Hey!

Hey Family,

How´s everything going? I´m so excited, the emails you sent this week were incredible. I´m so glad you got to see Elder Lanham! He´s such an incredible person, just being around him makes people want to be better. I´m not even kidding. You all know that by now. Thanks for the video! I opened it up and it was a little weird seeing you and hearing your voices! Don´t worry, it won´t make me baggy, I haven´t even had a chance to think about home this week, i´ve been SO busy. I love it like this!

Throughout my mission i´ve really thought a lot about how I can give all I have to the Lord. You know, heart, might, mind, and strength. I´ve really tried my best to do that, but obviously haven´t been perfect. I´ve realized what that really means though this past week! Haha Whether i´ve liked it or not i´ve been giving EVERYTHING just to keep up! I feel so good and happy, even though I feel like I need to improve in so many ways.

Christopher, I can´t believe you got a letter from the university of Pennsylvania… That´s awesome. Do you have an agent yet? Are you pro yet? Haha But really Elder Cunningham´s dad was asking if you needed an agent. They´re going to email you all I think. Congratulations!!! I hope you had an awesome birthday, and knowing Mom i'm sure you did! I have a card here to send you, but I have had NO time at all! Sorry! I´ll see what I can do! Haha

Tanner, you almost got a boat? Haha I think you´re crazy. Thanks for the email, I hope everything is going well in JUNIOR HIGH! I can´t believe it! Just be yourself, and put Jesus Christ first. Don’t follow the crowd, but I know you´re awesome and will make good choices. How are all the Junior High girlies? Haha

Well, it´s been the craziest week ever… Baptism interviews, less active members showing up in our living room wanting to talk and wanting priesthood blessings around 7 in the morning while i´m in the shower, trying to help investigators progress, coming home and making phone calls in the night… It´s been a lot of work, and a lot of fun.

I´ve been thinking a lot about consecration and sacrifice lately, and i´ve learned if we really want to have the spirit, if we really want to FEEL our saviors love, we need to make sacrifices… The Lord will always be there to help us make it through, we just have to give ourselves up and let him mold us.

I already have to go, thanks for everything and just know that I love you like crazy. See ya later!

Elder Micah Melville

What a Week!

Hola Familia!

Hey! How´s everything going? Sounds like everybody is busy again, back in school! Christopher and Tanner, you´ll have to email me and let me know how it is going!

First of all, HAPPY ANNIVERSARY! Mom and Dad, I´m so thankful that you are my parents, and that you´re so awesome. I hope you´re going on dates once a week or something like that. I´ve seen too many families with so many problems thanks to
Satan´s temptations and influences. I´m not too worried though. Second of all, HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Ricky! How old are you now? You´re going to be 17 on Sunday! Ha I feel like I should be the one turning 17… Time flies fast! Pretty soon you´ll be sitting in a little internet café in some other side of the world (Maybe China! Haha) trying to figure out how to work the keyboard to write us! Haha Thanks a million for the emails, I hope everything is going great in school! Keep praying and getting fathers blessings!

So I thought the week before was interesting, but can I just tell you the week i´ve had this week! I won´t lie to you, it´s been one of the hardest weeks in the mission, but also, one of the most rewarding. It was the last week of the change, and Elder Cunningham and I were working incredibly hard so he could finish strong, and so that I could finish the change strong and up and running for this coming change.

His parents came, and we went to get them at the airport. It was really interesting seeing how all of that worked out, their faces when they saw each other and everything. I thought it was going to be pretty hard seeing all of that, but I feel like I actually did pretty well. I didn´t think about home too much, just a little bit.

We went to Antigua on Friday, and the temple on Saturday. Normally you can´t just do that, but because Elder Cunningham´s parents were here and because he was going home we were able to go! Before that we had a day at the mission home because we were the most successful zone. I wanted so bad to get to Antigua Thursday night but being there on Friday basically took away all my chances to go the night before. Please tell Brother Lazerson thanks a ton, and sorry that we couldn´t make it!

