The Work of Salvation

This week we have been working really hard. A mission is not always super easy and it sometimes brings a lot of stress. I have learned though when I do not always feel my best that I work harder. I am not sure why that is but it is what happened more this week. I think I put more faith in the Lord and strive to do everything I can and be exactly obedient so that I can receive the blessings that come from it. One of them being happiness. I love to be happy and I am happy that I am able to serve.

 

Flores Family Request for a Picture of me in these socks.

Last P-Day we played soccer with the Zone again. It is really cool how I am learning more and see improvement in my soccer skills . I enjoy playing and I am not as afraid of the elders running into me anymore. It was funny at one point because in trying to get the ball I fell. When I first started playing I would not even be in the action. 

 

I received another blessing this week. I can never say or express how grateful I am to have worthy priesthood holders around me that are there when ever I need them. The power of the priesthood is the power of God given to men. The blessings we can receive from this are never ending. If you want to know more about what this power is, Ask the missionaries or a member in your area.

 

On Wednesday we had divisions with the Sisters in Ututlan. I was in my area and Hermana. Calero came. It was really nice to be with her again. It is also cool to see the way that we have changed. My Spanish is much better and she teaches and contacts more like I do. I feel like I could talk to her about a lot of different things. She is my mom here after all. haha She is nothing compared to my real mom but it is always nice to see friends. 

 

With Hna. Calero we went to Sn.Raymundo to teach a contact. I feel like we taught so much to him about the restoration but he understood it all and set a goal to gain a testimony and be baptized. He works for a less active member who this week has given us a lot of different references to talk to. I love it when I can hear people who are not that active or fall away from the church bear testimony of it. They do know that it is true. Like everyone they have faults but just need a little help to get them reactivated. I hope that this will help her a lot. 

 

I do love teaching people about the truth. It blesses their lives in so many ways. One funny thing that happened on Saturday is that we had a meeting with the President in our branch. We waited there for a while and he never showed up. As we were walking home with the Elders in the area, a man was selling DVD`s. He had a speaker and said, Elders DVD`s 3 for 5Q. I was laughing. 

 

Sunday was great as we had church. I feel like that is one of the hardest commitments for our investigators to keep is going to church. I want to help them overcome this and have tried many things. I will not give up though. That night we had a conference with a lot of other people in the church. It is called the work of Salvation. It was so amazing to watch and learn more about this work we are doing here. I felt so good after it and on the  bus on the way back to my area I contacted. I remember talking to one person or saying hello and then the next thing I knew I had their information. I am not sure what I said because I feel like the spirit did all the teaching but it was awesome. Heavenly Father really does want to help us and bless us in this work. 

 

Well have a great week and I will write again next week.

The pictures below were emailed to me by another Hermana - they are from when I was in Training at the CCM.

 

Hna. Gurule

Sisters from The CCM- these were taken while in training

Training !?!

As you know from my email the other week, we had changes. It is crazy how fast a change seems to go by. They seem to take forever during the process, but then as you look back, you see how short they are. I was ready for change though so we could make this area even better. I do miss Hna. Rodriguez though.

 

Our Church Building

On Tuesday all the people who have changes go to a Stake Center in the Capital. A taxi comes in the  morning to pick us up so we can be there on time. This morning however one did not come. We called and they said they would be there in ten minutes. The minutes passed and still there was no taxi. It was a crazy thing and they kept telling us to wait. Finally they did come right at 10 when the change meeting was going on. We were late. haha. It was a little sad to miss the Farewell testimonies but since there were so many going home, we made it in time to see the changes. We were about 1.5 hours late if any of you are wondering.

 

At the meeting I found out that I would not just be getting a new missionary in my area, but in my mission. In mission terms, I have a daughter. She is from Nicaragua and is 20 years old. Like me she is a convert and was baptized in February of 2010. She is also the only member in her family. I thought that was a little crazy but cool. Her name is Hermana. Duarte. She has enthusiasm to work and that is really good. I noticed right away with both of us how much better our contacts were. 

 

It is also really nice to have a new missionary because they can ask a lot of the questions you want to but can`t since you have been in the area for a while. I am excited to work with her and hope that together we can truly change lives.

 

Her first day in the field we had a lesson with Nestor, the 15 year old we are teaching. One of the hardest things for him to do is pray in the lessons. However now he has prayed two times in a row. He is reading and praying and I am pretty sure he wants to be baptized. We need to meet with his parents now. He is so afraid to talk to them because they are very Catholic. Luckily I think we can help him because both my companion and I know what this is like.

 

Wednesday we had zone meeting. There were 2 new Nortes in my zone. They asked me a lot of questions about how to say different things in Spanish. It is crazy that I can answer their questions. I guess I do have pretty good Spanish especially for the time I have been here. I also do not know for sure but I do not think that I am a greenie anymore. I do not quite have 6 months in the mission but I am training.

My Best Friend - Actually a pet of a member.

 

Thursday was probably one of the strangest days in my misison. I spent most of the day in a car and spoke English a lot. My companion needed to go to the doctor because she has asthma but the people in the airport would not let her take her medicine with her. We went to the office and there I received a lot of letters and a package. It was just what I needed. We waited for the nurse to come and I had a great conversation with the elders in the office. I even found out Elder Issacson wrote about me in his journal my first day I arrived. He asked me my name and I told him it was Cailey. I guess that was awkward for him. haha 

 

Once the nurse got there we went to the area doctor where I was able to see the Cameron`s again. Then we drove in the car trying to find the medicine for my companion. You do not need prescriptions here. In one place they had a massage chair. I forgot what those feel like. It was like  I was in the USA because Guate really is different in a car. Also the places we went to were really nice. 

