He truly is golden

SHANE ALMOST SPLATTERED!? a la gran. puchica...

I did have a impression to pray for your guys protection, even as if it were angels watching over you, I'm glad I followed that one haha I don’t know what I would have done...
questions!
Right now we have someone wash our clothes for us and that’s nice, takes a lot of time off of my pday to wash clothes. I had to discard one shirt I can’t remember why but I guess it was destroyed. They are still white.
It wont let me view the video, it only gives and option to download it.
I have been writing but it takes a while to reach you and I don’t know how the office works if they have to sit on it for a while or whatever, but know that I am writing.
I'm getting plenty to eat. We cook for ourselves letting eat whatever I want...or have time to cook. Usually simple things. Sunday is my mac n cheese day. In the mornings I usually have cereal and a cup of instant oatmeal, only with yogurt in it! RICO!

This week has been pretty good, not too many news but a couple possibilities. TONS of contacting. I don’t know if you guys know but I haven’t had anyone be baptized yet in my over-six months here, but hopefully to high heaven that’s going to change in a couple of weeks. I don’t know if I told you all about Martin? His entire family minus himself, his wife and his smallest kid are baptized, long lost inactive members of the church. He himself is Evangelical...or however you say that in English and he prays like one. Or last lesson was about the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which is faith, repentance, baptism, Holy Ghost, endure to the end basically. When we were explaining baptism in the back of the Book of Mormon in Spanish is a dictionary of all sorts of terms and under baptism it used a word to describe it. Almost like a pact with God, a covenant. Ever since he has been telling me how much he truly wants to make a pact with his Father. He shared a story about a dream he had where he was cleaning a house and God appeared and told him to keep cleaning the house as to prepare for Him. I don’t remember it all but another part was there was a gate that he didn’t have a key to, so during the lesson when I used the example as Baptism basically being the key to Heaven it really hit him. Last Sunday was stake conference and he came. The only investigator to come on the bus ride to the other church he asked me when they were going to set up his baptism! He truly is golden, prepared of the lord and I’m so happy for him and so exited.

That’s the biggest story here; dang I’m still thinking about how Shane nearly got hit.....SHANE MY GOODNESS TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF! If something happened to ANY of you I don’t know how I would take it being so far away...

Well everyone knows that I love you and care about you. Take care of yourselves and stay strong, especially in the faith. Your dedication to the gospel and the teachings and examples of Christ is the most important thing to focus on.

Love you all

Elder Andrew Bronson

New companion and new area

Wow it really is interesting looking at those pictures, it always depends on the computer here but once again I will try to send ya guys some. The one with dad and puppy made me think of how much we have back in the States. Carpet...fancy comfy bed...puppies...ya know, and the rest. Hopefully if this computer wants to be my friend you can see my new living conditions. And hopefully someday I too will be as buff as Ethan Kellogg.

I did have a change this last Wednesday to an area called Santa Elena, I have yet to really know what it means but I think Elena is just a name so it wouldn’t be too hard to figure it out if so. Btw Santo, or Santa depending on the noun it describes means ¨Saint¨ or ¨Holy¨. My conditions here are a bit different then they were in Juana de Arco.

There, we had a family above us who was incredibly nice; our bathroom worked with a bonus of hot water in the shower, and in the kitchen was the pila (where you clean the dishes). Here, (not complaining just stating the facts) we live alone in a big garage type building, a small living space on the floor above. 3 rooms, one bedroom, one kitchen and one study room. The pila is down a flight of incredibly steep stairs, and down there too is our toilet and shower. For over 25 odd days now we have not had running water and have been using stored rainwater to do what needs be done. The shower, as you can guess is cold and most mornings I only have the courage to stick my head in and wash my hair and pits. Yum!