So last week I was contacting a guy on the bus named Alex. He said he had to go really quick to get off where he worked. He grabbed my hand to shake it, and just sat there holding it for a while… I´m not sure why, maybe he felt something? I don´t know. Then he said goodbye and grabbed my hand to shake it again. It was kind of weird but I didn´t think anything of it. He yelled at the bus driver to open the door and he jumped out of the bus, and took 2 or 3 running steps. Right at this instant a truck came flying out of the middle of nowhere and hit him. The driver looked back and saw that he had hit someone and just took off running. My companion and I looked at each other after seeing all of this with mouths wide open, and my companion stood up and yelled at the bus driver to stop. We jumped off and I went running with one of the members to see the license plate of the driver, and my companion went back to help the guy out of the road and into the back of a truck. The driver ran and we couldn´t get his license plate, and an ambulance came and took Alex to the hospital. I could not believe what I saw, and just kept seeing him get hit over and over again in my mind that night. It was really tough for Elder Cunningham and I but we kept working and received a lot of help from our Heavenly Father. I´m so glad he´s there to help us and strengthen us in difficult times, because the difficult times just continued.
Pastors in our area went and talked to some of the investigators we are teaching and confused them, Investigators weren´t there, and a bolo was trying to pick a fight with my companion. We had a really tough day that day but we went and prayed and really felt the comfort we needed to keep going.

THEN, we were with Elder Cunningham´s parents, and his dad was driving here in Guatemala City. We were on our way to the temple and he went to turn right into a gas station. He didn´t realize it but a motorcycle was coming up really fast to pass us on our left side. He turned and totally cut the motorcycle off… The guy on the motorcycle ran right into us and went flying along with the motorcycle, and totally crashed into the curb by the gas station! I saw all this happen and just thought to myself, there is NO way this is all happening in the same week. All the little Guatemalan people swarmed us 4 north Americans wanting to see what had happened to the guy on the motorcycle. The Cunningham´s bought him new parts for his friends motorcycle, and he was ok. It turned out he was from EL CARMEN! My first area! I was totally excited and I invited him to English class with the missionaries there in Boca. He was actually really positive. Wouldn´t that be a cool baptism story? We baptized a guy that we took out on a motorcycle… haha

I sent a package with Elder Lanham of just a few little things for you all… There is a little purse/bag for you Mom, I hope you like it, a Guatemalan soccer jersey for Tanner, little bracelets for all the little cousins on Mom´s side, as well as for Christopher and Tanner… The bundle of bracelets that are wrapped in yellow and black are from Santiago Atitlan I think, and the other from Pana… I can´t remember actually, you can just say they´re from the banks of the Lake Atitlan. There are two little statues from Antigua, I think it would be cool for Dad´s office or Christopher and Tanner, whoever wants them! I bought those Germany shorts thinking it would be cool to represent the motherland, but realized that soccer shorts are SHORT! Hopefully they fit Tanner!

You have no idea how sad I was to see Elder Lanham go. He was such an incredible missionary, and has changed the way I´ve thought about a lot of things on my mission. It´s going to be tough not being able to see him, but I´ll always have him in my mind as i´m here working hard. Please tell him I love him a ton and that I can´t wait to hear from him! I was there with him to hear one of the families say goodbye that came to changes… His mom would be INCREDIBLY proud to hear the love that the people here in Guatemala have for him. As well as the missionaries.

Just when I was feeling the weakest after all the crazy events of the week, I received a phone call, telling me I had an interview with President at changes and that I needed to bring extra clothes… I wasn’t too sure what to think, but pretty soon I realized what was going on. I was going to go up to senior companion… Then I found out that wasn´t all. I was going to train a new missionary… That just about knocked my socks off thinking that I would be helping a new missionary… Then I found out that on top of that I was going to be the new district leader…. Maybe you should delete this paragraph, because I don´t really think it´s that important that other people know this… BUT Wow. Let´s just say i´ve already learned a lot, and i´m going to keep learning so much. My companion is Elder Lewis from Oklahoma, and is still learning Spanish. This is his second day in the field and he´s awesome. I´m really excited to help him and know he will be teaching me more than I could ever teach him.

