May 30, 2011

---

Hey,

I am almost out of deoderant and if you could love me enough to send me some more of the women´s extra strength deoderant that'd be lovely! Deoderant is wicked expensive here! It's almost 4 bucks! I was also wondering if Grandpa Al kept a journal on his mission? Mom, what are some good activities that Elder Nelson and I could theoretically do to get kids involved in a lesson or maybe in an FHE?

So this week has seemed like an absolute eternity! Not necessarily in a bad way; it just seems to go on and on and on...but I guess technically it's a new week. On Monday night we spent the whole night in the house because Elder Nelson could barely walk because of some bites on his ankle. Tuesday is exactly the same... we spent the WHOLE day in the house. It was SO boring! BUT, I finally finished the Book of Mormon... and I'm very sad to say that I think it was probably the first legitimate time reading though the entire Book of Mormon, front to back, by myself. Even worse, I started reading it back in September... the very beginning of September. So, it took me just about 8 months. My goal is to read it again, in Spanish, by the end of September. I love reading the Book of Mormon though! Before I finished it I would start reading it during breakfast... about 7:30-7:45 and wouldn't stop until about 9:00. It was fantastic! Read the Book of Mormon frequently! President Hinckley's promise from some 7ish years ago still holds true! If you read the Book of Mormon you will receive countless blessings! Do it!

Wednesday we finally got out to work! It was a good day! We had district meeting in the morning and then ate lunch as a district in a little restraunt type thing next to our house that was really good! (By the way, Elder Llewelyn and I saw each other EVERY day last week! And Today... so we're on at least an 8 day streak or something like that? Maybe more?) On Wednesday afternoon we had a lesson with a guy named Luis Medina who is about 28. He has been taught off and on from the missionaries since about December and has had several baptismal dates but they have all fallen through due to certain problems. But. He has a fecha (date) for the 11th of June! That night we also had a powerful lesson on faith with Mynor de Leon (husband of a member) with two other members present who were very helpful sharing testimonies and just over all befriending Mynor! As soon as he and his wife get married I'm sure he'll get married, we just want to make sure he does it with a testimony! After that lesson they fed us AMAZING tamales and we got SOAKED on the way back home. It took us about 15 minutes to walk down the hill and get home so we were pretty wet.

On Thursday morning I had my first bucket shower. Our cistern was out of water to we pulled up water with a bucket, put it in a bigger bucket, took it into the shower, and poured the water on myself slowly. It SUCKED! And that's how we've been showering ever since! Our weekly planning was very effective and we FINALLY found Jessica´s house(an investigator). She's read the testimonies at the front and she came to church on sunday, we went back and taught her Sunday afternoon with a member and set a fecha of June 21st, her 19th birthday!

Friday... I don't know what happened. Friday night there was a staketalent show and I realized that Guatemalan talent shows are a lot like the ones in the U.S... full of weird talents and a lot of dancing... but the Guatemalans did a whole bunch of dances to American music from the 20s, 50s, 60s which included some Elvis. It was so funny! The highlight was seeing Charlie Chaplin randomly showing up in the dance to the Charlston.

On Saturday we went to a place in our area called Carrizal which is way far away, but it was SOOOO beautiful! That's about it... I'll tell you all about Sunday next week.

Love, Elder LaPray!

First Baptism - May 16, 2011

This week as been really great. The more I accept the will of the
Lord, the more I feel a genuine welfare for the people, and the more I
forget about life back home, the "easier" things get as being a
missionary. Easier meaning that I´m not as downtrodden, upset, and
time seems to absolutely fly!

The rest of Pday last week went by just like normal, that's about it.
Although I did buy some Peanut Butter at Hiper Paiz (subsidiary of
WalMart and now officially WalMart) and it was the best purchase of my
life. SO good! I have made many a fine sandwich with my Jif Crunchy
Peanut Butter and it was worh the Q38 (about $5).

