brandon

Nov 7, 2011

November 7, 2011

Hola, family. So yes i have a new companion. His name is Elder Ruis. He is from texas. But his parents are mexican. So when he was little he learned spanish as his first language and then in the street and school he learned english. So he is perfectly fluently in both languages. He has 10 months in his mission. One month more than me. He is a great elder. We both have about the same amount of time in our mission, So both of us arent really sure what to do exactly all the time and what is the best methods and things. So we both are learning a lot. I am having a lot of good oppurtunitys to be the one chosing what is best to do. My other companions just told me what we were doing and where we were going. But now he is new to the area and doesnt know anybody or what to do, so we both have to work together and figure it all out.

Our recent converts are doing good. Angel and Paola, the young couple, he just found a job and he works from monday to saturday and has sunday off. Which is really really hard to find here. Especially when it is just a normal job. The other woman, lidia, has not found a job but she is progressing more. She was at church on sunday and is active. She is not as strong in the gospel and needs more help than the couple. And the mom of paola is a member, so they have lots of help and support.

Other than that is has been a hard week. So we had lots of investigators that dropped us and dont want anything. So we need to find new investigators. We have been trying to have family home evenings with the members and the idea is that they invite a family they are friends with to the family home evening. But the members dont always do it, so we just have a family home evening with the members. Which is good to strengthen the members but we still dont have any investigators. But we are keeping that up and it is getting better. I try to contact a lot, but that just doesnt work that well. Yesterday we fasted to find a new family to get baptized this month. So we will find one. Some members invited their friends to church yesterday and they came. We have a family home evening with them tonight so we will see what happens with that.

Ben thats awesome you invited friends to go to the activity. Keep doing it, eventually they will come. That happens here a lot. Family have friends they want to invite to church or something and they do it and they dont show up. Everntually a year later they decide to come one time. People just dont think it is important. They dont know their eternal salvation hangs in the balance of it all. And they never will really understand the importance of it all intil after their baptism.

So Otto perez Molina won the elections yesterday. That made me laugh that nathan and brooke named their baby otto. Everytime someone talks about the president now i think of my nephew. So things were crazy these weekend with that going on. I dont really know anything about the canidates, but i know otto used to be the general of the military here. So thats cool. He said that he is going to clean up guatmala and make it a better place. He is going to take the military and get rid of all the gangs and drug dealers. But whatever.

So i found out something kind of annoying but might turn out good in the end today. They are going to hold all of are packages from now untill christmas then give us them all at christmas. They want everyone to have a present for christmas and it will make it a better christmas because we will get them all at once and be like wow. But aunt leann send a package she said last week about the trip and everything. But i guess i will have to wait till christmas to get it. But oh well. Its all good.

I dont know what else to say, not much has happened, so cya have a good week.

Love elder gardner

October 10, 2011

Hola. How is everyone doing?

Wow, so the new ensign is amazing. You guys got the same right, focused all on the book of mormon. I read like have of it this morning, it is amazing and I learned a lot from it. There was lots of things that I did not know.

For Example: Mormon had the vision of our day before he compiled the book of mormon. Then he complied the book of mormon according to what we needed in this day. So everything he put in is what he thought would be good for us today. I found that pretty intersting.

The plates were not on gold plates orginally. I should have know that but i didnt. But so mormon transfered it to gold. That makes a lot more sense.

The timeline in it is really interesting too. You should all look at it. And all of the stories are really good.

So I found and read that 4th missionary talk this week. It is so good. I understood it a lot more now that i am here in the mission. I really have been trying to to what it says. It says that i need to forget everything, all my wants, desires, likes, preferences, and everything. So I have been trying to do that. It is kind of hard sometimes but i am trying to do better at it. So thats what I have been working on this week. When I opened up dads letter it made me really think. Because I love the cardinals and cant wait but i need to not worry about it and not care, which is hard. And dont worry mom or dad. I have not thought about the cardinals all week till I opened up the letter.

So I got some presents for christmas for everybody. Well alomst now. So that is why I used a little money mom and dad. But i figured giving presents was a righteous cause. And everything is cheaper than dirt here. So ya. i dont know how much everybody will like them but there really cool to me. I tryed to find the best thing i could find here. But if you want something specfic from guatemala, you can tell me and ill try to get it.

I have found out how smart god is this week when he picks our comps. My comp is helping me a lot lot. He used to be exactlty like me when he entered the mission. He used to be kind of shy like me and didnt talk much,. He is a quite not very animated loud person. He wasnt the best at teaching lessons when he started and explaining everything. That is like the things that have been hard for me too. But he has helped me tons and tons. One thing that has helped is he has taught me how to contact people better. Before i just talked to them and they said no and ya. Now i talk to them ask questions, get to know them. Break the ice then talk about the gospel and it works a lot better. He is teaching me how to teach better too. I am glad that before my mission I learned the importance of being obedient and everything so now i can just focus on how to teach and to be louder and funner and everything. I am learning a lot and know what is true what somebody said in conference that god is our mission leader and puts people in our path for a reason. And everything has a reason. I am excited for the new oppurtunities I will have to learn and help more when I get a new comp in like a month.

Oh mom I think I threw away the medicine bottle, so i dont know what to tell you. Ill look for some more in my luggage and see if i can find it but sorry i thought you didnt need it. If it doesnt work oh well dont worry, I have the creame that you sent with me that is like a big one. It works pretty well. I do have some zits still, but thats because I am tired and too lazy some nights to put it on. So I will try to do better with that. And yes I have been wearing my retainer too.

Thanks for the letters from the young women mom and dad. That was a nice thing you though do to. I have not read them yet, but it is the though that counts more than anythings

Well love all of you. I hope your week is good and that you can be able to read the ensign of this months, Thats your homework for this week. I loved it. Sorry for the letter last week, I didnt have much time and was pretty mad after 2 hours of comptuers not working, so i was too frusrated to thing about anything and dad wrote me about the cardinals so thats what was on the mind. But ya thats it.

Love everybody, Elder Gardner

Brandon's pictures

25 July 2010

hola family, okay mom yes thanks I’m wearing my retainer, I am on the second bottle of the cream, Can you send some more, and I have been out of pills, but idk if you can get those. Nathan I will be praying for you to have your baby on 11 11 11. that would be sweet. One Nephew this year on my birthday and one on 11 11 11.  No mom I didn’t receive the second package yet, thanks for sending it though. I love getting packages, I don’t care what’s in it, it’s a package.

I want to say thanks to Sister Shepherd for sending a letter to me and to my comp, in was in English and i had to translate for him but it made him very very happy. I said it is the first time he has got a letter from anyone besides his girlfriend or mom and was really excited. We are going to go make a copy of it today so he can have one. He liked it too because he can read it and practice English. Thanks.

If anyone else wants to do that it was a great idea.

We got the new mission president this month from Utah. I got to meet him last week, he is awesome. He is a very spiritual nice person. He is very strict but nobody cares because of how loving he is about it. His wife too is a great person. She can speak Spanish too. she loves to talk with all the Latino elders in Spanish. Every time I have seen her, just twice, she is with all the elders like how are you doing, how’s the family, how can i help you and everything. I am really looking forward to working with them. This mission is changing a lot for the better. There were lots of things that were not very good. He is here cleaning up the mission. Before the other president left he wanted to mission to be good for the other president to he sent home like 20 elders. That is something very sad that they got send home, but then again it is something happy that this mission is going to be full of good elders. This next transfer which I will probably leave Asuncion, they will be 17 new gringos and like  7 Latinos. That is a ton. And there is 30 something elders ending their mission. Lots of the elders i know actually are going home. All the ones that are here training, and our district leader.

