Hard Work in La Maquina

 Hola everyone!

Hope you all had a wonderful week! We´re doing great here in La Maquina, as always. Yesterday was my first time directing sacrament meeting in the branch. I was a little nervous to be honest, but it went by really quickly. The members are also very supportive and trust the missionaries a lot here, so thats a big plus. This week, Elder Bonilla and I have been training our new companion, Elder Ardon. He´s from Honduras and just came from the CCM last week. It´s been a little rough working with him in our area because he has a knee problem. It´s possible that he could be changed to another area. I guess we will see what happens. 

Me and Elder Preciado (Mexico) in his area, Cuyo before he had changes to San Felipe.

Right now we are working with two progressing investigators: Nery and Griselda. They are boyfried and girlfriend and like coming to church together. Nery has been to the US and attended church there. He invited his girlfriend to come with him and now they both have enough attendances to be baptized. We are going to see if we can get a baptismal date out of them this week.

We have also been working a lot with the members of the branch. We have planned on the 3rd of September, a trip to the temple. Mauro, a young guy in our ward is preparing to go to the Peru Cuzco Mission, so we have been helping him with his preparation. A couple of weeks ago, I went with him to Xela (Quetzaltenango) to fill his passport paperwork out. On Sept. 3 he is going to receive his endowment, and I guess I´m going to accompany him. It´s going to be a really special day.

We are also preparing a family from Tahuexco (Familia Martinez) to enter the temple on that same date to be sealed for time and all eternity. The mother and father would also be receving their endowments. I´m gonna get to give them the Temple Prep classes, so that will be interesting. Right now its a little difficult to get to Tahuexco because the road is kind of bad and its really far away. This last week, I went with a member named Cristian. We visited some of the members in Tahuexco and found a family of investigators. I´m excited to see the growth that ill occur in Tahuexco once we can get a branch established there. 

Here are some pictures:

Elder Preciado killed some fish at some Catholic lady´s house. They were flapping all over the place. The weird thing about these fish is that their fins are sharp and they cut through human flesh. For that reason, I decided to just watch and take pictures 

Elder Bonilla and I found this butterfly near a tienda (store). 

A house in Tahuexco

The Pacific Ocean in Tahuexco

This is the road from Cuyotenango to La Maquina. There was a manifestation in the streets a few weeks ago where the people complained about how bad the road is. Luckily, the government has started to fill in the holes with dirt so that in the summer, they can put down new asphault. 

Have a great week!

Elder Taylor

Rama La Maquina

Well,

I guess its going to be official this week. My companion, Presidente Rodriguez is going to get transferred to another area, and i´m going to stay in his place as branch president of Rama La Maquina. He´s been a really good companion me in showing me the area and helping me get to know how to be a branch president. There is definitely still lots of learning to do, but I know that with lots of prayer and fasting, the Lord will help me out.  

My other companion, Elder Bonilla is going to be training a new missionary from the CCM. As of now, we don´t know who it is going to be, but we are excited to have a new missionary with us. I have always liked being around the new missionaries because they are full of energy and excitement to work. 

zonas Retalhuleu, Las Palmas, San Felipe, Mazatenango Lincoln, y Mazatenango Las Flores

I think I may have forgotten to mention a multi-zone conference that we had with Presidente Ruiz a couple of weeks ago. I always love hearing messages from our mission president. His messages are always so powerful. One message that he shared with us a little while back talked about how we should humble ourselves before our Heavenly Father, before we become obligated to be humble. As in many occasions in the scriptures, we witness lots of afflictions that require us to be humble. My companions and I have applied this in our lessons with the investigators. At times, we teach people that don´t want to change, and would rather keep living in their sins. Sometimes it takes an affliction for people to realize that they need to seek to follow the Lord´s will and not their own. 

A few days ago, I was on divisions with our District Leader, Elder Preciado (from Mexico, we came to the mission together). We received a phone call from a member of the ward that there was an emergency. We immediately went to her house and we arrived, we saw from the expression of her face that something was wrong. As we entered the house, I felt a strong presense of fear. The sister began explaining to us that a familiar/friend was in danger. He had been receving messages from someone threatening death if he doesn´t give them a certain quantity of money. When I heard this, I couldn´t help but imagine what it would be like to live in that situation; in fear of being killed, knowing it could be anyone in the street that is sending you those messages. We decided to share the same message that Presidente Ruiz shared with us, about humbling ourselves before we are obligated to be humbled. The brother accepted our message and we decided to give him a blessing of comfort. Immediately after the blessing, a huge feeling a peace filled the home. The priesthood is such a blessing. I encourage every priesthood holder to exercise his priesthood multiple times a week. 

