2011 Mar 28

Querida familia,

This week was good. It seems like it went by really, really fast. On Saturday I remember thinking "Shoot is it already Sunday again? It was Sunday like 3 days ago!" So it went by really fast. This week, at least in the beginning, anyway, was pretty frustrating. And more because of anything else, because of the Spanish. because, believe me--my grammar and vocabulary are really, really good but a lot of people still cannot understand when I am talking to them. And it makes it even worse because then they explain to my comp how they didn`t understand anything that I just said and how dumb Gringos are (paraphrasing) while I am still there like I am some dumb animal who can`t understand Spanish. Some Guatemalans can be mean when someone doesn`t speak their language perfectly. So in the beginning of this week, I was just "woe is me." But then after weekly planning I, all of the sudden (prayers being answered obviously), received this feeling of diligence and confidence. Like, "get out of my way Satan! I have souls to bring to Jesus Christ!" And from then it has been really good. Before, my comp wouldn`t really allow me to talk in the lessons but I have just kind of butted in (when acted upon by the spirit) and the lessons have been really enhanced and being a flecha and everything and everything has improved. So that`s really good. AND the gospel is true. :) It`s really good because he all of the sudden started being okay with it and now we have a lot more mutual respect for each other.

This week was really good though. We were teaching this couple named Hector and Leticia. Elder Alvarado and his trainer baptized their children but they were not able to be baptized because Hector wasn`t divorced from his other wife and his other wife was bitter about stuff so she refused the divorce and it was pretty messy but then out of nowhere (miracle, obviously) she suddenly became okay with it and so right now we have a date for baptism for them for the 16 of April. It`s going really well so far with them so I think that it is going to work out.

We are also teaching a the Cifuentes Family. All of the younger daughters already had gotten baptized about 5 months ago but their parents refused to listen to the missionaries. They were okay with their children being baptized but they didn`t want to have anything to do with it. But we have gained their trust buy serving them and showing them that we love them so now they are receiving the lessons and we think that we are going to be able to challenge them to baptism for 9 April. And we are really excited about them too. God is for sure softening their hearts and I think that if we follow the Spirit really well that they are going to feel comfortable getting baptized.

We have a couple of other investigators but the most positive ones are those two families.
And Elder Alvarado and I have been getting along better this week. I don`t know if I have already mentioned it in other letters but he has changed a lot in the time that I have known him. His trainer was a tiny bit iniquo with a couple of things and then just some other stuff but he has been really, really receptive to all of the things that I have told him that he needs to change. Before, he got really annoyed when I told him something like that and, he still kind of does, but now I don`t really need to do it anymore because he is already being really obedient. Before, he was just mostly really annoyed by me and thought of me, more than anything, as a hindrance but now, I can tell that he definitely respects me. So now that we are finally getting along, I can expect emergency changes any day now (haha, because that is how it always seems to work out) :).

And thank you guys for your prayers for me! I really can feel them.

Love,

Elder Froelich

2011 Mar 21 PM

2011 Mar 21 PM

How are you guys doing? This week was pretty good for me. The most notable thing that happened this week was on the night of cambios! An assistant called us at around 10:25ish and told us that neither I nor my companion, Elder Alvarado have cambios and they we are both going to stay in the same area in Las Rosas 2 for another change. When I heard it, I was expecting to be a little bit put out but I was okay with it. The good thing about all of this is that I was under the impression they just gave us cambios anytime that we asked for them and I asked him for cambios every P-Day since the beginning of the last change but this is good because it means that the cambios are being decided by God and not by the president. Elder Alvarado is a lot better this change than he was last change as well. Before, anytime I had to disagree with him or tell him that he was breaking a rule, I had to brace for a really ugly face and ugly words and a bad attitude for the whole rest of the day and it´s still kind of like that but it´s still an enormous improvement from the last change. In a lesson that we were teaching to some recent converts on, I think, Friday, we were talking about love or something and my comp was talking at the time and he kind of just starting talking about how before his mission, that he would get really angry at anyone who disagreed with anything that he said but that he had to learn to be patient so that he could get through the day more happily. so that was really, really good because I know that he was just saying that for me and it was a relief to know that my efforts of not always agreeing with what he says (because I honestly just don´t think it´s a good idea sometimes) has helped. He is still hard to get along with sometimes and I still don´t agree with a lot of the stuff that he wants to do, but another thing that I have learned is that, unless it has something to do with obedience to the prophets that I don´t need to worry about it and that I need to pick my battles.

