Week 51: In General

Happy Birthday, Dad (and Summer)!

It takes forever for mail from the U.S. to get to Guatemala, but I finally got another letter from Mom!

And happy late birthday to Mom. I happen to know a lot of people with October birthdays, so I might be mentioning them a lot this month. Get ready to celebrate, is all I’m saying.

Also a mysterious package. With letters! Thanks to the Jordan North 6th Ward Young Women and their leaders.

This has been a fun week, as my weeks usually are here in Xela. We’ve had some really awesome lessons, eaten some really good pupusas, and baked! Sadly, no photographic evidence of the cookies. Yet again, we just keep on eating them before I think to take a picture for all the world to see. But they tasted really good!

Here’s all of Bosque after a combined district council.

On Saturday night, I was having serious cravings for a Frosty. I decided to order one, but here’s the thing: Takeout Wendy’s in Xela only offers a one-liter bucket of Frosty. The size of a liter did not really register to me until I had the Frosty on my desk in the apartment, but it was incredibly satisfying, in the typical Frosty way. I love comically large portions of food.

Our district!

Speaking of Saturday … General Conference was this weekend? And it was such an absolute blast! I’m also a wee bit nervous, because that means that the next conference will be going on in the week I’m getting ready to … um … go home from my mission. But we don’t have to think about that hahahaha. Especially since a whole lifetime of stuff happened between the April conference and this one (although time did actually pass fairly quickly too and I’m a little psyched out). All of that aside, it was a really rewarding and refreshing experience. I got 18 pages of notes, and I’m sure that in the coming months, I'll find even more gold nuggets as I study. Which talk will be the one I constantly quote and reference within these next six months during lessons? Vote on your phones now!

It was such a blast spending the day in Panorama with Hermana Ney!

I always love Elder Gerrit W. Gong’s messages, and his most recent one is no exception. One of my favorite quotes was when he said, “Trust becomes real when a person does hard things with faith.” I think I’ve mentioned it before in my weekly emails, and I’ve definitely talked about it with a lot of people in person throughout my mission, but when you have faith, you do something about it. Especially if it’s hard. Because you trust God and what He has promised you. I think that the story from Matthew 14 that Elder Carlos G. Revillo Jr. mentioned illustrates that really well:

25 And in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went unto them, walking on the sea.

…

28 And Peter … said, Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water.

29 And he said, Come. And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water, to go to Jesus.

30 But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me.

31 And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?

The Lord trusts us, but that relationship is still a two-way street. Sitting in the boat — or on the sidelines — might make the things we have to do seem easier, but the actual action can be overwhelming. And the falling we can experience is scary and hard. But the good news is that he will always be there to catch us when we fall. His arm is outstretched. We just have to make sure that we’re willing to take it.

Catch me exactly matching the exterior walls of buildings.

— Same as always,

Hermana Newton