(THIS IS THE GOOD PART)
Tuesday morning was absolutely terrible. Okay, slight exaggeration,
but it wasn't great. For one reason and one reason only. And it really
only lasted for about 10 seconds. After breakfast I went to go brush
my teeth. Background. Usually I just leave my toothbrush case on the
counter, but we have a lot of bugs on the counter and I was worried
about bugs crawling into the holes of my toothbrush case so last
Monday night I decided to put it into the refrigerator. Story. I went
to brush my teeth on Tuesday morning. I got my tooth brush case out of
the fridge, opened it, and a cockcroach came flying out(not that
cockroaches fly, but the force of opening the case apparently it came
out onto the counter). That was gross enough, having a cockroach in my
toothbrush case. It got worse. There were cockroach larvae ON the
toothbrush head. Clearly that toothbrush went straight to the garbage.
It was absolutely DISGUSTING. Elder Nelson said that he would have
just cleaned it off really well and then used it anyway. I said HE-ck
no. I think that the cockroach crawled into my toothbrush case while
it ws open the night before and I was brushing. That´s my only guess
as to how it could have happened. The rest of the day was just
missionary work as usual. But there was a nice downpour on our way
home that night. It was pretty sweet.

Wednesday, the 11th - Happy Birthday DJ (that was the first thing in
my Journal entry for that day). On Wednesday morning I could actually
see my breath while I was doing exercises up on the roof. But it
wasn't really cold, I just thought it was cool that I could see my
breath. We did a lot of contacting this week! especially on Wednesday.
We talked to a 21 year old and a 12 year old (at the same time) about
the BoM and I think we may have sparked an interest there, let´s hope!
Things after lunch kind of fell through, but that's missionary work,
so we did some more contacting! Which is okay, because in order to
teach people you have to find them! We had a nice little chat with
Mynor and I think things are sort of progressing there, we need him to
get married though!

On Thursday I did splits with the District Leader because I had to
take him to Santos´ house to do the interview. I had a ton of places
planned to stop by and every single one fell through. Not a single
person was home in the 7 hours we were together! (With the exception
of Santos, which took up nearly 2), so we spent the majority of the
time walking to and from these appointments and doing some awesome
contacting! One of whom I ran into yesterday and she was very upset
that we didn´t pass by the day before (because of zone conference) but
Santos´ interview went well!

On Friday I had my first Zone Conference. We had to wake up at 5 to
get ready and travel to the Conference. It was a long day! But Zone
Conference was way good! My Spanish has improved a lot and I
understood almost everything that was said! And obviously almost all
of it was in Spanish! (with the exception of the small portions of the
talks directed only at Nortes). The rest of the night was pretty much
shot. Actually, that's a lie. We went to Santos´ house to go over
everything for the baptism and after we went to a Less Active families
and found an investigator there! We hadn´t been able to find her house
in the much time we spent looking and so we were able to teach her
again! We talked to her about the Restoration and invited her to be
baptized. We haven't set a date yet, but I'm hoping that we can work
with members a lot and set a date soon!

Saturday was a LONG day. I spent the whole morning in bed not feeling
well at all, and slept for an hour or two and read while Elder Nelson
got everything settled for the baptism which was awesome! We went over
to the church at noon to fill up the font and ended up waiting until
almost 2:30 until we actually got the keys so by the time we actually
got it filled up we had to go home to get ready to come back for the
baptism.

The service was really good! The talks given were absolutely fantastic
and I don't think they could have gone any better. The ordinance was
slightly... more difficult. As you may remember, Santos is 77 years
old. So, I was the one who performed the ordinance, but I made a few
mistakes. First of all, I raised my left arm instead of the right arm.
Duh, Elder LaPray. 2nd, when I got the arm situation fixed, I messed
up the words. 3rd, when I finally got it all right, I couldn't get him
under the water. Santos is an old man and he doesn't exactly bend so I
basically had to break the man´s back and almost trip him to get him
under the water. I felt so bad and stupid about it, but eventually it
all worked out and things worked out for the good. The rest of the
night was spent in the house because I still wasn't feeling very well.

Sundays are Sundays, and the morning goes pretty much like it would
for any other person in the world, except bringing people to church.
So we went to try to bring some investigators to church, went to
church, and stayed at church. After that we went home and at lunch,
went out and worked, and then studied for the rest of the night. It
was all in all a good day I suppose. Sundays are usually, not relaxed,
but different because we have 3 hours of church, so we don't get in
studying in so basically we got 6:30-12 with church, and then we have
lunch for an hour at 1 and we still have 4 hours of studying that we
have to do as I am being trained and so we really only have about 4
hours of proselyting work on Sundays.