This week, don’t ask me what happened but my espanol has been way way better. I have not been afraid to speak during lessons. Me and my comp have been teaching a lot, and now I actually contribute to the lesson. it’s great. We are getting along great too. The ward is growing a lot and we are starting to do lots of great things. I don’t want to leave here next change but we’ll see.

We are going to start have a night of commandments every week. They have them all over Central America. It’s just a normal activity that we teach a principle or something. Then we have an activity or game thing we play. and have food and everything. It’s because here there are lots of like he said this I’m not going to church and stuff so just to unite all of the members. Also we bring investigators to bond with members too. This ward is really struggling right now with a lot. The first meeting nobody we had with all the leaders nobody showed up, only us and the bishop. But me and my companion have been working tons with the leaders and changing things here. The bishop here is a great person, but just has like 5 years to be a member so he doesn’t know how to do it very well. SO we are helping him out. Everythings going great.

Time here is flying by like I can’t believe i cant explain it, its not real, I’m in Guatemala, wow, crazy. But i next Tuesday i complete 6 months. I don’t want to think about that. I from now on will forget how much time i have, i just want to work until my body can’t move, and I hope that will be 2 years when my body shuts down, haha . no but everything going great but I’m going go and play some soccer or basketball at the church.

Adios, love Elder Gardner ( canchito, is my name in this ward, haha, ask Jason or Nathan.) its like little white boy.

11 July 2011

Hola fam, So i have lots i want to say but dont know where to start. Well i woke up in the middle of the night yesterday and was freezing, had a headache and the runs. Yesterday, after church i slept the rest of the day and went to the bathroom about 10 times. I feel better today but still have the runs. One thing that i really annoying is that my comedor gave my  some pills and something to drink. I don’t really trust their medicine here. They are all sick here. So i don’t know what I’m going to do, I don’t want to take them. But she is going to ask me if i did. And she went out and bought them for me so I don’t want to just blow it off. I’m hoping i get better really fast so i can just tell her thanks but im better. But idk. I hate when members do that, everyone is like oh elder take this here, oh take this. I say no, but they insist. I’ve learned for the next time that im not telling anyone I’m sick because i don’t want theirs medicine.

Oh Jason you emailed me in Spanish a couple of weeks ago, and i was happy because i basically understood, but there was a few words I didn’t understand so I wrote them down and asked my comp. He said who wrote you a Mexican wrote this. he said those words were like way Mexican slang. I thought that was funny.

Oh so we had a not very cool thing happen but a story. I don’t know what it would be called but it was the lord that set it all up. So on Wednesdays we have a meeting with the ward mission leader. Our new investigator Manuel is a ward missionary so we went to his house to get him before the meeting. he said that the ward mission leader called and said it was cancelled. Me and my comp said oh well lets go to the church anyway because he didn’t tell us anything. So we went and called him and said it was cancelled. So Manuel left. But I had to go to the bathroom before we left. And so my comp started to shoot some hoops. Then we left after like 5 min. As we left somebody was coming in the gate. It was one of our investigators Wilson, the cousin of Manuel. He was balling and had his hood up and didn’t look good at all. we don’t know exactly what happened, but his wife and kids told him to get out of the house and they never want to see him again. He told us we wanted to kill himself, and wanted to just die. We talked with him and told him that Christ suffered for all your pains and afflictions. And that all was going to work out in the end and everything.

The thing that almost made me cry or pass out is that he has only been to church 2 or 3 Sundays, we had not been able to teach him anything. But he wanted to die and he said all he knew is that Sunday he felt peace and joy at the church and so he went to the church. He had no clue that we would be at the church or that anybody would be. He said that if we were not at the church he was going to go home and take the machete he has a chop off his head. I am very glad that we and him were led by the spirit to the church. If we weren’t in tune with the spirit he could be dead. Now he wants to be baptized with his mom and brother this month. 

But it was amazing to me how everything worked out perfectly. He didn’t know what to do so he went where he felt peaceful and joy the church looking for the missionaries. And how we met him in the parking lot as he walked in. It just shows us how much the lord is in everything and knows his children. Instead of somebody committing suicide we are going to have a baptism and change his life forever.

We found a new investigator the other day. Another story i believe of how the lord is over all. She has a 2 year old kid who has a parasite and might be going to die. But we were looking for somebody else and found her, my comp said something like we have a message about Christ and how he suffered for all of our sins, sicknesses and trials. I think that is what made her think and be like okay you can come in. because she is going through a hard trial with her son being sick right now. First of all we asked is she had any question. She wanted to know what is the difference between our church and others. My comp said not like straight up but it a nice way that we have the authority. Her next question was what is our purpose in this life. I taught her about our purpose in this life and shared alma 32 34 that says this is the time for men to prepare to meet god. And then we talked about the atonement. The one problem in the future is that she has school every Sunday. But it ends in 2 months. But i liked something my comp told me, he said if she really gains a testimony she will change her schedule or figure out how to go to church.

Something really sad happened yesterday, we showed up for the priesthood correlation meeting in the morning. And nobody showed up. Well the bishop did. But nobody else. How can we help them understand the importance of magnifying their calling and being at meetings.

But all is going good. Just have the runs, but im in Guatemala so that’s normal i guess. I have almost been here 6 months wow. Time is flying. I will be home in no time. I don’t want it to go fast but got to go.

adios fam

elder gardner

P.S. Hope your back gets better Joseph.

13 June 2011

Hola family.

So I did not learn my lesson about wearing sunscreen and suffering the consequences. We painted the gate of this lady all morning on Wednesday and me and my old comp elder graham got fried, like fried fried. Like I looked a lot more Latino, then I pulled up my sleeve and it was blindingly white. My neck is peeling like crazy now. I think more the one layer, because it has been peeling for a couple days and keeps peeling. I used aloe Vera and that stuff is a miracle worker, elder graham didn’t use any and today you could really tell a difference. My burn is really faded and doesn’t really hurt today. But he is still bright and peeling everywhere. I’m going to wear sunscreen now.

I realized how much the lord knows me this week and is looking out for me. I was really having a bad day one day and wishing I had an American companion. But I figured out that I think that if I had an American companion ¨I could¨ learn more Spanish because they can help you and tell you words. But really I know myself and the lord knows to that if I was with an American I would not speak Spanish with him. I know because on changes with other elders that know Spanish, we speak English. That is why the lord put me with a Latino who doesn’t speak much English. Now I am forced to speak Spanish, there is not other way. And really I have learned tons. I have a lot to learn but have learned a ton. I was scared to death when I left the mtc here; I knew hardly any Spanish and couldn’t talk to the Latinos there. Then they put me with one and somehow I figured it out. I can basically say anything I want now. Sometimes, it is not totally correct but people understand.

I got the general conference ensign yesterday and this month. I love it. I don’t want to explain for reasons you understand, but I had a few hours on Sunday. So I read almost the whole general conference issue. I skipped a few, but read most. I skipped a couple about marriage and things. But it was awesome. I was amazed, Conference is awesome. Something that amazed me though is I pulled out my conference notes and compared the talks to my notes. Sometimes what I have written they didn’t really say. It showed me how much more than we know the spirit works in our life.

