2011 Apr 25

2011 Apr 25 PM

Hey Guys!

This week has been pretty good. The paperwork for the wedding didn´t work out as smoothly as we wanted to so we had to delay the wedding but it looks like we are going to be able to do it on this coming Saturday so that´s really good. And we still had the baptism of Sharon and Miguel on Saturday so it didn´t end up being too bad. Something funny/kind of hectic that happened on the day of the baptism is that when we opened up the church to get ready for the baptism, we came to find out that one of the urinals was overflowing so it ended up being a really hectic clean-up to see if we could finish before everyone came. Lucky for us, nobody in Guatemala comes on time so everything ended up being okay. And 2 of the assistants in the office even came to see it too! Something really cool that we found out was the day that we set for their baptism was also going to be their 5th aniversary!

Hna. Cruz came too and she was crying the whole time because she couldn´t get baptized yet. It was really touching/heart wrenching to see it because at first she didn´t really want to have anything to do with the church but, now she wanted to even get baptized and she was heart broken that she still couldn´t do it.

Something that I realized this week that has really helped me is Spanish is kind of a rude language. So if you translate it directly into English (which is not as rude of a language) it is kind of easy to get offended but they call their children ill-formed when they are right in the room sitting right next to them, they call people fat when they are trying to describe them without even batting an eye, and more stuff. So you just have to take that into account when you are talking to them and everything ends up being better.

Transfers are on Wednesday so we´ll see what the Lord decides to do with me from there. I´m pretty excited about it though. I had never had a comp for longer than 4 weeks so having one for 3 months was a little bit weird.

And I´ll just let you know when I need you to send me things because I know how expensive it can be to send them. Thank you for doing it though! But thanks for sending me stuff. :)

That´s pretty awesome that Sarah is the smartest 5th grader in her entire school district. And that Janeen is doing so much as well.

And the temple in Xela is doing pretty well. I guess that they are going to open it up for the open house in August. Right now I think that everything on the outside is done and they are just doing the stuff on the inside right now. But it looks like it is going to be really, really pretty. I think that the Rexburg temple is still going to be my favorite but this one will be really pretty as well.

But I still have to email the Pres and I am almost out of time. Have a great week!

Love, Elder Froelich

2011 Apr 18

2011 Apr 18 PM

Dear familia,

Hey how are you guys doing? That´s awesome that our yard and garden is now the envy of the neighborhood! (And I´m still really excited to try out that inherited grand piano that we have now). This week was pretty good too. I forgot my planner today so I won´t be able to tell you guys too much of what happened (because why remember what happened if I have it in my planner right?) but I will try my best.

Earlier today, we went to centro of Xela to buy stuff for the wedding. We asked Cruz (who is the woman getting married and baptized) which were her favorite colors and she said that her favorite colors are white and celeste (light blue). So I got streamers and balloons of these colors and my compa took over the invitations. I´m really excited about it! Today she went to some city that I forgot the name of so that she could get her birth record but because it is semana santa (holy week but I had never heard about it in the States... I’m pretty sure that it is a catholic holiday) there are some people who are not working. So we´ll see how that turns out but I think that everything will be okay. Cruz, though, is one of the best people that I have ever met. When we first met her, she didn´t really want to have anything to do with us (but she let us come over to her house because her daughters are all members) but then after she went to church one time, she wanted to get baptized but she had to get married first to Rogelio, her husband but Rogelio didn´t want to get married so (her daughter told us afterwards) she told him that she would leave him so that she could get baptized if he wouldn´t marry her (they have been together for 31 years and they have 13 children together) just because she wanted to be married so badly. And she isn´t the type of woman who would joke around with things like that. WHAT a woman! And a miracle is that when we first met her, she couldn´t read scriptures because her eyes were too bad but, now she can read just fine! She had been like that for many years but she just now started being able to read the scriptures (which was kind of a big stumbling stone for her because it was really hard for her to complete the reading assignments that we gave her). Her eyes are being cured miraculously so that she can get closer to God by reading the scriptures!

And then we were teaching this person named Emperatrice and we had been teaching her for a little while (she is a less active) and yesterday she talked to the bishop and was finally able to take the sacrament. And we talked and I was like "we stayed here just for you" and then I pointed at her and right as I pointed as her, I felt the spirit really, really strong. Like, I am here in Las Rosas 2 with Elder Alvarado in Quetzaltenango Guatemala because THIS is the place that God wants me to be in right now.

I plan on having a lot of pictures to send to you guys next week because of it being after the baptism and wedding and everything. SO BE READY!

I love you guys! Thanks for everything that you guys do for me! This gospel is true.

Love,

Elder Froelich

2011 Apr 12

2011 Apr 12

Hey!

Mom! That sounds like you were up to a lot of crazy fun stuff in England! Did you take pictures? Send me some! And Janeen went to Prom? How did that go? Can I get pictures of that too? And of Sarah in the battle of the books. Hey! And I got an email from Jason today! And that was good.