This week is going to be good, I hope! We'll be working with what I
hope to be new investigators and setting baptismal dates for June! No
more baptisms this month, but that´s ok! I'm doing fine here in
Guatemala and enjoying the work!

Love,
Elder LaPray

When The Going Gets Tough...

This week has been absolutely crazy! I know that after I sent my last
email everything sounded all happy go lucky, and it was! But right
after that... maybe 30 minutes or so, I got really upset. I would like
to share that experience with you, because it´s as real as missionary
work gets.

This is a quote from my journal on May 2nd 2011 "We went to the
equivalent of Wal-Mat and I had a break down. I went and started
talking to Colton (Elder Llewelyn/my cousin) and just started crying.
Missionary work is hard. I just realized that 2 years is a long time
to be away from home, and I've only been gone for about 2 months. I´ve
only covered 1/12 of my mission. I also miss my family, a lot. In a
letter I wrote to a friend yesterday I said, 'I would love a hug from
my mom. And sometimes I just feel like I'm not cut out for missionary
work, or that I'm inadequate. But Colton said something to me that
helped. He related something his MTC teacher told him. 'Is Christ
still suffering? No. Christ only suffered for a little bit and then He
was raised to glory and He is no longer suffering.' From that I
realized 2 things. 1) I am going to suffer/struggle/sacrifice for a
little bit on my mission, but it won't be all the time and it won't
last my whole mission. 2) Christ suffered for me. In the Atonement He
felt exactly what I was feeling. He knows perfectly how I feel, how to
ehlp me, and how I can find the strength to carry on (See Alma 7:11-12
and Mosiah 14:3-5). As hard and challenging as this work is, and no
matter how much I may want to give up, I can go on, I will go on. Like
the Sons of Helaman, I have been taught by my mother; taught to
believe in the Lord, my God. Óur mother´s always taught us we should
never doubt. If we are true and faithful we will conquer now. Our God
will fight beside us, He will help us win. Our mothers always knew it,
we shall all come hom again.' Our Mothers Always Taught Us - Kory
Kunz"

I'm better now! On Tuesday we went and started teaching an
investigator named Santos. He is 78 years old and is very
excited/ready to be baptized. He knows a LOT about the gospel, we just
have to teach him a few more things. We also found a 7th Day Adventist
missionary later that day and that was very interesting. He said he
would be willing to listen to us and as long as we would listen to
him, but he didn't listen to us at all. So that was slightly annoying
and we is unwilling to accept that the Book of Mormon could be the
word of God. So we spent about 30 minutes "talking" to him even though
we were really just trying to ask him if he knew where an address was.
That was interesting. I also got a very strong spiritual impression
NOT to go into an area where we had several appointments and thus, we
did not go there. Who knows what could have happened, I just know what
did happen because we didn't go up there.

May 5th marked 10 weeks in the mission, as well as the day after my
Dad's birthday so, Happy Birthday dad 5 days ago from today. On
Thursday we had interviews with President Torres which was just dandy,
except when I broke down again. But things are all better now so don't
you worry about it! I was just preoccupied with life back home and how
long a mission is but life is good and the work is true!

I had two very interesting experiences with prayer recently. I may
have already said the one with Jose, but I think it was the Saturday
or Sunday before last Pday we stopped by Mario and Jose was drunk. We
asked Mario to pray at the end of the lesson and it was awesome,
except for Jose adding his "Amen"s "Please, Lord, Jesus" and stuff
like that. But right after Mario said Amen, Jose decided to start
praying. It was the most... interesting... prayer I have ever heard in
my life. He speaks English and Spanish and he just want back and forth
between the two really randomly and talked about Egypt, Pharoah,
splashing blood and the doors, and who knows what else. It was just
crazy. Then on Friday, the 6th, I had another great experience with
prayer. At the end of a lesson with our investigator, I gave the
prayer and this lady started saying her own prayer during mine. I
understand when people throw in "Hallelujah"s and "Amen"s etc, but she
just said a whole different prayer and so by the time I ended, she
just kept going until she was done. It was interesting.