I had a great experience yesterday. Well first you have to understand a little, that when comp doesn’t want to work he just tells me to go somewhere and teach a lesson by myself or contact or whatever. He doesn’t talk though at all so I’m scared to go anywhere because I don’t know what to do or say or how to say it. But he told me to figure it out yesterday. I had no clue honestly, so I went back into our room and said a short prayer to know where to go and what to say and to have strength to be able to do it. I was feeling tons of the spirit and wanted to work because I just read conference talks for 2 or 3 hours. But we left the house and I still didn’t know where to go. We stood there for a couple minutes and still I didn’t know, so I just decided to start walking and see what happens. I made up my mind to go to this reference that has never been home. And we went and guess what happened? Yep she wasn’t home. Then we started walking back and I remembered that there was this guy on this same street I contacted who takes English classes from other elder but has like all the pamphlets from them and has read them, he said he was in a hurry though, when I talked to him because he was actually going to English classes, but that he would talk to the other elders. But we went to his house and rang the doorbell. He didn’t answer, I always like to wait just a little longer for people, because sometimes I have found that they just don’t want to get up and answer the door, but if you ring it every once in a while for 5 min, they finally come. So I rang it again and waited a little, then this lady runs up to us and starts talking to us. She is the daughter of the reference that is never home. The reference is from a missionary activity we had at the church, but her mom told her about it and her and her sister wants the lessons. She is like 22 and her sister is married and like 25. The mom’s brother is a member and a really strong member. He is in the stake high council I think. So that’s good, too, we have a lesson this Thursday though, so we will see what happens.

Our investigator Lidia is going to be baptized on he 25th. We went to the temple Saturday with her and some others, it was really good. We bought at the distribution center them some ensigns, some scriptures that have the bom, d and c, and pearl of great price and everything, so that’s good. I got a picture for me of Christ in Gethsemane. It is like 2 or 3 feet tall and a foot wide, pretty big. It’s nice. I want to buy some contact paper to put it in. And guess how much, 1 dollar. That’s a good deal. Before I leave here I need to stock up on church things. A cd of the motabs is like 5 dollars. Everything in Guatemala is cheap to start with, but then also it is because the church puts everything even cheaper for members.

This week spiritually I have grown a lot. I really have been trying to keep an eternal perspective and that helps everything. When something bad happens or I am really upset or discouraged I just think that it’s going to pass and I'm going to live with my family forever in heaven with heavenly father. I think what I will say of this in 50 years or if I will even remember it. That has really helped me have a better attitude about everything. I have also learned that one very important thing of this life is managing your time; I have really realized precious time is. Anytime we have nothing to do, I try to read a talk or my scriptures, or something productive. I realized how much time I wasted playing Nintendo and watching TV and things back home. I have decided that when I get home, I don’t want to play Nintendo, or computer or watch TV (except, Cardinals games, The World Cup, basically sports but that’s all), I want to be working, studying, or with my friends not wasting away the time.

Good luck with your back Joseph and your mission papers and all, and Kenny, primo, and Andrew with your mission papers. One word of advice to all of you my friends I wish I would have done. Read your scriptures more and really know them. I knew I didn’t know that much when I came here, but I thought I knew enough. I was wrong. I have found out through studying that I have a lot to learn. And the reason it is so important, well at least for me right now is because I have to find scriptures in Spanish. For example I kind of know most of the scripture masteries, so ill be in a lesson and be like oh ya so one scripture, I know it is in alma like chapter 30ty something and ill start looking. One problem, I don’t understand the scriptures that well yet, so I don’t know if it is right or wrong. So I have to know for sure what chapter and verse because I don’t know if it is close or the right one.

I heard once; don’t remember when or where, but that you grow in the gospel about 20 years on your mission. I think that is true. I have been here 4 months and have learned more than I did in 19 years.

Got to go, oh flip oh dad, so I found out that about two months ago, that our mission stopped sending pouch. We can receive it but now sent it. So I think I need a different address for Spencer and Jon. I just have to go to the post office and mail it directly to the mission home, so if you have that. I have heard it is pretty cheap here so I’m going to try it.

June 7, 2011

hola familia ¿como esta? (How are you). I had an idea but i think its a bad one now. I was going to write totally in spanish and tell jason to traslate it and rewrite it for everybody, Just to see if i could do it. But that would just would be a hassle for everybody, and i couldnt write fast so it would be really short. 

 

Last week I went on divisions with elder graham, it was fun. Kinda funny cause sometimes we contacted sombody and both of us didnt understand so we just nodded our heads and kept going. But after when I came back with my comp, everything was different. I dont know what happened, but we get along now. Dont ask me what happened but its been great. Its still really difficult and he has not changed his ways but we are getting along and thats a start to things changing.

 

The work is going really good right now. This lady lidia is going to be baptized, this month we hope. She said yes to be baptized but refused to make a date for it. But said she would in time. She is really like, like she doesnt have a strong testimony and wants to learn the whole thing before her baptism. We are trying to let her know that you dont have to know everything about the gospel before baptism and that she will learn.

 

Our investigator lidia has a friend who is mormon. We met her and talked to her. She and her family lived in boston, dallas and salt lake city before. She joined the church while in the united states, im gonna guess salt lake city, but i dont know for sure. Her husband took the lessions too but didnt join the church, because he is hard core cathlic. But this was like 15 years ago. Now they have lived here in guatemala for like 15 years, she went in active in the church because of a conflict with the lady across the street ( the primary president now). They have 3 boys, one 18, 16, 13. They are really cool kids. They all learned english from their dad who learned in the usa. So i can talk to them more than anybody else. They are totally fluent. But all of them claim to be cathlic now but they have really never gone that much, just durning christmas and easter and stuff. But the wife who is a member wants to come back to church and knows she should. But doesnt want to like split up their family by going and go without them. So she wants us to teach them so the whole family can come, which is great. We taught them last week just about the family proclamation to the world and the importance. It was kind of akward but through talking about it we found out they are divorced which she didn´t tell us. But oh well they just have to get married before baptism. But then the husband and wife came to church yesterday. I felt great, because i could talk to him in english and explain things and just talk to him. Sometimes he would ask me things that happened just becasue he didnt want others to understand, that was funny. He loved it though. Durning one meeting we were reading in moses, and he was confused, so we explained about the pearl of great price and d and c and the bom. He said where can i get one? so thats good. There kids didnt come to church, i dont know why. Today the husband herbert came and played basketball with all the missionarys. I think it was good, he could talk to all the greenies too in english and bond with everybody. And he lived in salt lake city like half of the people there and talked about that. He i think and hope will be baptized. He is really interested. But we have an appointment for this wednesday and friday nights to teach them. Two of the kids are interested, but the 18 year old is kind of in a rebel stage right now, and so his parents go to church so he does the opposite and if they tell him to do something he will do the opposite so, i think he will take some more time. But we hope to baptize the husband, and two kids, maybe the other by the end of this month.

 

There is catalina the grandma. She is great. Her daughter and their family is members. She knows the bible like the back of her hand so it is pretty easy to teach her. Because she believes every every thing the bible says. So if she has a question we flip out the bible and say read this please. Then oh okay yep it must be true it is right here in my bible. She really liked lession two about the after life. I think because that is because she is old and will die soon so it is scary to her where she is going and all of that. She had lots of questions about living with your family, because some of her sons she said are not good people and she worries about not being with them after this life. One of her granddaughters is taking the lessions too and is liking them. She is reading the bom and loving it, we didnt teach her lession 2 though. She is in college and has a job and is really busy, its a miracle she was their the first lession with her grandma.

