Week 6---Mountains to Climb

Dear Darla----er I mean friends and Family,

 

It has been so good to be able to hear from all of yous in the past week, and I am so grateful for all of your love and support!  

 

But, anywho, things are going super well down here in Albuquerque! Things have been nice and warm, and we have even had a few wicked Thunder Storms! (Albuquerque has some of the best on earth in my not-so-professional opinion). I took some pictures and a video, but I didn't bring my camera to the computer, so next week! Also, a bit of exciting news, Elder Jewett's and my birthday are only a day apart (his is Sept 2nd, mine is the 3rd) and one of the members told us to come over and she would make us a birthday cake! And we like cake. A lot. And so needless to say we are very excited for this next week!

 

Things are going so well though down here and the people are still as amazing as ever! Although seeing some people's situations and their problems is heart-breaking at times. Several of our investigators/less active members have had, or currently are in, situations that would have been hard for me to imagine before coming out here. And at times I wonder "How can I help these people? I am just an 18 year-old kid, and I have never been in a situation like this before." And honestly that bothered me a lot until I realized something: That I can't to a thing to change their problems or situations, but there is somebody who has been through it before and that He can help us no matter what! And sometimes that's a pretty big leap of faith for us as missionaries; because we have the tendency to think that we can take the world on our shoulders and solve everybody's problems, while in all reality we can't. All we can do is to show them where they can look for that help.

 

Changing pace a little bit,  a couple of really good things have been happening in the past week with our investigators. In Fact, this past Sunday Elder Jewett and I had our first investigator come to church! Wooh! We have quite a few (7 ish) investigators, but our main problem has been getting them to come to church, and so to have even just one of them come it sure brightened my day! Also, we have two investigators with Baptismal Dates now! The date has been set for September 28th, and we are praying that everything works out for them! We were also able to find two new investigators this past week, and we have a really strong potential to have three more by the end of the week! 

 

 Sorry it seems like I have been jumping around a lot in my letter today, but I just want y'all to know that things are going great down here! The people are awesome! The food is awesome!  And I am so grateful to be out here representing the Savior of the World!

 

Till next time--

Elder Guymon

Week 5--- Changes for the Better

Yah-Te* Everybody! (*how you say "hello" in Navajo)

I hope all is going well with you in all of your assorted locations and lives! It's been so much fun to have gotten to hear from all of yous in the past couple of weeks! Thanks to the ward members from back home who have been emailing me! It brings a smile to my face to here from all of you! :) Keep up the good work!

Well anywhooser things are going pretty amazing down here in Albuquerque! I can't believe that I have already been here for close to 5 weeks! I guess time flies when you are having fun ;) Hmmm.... what to say next... things are going pretty awesome here in the Los Altos Ward (the name of my new ward)! We had Stake Conference last Sunday, and our first Sacrament meeting in the ward yesterday! What has been really cool about both of those meetings, is that all of the talks in all of the meetings were focused on Missionary work!! It has been so cool to see the leadership in our stake really take a focus on missionary work! I just pray that some of that focus will carry over to the wards!

On a slightly different note, things this past week have been both difficult, but they have also been super rewarding! It has been difficult because as we have tried to contact people, they have either dodged us or just say that they are just not interested and ask us to leave.... :/ hmmm...but its cool! Free Agency right? :) But I don't want to be a negative nelly :p Despite people not wanting to listen, things have also been going really well for all of our investigators, less-active members, and referrals! As far as the investigators, this week we doubled the amount of investigators that we had (from 3 to 6), and the investigators we have had in the past seem more open to truly listening to what we are saying. As far as the less-active members, we had 3 of them come to church this past Sunday which is 3 times as many as usually come, and as far as the referrals go some are actually panning out for us!

Oh and one of less-active members who has been coming to church more and more said something that makes the harder days a little bit easier to bear! He said:

"You know guys, I have a lot of respect for the both of you! I have really appreciated having you come over to my home and bring the Spirit with you. Although you are half of my age, I have a lot of respect for you, because you have changed my life and for that I will be forever grateful! I have a lot of respect for you guys because you have given up two years where you could be doing something that's not so good, and have chose to help other people and I am grateful for that!"

And sorry, I didn't mean for this story to be an ego-trip about my companion and I, but I just wanted to say that I am so grateful to be where I am at! And although sometimes difficult times come, its good to remember that when we think outside of ourselves, things will get better!

---Well anywho it's always sunny in Albuquerque

-Elder Guymon

Week 4--- Wait What??

