March 23, 2011

(Sorry I didn't correct anything, you will just have to figure it out)

Wow thats crazy, i just open up my email and find out my 3 cousins and my uncle are getting married. I feel like its been like 2 days since I have sent a email but every time I have gotten on something drastic in my old life has changed. A couple weeks ago I found out about ryker getting his mission call, then last week I found about that there was a huge earthquake, tsnami that killed 18,000 people. Then this week I found out that 3 of my cousins and one of my uncles are getting married. Crazy. And that my nephew is going to be born on my birthday. haha. Yes been and shalon I of course pick the 30th. I realized something cool the other day. I get to call on mothers day in may sometime and can talk to kael or hear him scream. ha. How is calling going to work, how am i going to talk to all of my family that doesnt live at home, and especially Gavin. So yesterday we had a testimony kinda district meeting and it was really really good. Since we have been here it has been like all spanish and no spirtually things. It feels way different from provo. And is hard sometimes. But that was like the best meeting I ever had anywhere. Everybody was bearing there testimony mostly about spanish and things. One thing that really hit me that somebody said is that heavenly father jesus christ and the holy ghost know every language, so they can help us in spanish because the spirit is fluent in spanish. We were about to end then this sister said wait, I want to bear my testimony. So she did then like 4 more people got up and went after. So  by this time everyone had gotten up but me so I had to get up. Its a blessing that i had that pressure because i was wanting to get up but i just dont sometimes. So i got up and couldnt even talk, i was  balling. i dont know what i said something about learning spanish. But it was awesome. Than during the hymn I couldnt sing, I was still balling. I am so gratefull for my family. You guys have been the best example i have ever had. I have 4 older brothers to look up to that are all married in the temple and active in the church. That is a very amazing a unique thing to say that everyone is my family is active in the church. I am basically the only person here that can say that, most families there is at least somebody thats not active any more. And for the latinos its a lot different, they come from homes where only one parent is or none of their brothers or active or they parents are active but not really totally dedicated and dont help and care about their children. Its hard for them, I admire them for coming on missions. There are some that have about two pairs of pants and two pairs of shirts and some shoes, and thats about it. They are given scriptures here at the mtc, most cant afford it. I feel so bad. I have been getting a lot better at spanish though because of how nice they are and just talking to them. I have grown a lot. I have taught the first 3 lessons a lot and a couple others. They arent that deep but i get my point across and they understand. I find it funny how in gospel matters I can say a lot, but in just talking at meals and things I cant really say much. I think that is evidence that the holy ghost is teaching my the language and its not me. When its me learning how to say things, like funny things to say to the latinos and jokes and things, I cant remember them. Oh before time runs out can you email jon, spencer, blake, marshall emails through dear elder each week. I have gotten a letter from deor and neal on dear elder every thurday here. You can send packages mom, it will take like 3 weeks to get here though so i will be gone in the field some where. We saw pics of the coast of guatemala where i will serve, it is the most pretty place on earth. cya love ya