 

Then their is jefferson and maria, they read and pray and have a testimony of jose smith and everything. But they have some issues right now with their aunt or sister, who is a member. So they wont go to church. They said they would yesterday. But we went and their neighbors said they left in the morning early somewhere. I think once they go to church and see what it is like and all of that they will be good.

 

So I bore my testimony in sacrament meeting last week. Everybody came up after and was like wow you speak spanish now, great good job and stuff like that. I realized what the problem is that i need to fix. People think i dont know anything in spanish because i never talk. But i realized it is not all because of spanish because i dont talk in english either. I can talk a lot now, I just simply dont talk a lot in any language.

 

Our investigator manuel is doing awesome, awesome, he is on the way to be the next prophet of the church, ha no. But he is doing great. He does everything on his own with nobody telling him anything. He goes to institute every week and to this other class thier is. He is friends with all the other people now his age. He is studying like crazy. He is reading the bom, bible, principles of the gospel, teaching of the prohets, and teh liahona. He knows tons. Last week he went on splits with my comp and helped teach like the first two lessions. He would be the best missioniar. But i dont think he can. Does anybody know the rules for that. My comp said he cant because he has a kid. But he does not live with him and he doenst have responsibility over him so he could leave for two years. I want to ask the bishop about it but i dont know. The way i understood it is that he can talk to the bishop and he has the decision yes or no, not matter what you have done in the past. He asked last week about it and how he could go, but my comp told him he cant because he has a kid, I just want to make sure he really can, because he asked about it and is thinking about it and wants to go. He also came today and played basketball with all teh missionarys. That was fun. He got a calling this week to the first concelor of the sunday school. So he gets to teach class now. Thats great, he is nervous but will do great.

 

But I need to go now. Oh joseph hope all is well with your back so you can go on your mission. Ill pray for you. And if you cant go for a while longer, take advantage of that time, Their is so many things i wished i had done before i left and things i wished i had studied like in the sciptures and stuff. I try to study a lot now. But one or two hours is not enough. The mission is just really busy and you dont have much time. It all flys by so fast. I really feel like that a month ago i was home. ANd two weeks ago I was in the mtc in provo, and last week, I was in the mtc here. But now the weeks are months, I have been on my mission for 4 months!!! wow. Love you all.

 

Adios cya, elder gardner!

 

(Nathan and jason, i read your letters you wrote in spanish today while in the mtc in provo. I finally understand every word of it. That was awesome. You should write more dear elder letters all in spanish so i can practice my spanish.) OH flip and no mom i didnt get the dear elders yet. Those take like a month, because i got one from sis j about conference 2 or 3 weeks ago, haha. Sometimes i get like 2 or 3 at a time from different weeks. but I like it because i can have the paper, and go back and read it, but i cant with emails always. but got to go cya elder gardner

Monday's Letter 31 May 2011

Hola,  So this literally was the fastest week of my life.  I feel it should be Wednesday or Thursday not Monday again. I think it just keeps going faster. 

An Elder told me something that really made me think today. He said, “he has realized that in the mission their is a time and a place for everything. Most of the time it is to preach the gospel and contact like crazy and work your bum off and convert everybody.  But he said, sometimes he has to put up with a comp that he is supposed to help.”  I had been thinking about this subject for a while.  Because I try to work really hard and contact everybody but sometimes it’s not good, because my comp is 10 feet in front of me and doesn’t stop when I contact someone, then i lose him  and he has to stop and find me and he gets mad.   But I need to find the happy medium of working as hard as I can but still get along with my comp.   And so the past couple of weeks I decided that is the most important thing I need to do right now.  And so I have been doing my best to serve him.  Ben told me when I talked to him on the phone that if i would serve him that he would change.  Honestly I didn’t believe that for a second, not at all.  But I have been doing it and it works Ben, your a genius.  He has slowly but surely been more obedient and we are getting along, we have comp study now in the morning now too.  Things are getting a lot better every day, there are still some days that are really bad and hard, but mostly there is a dark to light difference.

Dad, I was thinking about those  little signs we had up on all the furniture too, and how I tried learning online.   And you’re right, I don’t think I remembered any of them when I entered the MTC:  Maybe refrigerator because it’s basically the same. But I have been blessed so much.  I realized yesterday how much I have been blessed when I contacted this 16 year old kid. We couldn’t find this house, we never found it actually. Houses are really messed up here and the numbering systems are awful, and some houses don’t have numbers because they build  houses on top of one another or in some random shape and form and its confusing.  But anyway I asked him where this house was and he didn’t know.  So I was like okay that’s okay but we are missionaries, and the whole spiel.  And I bore a short testimony about Jesus Christ and then gave him a proclamation to the world pamphlet and explained what it was and that a prophet and apostles of God wrote it with the direction of God. I don’t know how interested this kid really was but he listened and it was good practice.  Then I asked him if we would read it with his family and if his family wanted to listen to our message another time.  He did not understand my Spanish, I said do you desire to listen to us another time like 6 times, he didn’t get it.  I was like flip comp will you talk please, he turned around and gave me the cold shoulder, so I was like okay so you don’t understand and he said  yes, just a little bit.  I told him it was my 4th month on my mission here and that I’m learning Spanish. Then I said it in a different way and asked if he wanted to listen and he understood. That made me happy, then he said no.  After that for like an hour I was kind of depressed cause my accent is terrible and he couldn’t really understand me.  That is when I remembered those signs that were on the furniture back home.  I realized that I just had a 5 min conversation with a 16 year old in Guatemala in Spanish. And how I could not remember that silla means chair just 4 months ago.  I have definitely been blessed with speaking Spanish.  Also the fact that I understand Spanish basically now is amazing.  4 months ago on the phone before I left I had a conversation one day with Jason in Spanish. I don’t remember what he said exactly something like loha heremano como le va, (hello brother how’s it going), and I didn’t understand what he said.  I don’t understand everything but I mostly understand everything that is normal. If it’s about the gospel I understand and that’s what is important.  Just little things I don’t know yet.  Like my comp had a conversation with this lady about how she broke her ankle, I was lost.  But really, I might only have a conversation with someone about how they broke their leg like 3 times in my mission.  But understanding Spanish is going great.  Sometimes it might take them repeating one or two times still but oh well.  I just need to work on speaking tons now.

I had stuff I wanted to tell everybody but don’t really remember what. The president has like 3 weeks left, and he is really baggy, its kinds funny.  I thought presidents don’t get baggy.  Our district leader said there are some problems he talked to him about and he said he would work on it but basically he is just kind of putting them off till the new president shows up.  My district and zone leaders our pretty baggy too.  They don’t care as much anymore.   They are more laid back and don’t care what anyone in their zone does. It’s kind of annoying that they don’t care since right now I am one who talks to them about certain things and they don’t care at all and just tell me to do nothing about it.  But oh well, there is nothing I can do about it.  I promised myself though that I am never getting baggy.  I think that when you have little time left in the mission that that should be the most successful time because you know the language, how to teach, talk to people, what to do and everything.

Oh yeah, Adrienne is getting married that is crazy, crazy, crazy, congrats.  It seems like three months ago I was in high school and seminary  with all these people and now, Jon is in the Philippines, I’m here, Adrienne is getting married, and people are off at college and others leaving on missions soon. Crazy! What happened?

Mom, you would be very proud of me, I have been really cleaning our apartment whenever I get a chance.  You taught me well, I hate messes and dirty dishes.  We have tons of bugs just because my comp leaves out plates and food and dishes out and doesn’t wash them and trash piles up.  I didn’t want to clean any of it up because it was his stuff and not mine.  But I remembered something else you taught me too, that it doesn’t matter whose it is you just pick it up.  So I have been doing the dishes, and cleaning the table and wiping it down and cleaning the sink, and trying to kill all the bugs with bug spray. Missionaries are dirty people, our apartment has lots of problems.  Little by little it’s getting a lot better, our kitchen and bathroom are millions of times better now.