I´ve got to run but just know i´m way happy here in my mission. I love it so much and i´m so grateful for the opportunity I have to be here in Guatemala amongst all these lamanites! Haha

Love you all so much!

Elder Micah Melville

The Story Continues........

Hola Familia,

Thank you so much for the emails. I love hearing from you and your emails always help me a lot to keep working hard and to help me to keep doing what I need to be doing. Keep them coming! Tell Sister Wise thanks a ton, as well as Brother Martinez for the emails, I appreciate them a LOT! I´m printing them out and i´m going to study them in a little more detail. Sorry there aren´t any pictures, I have the COOLEST picture from Santiago Atitlan here I want to send, but I can´t because my camera memory has a virus from one of the internet places and I can´t open the files. I´ll fix it though, hopefully yoú´ll be able to see. It´s me with a bunch of the guys in their special clothes just hanging out on a bench.

OK, I don´t even know where to start. This week has been jam packed - full of so many awesome stories and things that I really want to share. Of course, the weeks like this are always the weeks I barely have any time to write, SO i´m going to make this quick but the best I can.

First of all, we had a meeting with our district this morning, and Elder Lanham came because he´s the Zone Leader. I had the chance to hear his testimony again, and I can´t even begin to describe how much he has helped me, in his advice, and just everything he has done for me.

So you all remember the guy that we carried to church right? Well, we went to his house to visit him, and see if we couldn´t go teach him the lessons. The people he lives with were very cold and didn´t want us to go in and visit him... They were making up excuses and stuff and we left, but he came out and sent some kids to find us( There are three things i´m really growing to dislike: Pride, Dishonesty, and Alcohol). But we went back, and went in to his house. We were walking through this nice house, where there is a sign outside saying that one of the people that lives there is a doctor. I thought to myself, how awesome that he lives with a doctor to help him with his problems, and he is being taken care of!

Well, I found out REALLY quick that that wasn´t the case. We got to a little tiny room, with the door hanging off of the wall. We had to force the door open to get in, and almost tore it off just trying to get into the room. Once we got in I could not believe what I was seeing. He didn´t have ANY light, just a little night light to light up the whole room, hanging over a catholic picture of Mary. One step closer to the door and the STENCH hit me. It smelled HORRIBLE! We got in there and there was garbage EVERYWHERE. He told us how his family doesn´t help him and he just lives there alone in the dark. We couldn´t even stay in there long enough to teach it smelled so bad, and knew we HAD to do something.

We made it our service a few days this week to go help him. We found little bags of throw up, cigarrettes, cans of water that he drinks that had rotting, dead cockroaches, and a HUGE pile of clothes that smelled TERRIBLE! We went to the hardware store and got a light and switch and stuff, and set it up so he could have some light. We cleaned his room, and took just about all of his clothes out of his room and started washing them in the sink outside. We washed half of it, even down to his whitey tighties. OK so I washed some nasty whitey tighteys by hand... I guess you have to experience a little bit of everything to learn. haha He has HALF a toilet that he uses to go to the bathroom(It´s broken in half and he only has part of it) and we´re going to see if there´s anything we can do there... Not sure though. We just couldn´t sit down and not do anything, watching this guy slowly dying while his family just ignored him as they had their own nice little rooms, and lives completely different. We´ll see what happens, but that´s been the project. I still smell like his room I think, I can´t get it off me!

Ricky, I played basketball with some kids in the street last night and my team beat Elder Cunningham´s team, I just want you to know that you better watch out. haha jk.

Next week I won´t be writing until wednesday, because we have changes. The homecoming of my companion is on the 30th of August in West Valley. I´ll try to get the info.

We put a baptismal date with a new guy! I´m really excited, it´s for the 30th of August. Listen to number 7 on the Peter Breinholt cd it´s good.

