April 17, 2012

Well this week was great. The main success was the baptism of the Alvarado family. They were old and so their feet kept coming up out of the water so we had to do the hermano twice and the hermana 4 times. But it felt great and I’m glad I got to be a part of that baptism. We have finally found a new apartment. It is two good sized rooms with a bathroom and a sink out back. It is so nice and clean but we can’t move in until May. We did find out that the person that is kind of the co-landlord is an inactive member and that her family is all non-members. So we will try and work on that, and the new landlord called us and told us in English (because that is his first language) that he is a bishop in Canada and that he really would love it if the missionaries lived there. And the new house is in this nice gated community so it is going to be way nice and quiet. So we just have to live in our house for another couple weeks. We did find a new little friend on our back patio last night. This morning we bought it a cozy little rat trap. And this morning there was no water which actually happens a lot here. So we can either do bucket showers or just stand each other. It does say in the handbook to shower daily IF POSSIBLE.
Anyways we have been pretty busy with the baptism this past week so this week we are going to try and get some baptismal dates and we are going to try and work hard to find more investigators. We are all having a great time here and we are seeing success. I think we might be going to the temple next week but on Tuesday so that will be our Pday. So just in case it isn’t, still write me on Sunday and you just might not hear from me until a day later than usual. But we are excited to go because some of these elders haven’t been in like 6 or more months. I went 3 and a half weeks ago. Which by the way I can't believe it has almost been 3 weeks in the field, and almost 3 months since I left on my mission. The time is already starting to just fly by so fast and I can’t believe it is pday again!
Dad, I’m glad your knee surgery was a success and I’m glad it is better. Mom says I need to challenge you to a race when I get back. I think I would love to take a nice week long break but if I did that here I would have no idea what to do with myself. I do think I felt an earthquake just a small one like last week sometime in the morning. It just felt like they had like a steam roller outside but I thought I would ask about any earthquakes. So yeah last week in the morning sometime, I don’t remember the day exactly. Southern Mexico is would be like 3 or 4 hours away on a freeway (which they don’t have so it takes about 20 hours) so we aren’t too far away. Mom I fixed my comp some mac and cheese last night and that’s really about all I have ever cooked. I was going to ask you and grandma to send me some recipes and maybe I would be able to find the ingredients. I don’t have an oven just a little plug in stove and a microwave. So keep that in mind when you are thinking of recipes to send me.
In church we just go with the flow. We go to sacrament and then to gospel principles and then to elders quorum. Principles of the gospel is just for our investigators so we have about 8 people in the class and usually the ward mission leader teaches it but they got a new one yesterday so we had to teach. And yes we had our baptisms Saturday. We have about a good handful of investigators that are progressing but we are still trying to get new ones. It is hard because everyone thinks they are too busy to have us for 10 or 20 minutes. But we are working on it. And on our way to appointments we try to contact and we might have and hour or two set aside just for contacting. We have been able to walk across all our area, but there is one area across a river that w are not sure is ours or not. Me and my comp like to talk or sometimes we go visit the zone leaders they are our really good friends and we will probably be with them today until we have to go out and work again. Sounds like everything is great at home. I love hearing about what is going on so you can always send me dear elders and mail. The address I gave you all last week is the best one. And give out my email to friends and family they can email me and I can print it off and write back a letter. Thanks for all you guys do and it really makes my day to get mail and dear elders! Love you all

-Elder Kilts

 