Oh yeah, something I think you would find funny that happened today mom.  I got a haircut, and the lady started and was super confused and didn’t know what to do because I had tons and tons of hair and it was pretty long and thick.   Latinos have thin hair so this was the first time she has probably cut a gringos hair.  She said is this good and I said yes then she realized there was tons more to cut and she didn’t get it right, my hair was just always sticking out and there was always more to cut.  It was funny.

So funny random things!

I had this tamale it’s like mush with some spaghetti sauce inside.  It is gross.  But our investigator like 2 weeks ago fed us them and asked if we like it, I obviously had to say yes.  Now she thinks we like them so every time after the lessons we have them, well like 70 percent of the time.  And I hate them. It’s the one food I have found that is just straight up not good at all.

I thought our windshield getting hit with a homerun ball was pretty funny.  I probably know who it was.  I worked out with all the baseball players during 2 summers ago and in sports P.E. last year. Wow it was more than last year it was 1st semester of senior year in 2009.

But I got to go, c/ya, hope all is well with everybody.

PS, Tell my friends from back home to write, I want to know how things are going with them and when they go on missions.  I can use the pouch for 1 stamp anywhere around the world. In a dear elder can you give me the address of Jon and Spencer, and everybody that I’m forgetting. and whoever else.

love you, bye

elder gardner, ps Jason people here can say my name idk why. They say gardner not jardiner.

May 23, 2022

hola, time is flying by way too quickly. Not just my mission but life in general. I was thinking the other day about something me, jason, primo, jon, and joseph did. Then I realized that jon has almost been on his mission a whole year. That blew my mind. I was just hanging out with him like 4 months ago, but then i realized i was at college 4 months ago. About after jr year till now is just one big blur. crazy. And it seems like i have been gone for years for all the things that happen at home. I have had like 5 cousins get married, an uncle too. A nephew born, and like 3 people i know get mission calls. Ben graduated. And it has only been 3 months. A lot is going to happen in two years. 

 

I made a list of things to talk about again. so here we go. 

 

I am dumb, i didnt know how packages work. You sent it to the mission home, so that means i get it when their are trasfer meetings. There is another address you can send it too but this is fine. The other way still takes just as long. And then it has to go through the aps, zls, my distict leader. And that takes a long time too, because all of them forget at least one week to bring the packages somewhere, so it takes a while. And trasfer meeting is every month and a half. It takes things a month to get here. So thats perfect. But ya I got the packages at transfer meeting (And dont ask me why we were a trasfer meeting because we didnt have trasfers). But those packages were the best. Everything i literally have been wanting and looking for, I will explain more

 

Tie, Okay thanks mom, I love you, that tie is the best, I am wearing it right now. But elder hymas my old comp has tons of ties that look like this and are that style. And so the last pday we were with elder hymas and lewis at this store with random old stuff people donate. I was looking for a tie like that and didnt find one. But then you send me it. It was exacly what i was looking for. Oh and this is something else, but ryan i found this wembly tie in our apartment, and i didnt really like it but deicided to wear it just because you love wemblys. And now i have changed my mind and love it after wearing it. Thanks

 

Peunut butter, I have been craving a pb and j sandwhich. So i went to buy peunut butter a couple weeks ago. It is like 100 quetz here, which is like 15 dollars. but i only get 130 dollars a month so 15 is a lot for pb. So ya it was awesome. 

 

Oreos, my old comp elder graham bought some oreos that he has at his apartment. On like 2 occasions he has given me some oreos, as a gift, just like on divisions and stuff when i dont have my own food there. And it just brought back the memory or the thought idk. But you know how much i love oreos, and eating a couple made me want more. So I tried to buy some last pday, but we didnt have time to go to the store. So I was disappointed because I wanted oreos. Then I got some 2 days later, it was awesome. 

 

Carmel mints. Elder grahams comp elder roske has carmel mints at their house. I ate one last week and i have been having a sour throat and it felt great. So i have been looking for them to buy for my soar throat, and the most sick i have been was the day of transfers when i got them. 

 

Redsox, Dad you sent this a while ago, but i read that the redsox won 1 game only so far, that made my day. my comp has these redsox pajamas. he doesnt know who they are, just got them from an old comp, but every night it makes me angry and thing back to 2004 world series and then of other random times. 

 

Dad I do not get the ensign. We get the liahona every month. And i finally found out what the liahona is. I dont think many people know this. THe liahona. is a combination of the friend new era and ensign from that month and a few other things. They just pick different good stories. So it is possibble for the story you told me about to be their but i looked and its not. 

 

Oh so we dont have a fridge, so i cant keep regualar milk, so i bought this podwer stuff, that you just mix with water. I was scared it was going to be sick. It is awesome i love it. It might just be because i am here in guatemala that its great. Like how on campouts everything is better. It does give me a little stomach ache but everyything i eat gives me a little stomack ache, so i dont care. I eat ceral now every morning. 

 

Oh so you talked about before how you wanted to come pick me up after my mission. At trasfer meeting i talked to this elder that was leaving and his parents from utah were their. I talked to them and they said it has been one of the coolest experiances every both for him the missionary and his parents. So I think that would be sweet for you guys to do. That is in a long long time though. I talked to his parents for like 10 min. That was nice. Just to have a normal conversation with adults that speak english. I realized i havent had that for a while. I have been with all spanish speakers and other 19 year old americans. So that was cool. It will be the cheapest trip you ever take too. I get 130 dollars for the whole month so will be fine with lots less. I think i have decided i want to buy lots before i come home. movies here are like 30 cents. At trasfers i got a custom made hymn book cover that they are making. it cost 10 dollars. it is leather with a picture of jesus in gethsemane in the front with mission sur. and on the back just a normal pic of jesus and the side elder gardner. I just got the hymn book and not for my bible and bom yet just to see how it looks. he has a book of like 200 pictures though of the church and you pick what picture and then can put any words or anything on the side. Before I come home i will have to make one for my brothers and whoever. They are pure leather brown, with a picture that like pops out. I have seen them their too legit to quit. 

 

Oh so at transfers our zone leader left and elder warren, my buddy from the ccm. his comp left. So he doesnt have a trainer techniacally anymore he is just with another elder. It is weird how evverybuddy just changes around a lot. It is going to be hard to get used to. So far i have been with the same people for a while. Everyone from the ccm is in my zone. All of my disrict is new people. SO it will be wierd next trasfer to see what happens. Im excited to move around and see different parts of the city. And more excited to leave the city and go to some city here by the beach or up in the mountains or something sweet. 

 

So there is the sweet shop in elder lewis area. It is like a good will or something. There is just some random stuff. The coolest is that there is some sweet legit real jerzeys. Elder lewis got a chigaco hawks, i think jerzey the hocky team. for like 2 dollars. Elder hymas and his comp got a boston celtics and a indiana pacers jerzey. I saw some sweet ones but think i will wait for a caridnals or bulls one or something or blues. or rams. 