Ahoy Ladies and Gentlemen!

It's been a pleasure to be able to hear from all of you this week! :) Things have been going pretty awesome in the place called Albuquerque! Well this week has been a pretty frabulous week methinks! We were able to meet a lot of new people and talk with the members of my new ward more! Oh and oops I neglected to mention in my last email that the ward that I was in got split, and so now I am no longer the  ward with 900 members in it!  But on a positive note, the Bishop is fantastic, and our new Ward Mission Leader (WML) is actually from North Logan as well, so who-da thunk? What brought my WML (and most other Utahns) out here, is a place called Sandia National Labs. Sandia, as it's called,  works mostly with the Federal Government in the development of nuclear weapons, and other defense contracts.

Yep, but anywho things are pretty dang good here! We are now in the same ward as our Zone Leaders! Our Zone Leaders, Elder Weber and Elder Hansen, are some of the best missionaries there are and so it has been a real treat to be able to work with them out here! 

     One thing that our Zone Leaders have asked us to do is to contact (find/talk to/get to know) 10 new people each day, which is actually a lot harder than it sounds! But as we have been actively striving to meet that goal, we have gotten to meet so many cool people! For example we bumped into this 60 year-old man from Chihuahua who was jogging very slowly at a near by park. As we offered him a water bottle (one finding technique that we use) he motioned for us to come and run with him. And so we did. In full proselyting gear. Around the park..... Hahah but he was actually a really cool guy named David (Dav-eed), and to our observations we found out that he didn't speak any English... And so we tried to talk with him in our broken Spanish and see if he would want to meet with the Spanish speaking Elders. As we ran for like three more laps, we found out that he didn't want to us to come over and that he just wanted somebody to run with. Fair enough David. Fair enough.

 But anyways things are so good out here! My companion and I are getting along something pretty swell, we are staying busy, and we are doing our best to help people! The only thing that could make this any better would be -get ready for the guilt trip- I would absolutely love to get more letters or emails from more of you though :) I always do love to hear from yous so if you get a chance, mail me up!

Any any who, I am so happy to be out here on my mission and serving the Savior of the World. I have seen him change lives and I can feel him changing mine!

--Till we meet again!

Week Three--- People are Amazing (but would be cooler if we had superpower​s)!

Ahoy Friends and Familia!

Things have been nice and toasty here in East Albuquerque! ;) Thanks to all of yous who wrote me an email/snail mail! It always brightens my day to hear from you! Oh and my apologies to any of you whom I haven't written back, I will try to get those out ASAP!

So like the title says people are AMAZING!! Being a missionary out here in Albuquerque has allowed me to meet some of the most amazing people that I have ever met!

To kind of explain this I will relate to you a metaphor that I heard from a member down here: Whereas some cities have a "rich side" and a "poor side", Albuquerque doesn't have much of that. Albuquerque is like a patchwork quilt of some poor places and some rich places spread intermittently throughout!

I have seen this to be completely true! Just within my area, I have some very wealthy and very distinguished people, but I have also met some of the most poor and most amazing people that you will meet here on planet earth! I have met veterans from nearly all of the Armed Forces, and I even met a woman who was in an all-female battalion in WWII! I have talked with Navajo, Hispanic, Tai, African Americans, and even some white people ;)! And from my experience, I have come to the solemn conclusion that people are all children of our Heavenly Father and they are awesome! Nuff said!

One of my favorite people out here (besides my companion) is a member named Luis! He is in his late 20's and is a retired-Marine, who loves to come out with the missionaries to visit people and teach lessons with us! He is one of the most blunt, honest, intelligent, and caring men that you will ever meet! He says some of the most goofy and the most profound things that you'll hear out of a human mouth! He has talked with us about his own life, his time in the Marines, counter intelligence (which is a super cool subject to study if any of you's are interested), and his experiences in the church. I know this is kinda a tangent, but I want to close-up with a quote from him. When asked about why he like to spend time with the missionaries he said: " You know I have spent a lot of time in the Military and have seen that the world will not be changed by weapons. The only thing that will change this world is the Love of Jesus Christ. And the reason why I like spending my time with you is that you (missionaries) do that. You spread that love, and you change the world!"

Friends and Family. I know I am getting kinda preachy ( I guess that's my job now :D), but I know that if we love people, and invite them to come to the Savior, the world will change.

Anywho, I love you all, and I look forward to hearing more about you!

--Elder Guymon