Grateful for our New Missionaries

Thanksgiving is just around the corner and we are so grateful for our wonderful new missionaries. Elders Saavedra, Flores, Alvarado, Velasquez, Lopez, Richins, Spilker, Payne, Hopkins and Sister Douglas. After training they had an enchilada lunch. Yumm!

Cheeril eerib'

We sent home some of our very finest missionaries. Almost all of them spoke Ke'chi. Three had been Assistants to the President. But we are comforted knowing they will be with their families for the holidays. Cheeril eerib' Hermana Allen, Elders Hansen, Chesley, Wixom, España, Zepeda, & Solano,...china os le corbat. Cuancat salin chool.

Christmas

Dear Parents of our missionaries,

With the approch of Christmas time, I thought I'd offer some personal views. The sooner you send the packages, the more asured you can be that your missionary will have them for the big day.

With the advent of the new Conference directives, we are not scheduled to have Zone Conferences until January. However President and I feel that is too long to go without seeing our missionaries and we needed to do something special for them for Christmas. So we are planning a special mini conference for each area so that we can share feelings we have for the special gift of our Savior's birth. On that day we will deliver packages that arrive to the Office and we are planning a special meal for all the missionaries.

Our schedule will be as follows:

Dec 6 -Peten Zone

Dec 7 Coban /Polochic Zones

Dec 8 Zones in Capital (Victorias, Molino, Alameda, Atlantico, Esperanza).

It has been our sad experience that very few of our Latino missionaries receive mail from home, let alone packages. If you would like to do something special to help your missionary's relationship with his/her Latino/a companion, a small package, we know, would be a marvelous gesture of love from you both. Suggestions could include, socks, shirts, ties, scriptures, bic pencils, treats (they LOVE American candy)

Our mailing address:

Mision Guatemala Ciudad Norte

Apartado Numero 951A

Guatemala Guatemala C.A.

Christmas calls , the following is from the missionary manual:

Take care that calls do not pull your thoughts away from your service or create a financial problem for your family. Keep them short (no longer than 30 or 40 min). p. 37

Day of the Dead

On Nov 1 Guatemala celebrates their Day of the Dead which is a kind of Memorial Day when families go to the cemetery to remember their dead, clean and decorate the graves. They place food at the grave sites and visit, with a picnic as families. They also fly kites to send messages to their loved ones. Some of the kits are enormous and truly works of art. Colorful and beautiful was our memory of this celebration.

Oct 2010 Zone Conference

We started our Zone conferences in the capital. Because of the Halloween festivities back home, we thought we’d sweetened the scripture memorization effort with some “trick or treat” candy. 4 candies for a scripture on the restoration or apostasy…..memorized, of course. (see slide show for complete fotos)

Stake Conference in Coban

Stake conference in Coban was visited by Elder Don Clarke of the Seventy as well as Area Presidency with his wife. Also Elder Rafael Castro of the Area Seventy, the Temple president with his wife, President and Sister Mask. The building could not hold all the members so two sessions were held with a total attendance on Sunday of 1, 150. Our missionaries did their part by having 49 investigators in attendance. Please acknowledge your missionaries efforts if you have any serving in the Coban Zone. They did a great work. Hurrah for Israel!