2012 Feb 27

2012 Feb 27 PM

Hey!

This week was my Birthday! It was for sure the most... notable birthday of my life for a couple reasons: 1 because it was on the 21st of February and I completed 21 years; 2 because it was my last birthday on my mission; 3 because I was sicker than a dog. :) I still do not have the box. I will let you know.

Here in Guatemala there are these restaurants called comedores. They are really cheap but they are always a little bit sketchy. So on Monday, after I wrote to you guys, we went to this one other comedor than the one that we usually go to because it is only a little bit more expensive but you get a lot more food. So we went there and everything was great. But then on Tuesday there was District meeting. I had woken up without anything of an appetite but I had these disgusting, disgusting burps that I always have before I throw up. We got there about half an hour before it had to start and I went straight to the bathroom and was in there about 45 minutes before I had the courage to throw up (it is one of my greatest phobias in the world so I had to pray a lot) and when I got out my whole district was waiting for me still, and I still had to write everything on the board of what we were going to do. And then afterwards everybody went home and I asked permission to call the mission nurses and they couldn´t answer for some reason or another so we were just texting for a half an hour and it was horrible. And there were some members who were calling and calling me to invite me to a lunch that they had prepared for me but I couldn´t come because I was just sick as a dog. And then when I finally got home, I had a temperature and was a cold and tired as can be so I just tried to sleep it off. So I just spent my birthday in the house. :) But it was good. Good story to tell for after the mission right? Everyone else is going to say "yeah, I did this and that for my 21st birthday on my mission and it was really fun" but I am one of the only people that are going to be able to say that I was throwing up and in the house the whole time. :) It was probably a good thing that you partied my birthday for me because there was definitely no partying going on on this side of the world. :) But at the same time, it may have been a good thing because my birthday was on Carnival and I guess that there were a lot of people throwing eggs and flour and everything so it´s all good.

Also, on Thursday it was a really hard day because there was nothing to do. Everything was falling and nobody could receive us but at the end of the night, my comp was like let`s go visit this one member and we had nothing to do so we did. So I knocked on the door and the husband left the house extremely indifferently and told us that if we wanted to go that we could, so my comp walked in and saw that the wife was sobbing. And long story short, we were talking to her and she said that he had never hit her in their whole marriage but that he hit her then and right when we knocked on the door, he was getting ready to hit her again. And then she called us her little angels and it was great.

And then later on Sunday I was having a kind of frustrating day and they noticed and they invited us to some hot chocolate later that afternoon to raise my spirits. :) So that was great. :)))))

And I got to go. But God does love me.

Love

Elder Froelich

2012 Feb 20

2012 Feb 20

Hey! This week was pretty awesome. There is this one aldea in our area that we have never visited called Chiquimula because we know absolutely nothing about the area at all. We know that there are less active members there but we have no idea where they are. So we had planned to go over there on Friday morning. (We had actually planned to go to an aldea called Tierra Colorada but nobody there could do it) and we tried getting in contact with everyone that we could think of before we left so that we could at least know something about the area, but everyone was either not home or they were not answering their phone. So I got to thinking if we should still go to Chiquimula without knowing anything. But then we just saw a bus going towards there and I made a split second decision and we got on the bus. My comp, Elder Leiva, didn´t know anything because he is new and wouldn´t know anything anyway but as we got closer to the aldea, I saw that it was a lot bigger than I thought that it was going to be. It was almost as big as San Francisco, and with the address that we had from the ward directory (center of the city) I thought that it was going to be impossible to find them because there is only one family in the entire city. And knowing that I was going to be the guy who knew everything in the area that I had never seen before was really stressing to me. So we got there and found the center of the city (which is always wherever the Catholic Church is) and we went from there. We started asking around but then I just felt that we should go down this one street, and then we got there and just stopped at one corner. And decided to contact everyone that passed by us and all of the houses until we found the house that we were looking for. So we knocked on the door of the corner that we were on and nobody answered, and then we saw a lady walk down the street and we asked them if she knew Santos and Ana Mejía Utuy and she said "yeah, they are actually my neighbors. I will take you to them." So we got there and we FOUND THEM! We got to know them a little bit better and it looks like we are the first missionaries to visit them in 12 years. They have not had any contact with the church for 12 years and we just found them and reestablished contact with them! So that was a great experience. The weird/crazy thing about this story is that I know that I was being guided by the Holy Ghost and that he was guiding my way (because my comp didn´t really put in any input in the whole thing) but I didn´t really ever recognize it as the Holy Ghost until afterwards when I saw and realized the miracle. So I am going to try to figure out how to recognize and follow the Spirit so that I can have more miracles in the future. I do appreciate a lot that I was a tool in the hands of the Lord to be able to find that family, though. I like that a lot. :) So that is the big story of the week. :)

