Week #8........Blessings in English and Spanish, new investigators, and lots of fried chicken.

Hello Family and friends,

What a week I had this week….From blessings in English, to blessings in Spanish, to sweet new investigators, to a dead guy, and lots of fried chicken. Let me start off with the blessings. The first one was for a way sick little girl. I gave that one in English because she was only 6 months old so I felt more confortable in English. The next blessing was in Spanish for a dude who got shot 3 times and had flesh wounds from an axe. He got shot and a crazy guy hit him with an axe so we gave him a blessing. I said it in Spanish and have no clue what I said but I think it was good because I felt the spirit a bunch. Next…. we have 10 awesome new investigators and we hope to start baptizing them all soon, so stay tuned for next week. Every 4^th week we have combined church with three other little branches in our district. It is a 2 hour bus ride down a winding dirt road mountain…. so nuts. On our way to church we see this car hit a motorcycle head while riding the bus and the bike exploded and the guy died….it was so sad. After church we hit a dog and killed it again ….way sad. I kid you not in Jocotillo there are more stray dogs than people and fried chicken...... I love the stuff just as much as the next guy but eating the stuff everyday gets real old. There is 2 tiendas (stores) in Jocotillo and one place to eat. The place is called Pinulito and it sells two things; chicken and fries. Its good but I really hate that place. You will see in the pictures that I’m not smiling; it is because I hate pinulito. hahahahaha anyway here in Jocotillo we do hand wash our laundry with dirty water, and I swear the clothes come out dirtier and stinker than originally. It rains everyday, all day so when we get home we are already soaked and the rain is cleaner than the water we shower in, so we kind of just shower outside. haha well I shower my companion isn’t a huge fan of the whole clean thing. On P-day this week I woke up mopped the floors put up our bug nets because I get eaten alive and did laundry. I’m learning how to be patient here in Guatemala, my companion is pretty mean but I’m learning to be friends with the spirit and just be kind to him no matter what.

Spiritual thought- people here in Guatemala drive for hours and hours to get to church just to eat a piece of bread and drink some water. But sacrament is so much more than that, and I’ve learned to appreciate that here, the santa cena (sacrament) is so important every week because we renew our baptismal covenants. So next time you partake of the sacrament think of the sacrifices made by the Savior to allow us to make sacred covenants.

Have a great week and Thanks for all the sweet emails,

Love,

Elder Peacock

I do not like Pinulito...I eat it everyday.

Jake and his trainer

Riding on the side of the bus

Week #7 .........Jocotillo dirt roads and crowded busses.

Dear Family and Friends

What a week. I can put no words to describe anything about Jocotillo. The best way to describe it is camping with church clothes and people you don’t know whom you can’t communicate with. haha wow good ole Jocotillo. Its 100% dirt roads and shack houses. Dogs everywhere. Most of them are missing a limb or are hurt because the people here abuse the dogs, super sad. My companion is all right; he is a good missionary as far as teaching goes. He teaches well but as far as a person he doesn’t talk to me or answer my questions. He’s the district leader so I always have to go to meetings with him, but I’m cool with it because the more it sucks now the more blessings I will get later on.

Yesterday was P- day and we played soccer... I’m awful at soccer against white kids back home; you have no idea how stupid I look playing against Latinos. They always want me to punch the other team because that’s all they think I’m good for haha. As far as Spanish goes I’m real bad but better than last week. I’m getting a little better at teaching and understanding, unfortunately most of the people have no teeth so its hard to understand them let alone their language Some gross stuff... so here in Guatemala you cannot flush toilet paper because it clogs all the water for the whole city. So we have a garbage bag of used toilet paper haha so freaking gross. There are so many huge spiders its stupid. They are tarantula sized and there are a million of them. Also people here will just breast feed there children whenever and in front of everybody so I was a little taken back by that haha Guatemala is definitely different. Also the pineapple here is the BEST food I’ve had ever. I don’t even like pineapple and I eat one a day by myself.

So to get from one area to another we ride public busses with 4 people a seat haha, it is nuts and we contact on busses so it’s real crazy. The seats are way small, I kid you not the Latinos are getting squashed and I don’t even attempt to sit because my knees touch my forehead when I do. I just stand and duck my head because my head hits everything here. Funny story, in stalls at public bathrooms I have to be careful because I can see right over the stall.

We meet a family this week the mom is 33 and has 11 kids. 11!! That’s like a butt load of flipping kids. Anyway they wanted nothing to do with us just like most people here. Most people in Jocotillo own there own church, so people don’t love us. There is a few exceptions, with a few families. There is one family 3 sisters who have 4 kids a piece and a grandma. They love us an are progressing, but we need these people to get married before they have more kids so they can get baptized, so please pray for them to feel the spirit.

