2011 Jan 24

2011 Jan 24

Dear Family,

What a crazy week! Because of all the craziness I hadn´t written in my journal for a whole week (Sat to Sat) and when I was trying to catch up, it was crazy to think of all the things that had happened. Monday, we brought all of our bags down to Momos from Canqui and then the Zone Leader Elder McKell was like "they just called and you weren´t supposed to bring them until Wednesday." Oops, but we just left them in a bishops office that was in the church there. But E. Ronfeldt and I took an elder that night down to Xela because he was having health problems and they were going to take him from Xela to Guate the capital. So we slept in Xela overnight (where we took the warmest shower in the hotel there in the world). Then we got back to Momos on Tuesday morning in time for the Presidente to arrive for our zone meeting (which almost never happens). In a nutshell, Momos is like a refiner´s fire and it is not a punishment. It is a privilege. Then we went on splits with the Zone leader and his comp to help them with citas and we slept at their house. Then we got up and went to Xela to go to our new areas. SOOO right now I am in a zone in Xela called El Bosque. I´m in an area called "las rosas" And our capilla is the nicest one, I think, in the mission and it´s on vista Bella Calle. And that is where I am right now. There are 3 companionships in the ward because it is so big.

Oh, and my companion is a Latino named Elder Xovin. This ward, though, is bombin. We were just walking down the street the night after we got there and one of the members just drove up and gave us a reference who I think we will be able to baptize. He has a really open mind and said that if he comes to the conclusion that our church is true that he and his family will be baptized! The problem is that he has been reading anti-Mormon doctrine so we are just like PRAY ABOUT IT! He had to go to Guate because he was sickish but the member told us that he got back last night so that´s good. And we´ve been contacting too. AND THAT´s our week.

And on Thursday the Bishop Burton came down. To kind of greet him, we decided to sing Called To Serve while he was coming in but we didn´t know when he would be coming so we sung it kind of early and we ended up singing it 3 and a half times (there are 4 verses in Spanish). He was really great. Basically, the church is going forward and progressing a lot because it is true. And pgs 10-11 of PME tell you what to do to be a good missionary.

OH! And at, seriously, the last minute (ward counsel before church started) I found out that I was giving a talk so I decided I would talk about following the Spirit so I was kind of quickly prepping a lesson during sacrament meeting but when I got up there, I didn´t even use my notes at all and I just ended up following the Spirit. The scripture ref that I forgot, though, was D&C 68:4. If the Spirit tells you to do it then do it and you will be blessed (Mosiah 2:41).

Sorry! I have to go. Have an amazing week! I love you guys and thank you for your prayers!

Love, Elder Froelich

2011 Jan 17

2011 Jan 17

Family!

Hello! This last week has been pretty awesome. The day after I emailed you guys, we had conferences. What I got from it is that you can solve all of your problems by reading the scriptures. He had a list of 14 things that will help you as you are studying the scriptures (a lot of which can be found in Chapter 2 of Preach my Gospel), but one thing that I liked that he said that, more or less, that you don´t have a right to receiving revelation if you are not studying the scriptures. It´s really important and that you need to keep a study journal. Mas or menos, what he said was that if you are not writing down what you are learning and what you are receiving through revelation in your study journal then you won´t remember what you are learning so it´s basically like you aren´t learning anything! Therefore, it is really important that you keep a study journal. I´m going to buy one in Momostenango right after I finish up with this. So I am excited about that.

Also, I memorized like 5 different scriptures (one was a quote from Wilford Woodruff) this week in Spanish! Something else he said was Memorizing scriptures is really good too because "if it is part of your mind then it will be part of your heart" (more or less what he said in Spanish). But shoot! There are so many good scriptures in the scriptures! My favorite one that I memorized in Spanish this last week was (I may have already said that I liked this one) Alma 37:34. Good one. READ IT. And I got like 3 letters from people when I went down for conference on Tuesday! And all of them made my day. HEY! Speaking of letters, Evan Bogdan from BYU in a letter that I got back in the CCM said that he is reporting to the MTC this Wednesday to learn Spanish for Columbia! ¡CRAZY!

Oh! And before I forget, Bishop Burton (the Presiding bishop of the whole church) is going to come down on Thursday to give us a conference. So we are going to go down to Xela to see it. I´m pretty excited about it.

So Canqui this week. It was pretty good. We did a lot of service this last week (I´m a pro now at de pine-needling trees now) and we actually even had a district conference in centro in Momos. We tried to get this one Investigator that we had named Evaraldo to come but he said that he couldn´t because he had to go to the market to sell linea. And we couldn´t get any of the less activos familias to come either. So we had the conference yesterday in the Huge capilla that they have here in Momos and the president even came down to it! Smart guy, he is. And after the conference, we had interviews with him and he said that he is going to close down Canquixaja because he is just wasting good elders there because there hasn´t been a family that has gotten baptized there for 7 years and all of the baptisms that have been there in the past have just been baptizing the children of the less active families. We were actually fasting at the time, on Sunday during the conference so that we could find some people who were ready for the gospel so that we could get some positive investigators and who would be able to cumplir con todo sus compromisos. I guess that that was our answer... So we are getting emergency changed out. I was kind of sad when I found out because the people there are really great pero está bien I guess.

And I am trying learn Quiche still and now I can talk about things when there are more than one of them! And I´m learning a lot of Spanish words too as I memorize scriptures and read them and realize that I don´t know what some words mean. My little notebook that I have of words that I don´t know is getting filled up pretty fast.