Funny Picture - I thought you would like.

 

The rest of the week was good with teaching investigators and strengthening the members . Three of our investigators also said that they would go to church. I was so excited, but then they didn`t. It is always sad when things like that happen. Well I need to go, but thank you for all of the love and support you give me. I know the work I am doing here is the work of the Lord. Have a great week.

 

Hermana Cailey Gurule

Change Makes Us Better

You are all probably wondering what changes I am talking about. Every six weeks in the misison there are changes and sometimes there are changes in your area and other times there is not. In the  last change my (mom) Hna. Calero left. This time my (sister) Hna. Rodriguez is leaving. I am really excited for this though because like always I have a lot of ideas and I can see this area in the the next few months coming on fire. My new companion is not going to know how hard it is to work with the members, because we are going to work with them everyday. I am super excited and I know that you are as well.

 

Last P-Day was Elder Penfold and Elder Robison`s birthday. They are both leaving to the states on Thursday. It really is sad but it is also exciting. I am so greatful that I was able to meet them and really learn a lot from them. They said the cake that I made last week was the best they have eaten in over 2 years. haha. After District meeting our zone met up with another and we went to their area to play sports. We played soccer at this huge soccer feild. I am still not an expert at soccer but everytime I get better and better when we play.

 

To end the evening we went to a members house for a lesson and dinner. It was one of their birthdays and they invited over people who were not members of the church. We shared a short message about the gospel and how it helps us in our lives. When it came time to eat cake the birthday gril had her head shoved in the cake. It is a tradition in Guatemala to shove their face in the cake and she was covered in frosting.

 

The last few weeks have been really hard on my companion, because her dad has been sick and this last week he was even having convulsions. One day she was fine but then didn`t want to do anyhting. I am so glad we have the priesthood and Elders here in the mission who were able to give her a blessing of comfort. 

A Reactivated Family
I love their Excitement for the Gospel!

 

Something that I love in the mission is going into a house to teach one thing and having the spirit promt you to teach something else. This happened with these two girls in the branch this week. We were going to teach them about misisonary work but for some reason I changed the plan and started teaching about eternal families and shared about how my little sister died but I knew that my family would be together again. They started crying. I guess their dad died a few years ago and they have been really sad about it lately. It is so important to follow the spirit.

 

This week was a little hard when we went to teach our 15 year old investigator. He had all of these crazy questions and didn`t read the scriptures. It made me really sad. However we just focused on the doctrine and the next time we visited him, he was super happy. He even read more in the Book of Mormon than we asked him to, marked different scriptures and remembered to pray to God. I loved seeing the difference.  

 

I feel like for my mission I have really high expectations of what I can do here. A lot of times I am really hard on myself becaue I do not reach them. However, I am getting better at being the missionary I want to be and that Heavenly Father wants me to be as well. I am so glad that we can continue to progress in this life and be better and better. How great is the plan that Heavenly Father created for us. It is PERFECT!!!!!! 

 

Well I hope you all have a great week and I will as well. Whenever tmes get tough I know that I am not alone. I also eat a choco banana. They are so good!!!! Thank

you for your love and support.

 

Hna. Gurule

Happy Day!!

Hello!!!! I am really happy today. It is always nice to write and reflect on how my week went. I do this everyday as well in my journal but this way I can look at everything for the week. 

 

Last Monday I had to wake up at 4am to go to the mission office. I did not know why but we went to immigration and I took a picture for my VISA. I am not sure if I have it or not but it was nice to go there because there were missionaries there from all over Guatemala. That means that I got to see some of my friends from the CCM. I love hearing about their missions and what they are doing. It is amazing how you can know people for such a short amount of time in the mission and know them so well.

 

The Ensign- Conference Edition

We seem to make tortillas a lot in the mission. I am getting better and better at it. They are actually round now and are not super thick. I love doing sevice for people and in doing so I, learn to do a lot of different things . We also went with members this week to do their visiting teaching. You learn a lot about members in doing that and it is not always things you want to know. I am greatful to be there to help them though. 

 

Every week we have a NDH with a family, they are super strong in the Ward and help us a lot. The problem is that they always have dinner for us and we only have time for the lesson so we get home a little late. Luckily it is before 9:30 and they have a car to drive us. That is basically the only time I dive in a car in the mission. 

 

This month is the month of the fair. They celebrate the whole month long and the streets are all blocked off. For this we even have chruch earlier at 8am. This Sunday we were taking a lady to church who didn`t have money for the bus. We got to her house at 7 to walk with her. Being in the mountains it was all up hill and we did not eat because it was Fast Sunday. I was fine though because at that time and the rest of the day I was not hungry and I had a lot of energy. It was a testimony that if we do the work of the Lord we will be blessed.  

 

This week a lot of our investigators have had a lot of different interesting questions. I love it! It is really fun to search the scriptures for answers to their questions. Once I find the answers it is really easy to teach them because we read from the scriptures and I bear my testimony about it. I love it!!!! The scriputres are so powerfull. 

 

This week I also made a cake. Today is the birthday of an elder in my district. For some reason the elders asked me to make the cake and they do not know if I can cook. Luckily I can but it was a little different not having all that we do in the states. I think it turned out well though. They wanted a USA cake with no fruit.  

 

Well I am loving working here. There is only one week until transfers so who knows if I will still be in San Juan or another place. I am excited for the progress this area is making and soon it will be the strongest in all of Guatemala. 

 

Remember to read the scriptures and pray. I love you all and thankyou for your support.

 

Hna. Gurule