I love you all so much and i´m so thankful for the plan of salvation. See ya soon!

Elder Micah Melville

Everything I learn makes me realize how awesome my family is to me

Hola Familia!

Hey! Thanks for the awesome emails, I opened the Pictures of the golf cart and just couldn´t stop laughing! I STILL can´t believe that. I´m glad you enjoyed Lagoon, and are getting all ready to start school again! That summer passed by so fast!

Well, can I just tell you how hard we´ve been working? The baptism didn´t end up working out. Silvia had an interview with Elder Lanham. She was worthy and all, but because of some problems she needs to talk to President Baldwin. She hasn´t had time to get an appointment to talk to him, but hopefully by the end of the month we´ll have everything worked out.

So our goal this week was to help as many of our investigators as possible get to church. This is always our goal obviously, but we put a lot more emphasis on that. We had worked hard and gotten 10 promises that the investigators were going to come to church. We were really excited, and on Sunday morning we got up and started running around the area waking everyone up and making sure they were ready to go to church. We were ALL over our area, and we were exhausted! We had done just about everything possible to help these people get to church, and we ran to get on the bus to go. Right there on the bus was a guy who can´t walk very well. He uses a walker and to walk about 20 steps it takes him probably 5-10 minutes. We had helped him to his house and helped him around a little bit during the week, and we invited him to church.

We had totally forgotten about the invitation we gave him(It was ward conference and we walked around with invitations), and remembered right as we got on the bus. He had walked all the way to the bus stop, gotten on the bus (That in and of itself is a process), and was on his way to church! We helped him off the bus, and realized we weren´t going to be able to make it to church on time if we let him walk on his own… SO my companion picked him up and carried him up a hill, at the top gave him to me and I carried him to the church!

I can´t deny the fact that I felt something really special yesterday morning as I was praying to my Heavenly Father for the strength I needed to carry this guy in my arms to church. The Lord gave me the strength I needed to do it, and it was just an overall awesome experience. After 2 meetings he told us he needed to leave, because he needed to visit some people who were sick! It was an awesome experience, and we have an appointment to go teach him later today.

So Elder Cunningham and I have been working incredibly hard. Last night we both got into the house EXHAUSTED! We have just been working hard, but loving life and having fun as we´ve been doing it, and the hilarious experiences just keep coming and coming!

The other day we got on the bus and one of my companion´s drunk friends was sitting in the back. In front of all the people on the bus the drunk guy jumped up, started yelling, and ran to my companion. With his arms wrapped around my companion he started yelling MI AMIGO! And making a HUGE scene in front of everyone on the bus. I just had to turn around and look the other way to control my laughter as my companion stood there BRIGHT red. My companion was a little bugged after that but I cannot stop laughing!

We had to go to an internet café to do a project we´re working on for the ward the other day, and there is a lady who is absolutely CRAZY who runs it. I know it sounds mean, but i´m serious, she´s a little bit off the wall. She walks around saying ¨BENDICION!¨ (Blessing) over and over as her way of greeting people, and as we were in the internet place she was talking about how she was dreaming of a field of white flowers which was so incredible because it means they are godly… Anyways, we were trying to get into this internet place, when as she was greeting us and telling us to go in, she grabbed my companion´s head and gave him a big kiss on the cheek! It´s the custom here when people greet eachother, but nobody does it to the Elders who knows better. As she was coming for me I stuck my hand out and grabbed her hand trying to avoid it… but she said ¨NO! BESO!¨ and grabbed my head and kissed me on the cheek. My companion and I have been constantly weirded out but laughing about this.