April 15, 2012

So things are going really great here. I’m enjoying my new area a lot and I am loving the people a ton. Yes we are still having the baptism this week so all they have to do is pass the interview on Friday. Let’s all cross our fingers, I think if they are supposed to get baptized the spirit will help them. My first Sunday wasn’t bad at all. The chapel here is super nice it’s just that there is tile instead of carpet. But it would be considered a beautiful church anywhere in the world which is cool. There were only about 90 members there so there aren’t many people but other than that it’s pretty normal. And it is a ward and we have a good stake here in Molino. We had 3 investigators with us at church and they all seemed like they had a good time. Easter is pretty chill for the LDS people here. But for all the Catholics it is a week long holiday called holy week. Everyone here gets Wed. through Sunday off of work. They have little parades where they will carry big crosses or statues of Jesus and they will sing and it is pretty strange. It is hard to find anyone at home and all the people we contacted out in the street were from out of our area. But life is back to normal here. We didn’t really do anything here. I found some jellybeans in the store and so I opened those up yesterday for Easter, but we really didn’t do much. It sounds like everyone back at home had a great Easter. Sam you are lucky I have always wanted to go to the Grand Canyon. And I wish I could have been at home with all of you for Easter it sounded like fun. I have not gotten my package yet, when did you send it? I will let you know when I get it. So my companion has been out for 13 months. He started off here in the cap in zone 18 and he was there for 6 months and then went to Polochik in Koban. And then he came here and he is the DL. My area is probably 3 or 4 miles wide and 2 or 3 long. We have a huge hill in the middle and low areas on two sides of the hill. And we aren’t sure but there is another hill on the border of zones 6 and 18 and it has a good number of houses but we aren’t sure if it is in our area. You can look it up on google earth if you want. It’s a neighborhood but there is no space in-between the houses and there are no lawns or anything. So LOTS of houses and people; they are squeezed in here like sardines. We have a good strong handful of investigators and a few that are new or dwindling. A typical day is wake up at 6:30, work out shower and eat breakfast, personal study from 8-9, comp. study from 9-11, language study from 11-12, proselyte from 12-1, lunch for an hour, and proselyte after lunch until 9 when we come home and have dinner (if we haven’t already been fed) and plan. Pdays we go shopping in the morning, go to the church at 10 for a few hours to play soccer, we come here and email, then we go to eat somewhere and shop for whatever we need and hang out with the district and we hit the streets at 6. And we are going to see a house tomorrow and if we don’t like it we are going to move into this newish small one. So only a few more days in our dirty cockroach nest. Anyway I can't send pictures today, I forgot my camera, but hopefully next week I can send some of the baptism! I can only send photos thru email as far as I know. We can't really go on other sights. And yes mom I'm well taken care of. I have a brand new pillow and I have plenty of bedding stuff. And I might take all of the money off of my card because it costs $2 here to do it and everyone just uses cash so I will just get it all out at once one of these days. Thanks for all you guys do and I hope to hear from you all. Send me lots of letters and dear elders it really does make my day to get that stuff! And mom you can give my email out to family and friends that is probably more convenient for most people and I will just answer back in a letter. Love you all!!! –Elder Kilts

Provo District

CCM District

Guatemala Templo

Out and about on pday

CCM mission pres and wife

Ogden Missionaries!

First Day out in the Field!

First week in my first area!

Hey how is it going? My new area and my new comp are both awesome. So I'm serving in the capital, Guatemala City. They send most nuevos here and there are 90 missionaries serving in the capital and about 90 serving everywhere else. So I may or may not get to be up in the jungle during my mission. President Watts takes assignments very seriously with lots of prayer so my assignment is inspired. My area is called Santa Luisa, I can't take pictures during proselyting so I don't have any pictures of the area. Just look it up on google. Santa Luisa Guatemala city, zona 6. My new comp is elder Llewelyn from Sandy, Utah. He is a great guy and I love serving with him. We have 2 baptisms lined up for the 14th and the two people are awesome so we believe it will happen. We are both new to the area and the last elders left nothing for us so we are starting off fresh with what little we know of the area. For the first few days we didn't even know the boundaries until the ward mission leader took us around. Our apartment is very small and its very messy and has lots of bugs. We got the okay to find a new apartment so we have been doing that. But its a great area, the members are awesome and I love it. We have plenty of groceries and one of the rules is to eat at a comedor every day except p-day and Sunday so that we get more than cereal and beans and mac and cheese. But the members take great care of us as well. I can't remember going to a members house and not getting some kind of snack or drink or something. And its all really good too. So we love it.
Conference was amazing we got to watch every session in English and it was just amazing. So much on the family and the importance of the family. My favorite talk was Elder Holland's with the parable of the day laborers. He's definitely my favorite. But my favorite part was at the end of the Sunday morning session when the mo-tab sung come thou fount. That is absolutely my favorite and such a great way to end such a great session. So about letters and stuff, the address you already have is good for the whole 2 years. I will put it down again at the end but they really don't deliver mail anywhere but the main parts of the capital. So just always sent packages and letters there and I will get them the same week that they get to the mission office. Dearelders too. So that's how you do it for the next 21.5 months. Or mom you can give out my email address and I can print the email and send a letter back or just respond if I have time after writing my family. My p-day is always on Monday unless I ever become an office elder, and I get an hour now so I have the time. I really want to hear from you all. It always makes my day when I hear from my family and friends. Kody, I have a letter for you but when do you leave BYU? I should probably just send it to your house in Oregon. What's your address? I just don't know if you will be in Provo when it gets to you so I won't send it yet. But yeah its been a great week and I miss home a lot and two years seems like a lot especially compared to all the other elders that have like less than 6 months left, but it is worth it and I love the work. Hopefully I can hear from a lot of you over this next week, and I will get back to you. Have a great Easter and remember what it is all about and what we should be thinking about. Love you all.

Love,

Elder Kilts