My new companion is named Elder Leiva. He is from Tegucigalpa like Elder Posas. He is a good enough guy and we get along well enough but I miss Elder Posas. Elder Leiva is a better missionary, but Elder Posas is a really good person, as different as he may be.

I am getting really good at chopping wood. I can chop just about anything. So that is great and I love it. Right now, we are working with some okay people and finding a lot of people to teach but a lot of our investigators are having to go on the back burners because they are not doing anything productive. But we are finding some positive people but only time will tell if they turn out well.

That is cool that Janeen got into contact with my trainer, Elder McGuire. He was a fun companion. And that comment from Cullen Black made my day. :-) I love him. He will be a great missionary.

That is cool about Dad`s new job. He is just dominating the crap out of the computer industry over there in Colorado Springs! And way to go with the missionary work Mom! It is people like you who the missionaries love and you are in for so many blessings that you don´t even know!

Hey! I love you guys! Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Froelich

2012 Feb 13

2012 Feb 13 PM

Hey! This week was good, but before I forget I suspect that everyone wants to know about changes. I DO NOT HAVE CHANGES BUT ELDER POSAS DOES. So I am going to stay in San Francisco and Elder Posas is going to go to I don´t know where. WHAT A SURPRISE RIGHT?!? But I am happy for it because that means that I can follow up with all of the less actives and investigators that we have been talking to, and now I have the goal to work more out in the aldeas. So we will see how that goes but I am excited about it. At first, I was so sure that I was leaving so I got myself excited for leaving but there was always a part of me that wanted to stay and work with all of the people still. So I am excited about it and about getting a new comp.

And here is something else that I got in my inbox. I copied and pasted it from President´s email to me.

Lewis Bautista Feb 11 (2 days ago to me)

HI E. FROELICH, YES YOU CAN APPLY (he is talking about permission to go to the MTC site to send in my application). YES YOU HAVE PERMISSION TO DO SO. YOU WILL STAY ANOTHER CHANGE. THANKS FOR THE INFO FOR SISTER BAUTISTA (long story).YOU ARE DOING A GOOD WORK.

So I am going to stay an extra change but no more so don´t worry about calling BYU to change my enrollment date.

A cool experience from this last week was that after we got back from Choqui, that night (Saturday) we went to a less active family that has never really received us, but we went anyway to see how they were doing and we saw that one of the women of the house were chopping wood and we asked them very forcefully if we could help them (we basically just opened the gate and walked into the yard without permission) and we started chopping wood for her and piling it up (Elder Posas taught me to chop wood. I am actually getting pretty good at it) but this time it was completely ridiculous how easy it was. Either God blessed me with some newfound strength or technique that I have never had before or he was helping the wood fibers separate from each other so that I could chop it more easily. But I chopped so much wood and I wasn´t even tired at all (okay a little bit but it was good)! and then a couple days later, we decided to visit them again but this time to bring flowers, but we had no flowers and it was Sunday so we couldn´t buy any so we just walked there hoping to find some on the way and we actually made a pretty, pretty bouquet of flowers that we found on the side of the street (they were all weeds but we made those weed flowers look good) and then we asked if we could sing to them and we sang them I am a Child of God and the MA lady said that that was the only song that she knew and her husband (who is not a member) liked it a lot. And we sung them one other one (I forgot which) and at the end, we asked them what day we could come back to teach them and they said that any day we could come by (which is a miracle because they are normally really flaky people) and we have an appointment with them for Wednesday! So I am excited about that for sure.

