week 53

Chineekuy, k´a´jwi jun li jalam-uuch´ chiru li xemaan a´in (sorry, only one picture this week.) 

Jalam-uuch´comes more naturally to me than saying picture now haha. I dream in my mission languages, Kekchi a lot more than Spanish. I still have trouble communicating, but I can always get my main point across so that is kind of nice. My accent is really bad, and my vocabulary isn't very big, but the nice thing about Kekchi is you can get your point across without a big vocabulary. This is a family who I did a baptismal interview for. They live in Seamay, Elder Helton's area. I was able to go to the baptism on Saturday, it was for the boy in the middle. They have two mute people in the family and it was really cool to meet them. You could just kind of feel a good spirit in their house when you are there.

This week was pretty good. Divisions with Elder Gonzalez went well, but the other divisions kind of fell through. We only were able to talk to the older lady once. This time her husband was there and he kind of seems like a handful so we will see how things go with him. He just keeps putting off her baptismal date and saying we need to go slower, even though she wanted to be baptized like a month ago. He is a member but has not been active for junxil (a long time.) They've showed up to church a few times though. We work with that family a lot because they are kind of the only thing we have going for us right now. 

We are just in Coban today, I have been up since 6:30 yesterday. We had to be ready to go by midnight so I didn't see much point in going to bed. We have that leader meeting tonight at six, but besides eating and emailing, that's about it. We will probably get cincho because our zone did terrible. Cincho is like getting scolded, they call it cincho because I think that is belt in Spanish, so it is like getting the belt haha. My companion and I had some good experiences and baptisms, but since we are ZL´s if our zone does bad it is our fault too, and our zone did worse than they have in a long time. We will have to go over it when we give our zone meeting this Thursday. I really want us to meet the goal! We are supposed to get a certain number of lessons and new contacts and stuff like that each week. We always focus on baptisms, but this time I also want have a goal to communicate with every area better. The main challenge in our zone is laziness.  We all need to do better at planning, my companion and me included. 

This will be the last week  before changes, so that means a lot of my buddies are going home. Which is awesome for them but kind of a bummer for us. I will get to do divisions with Elder Helton at the end of this week so that will be nice to say goodbye a little bit. Next week I will have big news about changes so that will be good. We are all ready for changes I think. Two people are going home, one guy has five changes in his area, and the Mission President already knows there are some companionship problems.  I am like 95% sure I will stay in my area. If I stay a zone leader this is where we are always stationed. Also, they are going to have to close some areas because there are a lot of Kekchi speakers leaving and only like 1 or 2 coming in, if that. New Kekchi speakers can only come in ever two changes the way the program works.

After this week I will be one of the senior Kekchi speakers, which is weird because I still feel brand new. I have plenty of weaknesses. It has been kind of tough lately, just trying to be a good leader, my buddies going home... just a stressful time in the mission. I know mom would remind me to focus on the good stuff. Five things I am thankful for right now: 

1. Reading and sending emails today

2. Sausage McGriddle for breakfast at McDonald's this morning

3. I will see Elder Smart today

4. I have done good about working out this last month

5. The gift of tongues, and how it has helped me learn the languages here

I took my poop test today like the nurse wanted. I don't mean to brag, but my aim is becoming remarkably good at pooping into those cups. I think I just have too much practice haha. 

Well, for my spiritual thought, I just think it is great how the gospel will not only be preached in every part of the world, but in the peoples own language as well! Look at this mission for example, I was called to speak Spanish, but I only use that with my companions. Kekchi is the language here so that is what we teach in, which is awesome! I have seen many people whose lives have been changed by the gospel. One person is that guy Henry that got married, and another is that girl Mayra from a few weeks ago. Every time I visit them they just seem that much happier. They are both going to church every Sunday and getting ready to receive callings. Mayra is the only member in her family and she always talks about how she is trying hard to be a good example for everyone so her family can see the change in her since her baptism, also yesterday she got up and bore her testimony in sacrament meeting after only being a member for a month! Pretty awesome if you ask me. I know that missionary work is the most important work we can do on this earth, because it is the Lord's work. We are bringing people unto him, what can be better than that? 

I love all of you!

Love, Elder Toolson