My companion is named Elder Segura and is a Latino. He’s a good guy but has a couple difficulties like getting up on time in the morning; nevertheless I hope we will get along. He’s been in this same area for

4 and a half months poor guy and by the end of this change he will have had 6 months of his whole mission here, a whole forth. Our bishop and ward leaders live outside the area and are pretty much out of walking distance except when we meet for church. We have few investigators but I've been putting my trust ever more on the lord and he has already blessed us. The last week, we, through a little bit of service, found a family who turned out to be long lost inactive members, with their father never having been baptized. Martin, the father, is an...¿como se dice? Evangelist? And prays like one and likes to preach to us during our lessons but we’ve been able to get passed that. Within the first week of meeting him we taught him the restoration and the plan of salvation, and he came to church. His son Wainer is an inactive but he listens intently to the lessons and he with his father came to church this week. Yesterday we were looking for an investigator and at his door was another teenager who lived there named Henry. He let us in and we taught the restoration. At the end we gave him a Book of Mormon and he said that we wanted to read it.

Ever since changes to this more impoverished area, not knowing anybody, and living in a house that lacks a lot more of what I used to think of as essentials (ex: knives and bowls) I’ve grown a lot closer to the Lord and rely on him all the more. I’ve been reading Jesus the Christ and man! You can learn a lot in that book. Currently I think I'm around page 280ish.

Ok questions...

Oils? Hmmm I’ll check this week and tell you the next but I remember lavender, terrashield, digestzen, and.....more next week I guess haha I I already told you my situation with changes, but I could mention that Santa Elena is very very close to Juana de Arco, in fact I saw Elder Bowman today when we were shopping, him and Elder Winkle! Super-sadly my best buddy here on the mission Elder Smith se fue al Peten...i mean left for Petén which is at the very tippy top of Guatemala and I haven’t heard from him since...tear...we’ve been together since MTC Provo until now.

I might get my package this week but you never know, hopefully (or in Spanish Ojalá pronounced like ohhalA). As for this Brandyn character...have the boys text him up and see what he’s up to, I’ll be reading his email after yours so I don’t know this weeks situation yet.

Love love AMOR!!

Elder Andrew James Bronson

Answers!

Questions! Or more apropriatly…answers!

Care package...lemmy see. You said that you all had CDs to send me if I had a CD player right? Well I don’t have one now, but maybe you could send me a small one! Just a little one and then those CDs, maybe even a bunch of them. CD ideas being John Schmitt, Mormon Tab, and anything else completely awesome. The way I see it if it helps me think of Christ it can be just about any type of music ever. Oh another good idea would be batteries, I'm running low.

Actually when I had a nasty belly bug I used some Digestzen and I think it helped. I always use lavender when appropriate and I checked and saw that I don’t even have peppermint.

On a weekly basis I like to hear from any of the following: You and Brandyn. I also from now and then get emails from Trent, and Elders Ririe, Anhder and McCormick but not every week. Usually from Elder McCormick though. The emails and replies are usually really short little hellos that don’t take too much time.

We have transfers in two days, Wednesday but supposedly we don’t hear until Tuesday night which would be ridiculous because we would have no time to say goodbye to anyone in the area, pack and get ready so were thinking that it’s going to be tonight really late. I am currently in my first area still and very likely am out. I would very much enjoy that. I am sad that I might be splitting up with Elder Bowman though...these last 6 weeks have been some of the fastest of my whole life and its all thanks to him....he such a dork...I love him

How about some random occurrences just today!. We started the day with a giant water balloon fight which was way fun, then headed to the biggest Pizza hut I've ever been to. It’s a sit down restaurant here in Guatemala. SUPER FANCY. While we where there we were hit with a MASSIVE rainstorm that turned all the streets to rivers and the bus we took acted more like a boat making huge wakes in the street. Great fun!

Much much much much much love sent your way! I pray for you guys every night that you will be safe and successful in your doings. Please always stay united as a family and strong in the church. It’s hard on the missionaries if no one wants to attend sacrament meeting haha.  Just realize the spirit that is there and always follow gods will first. Things will work out.

SO MUCH LOVE

Elder Andrew James Bronson

6 Month Anniversary!!

I was just thinking of mailing you guys the memory stick once I fill it up a bit more...I guess ill just have to start taking more pictures I only have like 400 hehehe. I haven’t been able to find my first memory card for it but once I do, which I'm sure won’t be a problem if I just get down and search a little while which I haven’t had time to do. Don’t worry mama ill get you your well awaited pictures...

