Monday, July 26, 2010
Dear Family and Friends:
.......
Ok so now for a little story for this week. Since we haven't been having like any luck finding anyone to teach in our area...mainly because everyone is drunk, we decided to give Amparo a break and visit one of our other areas, El Tumbador. Here is the story behind Tumbador: at one point there actually used to be a thriving ward in this town but there were 2 bad missionaries who drank and fornicated and ended up getting a girl pregnant and then about the same time the bishop was caught having an affair with another woman and in one foul swoop the entire church became inactive and didn't want anything to do with Mormonism. Now to some people this might look like a deterrent, but me and my companion are like, Awesome! We have the chance to rebuild an entire church!
Anyways, we´re going to try and find a house up there and make it our permanent place so we can just do work and activate all 5,000 people! And yeah the first house that we knocked on in this town turned out to be one of the fallen members and he was really upset to see us to say the least, lol. So after talking to the guy, who was obviously drunk, we were like we don't want to fight and left.
Then we found this kids house who actually was pretty cool and showed us around the town for a little while. There was this one family that lived like on the edge of town and we had to hop across rocks over a river to get to their house, such a cool experience. Then we found them and they were really interested.
And yeah, I'm just so excited to start work in a town with lots of people that doesn't even have the gospel yet. This is going to be so amazing!!!!
Questions:
1. Did you have any new food this week?
Well this week something new that I found out that I have been eating is cow head, lol, its actually really good!
2. How often do you interview with your mission pres?
Usually just once a month.
3.How was church on Sunday?
Church was church nothing really exciting but still fun.
4. Any investigators? If so, tell us about them...
Not really any investigators yet, lol.
5.Who was your favorite contact and why?
My favorite contact that we had was with this little 10yr old boy. We contacted him in this new area we got and since we didn't know anything about the town, he volunteered to show us around.
P.S. The CTR rings were a big hit!! (Mom sent some CTR rings in Spanish for Elder Marquis to give out)
Love ya'll.
Elder Marquis
.......
Ok so now for a little story for this week. Since we haven't been having like any luck finding anyone to teach in our area...mainly because everyone is drunk, we decided to give Amparo a break and visit one of our other areas, El Tumbador. Here is the story behind Tumbador: at one point there actually used to be a thriving ward in this town but there were 2 bad missionaries who drank and fornicated and ended up getting a girl pregnant and then about the same time the bishop was caught having an affair with another woman and in one foul swoop the entire church became inactive and didn't want anything to do with Mormonism. Now to some people this might look like a deterrent, but me and my companion are like, Awesome! We have the chance to rebuild an entire church!
Anyways, we´re going to try and find a house up there and make it our permanent place so we can just do work and activate all 5,000 people! And yeah the first house that we knocked on in this town turned out to be one of the fallen members and he was really upset to see us to say the least, lol. So after talking to the guy, who was obviously drunk, we were like we don't want to fight and left.
Then we found this kids house who actually was pretty cool and showed us around the town for a little while. There was this one family that lived like on the edge of town and we had to hop across rocks over a river to get to their house, such a cool experience. Then we found them and they were really interested.
And yeah, I'm just so excited to start work in a town with lots of people that doesn't even have the gospel yet. This is going to be so amazing!!!!
Questions:
1. Did you have any new food this week?
Well this week something new that I found out that I have been eating is cow head, lol, its actually really good!
2. How often do you interview with your mission pres?
Usually just once a month.
3.How was church on Sunday?
Church was church nothing really exciting but still fun.
4. Any investigators? If so, tell us about them...
Not really any investigators yet, lol.
5.Who was your favorite contact and why?
My favorite contact that we had was with this little 10yr old boy. We contacted him in this new area we got and since we didn't know anything about the town, he volunteered to show us around.
P.S. The CTR rings were a big hit!! (Mom sent some CTR rings in Spanish for Elder Marquis to give out)
Love ya'll.
Elder Marquis
Monday, July 19, 2010
Elder Roan doing better...back to being District Leader
Querido Familia y Amigos,
Well sounds like your computer was pretty chafa (flat?) anyways, so thats cool. (Mom's computer got fried in a thunder storm...)