And patience and love. Grandma sent me some suggestions in this last email that I liked a lot too. she said:

Speak with love,

Don´t take things personally

Don´t assume

Be your BEST self

Compliment every day

Be on the front row (be part of life)

So I am going to try those out. Smart lady, Grandma Lucille is. J

And this week was okay. It´s kind of confusing because we have a couple of investigators who seem pretty positive but because of marriage or court we don´t know if they are going to be able to be baptized. So we´ll see about them, I guess. But we are being super obedient and everything and, now, he even lets me when I want do something. So we are a pretty obedient companionship. J

I have to go right now but have a great week! I love you guys!

Love,

Elder Froelich

2011 Mar 14

2011 Mar 14 PM

¡Family!

What? Carrie, my viola teacher, is going to have a baby?? That is so awesome! Can you please congratulate her for me? I remember when she got married!! That is so awesome! You know she served a mission in, I think, Greece? So that is insane because that is going to be me (except it will be my wife having the baby) in just a couple of years! She is an amazing person and she will make a great Mom. Shoot, with all of her musical talent along with that of her husband (they were each the principle player in their respective instruments in the top orchestra at BYU) , the kid will be playing like a pro in by the time it (he or a her) reaches four! Wow!

And Kiersten Larson is engaged? Well, that´s what you get for going to BYU-I, I suppose. :)

And the people in southern Guatemala were worried about the tsunami hitting there as well. I don´t think that really anything happened with it though because I haven´t really heard anything about it since then.

And that is awesome to hear about all of the improvements that you guys are doing on the house! I won´t even recognize the place when I get there in a couple of years! And speaking of getting the Grand Piano in the living room in a couple days, I can now play Creo en Cristo (I Believe in Christ but some of the note values are a tiny bit different) just about perfectly. People think that I am legit when they hear me play that song. Now all I need to do is learn how to sight read! But it sounds like you guys are keeping busy

This week has been good. In the pictures that I sent to you guys, is a service project where we tilled up some land of a recent convert/investigator (maybe I´ll explain later if I have time) and then we had a baptism Saturday with someone named Carmen Aumbrosio who I described a little bit in the voice recording and then on Saturday morning we helped her de-grain some corn. I had a total of 11 blisters this week (ampoyas) and I even sent 6 letters and with the 3 that I sent last week, that means that I am almost caught up!

And the story of the baptism of Carmen was pretty great as well. On Tuesday, she told us "I already decided that I am not going to be baptized" but then we talked to her a lot and my comp, who knows the bible like no one´s business, was like get baptized (with scriptures) and she was like "Si, si. De plano que si." So that means yes!

I have to go, though, because it took a little longer to attach everything than I thought it would and I still have to email the pres.

But the gospel is true and I love you guys!

Love,

Elder Froelich

2011 Mar 7

2011 Mar 7

¡Querida Familia!

This week was pretty good. I took Dad´s advice and became an expert of the rules. I know every since rule as long as the page numbers to a bunch of them. God will have no CHOICE but to bless us with all of this obedience that I am helping with. I am what they call here among the missionaries a "flecha." It has a bad connotation but when you compare it to Lehi`s dream, it is okay because Lehi didn`t do all those things. In an interview with the president, I asked him how I could improve and he was like "necesita desarrollar caracter" (you need to develop character). So here I am! :) My comp gets kind of frustrated because of it sometimes but I don´t really care. The week after this week (2 Wednesdays) we are going to have cambios and I am going to get a new comp and I am really excited for it. Great guy but I have to pray really hard for patience and love and charity when I am with him. It is exhausting sometimes. My ideal comp would be someone that I don´t have to pray really hard in order to love. :D

It looks like we are going to have to drop Luis because my comp and I talked about it and we think that if we were to baptize him that he would just become an inactive member instantly. So we are going to put him on the back burner and maybe he will be ready by the time that some other missionaries come. And when we were teaching Sonia and Karen the Plan of Salvation puzzle helped a lot. I don´t think that they would have been able to understand it if we hadn`t used it. And the Spanish seems to be doing better. I don´t know. in English, we smoosh words together all the time and it seems like they do it here too but whenever I am not paying attention and I do it, they don`t understand anything that I say. So we`ll see I guess. The members for sure can tell that I`m trying and everything and the members also love me. So that`s really cool.