This week was pretty good. Yesterday, we did a Book of Mormon read-a-thon in a day from 4am until 11pm. I tried reading it in Spanish and I learned a bunch of vocab but it was crazy, crazy hard. I was having to translate in my head and understand the doctrines all at the same time and go quickly enough to finish it in the time allotted, but my brain started dying at around 1pm and when I finally had gotten an English Book of Mormon (I was trying to give myself some tough love and didn`t bring my English BoM para que no pudiera read it and so that I would have to read it in Spanish but I got to around Alma 26 which is about 326ish pages in (not including the intro stuff) and I couldn`t finish reading a sentence in Spanish and still have it make sense in my head. So then I begged a little bit and someone had a English BoM that they let my use. It was a good experience but, needless to say, I am a tiny bit pooped with a little bit of a perpetual headache today.

This week wasn`t really anything special or, if it was, I can`t remember anything about it right now. We have 5 baptismal dates scheduled for the 23rd. Here is the trick to finding people: Work hard and be obedient and follow the spirit. You don`t even have to be all that clever because God will bless you and you will know what to do. Missionary work is one of those things that is really hard but really simple at the same time. And I completed 7 months on Friday! And that is exciting. I feel like I have so much more time to go! And sometimes, it`s not even fun to be a missionary. Always worth it, but not always fun.

Today in District meeting, they pointed out that las rosas 2 was the only compañerismo that had baptized every mes so far. So that is cool that God is blessing us so much, because I honestly don`t even think that I am that good of a missionary but God is a pretty good guy so that is for sure what it is. I don`t even know what I am going to do after my mission when I don`t have all of this help from God and when I won`t have so much time to just study the gospel.

Something that I liked about conference was that when President Monson was talking, he said, "and if the Book of Mormon is true, which it is..." I liked that a lot, a lot, a lot because he said it in such a matter of fact way that of COURSE the Book of Mormon is true. I already knew that before he said that but I never thought of it as a matter of fact kind of thing. But it really, really is. And as the last paragraph in the intro in the Book of Mormon says, that means that EVERYTHING is true! It is so simple!

Something that I have applied to my companionship this week that has been really good and that I hope to apply to my marriage is that I was thinking of “Meet the Robinsons” (one of my favorite videos) and something that the mom says at the end is that "Remember that I am always right. Even when I`m wrong, I`m right." And then the dad says "She`s right!" And apologize even when it´s not your fault (what a HARD thing it is to do that sometimes.)

But hey, the gospel is true!

I love you guys!

Elder Froelich

2011 Apr 4

2011 Apr 4

Hey!

This week, nothing really picture-worthy happened and I didn`t want the videos and voice recordings to lose their fun. This week was really good though. My compa and I got along a lot better than we had before. And everyone can understand my Spanish whenever I want them to and I when I want to talk secretly to my companion, I just use my old, crappy Spanish. :)

And on Thursday, we went on Splits with the zone leaders and it was awesome! I learned a lot about improving my relationship with my comp and a lot of other stuff as well like how to contact better and everything else. And that I got to be away from my comp for a little while was nice too. I definitely love him a lot more and I could definitely see myself living and being happy with him for the rest of this change but I don`t think that I would want to be with him for longer than that.

This week we had a mission conference AS WELL as General Conference. The mission conference was on Friday and lasted a really long time (from 7:30AM to 7PM) and my brain was pretty dead afterwards like I had just studied in the library at BYU all day and it was hard to process a complete though but it was really good. One of the speakers out of the about 8 that spoke was named Hna Rina Lang and she was a really really pilas missionary. She was the very last of the speakers that I got to hear but she was my favorite by far. She´s been home from her mission for.... I don`t know how long but she just sent a son on a mission so it`s been a while. And she was really good. In a nutshell, look them in the eyes and be professional and competent and obedient and love your companion and you´ll succeed. And something that President told us at the conference (he had told us before but I was reminded of it at the conference) was that he is going home in only 3 months! Which is crazy to think about! I think that he seems tired so I think that it will be good for him.

That night, we went to the Cifuentes house to teach a lesson and they said that they will get baptized on the 23rd of April! And so we are probably going to have to push back the date for Maria Cifuentes too but I think that everything will still be okay.

On Friday night when I was laying in my bed trying to fall asleep, I felt like it was Christmas eve and I was so excited that I kind of couldn´t fall asleep but I was really tired so it probably only took about 30 more seconds to fall asleep than it usually does but, needless to say, I was pretty excited about General Conference. My favorite session as a whole was probably the Sunday morning session but my favorite talk out of all of them was the one given on Saturday morning by, I think her name was Jean something (1st counselor in the primary general presidency) and I loved it soo much. How we need to make ourselves be more like children. And I liked Bednar’s talk about revelation a lot too.

And I have to go right now but have an amazing week!

Love,

Elder Froelich