And I don't know if I told you this last week but there is this really good talk that has more or less changed the mission for me. Its called The Fourth Missionary. So good.
Oh and I received one of your packages this past week, it was the one with all the young womens letters in it and starbursts and stuff, so that was super nice. I also received a letter saying that the post office down here in Guatemala decided to do a random check of one of my packages and that if I want it I need to go to one of the offices and pay them to let me have my package, how messed up is that...."Oh I'm going to open your package and probably take everything out and give you and empty box...then make you pay for it" ...but whatever, lol. And for my birthday box I would say send it ASAP because it takes awhile to get here and then usually we only receive our letters and packages when we have conferences like every other month or so. (Mom asked Brandon when I should send his birthday box. His birthday is the end of August.)
Brandon answered some of mom's questions:
With the greeny kid, yeah get him a mosquito net, it's always nice to have one and if it can keep any kind of insects off you, its better.
With my church, it's a lot nicer than my last one, it even has a baptismal font! The members are super pilas (...charged??) and fun to talk to.
We don't really eat with the members because around these parts I hear you can't really trust their cooking but yeah. We did, however, hire a cook to do our lunches so were taken care of as far as food and that stuff goes.
Something fun that all the natives do (and I'm attempting to do) is instead of pointing with your finger for something...you point with your lips, kinda like making a kissing motion, lol, so theres a little culture for ya.
Something else is like, you know how all the kids back in the states complain about mowing the lawn...well they get to use lawn mowers and weed eaters... but here pretty much all the grass, trees, bushes, coconuts, and whatever else is all cut by machette. And the only work here is like manual labor so everyone just walks around the streets with their machetees, lol. Kinda freaked me out at first.
Oh and my companion is back from having Dengae and he's back to being District Leader now...it was a short run but a fun one lol.
Anyways love you all,
and thanks for everything!!!!
Love, Elder Marquis
Well sounds like your computer was pretty chafa (flat?) anyways, so thats cool. (Mom's computer got fried in a thunder storm...)
And I don't know if I told you this last week but there is this really good talk that has more or less changed the mission for me. Its called The Fourth Missionary. So good.
Oh and I received one of your packages this past week, it was the one with all the young womens letters in it and starbursts and stuff, so that was super nice. I also received a letter saying that the post office down here in Guatemala decided to do a random check of one of my packages and that if I want it I need to go to one of the offices and pay them to let me have my package, how messed up is that...."Oh I'm going to open your package and probably take everything out and give you and empty box...then make you pay for it" ...but whatever, lol. And for my birthday box I would say send it ASAP because it takes awhile to get here and then usually we only receive our letters and packages when we have conferences like every other month or so. (Mom asked Brandon when I should send his birthday box. His birthday is the end of August.)
Brandon answered some of mom's questions:
With the greeny kid, yeah get him a mosquito net, it's always nice to have one and if it can keep any kind of insects off you, its better.
With my church, it's a lot nicer than my last one, it even has a baptismal font! The members are super pilas (...charged??) and fun to talk to.
We don't really eat with the members because around these parts I hear you can't really trust their cooking but yeah. We did, however, hire a cook to do our lunches so were taken care of as far as food and that stuff goes.
Something fun that all the natives do (and I'm attempting to do) is instead of pointing with your finger for something...you point with your lips, kinda like making a kissing motion, lol, so theres a little culture for ya.
Something else is like, you know how all the kids back in the states complain about mowing the lawn...well they get to use lawn mowers and weed eaters... but here pretty much all the grass, trees, bushes, coconuts, and whatever else is all cut by machette. And the only work here is like manual labor so everyone just walks around the streets with their machetees, lol. Kinda freaked me out at first.
Oh and my companion is back from having Dengae and he's back to being District Leader now...it was a short run but a fun one lol.
Anyways love you all,
and thanks for everything!!!!
Love, Elder Marquis
Monday, July 12, 2010
"I was made District Leader until Elder Roan is better.."
Ok, so here we go...
Onto my week.. We had another baptism of an 11 year old kid. He's super shy but really cool. And this weekend his cousins want to get baptised so thats nice..we should have about 7 or 8 by this weekend.