So that was my week! Have a great one you guys!

Love, Elder Froelich

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2011 Jan 10

2011 Jan 10

Dear family,

That´s so insane about all of the weather that you guys are having! Here, we think it´s really cold in the morning when it´s 40 degrees outside and it´s decent when it´s 70 degrees outside in the afternoon. So that´s crazy that you guys are having such crazy cold weather!

Canquixaja is going pretty well. We found 7 new investigators and that´s really good for that area. We are trying to find the less actives (because we heard that there are a ton) but we've only found one family so far. We still don´t have any attending church yet of the less actives or investigators but they all said that they will come next week so that is really awesome. And the way that we are doing references right now, we are going to pick up the references sometime this week. So that is awesome. And we got to speak in sacrament meeting yesterday and we talked about missionary work. I prepared a talk and I only used like a quarter of it! So that´s really awesome because that means that I can use it as an accordion talk that I can talk on for as long as I need to. but it was a really great talk. I was on a gift of tongues role, speaking a tiny bit better than I usually would be able to.

And I learned how to say the woman is small (niich´ lee ixoq) and the house is big (nim lee ja) and the tree is white or clear (saq lee chee´) and some other stuff. I´m trying to master plural but it´s a lot harder than singular. This one lady who´s family we taught the getting references lesson to didn´t speak hardly any Spanish but in Quiche at the end of the lesson, I told her "thank you very much. Take care of yourself" and she had the biggest smile ever and she said something to me that I didn't understand in Quiche. So sweet. We still don't know what they are really saying in church because the whole thing is in Quiche but Quiche doesn't have a lot of the church vocabulary that we use in church so they sub a lot of Spanish words into it. So we kind of know, in general, what is going on at church.

The Chapel should be finished in this upcoming week and it will be dedicated the week after that to be used as a church. It is really nice looking inside. And when they finish it they are planning on having an open house for everyone and inviting the president of the mission and some other important people. They are building the house as a separate building and they are probably going to finish it in 3 weeks after they are done with the iglesia and it´s going to be kind of attached to the church but kind of far away.

And I was talking with Elder Ronfelt the other day and he has definitely not had a perfect life. And his mom told him that it is hard for her to go to church because she doesn't feel like anyone notices her, and her son (E. Ronfeldts younger brother) is having some problems which makes it even harder. So just always remember that fellowshipping is important because you never know what someone else is having to go through.

And thank you guys for the prayers. Every one helps.

Love,

Elder Froelich

And I´m trying to get letters written and off but it´s really hard to find some place to send it and it´s usually way out of the way. So sorry for not writing back if you have written me a letter... It´ll get done.

2011 Jan 3

2011 Jan 3

Hola familia! Yet another amazing week here in Canquixaja (that is the final correct way how to spell it)! We have started to move towards asking the members to give us references but they all seem to be kind of too scared to do so. So are working on that and I think that we are going to go contacting some more here because we seriously only contacted one person and that one person and his family agreed to let us come back and teach them. Just from contacting one house. So I think that we are going to shift some more of our time to contacting because the clinical definition of insanity is (or at least this is the one that I learned in that one Psychology class that I took) doing something the same way over and over again and expecting a different result. And I don´t want to be insane so I think that we are going to start working more with just contacting because it seems like it works really well here. And with those goody cups that you sent me, how can they not let us into their house? And I don´t know about fluent but I think that I might be able to speak some Quiche by the time that I am done with my mission. I think that like 2 zones outside of Xela have Quiche speaking areas and I think that Quiche is the most spoken native language here in Guatemala. The people here really are so appreciative when you try to learn their language. Not so much the Español people but the Quiche people seem to be really appreciate and helpful when I try to say something in Quiche. By the end of this week, I am going to be able to say (I WILL. it is a strong goal that I have) the man is big, the thief is mean, the house is small and some more stuff like that in Quiche! It is a hard language. In Spanish, it was kind of similar to English so that helped but Quiche and English have so common roots that I can draw from so that is going to be a little bit harder. BUT I´M GONNA DO IT! And capilla means chapel but they seem to use it for church buildings in general or at least that is what I have observed. They said that they were going to finish it in 2-3 weeks when we talked to them last week because they just needed to lay down the floor and touch up some walls so it should be finished in a weekish! So that is really exciting. But you guys went to see the rodeo museum?? That is so cool! That is the place who´s parking lot I drove into after blowing the tire after that job fair in the way nice hotel right above it! So that is crazy that you guys went there! I have spent a lot of time trying to write letters back to all the people who have written me. Right now, I have 2 done. And I have like 20 or more to go. So that will keep me busy. Missionaries just don´t have a lot of time to do stuff! But that sounds like so much fun driving in bad weather! Or driving period. My Comp, Elder Ronfeldt likes driving in bad weather too so sometimes we talk about our crazy experiences with that. And Tell President Smith hi for me! He is such a great slash worthy guy. The setting apart blessing that he gave me is so amazing. Like... shoot! ciento por ciento perfecto. And the ants weren´t really all that bad... just really salty tasting. I was talking to another Elder from Littleton today (Elder Robinson, I think) and he said that this past week that he ate a live scorpion (after cutting off it´s pinser and it´s tail) and he said that it tasted salty too. Thanks for your guys´ prayers. I can feel every one and I´m praying for you guys too. Love, Elder Froelich PS sorry... I may have forgotten to bring my camara to Momostenango today... I´ll try harder to remember to bring it next week so that I can send you guys a picture of me! I´ve been doing really good with taking random pictures just so you guys know!