My phone call back home to my family on Sunday was absolutely
fantastic! We went to church, and then pretty much the rest of the day
was spent studying. We went out for an hour to try to go to an
appointment, but it fell through and so did all of our back up plans.
Anyways, it was really nice to hear the voices of my family members!
Ellianna is way big and talking like crazy! I'm glad that she knows
I'm on a mission and prays for me on a daily basis. (Bytheway, thank
you to everyone who prays for me, no matter how often or not often, I
appreciate the prayers, as well as those for all missionaries). Alexis
misses me a lot, and I really do love and miss her too. And obviously
my parents are great and it was great to talk to them and hear about
life back home! (Spencer, Tom, Emily, you are not forgotten, I enjoyed
all of our conversations, but not necessarily anything to write home
about and put on the blog...) While I was writing in my journal last
night, I had an incredible feeling come over me that erased the pain I
felt earlier in the week (Monday and Thursday.. I know my Heavenly
Father. I may have not seen His face, per say, but I know who He is
and that He Loves me. I had a feeling of calm, peace, serenity, like
everything is going to be okay. Life is good in Guatemala! Pray for
the work! Hopefully we will have a baptism on Saturday for Santos
Chipix. As of right now we don't know who will be doing the baptism,
but Elder Nelson insists that somehow it will end up being me. I'm not
complaining.

Elder LaPray

P.S. If you feel the strong desire to send me a hand-written letter
the address to use is as follows, not the previously mentioned one

Elder Andrew LaPray
Misión Guatemala Ciudad Norte
Apartado #951-A
Guatemala, Guatemala
C.A.

Ode To My Mother

For starters, I'm definitely not a poet. I´m no Walt Whitman, but this
is the best I can do to express the words of love for my mom in
poetry, rather than just writing a letter.

It's been 2 months since I last talked to my mom. As far as life is
concerned, 2 months is not that long. As far as time without talking
to your mom when you are used to talking to her nearly every day, it´s
and eternity. I have two previously written thoughts I would like to
share, follwed by something new.

"I miss my mom. As the first talk in Sacrament started, I remembered
all the things my mom has done for me. She really is the best mom in
the world. I love you, Mom" May 8th, 2011 9:20 a.m.

" ´I want a hug from my mom´, and it´s true, I would love a hug from
my mom... As hard and challenging as this work is, and no matter how
much I may want to give up, I can go on. I WILL go on. Like the Sons
of Helaman, I have been taught by my mother; taught to believe in the
Lord, my God. ´My mother always taught me I should never doubt. If I
am true and faithful I will conquer now. My God will fight beside me,
He will help me win. My mother always knew it, I will come home
again.´ " May 2nd, 2011

This isn't anything special as far as poetry is concerned, but I wrote
it out of love for the woman who means the most to me in my life; my
mother.

A mother's love is one of a kind,
A mother´s love is something to find.
It´s nothing you´ll find on the shelf in a store,
A mother´s love is something much more.
I cannot say it appears all a sudden,
It grows, as you grow, with each passing day.
When you do something wrong, or do something right,
Her love is there, through the day and the night.
As you´re a child you feel it so strong,
But as you grow up you feel you´ve been wronged.
She leads you and guides you, through the good and the bad,
And as you turn her away, she´s inevitably sad.
The I love you´s get fewer, and far inbetween,
Until one you day you realize how silly it seems.
Your mother as loved you through thick and the thin.
She´s seeking your love and you just won't give in.
When all of a sudden, when she isn´t nearby,
You realized you´ve loved her and begin to cry.
She was there in sickness, and in health,
Your mother´s love is a source of wealth.
A mother´s love is never ceasing,
But love isn´t there for taking or leaving.
So take it, she loves you, you´re not here alone,
I found my mom´s love, When I left home.

I love you Mom.

The last TWO emails and some pictures!

Day before the Field!

This is it for Elder LaPray from the CCM! Tomorrow morning at about
8:00 I head out for the Mission home!

As absolutely thrilled and excited I am, I am really scared and
nervous! I wonder who my companion will be, what he'll be like, where
we'll be serving, how effective I will be, etc etc! I'm still kind of
nervous about Spanish too! Cool story, I just send Buckwheat (Alexis)
an email, and she responded back and so I sent her another short one..
it's almost like texting... but not nearly as fast or personal. Gosh,
I miss that little Punk. Lex, I hope you know I love you, I miss you,
and I think about you (you too Tom, Em, Spence, Elli, Mom, and Dad),
and I know that you guys think about me every day too (I hope).