My spanish is coming along pretty nicely now. I can understand just about everything that they say and can speak it pretty decently too.
Ok so heres a little story of how this past week went down...since my comp was sick and we were missing out on the work, the assistants decided that it would be best if we did splits with some of the members so I could go back to my area in Amparo while he stayed and rested in Reu, so we did. The only problem with that is that I didn't know anyone in my area, any of our investigators, any of the members or anything, lol! So me and this member from another area went into my area and began working.
The first thing that we did was find the president of the branch. We talked with him and negotiated on a price that we would pay for a cook and a laundress. I'm proud to say that I got both for under 20 bucks lol. Next we got him to go on the look for a new house for us. My goals for the week were to 1. find a cook. 2. find a laundress. 3. find a house. and 4. Place a fecha...date for baptism.
So we went out contacting trying to get a hold on my area and we found this muddy path that followed one of the jungle rivers, so we followed it and it led us to a group of shady looking wood houses with tin roofs. We found out that a member lived in there somewhere and so we went looking. We found the family and it turns out that they were inactive and the dad was a little drinker. One of the sons was now 11 and needed baptism, (this is Wed.) and so we placed a fecha with him for this Saturday. What more could Elder Roan wish for than to come home to a baptism, lol.
We taught the kid and retaught the family and he got baptised this past Saturday and we are working with the dad about his drinking problems. The family said that they would come back to church and they did this past Sunday so we´ll see.
Unfortunately,....Spain won the world cup!!! So yeah that was my week, lol. Oh and we killed a few more of those huge spiders...lol...its kinda getting fun now lol.
Oh yeah and since Elder Roan has been sick I was made the district leader so,...yay, lol!!!
And yeah thats my story for the week. Hope you all have a good one. And don't EVER think about drinking. I've worked and talked with more drunks on my mission than I would ever want to. Drinking destroys your life and the life of everyone else!!!!!! DONT DO IT!
Love you all so much!
Elder Brandon Marquis
Questions from mom:
How is Elder Roan doing this week?
Hes doing better and we´re back to work!
Tell us about you week and your area...How was church?
The areas pretty tight. I've been downsized from two small cities with about 4000 ppl to a strip of road with side roads with about 300 ppl, lol. But they're super positive here!
How many members in your branch?
On a good sunday we have about 50 members every week, all are strong and kicking!
Have you been looking for a new apartment?
Yeah we have, we´ve only found one other here, there's not a lot of choices so we´ll see what happens with that.
What do you know about your new President.
He's super cool and really nice. And from what I've seen is a really powerful teacher and strong in the spirit. So excited for conferences with him!!!
A reply for Jeanette's question of if it is hot and muggy...YES, everyday...all day, lol. Like the other day it felt cool and I was kinda getting cold and I looked and the temperature...it was only 74, lol. Up north where Elder Burton is its called tierra fria...cold land. Gets really cold there!
Onto my week.. We had another baptism of an 11 year old kid. He's super shy but really cool. And this weekend his cousins want to get baptised so thats nice..we should have about 7 or 8 by this weekend.
My spanish is coming along pretty nicely now. I can understand just about everything that they say and can speak it pretty decently too.
Ok so heres a little story of how this past week went down...since my comp was sick and we were missing out on the work, the assistants decided that it would be best if we did splits with some of the members so I could go back to my area in Amparo while he stayed and rested in Reu, so we did. The only problem with that is that I didn't know anyone in my area, any of our investigators, any of the members or anything, lol! So me and this member from another area went into my area and began working.
The first thing that we did was find the president of the branch. We talked with him and negotiated on a price that we would pay for a cook and a laundress. I'm proud to say that I got both for under 20 bucks lol. Next we got him to go on the look for a new house for us. My goals for the week were to 1. find a cook. 2. find a laundress. 3. find a house. and 4. Place a fecha...date for baptism.
So we went out contacting trying to get a hold on my area and we found this muddy path that followed one of the jungle rivers, so we followed it and it led us to a group of shady looking wood houses with tin roofs. We found out that a member lived in there somewhere and so we went looking. We found the family and it turns out that they were inactive and the dad was a little drinker. One of the sons was now 11 and needed baptism, (this is Wed.) and so we placed a fecha with him for this Saturday. What more could Elder Roan wish for than to come home to a baptism, lol.
