and 3rd place) and said that it was a competition. Whoever gave us the most references got the biggest cake, and then 2nd and 3rd. That is awesome though that you guys are getting so many different missionary opportunities!

Also, the reason that I couldn´t email yesterday is because we had a soccer tournament with the whole mission. The teams were divided into zones so there were like 10ish teams and our zone got second place. I didn´t actually get to play a whole lot but it was still fun. And last night after we had gotten home one of the assistants called us and, long story short, I´m going to Momostenango in a place called Conkishaja (pretty sure I spelled that wrong but that is how you say it)! I am so so so excited about it right now! And my new companion is going to be Elder Ronfeldt. I don´t really know him that well but he is in my zone in the other district and he seems like a really great guy. But SHOOT! Can they think of a cooler name for an area than Conkishaja?? Conkishaja in the Quetzaltenango mission in Guatemala. So I´m really excited about that. I´m leaving tomorrow for Xela and then from there I´m going to Momostenango. OH BOY!

Oh, and yesterday after the futbol tournament they gave us packages and I got a package from Carla and Matt Froelich! I haven´t opened it yet because I wanted to wait until Christmas to do it but that is really exciting! And I got a letter from Grandpa and Grandma Leishman! So that was really awesome. :)

But I am way excited to talk to you guys on Saturday! I love you guys and everything that you guys do for me. And thank you for your prayers! I can really feel them!

Love,
Elder Froelich

2010 Dec 13

2010 Dec 13

Hey Guys!
This week has been pretty good. We set a baptismal date for Francis (I think that I told you guys about him) for the 18th which is this Saturday. This week has been really great and kind of mediocre all at the same time. The reason that it was great was because it was probably the most spiritually edifying week so far in the field. And that is because I was able to study the gospel more this week than I usually would have been able to. And I'm technically not even supposed to mention this because they don't want you guys to worry (so stop reading if you don't think that you can handle it) and they even wanted me to go to the hospital but it wasn't even that bad. They are just overreacting, mom so don't even worry about it. I just ate something bad on Sunday so my stomach was just a little bit sensitive but I am completely better. So, seriously, don't worry about it and don't call church headquarters. SO…

My companion and I kind of took turns being sick and when he was just sleeping it off one day, I had the opportunity to do some hardcore gospel study. I mostly just read Search for Happiness by... Ballard (?). I'm not even sure if that is the title of the book. It's one of the ones you sent me with. Anyway, he makes a lot of sense. And he does it all at the same time as being really spiritual so it ends up being really edifying. So that just really strengthened my testimony of the gospel a lot so that was awesome.

But on Saturday we had some activity with the members (and a lot of them actually even showed up) and we had the ambitious goal of getting 150 references from it and we ended up getting 149! So that is really, really exciting! We watched a video about missionary work and one of the quotes that I liked was from (I think) Howard W Hunter and he said something like you can measure the conversion of someone by how great their desire is to share the gospel. So that means that if you don't have any desire to share the gospel then you are not converted enough. True faith leads to action. And it's really hard to do missionary work by contacting so share the gospel! So Saturday was a really great day! And then I was kind of playing prelude music informally and I was zooming on that thing! I can almost play I believe in Christ with both hands and I can play any song in the hymn book with my right hand (reading two different lines of music at the same time is hard. I don't even know how you guys do it).

Oh! And with the Spanish! This week I was praying pretty hard core to understand what people were saying and it was like someone turned a light on in the Spanish part of my brain! I forgot what I said last week about my Spanish but this week and can understand between 70 to 97.67594966755 percent of what people say depending on how hard they are to understand in general and how hard I'm trying to understand what they are saying. And all because of prayer! And yesterday I was trying to write in my journal in English and it felt really awkward! SO EXCITING! With any luck, by the time I call you guys on Mother's day, you guys won't even be able to understand what I'm saying! It is completely impossible that I learned to comprehend what people were saying that quickly all by myself (because it was such a night and day difference between before and after I prayed) that God would have had to help me. THEREFORE God lives. :)

And I wasn't really as sad that I wasn't able to play the violin as I was disappointed in myself for not being able to do it. I'm pretty sure that if I had had it down already and everything then they would have been okay with having me play the viola but since I didn't have it down and two other groups before us did the exact same song that we did and we already had a whole other act that we wanted to put on, it was totally fine. So it's kind of just like whatever.