But, yeah: 6 months tomorrow! How insane is that! I will be more than a quarter of the way done with my mission! Yesterday, we accidentally woke up 14 minutes late because I set my alarm but I forgot to turn it on. And so that whole day... I have never been more tired in this area. SIGNIFICA que God was blessing me so that I would be able to function well and everything before with only 8 hours but he stole it away when I wasn`t completing with my end of the bargain. Like 1 Nephi 3:7. And I was having a particularly hard time loving my comp this morning but then I was reading in the BoM and I found Moroni 1:3-4. It`s about how Moroni had such a pure love for the Lamanites and even though they were going around killing Nephites who still believed in Christ, he said in verse 4 that the only reason that he is continuing the plates was so that he would be able to benefit the posterity of the Lamanites. What a pure love! I don´t have that kind of love at all right now but I`m working on it. If he can love people who have killed all of anyone who he has ever known and loved, then I can love my comp and the little things that he does that annoy me.

But I have to get going. Thank you for all that you guys do for me! Have an amazing week! Christ lives and this Gospel is true!

Love,

Elder Froelich

2011 Feb 28

2011 Feb 28

Hey!

I`m sending some more pictures this week but I am sending them separately so that you can get them before 7pm today. I was going to send you guys a video too but it was too big and gmail won´t let me attach it. It`s okay though because I have some mannerisms that I didn´t realize that I was doing. But I am going to make a smaller one next week and send that one to you guys. I didn´t realize that the videos were so big on memory.

I`m pretty sure that the package is perfect. It didn´t look tampered with at all and I think that I would have been able to notice because everything in there was packed pretty tight. Tell Katie and Brooklyn that I got their pictures and I loved them! They are amazing painters! And that is so amazing so that Karla and her family got the letter that I sent her! One because I was really starting to doubt the mail system in Guatemala (there`s got to be some reason why I`m not getting that many letters through the mail right?) and two because it`s really great that she appreciated the letter that I sent her. She and her whole family are amazing people. That honestly made my day a little bit better. :) Tell her thank you for me. Yeah, I have found a bucketload of amazing scriptures that are amazing as I`ve been reading the Book of Mormon so quickly. You wouldn`t really think so because you are basically just skimming to get everything read but it was really good.

And I am going to take a step back in my Spanish and work on the basics so that I can be better. I think that my problem right now is that I talk to quickly. So I am going to slow things down a little bit and see how that works. And my comp, Elder Alvarado wants to learn English so I just tell him random stories in English in my regular English so that he can learn it. And it works out really well because it`s kind of hard to get along with him sometimes just because we are so different but, this way, I can share with him some of my deepest stories without worrying about him actually knowing them. So far it has helped a lot. Haha, I was telling him a story about something at BYU and I was like "and they were perfect. I can`t even say how perfect they were" and he was like "not perfect." and I was like "you don`t even KNOW. Let me tell you about it." I thought it was awesome. Good guy, he is.

And Baptisms on Saturday... This week was so awesome! Right after I finished emailing you guys on Monday, we visited Sonia and Karen and Sonia told us that she was going to have to go to the Capitol so that she could sell perfume so that she could have money for her newly adopted children and that she might not be back until Sunday or Monday. So we were like, "what the garbage?" (afterwards) and then we visited her on Wednesday and, long story short, we baptized her on Saturday. :) The whole time, she was saying "if it is God`s will that I return for the baptism on Saturday then I will return" and I was like (in my head) "don´t be ridiculous. You are not going to be able to make it." But because of her faith, she did it and God was able to work a miracle. Later, I was reading in Mosiah 24 and verse 16 says that God will reward us according to how much faith we have in him. She had so much faith in God and I hope that some day that I will be able to have the same amount of faith that she has right now. We were going to baptize someone named Luis then too but he wasn`t answering his door or his phone so we couldn`t set a date for the interview so he couldn`t be baptized but, today, on the way to here (internet) we saw him on the bus on his way to school! So that was awesome. Sonia was the first person that I had ever personally baptized and we forgot to practice before the baptism and so it was pretty ridiculous and we had to do it twice because her feet came out of the water because I forgot to tell her to bend her knees... It was a good experience, though. I was having some doubts in how sincere Karen was with getting baptized but we decided on doing it anyway but we saw her in the baptism and she was so happy. And the day after, on Sunday, she couldn´t stop hugging us and smiling. :) It was a good day.

And that was my week in a nutshell! Thanks for everything that you guys do for me and for your prayers! Have an amazing week!

Love, Elder Froelich