We taught the kid and retaught the family and he got baptised this past Saturday and we are working with the dad about his drinking problems. The family said that they would come back to church and they did this past Sunday so we´ll see.
Unfortunately,....Spain won the world cup!!! So yeah that was my week, lol. Oh and we killed a few more of those huge spiders...lol...its kinda getting fun now lol.
Oh yeah and since Elder Roan has been sick I was made the district leader so,...yay, lol!!!
And yeah thats my story for the week. Hope you all have a good one. And don't EVER think about drinking. I've worked and talked with more drunks on my mission than I would ever want to. Drinking destroys your life and the life of everyone else!!!!!! DONT DO IT!
Love you all so much!
Elder Brandon Marquis
Questions from mom:
How is Elder Roan doing this week?
Hes doing better and we´re back to work!
Tell us about you week and your area...How was church?
The areas pretty tight. I've been downsized from two small cities with about 4000 ppl to a strip of road with side roads with about 300 ppl, lol. But they're super positive here!
How many members in your branch?
On a good sunday we have about 50 members every week, all are strong and kicking!
Have you been looking for a new apartment?
Yeah we have, we´ve only found one other here, there's not a lot of choices so we´ll see what happens with that.
What do you know about your new President.
He's super cool and really nice. And from what I've seen is a really powerful teacher and strong in the spirit. So excited for conferences with him!!!
A reply for Jeanette's question of if it is hot and muggy...YES, everyday...all day, lol. Like the other day it felt cool and I was kinda getting cold and I looked and the temperature...it was only 74, lol. Up north where Elder Burton is its called tierra fria...cold land. Gets really cold there!
Monday, July 5, 2010
"...so thankful for our many freedoms!!"
Hey all!
OK, so this week is going to be a little boring because my companion got a little sick from some mosquito bites and we had to nurse him back to health all week in the zone leaders house.
I have no idea what my area is like or the church or anything, lol. But supposedly we are going to be doing splits with some of the members so I can work my area over which will be a little hard to do seeing how I don't know any of my area, investigators, members or anything, lol.
I think I will try to find us a new house too. I think it would be best for both of us if we did. Ummmm...oh! Since we've been hanging out with the assistants ALOT, I've been able to eat McDonalds and real food and drive in a car with air conditioning....I actually felt really weird, really out of place, but I'm not going to lie, that was the best burger that I have ever tasted in my whole life!!!!
I hope you all had an amazing 4th of July and enjoyed the fireworks and the freedom!!! I have really gained a HUGE love for the states...every single one of them! I never knew how much I had, how many freedoms I was freely given...hot water, running water, food, air conditioning, music, light, cars, windows, and so much more...being able to do whatever you want, whenever you want, WOW!!!
Oh, and it takes me 1.5 hours by bus to get to where we email each week!
Anyways..love you!! See you in a bit!!
Love,
Elder Brandon Marquis
OK, so this week is going to be a little boring because my companion got a little sick from some mosquito bites and we had to nurse him back to health all week in the zone leaders house.
I have no idea what my area is like or the church or anything, lol. But supposedly we are going to be doing splits with some of the members so I can work my area over which will be a little hard to do seeing how I don't know any of my area, investigators, members or anything, lol.
I think I will try to find us a new house too. I think it would be best for both of us if we did. Ummmm...oh! Since we've been hanging out with the assistants ALOT, I've been able to eat McDonalds and real food and drive in a car with air conditioning....I actually felt really weird, really out of place, but I'm not going to lie, that was the best burger that I have ever tasted in my whole life!!!!
I hope you all had an amazing 4th of July and enjoyed the fireworks and the freedom!!! I have really gained a HUGE love for the states...every single one of them! I never knew how much I had, how many freedoms I was freely given...hot water, running water, food, air conditioning, music, light, cars, windows, and so much more...being able to do whatever you want, whenever you want, WOW!!!
Oh, and it takes me 1.5 hours by bus to get to where we email each week!
Anyways..love you!! See you in a bit!!
Love,
Elder Brandon Marquis
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