We still don't know who the new APs are going to be so it's kind of
hard to know how we are going to be training tonight. Also, they
changed our companionships for like, 17 hours, which I don't
understand, so I'm sort of with Elder Dold (previously unmentioned)
but I'll be with Elder Willardson after 9:00 pm again tonight. Weird.
I don't get it.

I really don't remember a lot of the day to day stuff in the routine
anymore. These last 6 weeks have been a blur! I remember that Provo
felt like an eternity and I remember a lot from everyday, but here,
everything went SO fast and I don't remember lots of little details. I
think that's what happens when you start to lose yourself in the
service of others and the Lord. You lose track of time (because it's
not longer yours), and everything is given to the Lord. Plus, when you
enjoy something, the time passes as if it were nothing! And that's
exactly how these last 6 weeks of been! I have absolutely loved my
time with Elder Willardson! I'm going to miss working with him a lot!
We got along really well, we knew how to read each other in lessons,
and we taught with really great unity and were able to teach to the
needs of our "investigators" (a lot of the time). The great thing is
that we both go to BYU, and I know that somewhere in the next two or
two and a half years our paths will cross again (if not in the
mission, back in Provo). But I have a feeling that somewhere in the
mission field we'll work together SOMEHOW.

Brock, I hope you read this because today, we watched a video, and it
made me think about you and how important you have been to me in my
life. I was nearly brought to tears with the feelings and thoughts I
had (in a good way). I know how important your example has been to me,
and how much you have inadvertently helped me get to where I am now.
You know about all the experiences we shared when we lived together
and how much we learned and grew together. Brock, Te Quiero, Hermano
Mío (Google translate if you need it.) I know that you will absolutely
LOVE President Steimle, the CCM, and the people of Guatemala. They are
all fantastic!

The Gospel is true. Although I am scared out of my mind to go out into
the field and talk to real people, I know that if I just trust in the
Lord and forget about the fact that I'm working towards the end of
something, that I can reach goals that I never thought possible (See
DeathCrawl of Facing Giants). I am grateful for this Gospel and my
Savior Jesus Christ. Although this work is hard, and although I know
I'm scared, when I trust in the Lord, and do my best, I know I've been
prepared.

Love, Elder Andrew LaPray






1 Week in the Field


It´s been ALMOST a week since I entered the mission field, sort of,
and a lot as changed! Technically I left the CCM on Tuesday morning,
but I didn't get my comp until Wednesday morning. Bytheway, I have
officially been out on a mission for over 2 months now. That's longer
than the summer term at BYU was. That's crazy.

First things first... My trainer/companion is Elder Nelson. He is
about 6´6 and he is from Salt Lake City. Elder Nelson has been out for
about 9 months and he's pretty great. The fist day in the field, we
went back to the apartment, I dropped off my suitcases, we did a
little planning, and then we went out to work. We first visited the
familia Beltrand. They've been going to church for over 4 years but
can't get baptized because they're not married and can't get married
because his papers are in El Salvador and it's apparently pretty
expensive to get the papers moved here and he can't get in touch with
his brother to ask for them either. They are a really great family and
as soon as they get married, they'll be baptized. After that I meant
José Soto, Juana and Roselia Medina. José is having problems as far as
progressions go and - spoiler - we dropped him yesterday. My first day
wasn't terribly scray, but it wasn't exactly all smiles either. As far
as Spanish goes I am understanding about 80% of what people say (for
the most part, sometimes more, sometimes less) and I can say most of
the stuff I want to say most of the time, so that is really cool.

Bytheway, Colton and I are in the same district. We work in the same
ward and we see each other at least 3 times a week and have the
opportunity to talk on the phone (for approved phone calls) a couple
times a week as well because his companion his District Leader, the
make phone calls to our apartment every night.