 

So this kid yesterday ran up to me after church and was just goign crazy. He was like hey so i have a grandma who lives in your area and she is interested in the lessons and when can you come by how bout right now. she is really ready i am way excited. So we eat lunch then went over their. It was funny the kid was way excited for his grandma. We talked for about 30 sec and he interupted us and said hey before we do anything else can we have a prayer to invite the spirit to the lesson. We ovboisously said yes. It was just awesome how excited he was. She really was way ready, she blew my mind with what she knew. I showed her a scripture in galtions about prophets and apostles and talked about the apostasy and how their were not propets and apostles or the authority after christ. She was like ya, I have always wondered about that and have been waiting for the day when we will come out of this apostasy and recieve a prophet again. Wait? What did you say? I was amazed. She is cathlic but realizes they dont have the authority or a prohet and apsotles and it says that the church of christ must have prohets and apostles. We talked about jose smith and the book of mormon and she loved it. When we asked her if she would read, she kinda got offended and was like why not. Like why would i not read? That made me laugh, i was just like okay then. great. It went really well. Her granddaughter that was there was interested too and took a bom to read.

But I am out of time, and need to go, oh thanks for all the advice you gave me on the phone, me and my comp are getting along a lot better, that hasnt changed anything else yet but we are getting along, so thats a start.

 

Love, Elder Gardner

 

PS¨, Can you give me the address of jon anderson, spencer hair, and blake so i can write them. And others when they get their calls. I never got that letter full of addreses. You could mail another if you like. Oh and dear elder i get every week on tuesday. If non family wants to write since i know mom doesnt want them emailing me to take up my time to write home, haha. Thanks sis j for all thee dear elders. I always get one every tuesday at district meeting.  

This Week (15 May 2011) from Brandon

Hola family,
     I dont know why but this computer would not work for like 20 minuets, so I only have a little time left. We are not in my area, we went to some ruins this morning and then to Mcdonalds and now we're in like the main mall of all of gueatemala.  This computer is really nice and fast.  Although at first it was not. I am with Elder Hymas, Elder Lewis, and thier comps.  I am not going to lie this was the longest week I have ever had in my life.  It is over now and i am moving on.  Me and my comp are getting along better, but things are still bad.  Like we get along but he hasn't changed.  So I am just learning to be more patient and not say anything. I feel bad, but this week we went to this one house to eat like 5 times.  My comp knows they feed us everytime we go over there, so he finds some excuse to go.  I would rather not but they are nice and do feed us some really good food.  Beans with bread, and cheese and tortillas.  We had a baptism of Manual Saturday it was sweet.  He bore his testimony after his baptism too, it was sweet.  He said the reason he was interested in our message is because we were friends with him first and then shared our message.  That was a nice pat on the back, he said exactly what we would want him to say and feel.  Also we had two investigators at the baptism.  One is way interested and we have taught the first three lessons and she is loving it.  And she loves the Book of Mormon and reads every day.  The the other investigator that was there is her friend she invited her to come with her.  She wasn't as interested.  We explained it really well i thought, but she doesn't think that she needs to be baptized because she already has been.  It was good she came though because after the baptism, the bishop talked to her for like an hour, and he, I found out is a convert and just joined 15 years ago.  His wife joined and he didn't for a couple of years.  When his wife joined, he hated the church and was way against it and thought he was happy without it. But his wife just gradually worked with him and eventually he came to church and eventually joined and has just grown ever since and now is the bishop.  He can explain things very well though and talked a lot about lots of stuff.  Then he just told her to pray about it.  He said do what your heart tells you, "i used to hate the church and so i didnt go, but one day my heart changed and i went". Basically he said, its up to you, the church may not be true to you so don't come, but just ask and read the Book of Mormon to find out.  It was good.
   The ruins we went to today were sweet.  There was like carvings in the rocks and there was tunnels and rooms and stairs going down and all sorts of stuff.  I can show you pictures in 2 years.
    Transfers are tommorow but we have been told that we are not getting transfered.  But we might actually so that i get a new trainer because the president wants to try out this new program.  My spanish is getting better.  But my comp talks a lot and doesnt let me talk so not too much.  I think when i leave this area and go some where else it will just jump and get a lot better.  Part of the problem is that i met everyone the first week I was here, and I couldnt say much and was too scared to try.  But now I have gotten over it and have gotten better but people dont think I can say much so they just don't try to talk to me.  They just ask my comp things for me.  I try to speak and butt in and answer and let them know I can talk and I want to practice, but usually my comp answers before I can say anything. 
    It is starting to get hot here now. But I am mostly used to it by now.  But the worst is coming.  The rainy season is durning the hottest season too, so thats nice.  I am learning a ton in the scriptures, I love it. I have been reading the new testement lately.  Its awesome.  I have studied it in seminary and things and know lots but have never actually read through it.  It is really good.  Tons of people here are catholic but i am finding out that they don't go to church or read the bible or anything.  The other day I said something about how i am so gratefull for the atonment of Jesus Christ and the oppurtunity we have to repent then i dont remember exactly what i said but some question came up like what do you think repentence is.  And they were like wait what is the attonement.  I said, oh you know when Christ died for our sins.  Then had never heard of it, so we explained it.  It was my fault i just assumed they knew what it was.  I never thought that someone had never heard of the atoment.
    But all is well, hope the Reds lose and the Cards start winning. Oh and tell Cael hi. love

elder gardner

May 9, 2011

Hola family, whats up. So I just talked to you yesterday but after I wrote down things that I forgot that I wanted to say. We met a random canadian the other day, that was funny. His mom had a friend that worked with her from guatemala and was going back, and invited him to go back just for fun for the summer. That doesn´t happen everyday. So he is here just for the summer and is learning to speak spanish. I was suprised my comp talked to him and I could translate for him. He met the missionarys the day before he left canada. They gave him a book of mormon and he is reading it. Thats awesome that he reads it but he really is not interested. He told us he was a member of the church and we were like wait what. He said he likes every religion and is a member of all of them. Which is great but he just wants to learn more about are church and not anything else, then move on to another church. Reading the BOM might change his mind though. He learns spanish that way too, he has an english and spanish BOM.

 

Ok so their are these drinks here that I love. They are called squizes. There amazing its like orange juice. It tastes freshely squized. And They add tons of sugar. And they are only 3 quetzales. Which is like 42 cents.

 

 Oh so no house in the whole country has carpet. And it is not totally because they cant afford it like i thought. They can but they hate it because they just like to do whatever they want on the ground and then sweep the ground. This was a big problem in the mtc here actually beause they had carpet and the latinos had never had it and would like shine their shoes on it and stuff and just get stains all over everywhere. So they removed it when we were their. It was really funny sunday though. Our district and one other went to like 4 churches and sang a himno. One church had carpet in the chapel. The elders that have been here for like 21 months walked in and were like Oh my what is this. They  bent over and felt it and were amazed. It was funny. They said after so long of not having it you really begin to miss it. For most it was the first time they had seen carpet there whole mission.

 

Oh so I was just thinking the other day, I realized something that is awesome and blows my mind still. So I want to share it with you. So in heaven 1 day is 1000 years on earth. And so it has been like 2000 years basically since christ died. So for christ it has been 2 days. And so their are lots of scriptures that say I come quickly and stuff like that. And we are thinking man quickly it has been 2000 years since you died. And people in heaven are like wow have patience it has been two days. haha. Thats crazy though, two days is not a lot. That flys by very quickly.

 

Oh so every day its wierd something random always remindes me of people everday. Its funny. Like for instance everytime I see somebody with a cowboy hat on I cant thing of Matt and John The Air bandits. haha. That was at philmont. Ask Joseph. Or other random things.

