EL CAMPO

Hola todos!!!! The last 2 weeks have been a little crazy. It is so hard to believe that I have already been in my first area for a whole week! My area is called Petapas and the people here are amazing. The people of Guatemala are so ready to hear the gospel and its crazy because we will just be street contacting and invite people to church and they always say yes. We have found lots of new investigadors (our mission has a goal of 16 per companionship every week) so that has been awesome and we will see where they all go. Spanish is super hard... I understand most lessons because I thats what we learned in the CCM but I no absolutley zero conversational Spanish so it is really hard to be able to get to know people. Also the people here speak really fast so it is hard to be able to follow since I do not know everything. My trainer aka my mom is Hermana Wong. She is from Costa Rica and she knows a lot of English which is so helpful for me to be able to ask her in English when I do not understand something. Presidente and Hermana Markham (our mission president and his wife) are amazing. I love them so much already and I know that they are called of God. Our mission is a no fear mission which means that we literally do all things to bring people unto Christ... and that includes bus contacting. That is quite the experiences standing up in front of a bus full of people and yelling a message and then going around and talking to them to get address to share messages another day. I understand almost nothing that they say to me so that is really hard but it is good. And I never would have imagined myself doing something like that before the mission. But as President Markham says contacting is a game. So we just have to play the game and talk to all people. Our district only has 4 people in it (2 companionships) and it is super funny because one of them is Elder Maw who was in my district in the CCM. I absolutely love it here. Yesterday it rained all day... and I mean all day... it never stopped so that was interesting... But it was super good. And it makes me so thankful for sun shine. The members here in Petapa are amazing. The ward missionaries or a member go out with us almost every single day and it has been so good to see them so involved in the work. Fun fact about Guatemala... all houses here have tile. So on Saturday we were doing service for a convert who is moving and we helped clean his house and what we did was we threw bleach and cleaner all over the floor and then dumped water everywhere and then swept all the water out of the house. It was super weird but also super fun... The food here is really good but people feed us HUGE portions and it is really hard for me to eat all of it but we have to otherwise people will get offended so that has been an adventure for me... All is going so well right now and I am so happy. I love you all and am so grateful for all of your prayers. I am truly in the work of the Lord and I am so happy. I know that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ live and love us more then we can ever imagine. I know that this Gospel is true with all of my heart and that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. The Book of Mormon is the word of God and this Gospel is the way back to our Heavenly Father. I am so thankful for this knowledge in my life and I will be eternally grateful to all of those who have gone before me and done so much because they know that this gospel is true. Heavenly Father lives and loves us and he watches over us in all things. I can absolutely testify of that. Hope you all have an amazing week!!! Les amo mucho!!! Hermana Stewart