Spiritual thought  - Why is keeping commandments important??? because God commands them. Sometimes a commandment might seem crazy or you don’t know why, but it’s vitally important that we keep commandments no matter what. They are there for a reason to protect you and for you to show your faith to your Heavenly Father. “We love God because he first loved us.” I know this to be true God wants us to be happy so he gives us guidelines in order to accomplish eternal happiness

Have a great week,

Love,

Elder Peacock

Jake and Elder Marler

Dude...what?

Selfie of Jake's district

Elder Huaman taking a Selfie of the district

Jake and Elder Huaman

Week #6 ....Pray Always, If you need something pray- grateful prayer, happy prayer, sad prayer....just pray!

Family and friends,

Hola from El Jocotillo Guatemala!

This place is nuts 100 percent dirt roads and not a white guy within 50 miles of me. My comp is Elder Huaman from Peru, (womahn). He knows 0 English and is 5 ft. tall. He talks insanely quick and I can never understand him. The last week in the CCM was awesome but leaving sucked I left so many great friends and missionaries. These Elders are going to change lives. We had a 45 min bus ride to the mission home where we meet our trainers. I meet president Markhamn and his wife, I love them already, and they are so cool. Then after that we met with our district, myself and my comp, two sisters, and another comp with elder Marler. I’m so happy that Marler is in my district because we are both way freaking confused. We are in different areas though 45 minutes apart. Jocotill is all dirt roads in the mountains by El Salvador. I kid you I feel like I maybe the first white person these people have ever seen. Little kids come and touch my skin and look at my eyes. It’s amazing to see their reaction. The people are nice I think. They call us conches. (That is like white boy.) They laugh anytime I say something so that make me feel stupid, but I laugh along. My companion is different. Our house is bigger than usual missionary homes because on Sunday it also doubles as the Church. I haven’t had church yet but I’m sure it will be cool. Everybody knows the missionaries but most of them yell so I think that means they don’t like us. The house has the biggest bugs you have ever seen – Cockroaches, Spiders, Rats, you name it hahaha - so gross. My bed is just a matress with no sheets or blankets, so mom I might need that. There are a bunch of pineapples here. You ask where someone works they say piñas. That’s all I usually get out of our meetings is that they work with piñas. If you don’t mind I’d love if you keep me in your prayers because I need so much help with Spanish.

Spiritual thought - The book of Enos, president challenged us to read it everyday for 30 days. It’s an awesome book (only 27 verses). And it’s about Enos praying in faith and receiving the things he needs due to his immoveable faith in God. I think this applicable to everyone, pray always, if you need something pray, grateful prayer, happy prayer sad prayer. Through Faith is the only way we can progress. I know this with all my heart, and even when its pouring rain and I haven’t understood a thing in a week, I know to pray and give thanks and ask for strength.

Love you all so much and I hope you the best this week.

Elder Peacock

Two districts that left the CCM at the same time!

Elder Norting, Jakes 1st companion

Jake's District

Jimmy and Jake, They grew up together in Herriman and were able to spend 3 weeks in the CCM together.

Jake somewhere is Guatemala!

His new living arrangements - El Jocotillo 

Week #5.......Be Faithful and the Blessing will come in Abundance

What’s up my peeps?

This week was pretty fantastic but let me start with the best story… so you all thought I was going to go a week without knowing the score to the BYU game... hahaha your funny. So Saturday sucked I got homesick but not for my family just Taysom, Tanner, and Jamal. So it was Sunday and I go up to the president and ask him is he knows how the BYU game went, he says he did. I was like well tell me, and it was fast Sunday so he said if you bear your testimony in perfect Spanish I will tell you the score. …. Then that’s a deal. So I stood up there and did 3 minutes of flawless Spanish because I was going to find out how that game went. So ha jokes on him,. So he told me and I got a little giddy because of the results and I proceeded to freak out a bit, but I regained composure shortly. hahaha This week has been sooooo rainy, like insanely so that’s cool, the rain is so warm here. My companion and I are getting good at teaching. We made our teacher who is also our investigator cry because she felt the spirit so strong. I can understand Spanish pretty good and but my respond however is extremely simply. There are only 2 district that have been here 5 weeks and we are good friends with them, so we mess around with them…. we have these water bottles and we take off the lids and hurry and flip them over upside down and put them on their desks, and they don’t ever know how to get them off …haha so they spill all over themselves. They are cool kids and they have fun with it. So during the downpour one night I was balling up as usual and i came down and rolled my ankle pretty good and hyper extended my knee. That hurt haha but the swelling is going down now so I’m good…. mom.

A spiritual thought for you guys this week is Ether 12 - I love this chapter, it talks about faith and needing to show our faith before God blesses us. I love how it talks about how only after faith was the brother of Jared able to move the mountain, and if he had not of had that faith the mountain wouldn’t have moved. So I encourage all of you to read this chapter and try and be more faithful in your lives. Don’t look for blessings then be faithful - be faithful and the blessings will come in abundance.

Love all you guys so much! Have a great week

#GO COUGS

Love Elder Peacock