 

Okay joseph, so you should make sure to bring lots of good music on your mission. Listening to mucic is one of the best things ever now. It uumps you up. And idk if you mission will but president lets people have ipods and things. Which I think is kinda wierd but whatever. It might change in a month with the new president. Oh and so my first comp elder hymas had something cool happen a couple months ago. His best friend got his call to the guatemala central mission, which is the city too. I though that was just funny they went right next to each other. What if you went to here, or with jon in the phillipines, or with spencer in ghana, or blake in russia. That would be sweet. I am betting you go somewhere in europe there, that just seems like where your going to go. But you never know, maybe you will to the NY mandrin speaking mission.

 

Oh jason thanks for the advice, I have been trying when i contact people just to say different things and not to memorize a saying. I talk about different things everytime. And lessons I definetly talk about different things every time, just because like you said different people need different things. Here because of the amount of cathlics teaching the apostasy is hard, cause bascally your just telling them that they are wrong and they dont have any authority. One thing I like that my disrict leader did when we were on splits was that he had some scrips how jesus established his church with propehts and apostles, and with him christ. And without that it wasnt his church. So he talked about that and then said how we have apostles, and a prophet. He skipped the fact the the people with authority died and all of that, which basically is the same think and this but in a nicer way. It worked really well.

 

Oh so you wanted to know a little about my comp. He is from panama. He joined when he was 13 and then went inactive and into bad stuff. He moved out when he was like 16 and moved two hours away. And when he was 20 he went on a mission. He doesnt really talk about it so I dont really know why he deicided to come back to church and go on a mission and all. But gets annoyed with me and americans because are family writes us every week and our family is members and things. I dont talk about it and dont rub it in but ya. He knows and will tell you that he is disobiedient but doenst care and doesnt want to change. He because he lived alone for so long hates talking and commnicating, so I never know whats going on, I just follow him. If i ask him a question he doesnt answer. He just lets me figure it out. Which doesnt help because i have lots of questions about spanish but oh well, im learning from everyone else that is latino around. He is in a tought spot right now because his girlfriend who lives here gets home from her mission this month. And so she is going to want to call and meet up and things. So that is going to be hard.. But whatever.

Setteling in

Hola family. Before I forget the password is 6020 I think mom. Things are crazy here. Way crazy. We just had basketball at the church with our zone that was nice to see everybody there and talk with my old district and also to speak some English. Everybody is doing great. Elder Lewis is in the scariest area of the mission where all the drug dealers live. He said he has seen some dead bodies already. Our town is pretty nice though. I find out that yesterday Guatemala beat America in soccer for a world cup qualifying game or something. I didn’t know that yesterday but it makes since now. There was like 2 or 3 kids who were playing soccer in the street and yelled to me Guatemala could whoop America in soccer any day. And some just Guatemala is better than America. AT the time I didn’t really know what they were talking about but it makes since now. I found out that we have no investigators so we have just been tracting a lot. We have like 2 or 3 now. Lots of people we are talking too are inactives. But I thought that the work here was going great and that this area would be blooming in the gospel, I was way wrong. There was a baptism 2 weeks ago, but before that not for a year. The poor people won’t let you in their houses because people just don’t let you in because of the crime. And the higher class of people, still poor, has gates on all their doors and windows and a doorbell walkie talkie thing. So we just ring that and they say who is it and then say, I have no time right now, so we say, when is a good time and they say I always work, I never get off, so we invite them to church, and they always work on Sundays. People are really poor here and it actually is true and not an excuse that people work from 6 to 10 like everyday.  We have talked to like 3 inactive families that won’t go back because there were lots of problems in the ward and they didn’t like the people. I didn’t know what to tell them really. It’s true there are lots of problems in the ward and there are lots of new converts that don’t know things. So that was hard. We just get lunch at the comedor. It’s always rice, meat and potatoes or a vegetable. It’s good. Then other that I just eat bread and breakfast bars. I did make myself spaghetti last night that was good. If you go from our house straight for a couple blocks you hit the drop off to the mountain. And there are tons of houses just stacked up in every which way all over. Mostly you just walk down there and there are not than many roads. Then that goes on left and right for a while. We found another little stack yesterday. It’s confusing. We were just walking in the city and turned down a street than it just drops off and you walk down a little path and then there are tons more houses. Its crazy how their houses are built, it looks like they gave some 12 year olds some concrete and let them go at it. Then put up some blankest and some shed looking things. The place we were at yesterday just had a roof and two walls then a view of the valley below. I was surprised yesterday, we got on more investigator. I did the door approach and said were missionaries, we have a message about Jesus Christ can we share it with you some time. And the woman was like okay sounds good. I was like wait what yes its okay. So we set up an appointment to come back and teach the first lesson. Most of the time people don’t even answer their door than they have some excuse but she was like yep okay. We went to Wendy’s today with everybody that was really good. That frosty I had was like heaven. I have eaten some weird stuff. This lady gave us some bread things with tomato sauce in them. They were sick, it tastes like play dough with some sauce. Also the worst thing for me is the drinks here. They make these weird drinks. Their like lemonade type of things, but no sugar just pure like squeezed fruit. and lots of water. Most are really watered down and just gross. These ladies the other day gave us this drink it was like cold oatmeal. My Spanish has not gotten that much better. I have understanding a lot more though. I just learned today that you don’t conjugate twice in a row, I didn’t know that. It is hard having a Latin comp though because they don’t know any of the rules and they don’t really follow them either, they speak in slang. So today when I saw Americans I had lots of questions. For some reason they totally white washed everybody’s zone this transfer which means instead of one person who has been in the area stay there they just changed everyone and everyone is new to the area, besides the zone leaders. I don’t know what to expect for next transfer. Some people get trained more in the same area some get moved outside of the city and some stay in. Our zone leader has been 1 time outside the city and is leaving next transfer. But some have been out for most of their mission. Tons of people play soccer. There is a field by our house where they have tons of leagues and big old stands and vendors and it’s almost every day that somebody plays. There is like 3 fields around town. Plus kids are always playing in the street.  One thing that I have found funny here is that when people answer the phone they say hello. But they can’t really say it instead they say like heeyo. Then they start speaking in English. For some reason if people are drunk here they will speak lots of English to us, but when sober speak Spanish. They say "whets up man, how you doing."  Everyday I do get some weird looks from people like what are you doing here. They don’t say anything most of the time though and don’t really care. Just weird. It is pretty humid and hot here and it is only April. The nights our really nice though. No dad we don’t have air conditioning. I don’t think that anybody does. We just open the windows and doors. During the day I just get drenched. My shirt is really wet right now. But it dries out by like 645. It is really hard not being able to speak English at all the whole week. Today I could speak that well in English. Sometimes I want to quote a movie or say a joke or something but can’t in Spanish. In lessons I don’t really speak much. By the time I get what they said, they will have moved on to a new subject and my companion has already answered their question or something. The annoying and funny thing is though that after I say like what you said once to someone they assume that I don’t understand anything. So they start talking about me to my companion, like how long has he been here? How much can he speak, How much can he understand and sometimes at meals like is he eat a lot and does he like this food and things like that. I understand all of it. Or when drunken people make fun of my Spanish I understand them. I usually don’t tell them though because they have just said like does he does and everything and then they would realize I got it all. I just laugh though. Sometimes I don’t understand because my companion speaks all slang. So people go with the flow sometimes and speak it back, and then I don’t understand. The weirdest slang to me is when people say saber which means to know. Like its hot outside, then I would say saber. Like I know. But I know is yo se. so why say saber. idk. One thing I thought was crazy was that little kids were playing with little fake pistols. Then I realized that I did when I was a kid. It seems different here. Like they see their parents and brothers and others with real ones killing people then they have the fake ones. One little kid pulled one on me and was like green go, bang bang, it was cute but disturbing. He learned it from the streets. I think the best thing you could send it drinks, or lemonade packets to make drinks. And some I don’t know what else, I’m thirst right now and can only think of drinks. It has been an hour love you bye.

