Antorchísima...[Oct. 27, 2014]

Hola,
Well, we had quite a short week, I feel. Not a whole ton happened until Saturday. On Saturday we didn't have a single appointment. This led us to wandering around the street looking for people to teach after the english class that no one came to.

However, I am so glad that we had this opportunity to wander around. If not, we wouldn't have gone to a colonia that we've never been to before called antorchísima. It was a goldmine.

Once we got there, we looked for some less-active members that live by there. As we did this, we talked to a bunch of people on the street and every single one accepted the invitation to hear the gospel. We also met some super nice slightly drunk guatemalans that also wanted to hear our message.

Once we finally got to the less-active members, we had an interesting experience. Basically we talked with the member outside her house and she said she didn't want us to pass by because she claims to be catholic now. As we were talking, her husband came out and greeted us super friendly. He said, let's go inside and talk about your message. His wife did not have it worth anything. We ended up awkwardly leaving. Throughout this entire experience, I felt the love of God for her so strong and I was so disappointed that she wouldn't even open her heart a crack to let God in.

Sorry I don't have photos this week, the computer is acting strange.

Have an excellent week!
élder Seymour.

Same old, some new...[Oct. 20, 2014]

Hola,

Well, this week we had a few interesting things happen.

First, we had the first zone meeting that our zone has had in several changes... perhaps because I asked when we were going to have one a couple of weeks ago. It involved one of the members of the high council in charge of missionary work talk to us about how to be better at gaining the trust of the members, because that is a bit of a problem in our zone.

Next, we had an excellent first lesson with a contact. The only thing is that she is still married with another person that lives far away, and they never got divorced. I have never heard of anyone getting baptized in this situation, but I also believe in miracles, so we will see what will happen.

We actually have a family that comes to church every week which is something that we have never had before, so I am super excited to see them progress.

That about wraps up the week, so here's to another great one!

élder Seymour.

Soccer returns...[Oct. 13, 2014]

Hola todos,
This week brings another round of changes. However, I will be staying in the same area with my same companion, so everything is basically going to be the same. How grateful I am for that.

This new change will commence a new beginning, so to speak, in the work of salvation in this area. We are going to focus a lot more on having charity with all people and thus add a strong purpose and foundation to everything that we do as missionaries.

Sometimes it gets a little difficult in our area; especially since we don't have very many committed investigators. We often spend hours and hours in the streets because we don't have anyone to meet with. I've noticed that sometimes this gets my companion down a bit. For this, we decided to focus on developing charity. When we have it, although we still get disappointed at times, we feel happy to be able to do it.

We played soccer today for the first time in several months. It was quite fun and I didn't get injured.

Sometimes we look at someone else and see all their great attributes and want to emulate them, but I think that we really just need to focus on developing our own talents and work on those. That isn't to say that we can't overcome our faults. If we say that, we deny the reality and power of the Atonement. I am simply saying that at times we look at all the gifts that others have and ignore the fact that we have received great gifts, we just need to use them.

Have an excellent week!
élder Seymour.

Turtle at the edge of
one of the most filthy rivers
I have ever seen.

Closeup of turtle.

Half Moon...[Oct. 6, 2014]

Hola mis cuates,

Well, I learned how to make handmade flour tortillas from my companion. Now when I get back, I can forget how bad all of the earlier attempts at home were. You just have to use hot water with the flour and add vegetable fat (crisco - about 1/3 cup for every pound of flour). Also you have to flatten the tortillas with a rolling pin until they are almost paper thin.

Well, I got to see conference in english again. However, this time the internet was a little bad so we had some buffering pauses on occassion. It was especially awkward in the middle of a prayer... kinda ruined the spirit, but that´s life. One of the great things that I learned was the need to take responsibility and stop laying blame for things you could even slightly control, but didn´t. Frankly I could be doing a lot better in that respect.

Now I should probably explain the title a bit. One late afternoon as we were walking outside, I looked at the sky and noticed how the moon was half full. I thought about it a bit and it struck me how awkward a half moon really is. It´s not really pretty to look at or anything half full, it is just there. It is neither crescent nor almost full, just somewhere in between. I think we all feel like that at times. Not full, not empty, just there. However, with the half moon is the promise that this will not last forever. In fact, it really is just a tiny stage out of all the time that we have here. Even if you do feel useless, you won't be for long.

I hope we can all look forward to those great moments we do have, but even more important, I hope we can enjoy the moments we are currently in and simply live and learn.

Have a great week!
élder Seymour.

Half Moon

Ward Activity

8 Months

Finally found my name
on a full one

Making the dough

Flattening the tortillas...
 we didn't have a rolling pin!

Ready to cook...

...and cooking