Elder Mark Daniel Bowman is a North American who has half Spanish blood and thus can sometimes fool people into thinking he is Latino which is pretty funny. Really he’s a really funny guy we end the day laughing our heads off at random stuff all the time. Sometimes its hard to be spiritual with him because he’s such a joker but it made the change here go faster than ever.

As for pdays we do what ever we need to get done. Essentials include buying food, emailing, cleaning the house, writing letters to family and cleaning clothes. If any time is left we take it easy for a bit.  Usually but not every time we have an activity where we go do something fun like dodge ball or capture the flag. That’s about it for pdays

New investigators we have a couple, but more than anything we have found a few old investigators. One is Miguel who’s in his young 20s and is planning to live in the US soon. He has a desire for baptism and is currently looking for work without Sunday shifts. He’s even reading the book of Mormon! Another just yesterday is Marco Antonio who has received all the lessons before but lost contact with the missionaries for a good 2 or 3 months. His sister was baptized a while back and is now...grumblegrumble...inactive. Her daughters come to church though. I don’t know if I told you all about Tere. She’s really close to accepting a date for baptism but she like all others needs to STOP WORKING ON THE SABBATH. Besides that all is fine and I’m really exited for her.

Alright now that the questions are hopefully answered I’d like to say that TODAY IS OUT 6 MONTH ANNIVERSARY!!!! And what better way in the world to spend it than at the HOLY TEMPLE!!!! it was incredible as always...I understand the Spanish spoken so well now that the session might as well have been in English, and kind of brought to memory all the times of going to the temple at home...good times.

Ok btw that was a fun little Charly Email I quite enjoyed it even the sunrise pictures were beautiful. Thanks Charly I miss you pup.

Oh last thing. We got sick last week! In the house for 3 days both of us with fevers but all is well now. I was just sad because we had so many nice appointments planned with Tere and everyone...dang.

Love you all and hope all is well and healthier at home! Getting ready for school already dang...good luck guys and have fun! I pray for you every night!

Elder Bronson

The work progresses with Elder Bowman

I want to start off by saying...SHANE DOESNT LOOK THE SAME AT ALL!! What happened to ya buddy? Far too much soccer and being awesome I guess but you my friend look SO DIFFERENT. I guess you guys might say the same thing about me too haha but we’ll see I guess. Awwwwww.... cute little charly dog...

So anyway those sunset pictures were amazing! The sky looked to be on fire wow. I haven’t had the opportunity to take any more sunset pictures so those will have to wait too... I'm in a different internet cafe so maybe a different computer will let me upload some pictures..? Maybe haha hopefully. Well the work and everything goes well here. Since I was with Elder Vargas we didn’t have anybody who was ready for baptisms but after 4 weeks with Elder Bowman and us working so much better together and so much harder we have a couple good people ready. Unfortunately changes are in another 2 weeks and there is a really big possibility that I will be in a new area and Elder Bowman will take the Baptisms. We had however re-activated a number of less active members and now they are strong in the faith once again, which brings just as great of joy. I’m so happy when people decide to let Christ in and allow themselves to change and ¨mejorarse¨ or better themselves.

This week for a letter I was thinking of drawing everyone a very asked for picture. Shane if I hear correctly wants a logo for his company-type-deal and Scott just wants a picture, maybe a person? I will draw Wesley one too and his is the one I have already started on and if I do say so myself its one of the better dragons I've ever drawn haha ;) if I can pull together some money and some time I’ll print off some pictures and put them in there too.

We’ve been doing a ton of machete service and I even got to sharpen and use my own machete for some of it. That kind of service really wears you out but is really fulfilling. I took some before and after pictures of some of it. If the pictures I’m trying to attach send work you will see me and my companion Elder Bowman and our complete domination of the ¨Monte¨ menise! Muahahah!

Well, I hope as always that life is good at home, everyone’s happy and healthy and safe and spiritual haha you aaaare saying your prayers right guys....? If not its SUPER SINCHO! Or maybe a little bit of CASTIGO ATTACK! Or something like that, please do so that you can get your darn blessings. I love love love you all and pray for you every night and day. Sean prudente, que mas puedo decir?

SO MUCH DARN AMOR

Elder Bronson

*still no pictures were sent :(