I was doing the dishes the other day, just thinking about something I had studied in Doctrine and Covenants 76. There is a verse that talks about overcoming by faith… I was thinking about how we´re here to overcome the natural man, and become better by our personal control. I was thinking about people who are really good at overcoming the natural man, when it hit me HARD! My dad is probably the best example of this I´ve ever seen. Everything I learn makes me love, admire, and appreciate my Dad just that much more. I´ve NEVER heard him talk about how he had tons and tons of baptisms on his mission. I´ve never heard if he was a district leader, zone leader, or even senior companion. Why? Because he knows that this stuff doesn´t even matter. He is humble, and doesn´t buy things just to show the neighbors. He doesn´t care what people think about him, and he just gives everything he has, to his family. Dad, I just want to tell you thanks, I love you so much and I am so thankful for your example to me. Like i´ve already said, everything I learn just shows me how incredible your example really is, and how AWESOME you are. Thanks for everything. Mom, I don´t even want to get started with you or my little bros or I might just lose it and make a scene here in front of everyone in the internet café… haha

I love you all so much!

Elder Micah Melville

Hola from BUSY Monte Maria

Hola Familia!

So pretty sure I can´t stop laughing about the whole camping trip! Dad, right when you were explaining about how you rigged up a way to sleep in the back of the truck I IMMEDIATELY remembered that one night we tried to spend in the boat up at Strawberry Reservoir… Do you remember? It was a BRILLIANT idea, we were going to put the seats down in the old boat and sleep in it! Hahah Until we ended up with all the clothes we could find wrapped around our heads to try to stay warm, not getting ANY sleep at all. That was FREEZING and i´ll never forget that. Haha ALSO I could just see the explanation of Dad totally eating it in front of everyone with that big happy smile on his face…. “Look what I can do!” Haha Thanks a million for those emails, I have been sitting here laughing out loud!

I´m really glad you all had an awesome week, I´m really sad to hear about Sister Lebaron, but how awesome is the fact that we know about the Plan of Happiness. I remember watching the family of the 20 year old who died in Patzicia just cry and cry and cry… They didn´t have a very firm understanding of the Plan of Salvation, but have now had the opportunity to learn and have that peace in their hearts. I forgot to tell you but I gave away my Book of Mormon with Travis Landeen´s testimony in it! I gave it to this family and explained the story and everything. I had carried that book around my whole mission and it was SO worn out! I explained why, and it was such an awesome spiritual experience. The mom said, “He´s probably my sons missionary companion!” I´m sure it brought a lot of peace into their hearts, and it has shown them their need for the gospel in their lives.

I had given Travis´ Book of Mormon away before, and for a really long time there it was one of the only ones the investigators had given me back, rejecting it. That is a testimony that it was meant to go to this family, I know it. I could feel it as I was giving it to them. Please tell his parents thanks a million for this opportunity, and that I plan on making another one to share.

Elder Cunningham and I are here working like crazy in Monte María. We have had some awesome experiences and we will be having a baptism the 7th of August! I´m really excited, her name is Sylvia Portillo. I´ll send pictures!

I feel really safe as I´m walking through the streets, knowing that I´m protected. I saw that email about the attacks on the tourists…. There are angels around us at all times as long as we´re obedient. I´ve been able to see the Lord´s hand protecting us, and I don´t feel afraid!

I can´t remember if I told you this last week, but there was a bolo that came up trying to get some money from us and he said, “I know a little bit about this Julio Smith you know…” haha That´s just been one of our little jokes between Elder Cunningham and I. I´m loving being with him, but I can already see that this has the potential to be really hard seeing him go home to Utah… Where i´m from! Haha His parents are coming to get him so i´ll spend some time with he and his parents – pray for me, I just know they´ll remind me of you. I´ll just do my best to stay focused.

I´ve really noticed that we´ve all been learning a lot of the same lessons, As you share with me your experiences, I´ve noticed a similarity in what has happened during the week. Heavenly Father is teaching us, we just have to do his will and learn! Soak it all in, we never know how much time we have to be here in this awesome learning experience.

Well it´s time to go, but just know I love you all so much! I miss you like crazy but like always, this is the only thing I want to be doing right now!

Christopher and Tanner I love you so much, keep doing what you´re doing. Make good choices – they affect your future so much! Satan will use even the TINY little choices you make against you. Be strong! I love that you gave your testimony Ricky. Keep doing it! Love you both so much!

Elder Micah Melville