November 28th, 2011

Hey You!
You`re not going to believe where I`m at... Polochic! Ha ha Crazy huh! No, I havent played any instruments lately because in the "chic"... there aren't any. There`s nothing where I`m at actually.  The area is called K`anlun, and there are only a few peple who even speak spanish.  EVERYONE speaks Q`eqchi` and for that reason I`ve felt super lonely this week, but my companion is from Honduras, so I only speak to him in spanish. Its been a rough transition.
Let's see... our house that we live in is super small... it's just a little bit bigger than my dad`s shed out in my back yard but not by much. Luckily we have electricity and running water. In fact the church just barely built this house for the missionaries so it's pretty nice.  They`re building a chappel in the same fenced lot of ground, so it`ll be fairly nice. I took pictures, but again, in Polochic we don't have perks so this internet place I can't hook up my camera or print off your letter. We had to ride in the back of a truck about a half an hour to get to this area where there is actually stuff ha ha I never thought I`d be living like this but aqui estoy... :) It's been a great time for me to learn and to grow, and to learn to live humble like these people here. 
This language is just hard... My head hurts everyday because I try so hard to focus and learn.  By the end of the day i`m just exhausted, not from the walking but from thinking. I can pray and do some basic things but people want to talk to me and I just look so stupid saying ``I dont know`` over and over, but I`m learning and I just need to be patient with myself and let the Lord help me. This language is super interesting though... everyone says ``Ma sa` laa ch`ool?`` when they greet you, which translates to ``Is pleasent your heart`` and you respond ``Sa sa` inch`ool´´  ´´Pleasent inside my heart`` ha ha it's super fun to learn just super hard at the same time. For Thanksgiving we didnt do anything, in fact I got home that night and I was writting in my Journal, and looked at the date... I was like... ``oh today was thanksgiving.... well... happy thanksgiving to me!``
To answer your question about the water.. where I live, I either have to put water in this white bucket that is a purificador or buy bags of purified water from the little wooden stores around, so it's always clean it's just not the easiest thing to do. I just need to be super good and buying up and storing a bunch of water bags in the house. 
One afternoon we stopped by these investigators, and they had family over for this little girl`s birthday. So, they were super nice and invited us in and fed us Caldo and it was sa (pleasent) ha ha we`ve stopped by them 3 times this week, and the guy understands everything. He also speaks spanish so its nice teaching him ha ha ha. We`re hoping that he will accept baptism and help this branch grow here in our little town of people.  Btw there is only 25 active members here so our ward meetings are rough. I blessed the sacrament and that prayer was ridiculously hard ha ha but I did it :) Thanks for the scriptures i`ll look those up tonight when I get back home. Well, I hope I answered all of your questions, and I also hope you have a fantastic week!! Be safe!! I love you (nakatinra)
Elder Ware

November 21st, 2011

Hey Everyone!

I´m doing great! How are you? I definately miss the snow right now, but we´ve had really nice weather lately. It hasnt rained much and it's been warm so no complaints. And I´m right there with you, I was thinking about that phone call the other day and I was thinking ´´I seriously havent talked to you for over 7 months...´´  I love getting to hear from you every week though. It definatly helps every monday having these letters. Anyways, I´m stoked to get to talk to you :) 

For my 6 month mark we didn't celebrate... I know, I know LAME... ha but it was alright. So, I took that trip to the Capital and I´ll just say that it wasn't great by any means. I got everything checked out with the doctor and I´ll be fine :) I got my tooth taken care of, and it seriously took 15 mins he just filled it with some glue stuff... didn't even numb it or anything, so I was like "thats it?" ya estuvo. When I was in the Capital we went to the mission office and chilled for the day, but when I say chilled I mean I studied  Q´eqchi´ ALL DAY!! My head hurt by the end of it all, but it's coming along little by little. So I´m kinda hoping that I´ll have my change to the Polochik. By the way I´ve got a change out of Carcha! I´ll let you know next week where I ended up because we still dont know where, just that I have a change.

On sunday we had an awesome Stake Conference, but it was through satellite to all of the stakes in Guatemala and 2 stakes in Belice. We got to hear from Elder Don R. Clarke from the Area 70, Sister Cook, Elder Holland, and President Uchtdorf!  Crazy huh?  They talked a bunch on families and temple work. Elder Clarke said soemthing that was really cool about how we treat our spouses. If we want a stronger relationship, we need to do the simple things, and he suggested telling your spouse ´´Te amo´´ 10 times a day, and he promised that you will see your relationship grow.