And I don´t really have any more time left. But have a great week!

Love,

Elder Froelich

2012 Feb 6

2012 Feb 6 PM

Hey!

Changes are on the 14th. It is not completely official but it is basically for sure that I am going to leave and that my companion is going to stay for the next change. Everyone is getting really sad about it in the ward and that is good because it means that they love me. J It is really stinky though because one of our investigators who has been listening to missionaries for the last 13 years told us that after I leave that she will no longer want to meet with the missionaries. So we will see how that goes. And then the ward just now started getting on the ball after so much work, and now they are planning noches de hermanamiento very Wednesday among other things, and the members are just now starting to trust us with and wanting to teach their friends with us, and in the midst of all of this, I have changes. But when is it ever NOT like that right? But that is okay. J

Also, a good experience is that on Wednesday we had a lesson with a less active member whose wife is not a member. His name is Feliciano and her name is Erika. We were teaching him at first and then his wife came in the door and was trying to leave but then we basically just showered her with love and she decided to stay. So we started the first lesson but it was really rough, so I just decided to just kind of go off of schedule because it was not going anywhere, and I just started testifying about everything and my comp too and at the end of the closing prayer that her husband said, she was crying. There was a really sweet spirit. So that was really nice.

Well, that is all my time

Love

Elder Froelich

2012 Jan 30

2012 Jan 30 PM

Hey! This week was good. Experiences before I forget to add them in from this week: We had this one member that we visited right before we had a missionary activity on Wednesday and she is usually not very active in missionary work and this last day especially not because she had a horrible migraine headache. But we asked her for references at the end of the lesson and invited her and she, out of nowhere, said that she would definitely be coming to the missionary activity and right there in that moment, she called 2 of her friends so that they would come as well, and one of her friends actually came! Also, with the activity, the Bishop had assigned us to do an activity that would last about 15 minutes but because of all of the craziness of the divisions that we did with Santa Ana and that fact that we were late in the first place, I had completely forgotten to plan anything. So when the bishop stood up and said to the entire group of around 50 people "and now the elders will now lead a game that they already had prepared" I panicked. So I went into the middle of the circle of I don´t know how many people and was begging God to bless me with an idea of something that we could do. I got into the middle of the circle and said "Okay! We are going to play a game that is really, really fun. And everyone is going to like it. And everyone has to participate!" but I still had absolutely NOTHING in my mind of what we were going to do, so I started begging and praying a little bit harder to God so that he would give me something that I could do with everyone, and out of nowhere (but let´s be honest, out of heaven) I had the idea to do a game I had learned in gym years before called sharks and fishes and we played it and everyone loved it a lot. Tender Mercy of the Lord? I think so. J Also, last Monday, my comp and I were fasting for a lesson that we had so that it would be great so that we could set a fecha and everything, and the funny thing is that the cita actually fell through completely and we were not even able to teach them at all, but then while I was on divisions in Santa Ana, I found Alma 32 and so now we reorganized the lesson and we have another cita with them for tonight and it is going to be even better! I am excited about it. Also, President Falabella from the area of Central America came on Thursday and gave us a conference! SO GOOD and such a great guy that guy. I loved it. And while he was here, he even came to Huehue and met Nestor who was a way awesome baptism that I had (even though I couldn’t make it to the baptism because I was in a different area, I still consider him as my baptism) that got baptized about 2 weeks after I had left Huehue, and President Falabella and President Bautista went over there to Huehue and they got to MEET him! So that was a cool thing to hear. I love Nestor. I don’t know if I sent you guys his baptism foto. But here it is AND there is more stuff to say but there is no longer any time to say it. SO I am gonna have to call it a day. Love, Elder Froelich