There is a lot of info for the next day. April 28th marked 9 weeks of
being out on a mission. 9 weeks since I left home for the MTC. Time
has gone super fast, and at the same time kind of slow, it's
interesting. But we´ll see how different time moves now that I'm in
the field instead of being in a training center. On Thursday we talked
to a couple Recent Converts (RCs) Alex and Bride (Bree-day), 13 and 16
respectively, and gave them their triple combination and a bible. I
also had to use their bathroom while I was there and that was an
interesting experience. Everyone in Guatemala is under the impression
that toilet paper physically cannot go down the pipe and that if you
flush toilet paper it will ruin the toilet, so they put it in the
garbage can next to the toilet. I'd heard that, but kind of forgot and
hence put the toilet paper in the bowl. Unfortunately, to flush their
toilet you need a bucket of water (I knew this), but there wasn't any
water in the bathroom, so I had to get Bride... he flipped about the
toilet paper and everyone in their house was laughing at me (including
about 6 kids under the age of 6). I didn´t think it was very funnyk,
but they got a hoot out of it.

Later that night we went up into a sketchier area and got
surprised/attacked by some dogs. Also, not funny. We were visiting a
less active member who got offended by the Bishop so she refuses to go
back to church, which is absolutely and terribly sad, but it's nothing
different than what happens in the states. There are a lot of less
actives in our area and I really hope that we can help with some
reactivation.

On Friday we went to a choir practice for an activity for future
missionaries that would be held on Saturday. That lasted from about
8:30 until 11 and then we had a meeting with President Torres, my
companion and I as well as 3 other new missionaries and their trainers
(Elder Llewelyn and his comp, and then two Norte sisters I knew very
well in the CCM) to talk about the new training program that we are
the draft class for. It puts us with our trainer for two transfers (3
months) instead of 6 weeks with two different trainers and it also
adds an hour of companionship study to our first 3 months in the
mission. Hopefully this program is effective, because it makes a big
change in how we do missionary work.

We also found 3 new investigators. 2 boys who are 12 and 13 (Brothers)
and another woman in probably her early 20s named Jessica. We met
Jessica at a less actives house and ended up getting her information
and sharing another message with her. She also attended a baptismal
service the next day, which was super awesome! If only we could have
investigators at baptismal services every week! (that would require a
service every week though...) We stopped by José and he was drunk and
it was impossible to talk reasonably with him and he does this
consistently, hence the reason we have to drop him. While I was
talking to a drunk José, Elder Nelson had two awesome chats with Luis
and Mauro. He extended baptismal committments to both of them, but
they are both without dates. Luis has had baptismal dates before, but
he always does something to stop him from being able to follow
through. Mauro is way cool that and we made a contract for him to pray
3 times a day, and as far as we can tell he is doing it every day! He
is 17 and if it weren´t for his job and studying, we could have him at
church every week and probably baptized within a month. But those are
two bigh problems.

On Saturday we had the activity in the morning which we didn´t get
home from until about 11:15 so we were studying until 3 when we went
to the baptism, which I already mentioned. After the baptism we
stopped by to see José´s brother Mario and we had a pretty good lesson
with him and got him to pray... unfortunately José was drunk again and
kind of detracted from the lesson, but Mario went to church yesterday
and we´re hoping he will start reading the Book of Mormon and praying
daily so he can develop the faith to make the necessary changes in his
life and want to be baptized.

Yesterday at church we had 6 investigators, which is awesome! I bore
my testimony, as well as the other 5 elders in our ward, and it was
really cool. Elder Llewelyn´s Spanish is way awesome and I was really
touched by his testimony. I'm surprised at how much of the spanish I
am understanding. After church we went back to the apartment and did
our studying (because church goes from 9-12ish) and so we didnt have a
lot of time out proselyting because on Sundays we are back in the
apartment by 8. However, we made one really good contact and set up
some appointments for later this week. I'm hoping we have some really
great success this week and can set a couple of baptismal dates
(fechas). The mission field is tough, but I love it! I'm learning a
lot and hope to keep learning more. Although 2 years seems like a
really long time, I know it will be worth it.

Love, Elder LaPray


Pictures!!!

 Elder Nelson and Elder LaPray

 Elder Hernandez and Elder LaPray

 Elder Heaps and Elder LaPray

 Elder Wilardson, Elder Gonzalez and Elder LaPray

 Elder Hernandez again!

 Elder Chen and Elder LaPray

 Elder Gil and Elder LaPray

 Elder Gil, Elder Chen and Elder LaPray

 Hna Ayala1 (Gray) Hna Ayala 2 (My teacher in Yellow).

 Sister and President Steimle

 My Toilet

 Showerhead

 Our sink

 Our Cupboard

My Bed

 Elder LaPray, Elder Anderson, Elder Llewelyn