March 30, 2011

hola family. Hows it going? happy birthday tommorow mom! Thats crazy its almost april already, I just left like 3 weeks ago. Yesterday we got to go tracking again. It was really good. I went with this elder  in my district elder eyre. He is awesome. He is great at spanish and he knows the book of mormon like nodbodys business. So I still didnt get to talk too much since he is so good and people loose interest when im taking for ever to stop thing and then speak. I talked a lot more though. The great thing though was that I wasnt totally in the dark this time. I knew what they were talking about. So if I had a comment I could say it. We got 7 refererals it was great. The first guy we talked to at the bus stop was awesome, i was blown away by every thing he said. He belived in god and jesus and has always wondered why there arent prophets today and things. We gave him a book of mormon and like 4 pamphlets. He was really interested and wanted to learn more. Everybody suprised me. they were all really intersted and eager to learn more. I didnt expect that. People in america would just be like go away I dont want any girl scout cookies. ha. After i get out of  here i get to do that full time, im pumped. yesterday we listined to a talk by elder bednar it was awesome. He said that the way we answer peoples and our questions is not by application but by the doctorine. We show them the doctorine and then find the principles in the doctorine and learn for themselves how to apply it. He said this can pertain to any instance in the world. He told this hillarious story how he gave a Q and A session at a church and this really new convert asked him if he could eat pork. He told him that if he wanted to know for himself to go do d and c 89. The guy was like okay but can you just tell me, elder bednar was like no. And this went on for about 10 times. Finally elder bednar said I recognize a pattern here, your going to keep asking me to tell you if you can eat pork and im going to keep telling you to look it up in d and c 89 and so lets call it even and you go look it up in d and c 89. I t hought that was hillarious. But the reason is  if you just tell someone that they should stop smoking and they agree and then you help them to quit eventually there just going to do it again when your gone. But if you tell them the doctorine and they understand it in their heart then they will see why they need to and do it themselves with no help. it was an awesome talk. To sum it up it said doctorine answers the question of why principles answer the questions of what and applications answer the questions of how. It doenst matter how i need to quit smoking it matter why. My espanol is getting better. I can start to conjugate without looking at the my cheat sheet. I just need to memorize more words now. Soccer is going great, I am getting so much better. I was juggling today and it was easy, i could have gotten like 30 or more. If i go to byu idaho again I definately wanna play more soccer and be a coach. I am pretty scared to go to the field next week, to has flow by so quickly i dont know what happened. I was just in provo, now i just got  here now im leaving, i know im not prepared to go to the field but who is? ill learn quickly. This morning I heard something pretty disturbing I woke up and was putting my soccer clothes on for gym and i hear a pop pop pop pop pop, then a big boom. I am pretty sure it was a machine gun then one loud shotgun. I hope everbody is alright. it was right by where we trackted. Then we heard a lot of police sirens a few mins after, so i think it really was. This place is one of the most dangerous places in the world but the missioniaries have never even been mugged here. Im going to miss my district a lot, we have grown really close. Lots of us are going to the south mission but now 3 elders are going to central. and two sisters to panama and honduras or something. I love all of them there great people. Im so great full for all of you brothers for being so nice to me and a good example, almost all of the elders from utah have an older simpling that is way inactive idk why. But im gald our family is all active. today i got some cases for my preach my gospel there sweet, i love them. There blue and the other read. We looked at some pics of guatemala in my mission last week on the coast. It is the most amazing place in the world. Forest then beach, then ocean, then a amazing sunset. I cant wait to go to the coast. Also little villages in the top of the mountains. Oh dad no I havent gotten the package, ive heard it takes two to 3 weeks to get here. So idk what will happen, I might be gone. Thanks for sending chocalate though, thats what ive been craving. For my brithday the greatest thing you could send would be some good drinks, they have drinks here that are just pure fruit drinks there sick and disgusting except for the straberry one. So i drink lots of water. And idk what else, basically just food and drinks. maybe some soft toilet  paper, ha jk. Hmm maybe a sweet pens,  or oh my shoes are torn apart my tennis shoes, but i can get some here for much cheaper actually so dont send any. you should send some pics over the email. I cant send pic here I can next week in the field though! I dont know where im going yet i cant wait to find out where. We have coast, villages, and city, and mountains, forest, everything, its the best all into one. best mission ever.

Hola,

 

    Everything is going great here. Yesterday we went outside for the first time and went tracking around here for two hours. It was awesome. I loved it. I went with my Latino companion, so that was nice. I would start talking to people and then they would start talking and so my companion would take over. I was actually very excited because I actually got what was happening. I didn't really understand 40 percent but I got enough. I would hear like book of Mormon, Americas, laminates, Joseph Smith, words I recognized so I could follow what they were talking about. Then after I would bear my testimony about everything. The first guy we talked to seemed really interested. He has had a really rough life it looked like. He owned a parking lot. Just some dirt area. And he had a little shed by the entrance where he took money to park and it looked like he lived there. There was a bed and alarm clock, and toothbrush and mirror and stuff. So I think he did llive there. But we gave him a book of Mormon and testified of it and he said he has nothing to do all day long but sit there and be bored, so he would read all day long. We promised him the gospel would bless  his life and his circumstances. The next guy we talked to could speak English and Spanish. He made me speak English to him. So I told him about the book of Mormon. He had heard all about it before. So I told him about Joseph Smith and was about to recite the fist vision when he just interrupted and then said I want to go to church and he said where is it?  Where can I go. So I explained to my companion what happened and he knew wheere the church was since he is from here and he told him in Spanish directions, they kept talking in Spanish more about the book of Mormon, but we didn't actually give him one, just pamphlets. Then there was this guy who was working on his car off to the side of the street. I started talking, but the guy talked a lot so my companion took over. He seemed  interested at first, but then when we brought up Joseph Smith, he flipped out. My companion said that Jose smith is a prophet of god and he said no he is not prove it I don't believe you.  I was thinking we should just leave and not worry about arguing with this guy. But my companion opened up the Bible and showed him some scriptures, I don't really know what. And the guy understood and changed his view and I could see his heart soften, then he came up with another problem about our church, but again we answered it and he agreed and changed his mind. He committed to reading the book of Mormon, and going to church this Sunday. He said he would call the missionaries serving here, and find out where it is and when to meet with him. He has a family of like 5 people, and seemed like a nice guy. It seemed like he had just heard from another source bad things about us but then realized they weren't true and wanted to find out more. So that was all of our book of Mormons we had. We passed out a lot more pamphlets and things. I did talk to this security guard about the book of Mormon and he was really interested and was impressed I would come here to this horrible scary place to serve. I hope to serve here sometime since it is in my mission and I can come find these people again.