Something really exciting that we are doing right now is preparing a family from Tahuexco to enter the temple in September. This is one of the best things that I will get to experience in the mission. They are a really good family with lots of desire to do what is right. 

This week we are going to keep working with some progressing investigators that we have. One of them is Paola. She accepted to get baptized tomorrow. Keep her in your prayers! We also are working with a guy named Nery and his girlfriend Griselda. Nery lived in Utah for a little while and got to know the church just a bit when he was there. He is one of our most positive investigators. Griselda is also really great. She loves the hymns, even though she has trouble following along with them. We can tell that she really wants to learn them. I think they are both looking for a new start, and what better place to start than at church? We hope to have baptismal dates for them this week as well. 

Sorry for the lack of pictures this week! I forgot to bring my camera with me. It seems like all I have is excuses, haha. But I will try to get better at sending pictures. 

I also attached a picture from one of my last days in the office when we went to eat dinner with Presidente Ruiz in a restaurant and saw two of the exact same cars as we have in the mission. I don´t think i´ve mentioned the names of the cars in the mission but the blue one is named Doris (or Dory) and the Gold one is Jony. It was just something that was kind of funny for us that night. 

Hope you all have a great week!

Adios.

Elder Taylor

I went to the beach

Hola Everyone!

This email is going to be kind of short because I´m going to be doing some important stuff for the branch today. 

My new area is awesome. It´s really big and there is lots of opportunity for growth in the branch. Yesterday, one of the young men from the ward got his mission call to go to Peru. He will be the second missionary that the branch will have currently in the field. 

My first week here, and last week I had the chance to go to a place called Tahuexco. It´s a little town right along the coast of the Pacific and there are about 30 members there. They are very humble people, and they don´t have the means to be able to go to church everySunday since it is pretty far away. Right now, my companions and I are searching for a candidate to be a branch president, so that we can open a branch in Tahuexco.

Presidente Ruiz said that is my job while i´m here in La Maquina. Presidente also wants there to be a member as branch president for the branch here in La Maquina. He told me he that I need to be the last missionary branch president that they have here. We are going to work super hard to make it happen. We have faith that we can find two worthy priesthood holders to serve as branch presidents. As soon as La Maquina has a branch president, the branch will become a part of the Stake in Mazatenango. 

For now, i´m going to send these photos: I´m definitely going to need to take more pictures in Tahuexco so everyone can see what its like. 

Hope you all have a great week!

Elder Taylor

Big Changes

Hola Everyone!

First of all, thanks to a few more last-minute miracles, we reached the record of 262 baptisms with 23 families. Mision Reu está brillando!

After almost 6 months, I´ve been transferred out of the office. My new area is called La Maquina and my new zone is Mazatenango Lincoln. I love my new area. Its another coastal area, so the weather is really hot! Its also super dusty and dirty everywhere so we always get home with yellow shirts. It feels so nice to be working the field again. 

My new companions are Elder Bonilla and President Rodriguez. The big news is that President Rodriguez is training me to become the new branch president of La Máquina. I was speechless when Presidente Ruiz explained to me that I was going to be receiving this new assignment. I was honestly a little worried about what kind of responsibilities I was going to have to take on, especially since I felt a little burnt out by the office. However, I´ve been blessed with awesome companions. Elder Bonilla is a funny guy, but very humble and kind. Elder Rodriguez is also a great guy, and hard worker. He´s been very helpful with my transition from the office to the field. 

My assignment in this new position is to try to find a branch president for a potential branch that the mission may open in a place called Tahuexco. Tahuexco is right on the shore of the Pacific Ocean. I got to go there last Friday with Presidente Rodriguez.  We went and visited some members and some recent converts there. It seems like everyone there would really like to be able to have a branch there, since it is so far away from La Máquina (1-2 hours away). Most of them don´t go to church right now because there are no buses. 

So yeah, this week has mostly just conisisted of me getting to know the members of the branch and getting to know my area. It´s a little confusing sometimes but I think i´ll get the hang of it. Sorry that there are no photos this week, the computer i´m using won´t read my SD Card so i´ll have to send them next week. 

Hope you all have a great week!

Elder Taylor