When I went to the Capital I sent off your package, so I knew it would get off to you. Anyways, that's all that's going on this week. Thank you so much for your letters and everything, it always makes me happy to hear from you every week :)  

Have an awesome week! Love, Elder Ware

November 14th, 2011

Hello!
Ha thanks for the 6 month wishes!! :) crazy huh?  No I feel just like you, its gone by really fast looking back. Sometimes in the moment it's a long time, but like I said looking back, saying that I´ve completed 1/4 of this is just nuts to me. We´re going to celebrate it on Friday, but I dont really know how. Guate is different when you celebrate something, it's always the person that's celebrating that takes out everyone else, so it's kinda backwards from how we do it back home ha ha. I might take my companions to ice cream or something like that. So, for the holidays, today for P-Day we actually had Thanksgiving turkey and mashed potatoes and everthing!! Super good :) they dont celebrate that here obviously, but for like Nov 1 it was Day of the Dead, kinda like halloween. What they do is go to the graves of people and paint them because the graves are above ground... yeah it's weird but for that day NO ONE WAS HOME lol it was ridiculous. They can get kinda intense in their culture things, but not too often.
I have some scriptures this week; some have to do with families and stuff like that and others were just things that I was thinking about a lot and it helped me. So, in D&C 29:48 about how we will be responsible as parents. Also in D&C 68:28 and Deut 6:5-7. Then, speaking of time and what  not, D&C 31:6 about how it's only ´´a little time.´´
So on a different topic, again in my studies this week I went over the parable of the 10 virgins, and how we really do need to prepare NOW for whats to come, cause it really is close.  Everyday we need to do self checks and see if we´re progressing and preparing for Christ. Through all of these deep thoughts I came to the conclusion or thought and I wrote down ´´So what did I learn?´´  Every class I made the goal to think to myself,  ´´In my own words, what did I just learn, and if I cant think of it then I just wasted my time´´  So hopefully over time I can make sure that EVERYTHING I do, will be something that I learn, grow, progress, or accomplish and not waste the time that the Lord has given me.  One of the harder things for me as a missionary is to always be just super happy all the time. I think i´m pretty mellow all the time, but here in Carcha, the members always ask me ´´Elder Ware are you sad?´´ I just respond with a smile, ´´Nope :)´´ lol but it got me thinking about what people see in me if im always just ´´mellow´´ so I made a goal to be more happy smiley when I need to be ha ha kinda weird, but we´ll see how it goes ha ha :)

So to answer you questions:  The languages are getting better.  I focued on spanish more this week and I noticed a difference, so i´ll worry about the other one when I actually get to where I have to speak it :) Other things that were good is that we are super close to getting our baptism this saturday!! I´m stoked, its my first ´´real´´ baptism :)  oh i'm going to the Capital tomorrow to get my tooth fixed and to go to the Doctor about other things lol, so i´ll let you know how it goes. Thats about all the smiley faces I can put into an email ha ha I just realized how many i did... oh well ;)

Love always, Elder Ware

November 7th, 2011

Hey!!! I am doing just great today ha ha how are you? Your letters definitely help my weeks go by so much better; having these amazing letters helps me focus on my work here as a missionary, and then the next monday comes around and I can't believe how fast it goes by!  I am having the time of my life right now, it's hard but it's beautiful. So, about the whole working out thing, the hardest part is actually waking up to go ha ha I leave the house with my eyes half closed every time ha ha, but I´m happy with the progress I´ve made in the little while we´ve been going.

I read something interesting this last week and it had to do with names.  Back in ancient times, names were more than just to identify someone, they were used to describe that person. Your name reflected who you were.  So, in the scriptures when people had a change of name, that means they had a significant change of self.  In all this thinking about names I was going to ask you... in one word, what is my ´´name´´? :)  Also if you can,  Look up this poem by Lorenzo Snow called ´´Man´s Destiny´´ I read that in the manual that I'm studying for D&C and I really liked it.

I´m sending that package of the DVD and some other little things for you this week, I had to wait and buy stuff to be able to send it sorry it's taken forever.

So, to answer your questions:  I already shared what I learned this week and what not, so the Language... it's good. It's hard to study two languages at the same time but its getting there. The weather is good now, it's still kinda chilly but it's not freezing at night, and it's not raining everyday anymore. How has the Lord blessed me... other than just being happy when there´s not a whole lot to be happy about lol, and there's been many times that i´ll be teaching and get to the end of what I was saying and think to myself ´´man, I didn't make a mistake in spanish´´ and I know the Lord is helping me in those important moments like that. Have a fantastic week!

Love you! Elder Ryan Ware