                          Elder Gardner

New Companion and Area

Hola, wow where do I start, this has been the craziest week of my life. Really crazy. I can’t remember what you know and don’t know. Dad I got your package today, thanks a lot. I also got you and moms dear elders. The mail is just crazy and ended up at the mission home. And I am pretty sure you are supposed to send things to the mission home and not my address. So the last week at the ccm was the fastest ever. It was really good. Conference was amazing. It kind of made me home sick a little bit. I knew that all of you where there in the crowd somewhere and I was watching. And I saw Michael young a million times and then thought of Joseph and the young’s then everybody and missed my friends. But after conference I was fine. The last week was crazy. We just did lots of things preparing for the field and meeting and had not that many Spanish lessons so we al felt like nothing was getting done and wanted to leave But so Monday all of the people that were leaving to other countries left, that was really sad. Two sisters from our district left. Then we got up and left at 8. We had to say bye to the 3 elders that were going to the central mission, they got on a different bus. That was really hard. Our district leader who is from Arizona was in the group going to central. He was a really nice guy. He kind of reminded me of Jon Anderson a little. So that was sad. But some really sweet elders are going to our mission. So we went to the president’s house on Tuesday and we had training and things and his wife fed us and we kind of got to relax with everybody for a little at night. There apartment is awesome. It’s in a skyscraper on the 12th floor. They have a deck that over looks a soccer field, so I watched some people play soccer. Oh by the way I get an hour to write now instead of only 30 min. But it was nice to be with my friends for one last day. We stayed at the AP´s house. There part of the house was nice but then we went out back to a shed type of thing. It was alright, felt like scout camp in a cabin. Then today we woke up and went to the meeting were most of the mission is there and finds out where your going and who your comp is. I was really nervous along with everybody else. They told us that most new missionaries get American comps, so that made me feel better. But then it began, I am with elder Rodriguez. And yes he is a Latino. He is from panama. People from panama talk way fast my old roommate was from there. He is cool so far though. He speaks a little English, enough to be able to describe the meaning of a word even if he doesn’t know it. He hates English though so he tries not to learn or speak it. My Spanish is okay. We just went over to this members house who feeds us for two meals a day. I could kind of understand their conversations. Oh but before that we went to our apartment. AHHHHHH. Crazy. It would be nice but the people before us were filthy. Disgusting. We have some serious cleaning to do. They left trash everywhere and a full sink of dirty dishes and I looked at the planner book and it was just crumpled with papers and things. Not organized. Like way crazy. Gross. SO that is going to be fun cleaning up after them. I don’t really know what this area is like. My comp said that it is a really nice area of town but while we walked to dinner I am pretty sure I heard 3 gunshots so idk. I’ve heard that this is one of the most dangerous places in the whole world like top 5 but people have never ever hurt the missionaries. We're way protected. Elder Lewis who is a huge guy is my old district who pitched in baseball in high school and is really strong, was freaking out. He is starting a new area in the city, and was told it is the straight up ghetto. An elder said there is an area they can’t go because it is the drug capital of Guatemala, which distributes up to Mexico y America. Crazy, most of the killings here though are just because of drugs and dumb things like that so we don’t have anything to do with it. It is kind of scary still walking around here with my comp, he has never been here and we both don’t really know where to go. They say its good area but good compared to what. It is a pretty poor area I think. I am in the mall right now emailing and is pretty run down. Its okay kind of like an idk, a market, with stores or something, there is a nice grocery store in here that has all the normal things. But my comp said there is no McDonalds, or and fast food or restraints or anything. There were tons of that by the ccm. Saying goodbye today to my district was weird; W all left the church and got in taxis to go to our areas. I missed elder hymas and didn’t get to say bye. Oh so an elder said that my elder hymas and elder Lewis are in my distinct. Elder hymas is my old comp and elder Lewis is elder hymas comp here. They were the AP’s. And all of our district expect for one hermana is in the same zone. I think somebody said this zone was struggling and so the president sent fresh blood to clean it up. Everyone seems to say something different about if you are here in the city a lot or not. One elder has been out almost a year and has only been in the city. Everyone calls it the cap, for capital. But they said that basically everywhere we will go is a city. There are really villages. Well there is but you live in the city and travel out there because their area covers villages and the cities. People love leaving the city though. I guess it just gets boring after a while in here. But its really hot most others places so there is good and bad things to both. I saw today my old roommates and old Latinos from the ccm here. They are here until there visas come for Argentina. One already left but the others haven’t. So idk what we’re going to do the rest of the day, track I guess. Nobody has really told me anything, it’s kind of weird. Idk if we have any investigators right now or if there are none and we just have to start tracking or what. Imp not really sure my comp knows either. He has never been here before. I guess well find out somehow. Oh pday is on Mondays now. But today they let me write since I missed it Monday. Wow it’s the 6th already time is flying. I can’t wait till cael is born. I’m not exactly sure how I can send pics home, I could hook my camera up to the computer but it would take forever to upload. Idk if I can send my card home because of people stealing mail and stuff. I can already feel my stomach turning from the dinner that we had. I tried to check and she had clean water to wash things and everything and a really nice house. The house on the outside was weird but you walked in and it was a legit nice American looking home. But I think I am just not used to the food. We get fed by the member for lunch and dinner, so idk what ill do for breakfast, I would just have cereal but I don’t think they have anything I can drink here. Oh and can you send me some more cream for my face, I ran out. And I stopped taking my pills a weeks or so ago thinking we would be getting malaria pills. But no one has said anything about it and we haven’t gotten any yet and I’m in the field so idk. That’s stinks that the cardinals aren’t doing good. Today we went to this fast food place for breakfast, and the TV had espn on it right in front of us. My and elder hymas and elder Lewis were going crazy. It was weird, we tried not to watch but it was right there. And the top ten plays came on. This area we are in seems weird, we were walking down the street and there was nobody there. Then one street over there is a really big busy road, then were crossed it and now were in the mall and there are people but not like a lot. Like normal for like O’Fallon or less than that. I don’t think that anybody in this place owns carpet, everybody just has tiles. Besides the president house but he is the presidents and lives in probably one of the nicest apartments around. I don’t think I have anything else to say. Umm, don’t worry mom the missionaries have never been shot or mugged that much here. Oh so one rule here is that we can not drink caffeine here. The doctor of the mission proved through a study that it does nothing for our stomach. And water is fine. So all of Central America is not allowed to drink it. They said it is because members and investigators will follow after the missionaries and drink it all the time and even though it is only kind of part of the word of wisdom they want us to set the example of not drinking it. I don’t really care. Some elders in my district today were pretty mad though. Yesterday I was way surprised. Idk what was going on but at the aps house there was like 3 elders on their cells talking to people at like 1020. And it didn’t sound like it would be a member or something. I think elders here just call other elders just because and talk. Through the church our phones call every missionary here for free. I think we got to go now love you. I'm sure next week I’ll have some crazy stories to tell. Oh and so the elders that have been out for only 3 weeks all have a baptism and one 2. The goal is here two whole families a month. Our president stresses families because they can get sealed in the temple together. So that’s cold.

Goodbye, love you Elder Gardner