...I am sooo glad I made the decision to serve....

Man 21 huh....I'm getting old, lol!

So this week was overall pretty normal with the exception of a couple of things.
1st we had another boo boo... I lent my camera to one of the members the other day and when I got it back....my photos were deleted...again...! so we're not going to have too many photos of these past 4 months, FREAK! umm, So yeah I'm pretty bummed about that...but I guess that's just what happens.

2nd yesterday we did divisions with a special group of missionaries called Los Viajantes....pretty much what they do is come to our area and try to challenge all of the investigators that we have...one of them Elder Bueno, has about 90 baptisms in his mission soo....he's pretty good at this, lol, freak and I thought I was doing pretty good with 22, lol. But he taught me some pretty cool material to better work with the members to better get their confidence to that I can get to my goal of 50...I hope I can get to it, I still falt about 4 months or so, lol!

Besides that its been a pretty normal week, walking, sweating, teaching, fighting the average pastor, and trying to dodge the drunks, lol, good times!

We did have a pretty cool contact this week. We were actually looking for another reference/ contact in this area out in the middle of nowhere called Zapote..it's right next to this huge water park...talk about temptaion on a hot Guatemalan summer day, lol, but yeah. The guy´s name is Eduardo Lopez, pretty cool guy. We just contacted the guy and what grabbed his attention was when I was talking about how there can be a great change in his life and he jumped up and ran out the door and sat down with us and was like....CHANGE!...what do you mean, lol. At first I was like, Oh no...this guy is going to kill me, lol, but no...Turns out that he's a Jehovas Witness, and loves everything about our church and would be a member if it wasn't for just one thing....Joseph Smith..he just cant get over that fact that God would call this man....which is kind of funny because he won't believe that Joseph was called of God, even though he can't find one fault with the church but he will go to another church that, as he says is just run by an average man.....what's the difference in his eyes between one man and another....that's what we have to find out, lol. But besides that he´s a really positive contact and might one day come to know of these truths.

Man time just seems to be flying by...it's hard to believe that I have been in this area for about 3 months....even more crazy to think that I only lack 4 MONTHS!!!

Where has the time gone, lol? I don't know, but I'm so glad that I made the decision to just go, and try the mission, because it has changed me in so many ways....I can definitely say that I have received far more from the mission than what I've put into it....but that's just how the Lord works. You give a little and receive all that He has!

But yeah later on today we are going to go to a town called Mazate, supposedly its like a like american market. They have Taco Bell and Panda Express, and a whole bunch of other stores there so we'll see what all comes of our adventures today....and I'll be sure to take a lot of photos to once again....try and refill what has been lost....such a bummer when this passes, but I'm not going to go crying over spilt milk now, lol.!!!!

Anyways, love you guys, a lot,
talk to you next week!!
AND THANK YOU FOR ALL OF THE BIRTHDAY WISHES!!!!!!

Love,
Elder Marquis


Alright, so HAPPY LUNES!!!

All is good and well down here in Guatemala. It still rains like a son of gun and just in the past 2 months I´ve been here in San Martin I´ve gone through 4 umbrellas...now I´m just kind of sticking with my nylon...or my garbage bag to be more honest, lol. It works though and a lot easier for travel, lol. Also we had a little earthquake yesterday which is always fun, they are saying it was about a 4.9, not too big I think but everyone was a little jumpy at church! Good times, good times!!!

Well, sad to say our family of 4 that was to be baptised....did not get baptised, debby downer moment. I´m not really sure what happened... we went on divisions so our district leader could do the interviews and turns out that the father decided to go to one of the Evangelico churches and the mom and the kids don't want to go to another church so we lost them...for now. So yeah, the search continues for the familys de oro. Hopefully we can find a positive one here soon.

Also, this past week we had interviews with President Maravilla, which is always cool, and well I´ll get straight to it...I might be finishing the last four months of my mission training! Nothing is completely set but he was like, "Elder Marquis, How did you enjoy training"..."it was the best time of my mission," "well what do you think about training again?" And I told him how that would be amazing! So nothing is firm firm but who knows lill ol Marquis might be having another son, lol!!!

Anyways, just to jot down a quick note of our journeys to Zarahemla this past week...Elder Pictum, Deskins, and I were walking around San Felipe the other day, just to cool down a little bit, when we found a road that none of us had been down before, so we took it and at the beginning it kind of stunk, just a dirty, muddy, road with barking dogs everywhere. But about 5 minutes later down the road we could see an opening in the jungle wall and to our surprise was this massive valley with a river running through the middle and waterfalls lining the walls of the valley and right in the middle of all of this was an old wooden-rope bridge crossing one side to the other! It was sooo cool, to think just 15 min. outside of the city was this hidden jungle river, straight out of the ocean. When we crossed over and dropped down to the beach side, just looking around, you could really imagine the Nephite and Lamanite people fighting each other both on one side of the ridge and people in the middle.. it was soo cool!! I really don't understand how people cannot believe in the Book of Mormon, with all of the artifacts of the Mayan(Lamanite) people and temples and everything....it all connects and it all makes sense!!! It's so cool!!

Anyways, there is a little story of our adventures here in Guatemala!!!
Love you tons,
Elder Marquis