And that is SO awesome that Janeen and Sarah are going crazy with their talents and not "hiding them under a bushel" because that's what God gave them talents for in the first place! By the time that two years has passed by, Janeen will probably be playing concerts at amazing places with her voice and accompanying herself with her harp all at the same time. And Sarah being spotlighted at her strings concert with her harp as well after being the lead role in the play!? I have such a talented family! And then with Dad going all over the Colorado with work?! Good job guys!

So my companion is waiting for me to finish and I still have to write a letter to President Lorenzana, so I'm gonna have to go.
Love, Elder Froelich

2010 Dec 7

2010 Dec 7

Hey Family!

This week has been pretty good. It turns out that Maria and Amelia just moved on Sunday to go back to where they live in some aldea somewhere, which is kind of sad because I don´t think that there are missionaries in their area pero esta bien. We´ve started knocking some doors in a place called San Lorenzo which is part of our area and it looks like there is some really good stuff going on right now. We found this one family who looks like they might work out so I´m way excited about that. So we will see where that leads us. But I´m excited about it because there has to be some escogidos in there somewhere because it is a pretty big chunk of land. :)

And it turns out that I didn´t end up being able to play violin. The reason being because there wasn´t enough time because we were also putting on a little act. It ended up being okay though because I was practicing with it before and let´s just say that it is not the same thing as a viola. It is way smaller, especially considering that my viola was big even for a viola and the violin that I was playing was not full size, so I had to adjust all of my finger spacing and then there were some other stuff but I don´t want to talk about everything. But don´t worry about sending music because I don´t think that I am going to be playing any time soon. :)

Oh, but we had a fireside yesterday (which is the reason that I wasn´t able to write you guys) and I got both of your packages as well as letters from the 17th ward primary and Ryan and Michaela (did you know it takes a month to mail a letter from the US to Moscow? But it still only takes like a week to get a letter to Guatemala through DearElder.com (and they are free) and I got two different letters from Grandma and Grandpa Leishman! So that was awesome. But I got both of your packages and I love them both! I am going to have a lot of letters to send! So that is great. Also, to anyone else who reads this, if it seems like I haven´t been writing back, I´m really sorry. It´s just because I am a horrible person and I´m bad at writing letters. But I am catching up today. So your letter should be to you soon.

But yeah, I did get to watch the Christmas Devotional on Sunday! It was so great. I mostly liked the music because it was all in English so I didn´t have to worry about translating it in my head. Speaking of Spanish, I can understand everything that is said in an English accent (like all of the companions that I have had). It´s just hard to understand someone who has been speaking Spanish for all of their life. But it´s coming.

And to write letters, we just go to little internet places and write our letters there. And with our house, our house is kind of weird. It's not really all that bad but it's just weird. To get up to where we sleep, we need to climb a ladder and the set up of the house is kind of weird too. It's pretty good though. I think that Elder Sigler is from the... southwest side of Vegas. And we still haven't worked out how the phone situation is going to work on Christmas but I am really excited to talk to you guys. You guys will know as soon as I do which will maybe be next week. The president yesterday in the mission fireside (which is the reason why our preparation day got moved to today) emphasized the 30 minutes with your family again. But I'm going to need the calling card number and... I forgot our phone number on account of not working hard enough to remember it back in the day. So if you could send those things to me in the next email then that would be great. :)

I can´t really think of anything else to say. Oh, chiste! So Elder Sigler and I didn´t know what to do on Saturday so I said that we should pray and so we did and so we prayed and he said that we should go and visit the GF of Francis but I could have sworn that he said that we should visit the GF of Henry (who is another investigator) but he didn´t even know who Henry was or Damarice (his GF) because he just got here but we went to their house and they seem to never be there and they were BOTH THERE! So that means that the Spirit basically told me where to go through the voice of Elder Sigler. Anyway, prayer helps with, seriously, everything. And that goes especially for missionary work but also for everything else in life. I know that if you make prayer an integral part of your life that you will be blessed. Also, the Joseph Smith was a prophet of God and this is the gospel of Jesus Christ!

Love,

Elder Froelich