    It is pretty hot and humid here and all the Elders from Utah are freaking out but I think its fine. Its only like 80 degrees. The food is pretty good still. I have no clue how they prepare it mom. There are lots of weird things too though. Hot dogs for breakfast and beans. Weird fruits, gross drinks. some good. But mostly good things. I am really craving some chocolate though. I did get diarrhea this week though. It started like on Thursday and I have had it a week. I am starting to get used to it though.

    So what else, hmm, I cant think now. My companion joined the church only a year ago. he is from Idaho. Time is flying by really really fast. I swear I just got here. Mom soccer here is awesome I love it. I can actually keep up with the Latinos. Guatemala is not that good at soccer though. There is are a couple of locals that love football and basketball.

 

Love Brandon

2 March 2011

Hola family.
   
    So I realized I don’t really remember what I wrote last time so I’ll probably repeat myself. Soccer here in the MTC is the coolest thing ever.  The Latinos are really good, not as good as I thought though.  I can keep up with them and compete a little.  It reminds me of Nathan’s Xbox game fifa street soccer.  It makes it that much better because I am playing in a poor little country on a concrete basketball court.  There are hoops, but the poles come down to form a goal.  They are like that all over the city.  I don’t know why they bothered putting the basketball hoops up since nobody plays it but oh well.  This one Elder from Argentina is great he can do almost any move.  He jukes everybody out.
    Oh so I was just reminded, if you order the lihihona here we’re going to be in it next month. Also you can go to guatemalaccm.com and look at pictures.  We live in some really nice apartments, much better than Provo.  Because of that, we have to have guards guarding the building and have 20 ft high walls.
    The Latinos are awesome. They love to joke around and are always happy. They love to come and talk to the Americano and then laugh at our Spanish. It makes me work harder and is good practice. They talk super duper fast.  It’s crazy.  I can’t even understand Hola Como Esta sometimes.  They also slur everything into one, plus they speak quietly.  The food here is amazing.  We have like chicken, pasta, fruit, pudding, cookies, hamburgers, beans, tortillas.  I love their tortillas they’re the bomb.  There are some pretty weird gross things every once in a while.  Like yesterday morning for breakfast we had pancakes, bacon, and a hot dog just plain.  I didn’t eat it.  Also for breakfast we have had these like refried bean type of things, they were alright, but they looked like umm, mud, or poop or something, and they would just plop it onto your plate.  I have the exact example; the food they eat in Holes the movie.  
    They split up me and Elder Hymas and now my companion is Elder Graham. He is a convert to the church, he joined a year ago.  I love him but miss elder hymas.  He was awesome, he is just one room away and I am with him in class a ton, but we don’t really have time to talk anymore.  There is this Latino in our room named Elder Garcia, he is awesome, and he speaks fluent English so we can actually get to know him.  He is the nicest person ever.  He told me to tell you that he is my fat Latino roommate.  He is kind of chubby. I feel so bad for all of them; they come from rough backgrounds and situations.  Most are poor but elder Garcia is rich and his parents were always gone at work because they own a company, so he grew up on the streets without a real family support.  He really was thinking of going home the first couple nights because he missed his brothers, or friends.  They need him because most are in bad situations and he is right down the street but can’t help them.  There are lots of Guatemalans here but also people from Argentina, Honduras, El Salvador, and places like that.  The city is awesome. There are like big skyscrapers and then little houses its way random.  
    I have realized that since we have been to Nauvoo a bunch of times and other church history sites that I really have a strong testimony of Joseph Smith.  I love teaching the first vision.  We have already taught like 3 lessons in Spanish.  It is really hard but nice to practice and see what we need to work on.  
    I have to go now, but oh yeah, that food does give you the squirts, it hit today, ugh.  Oh well. Well c/ya.

 Love elder Gardner.