Buenos Dias

Hola Familia!

Hey! It´s been about a week or so, and it´s been crazy how fast the time has gone. Thank you so much for your emails, I really appreciate them so much. I was incredibly sad to hear about Ryan Alder. I can´t even believe how hard that would be, and I hope that everything is going well in the ward, and with the Alder family. I´m so thankful for the Plan of Salvation, as well as modern day revelation, that helps us really understand our purpose here on the earth. He was an incredible person, and it´s obvious to see now was his time to go on to the next chapter of his life.

Thanks again for the emails! I love getting the emails and being able to read about how everything is going. I found out about the BYU game last night and couldn´t even sit still! My companion and I were both kind of freaking out! Even though he´s from Oklahoma he wanted BYU to win, so it was really cool! I´m so excited for BYU, hopefully we can have an awesome season this year. You´ll have to let me know where BYU is ranked in the polls.

So I have something kind of funny to tell you! The other day we were in a little bit of a rich area contacting some houses. We were contacting and contacting, and even though the people didn´t want much we were just enjoying it. We saw a sign with a bunch of oriental writing on it, and we knocked the door. Out came a guy who has a Korean Restaurant... But not only that, he´s korean! haha He said he doesn´t understand Spanish or English very well, so he wasn´t interested. We found the solution to that really quick and I told him i´d be passing by with a korean Book of Mormon. haha I was just loving everything minute of that, how cool is that, I´m meeting people from Dad´s mission country here in Guatemala. A few doors later we knocked a door, and it was another Korean guy! It turns out there´s a Korean colony thing in our area, and they all assist the korean catholic church together!

This second guy couldn´t speak spanish though, so I pulled out some of my bilingual skills and decided to start preaching in korean. haha I was all trying to say an yang hasim nikka, and he just kinda laughed and rolled his eyes. We went in and it turns out he has a store of ALL THINGS KOREAN. Kimchi, Choco pie, those little pocky sticks, even down to Korean toothpaste. I bought some little candies, we talked a little bit of spanglish and left. He wanted to know what we were doing and everything though, so i´m going to have to find the Book of Mormon in korean! haha The next time I go i´m going to buy some kimchi. My companion had a korean room mate and is a little worried about the smell or something, but i´m so excited! haha

Everything is good here in Guatemala. We had our district meeting today and it went really well. We´ve been trying to make our district meetings a lot more espiritual so that we can have that extra boost and spiritual strength to help us through the week. Everyone is trying to bring inspired questions that will help us learn the doctrine, and we have already had some awesome experiences. Things are a lot busier, and I just have a lot less personal time. It´s ok though, I really like it a lot better this way, just trying to dedicate everything I have to the Lord. I´m not too good at that yet, but It´s teaching me a lot. The district leader just makes sure everything is good with the district, and directs district meetings, calls every night to make sure everyone got home safely, takes numbers, stuff like that. It´s really not too big of a deal but it´s taught me a lot.

Elder Lewis is awesome, he speaks spanish really well, and I really am happy to have him as a companion. Yesterday he kind of got a little frustrated with a family and was speaking VERY strongly and VERY bluntly about how they need to be reading because it was the best thing in his life, and they needed to know it too. I loved it though, and i´ve learned a lot from his sincerity and desires to help people progress. Hopefully this family will start reading!

Tanner, it´s SO weird to me to think you went to a school dance! hahaha AND you danced with a girl! weiiirrrddd... You´re growing way too fast! Awesome though, I hope you are enjoying junior high and gettting good grades! Read your scriptures before you study anything else. I´m serious, that will help you so much! I miss you a ton too Tanner, and love you so much!

I´ve been studying a lot about ¨real intent¨ lately and why I do the things that I do. Do I go to church really to receive revelation and learn from my Heavenly Father? Or do I go because that´s just what I have to do on sundays... Do I read my scriptures and study every morning to really learn and grow and come closer to my Heavenly Father? Or am I doing it because President Baldwin might get mad if I don´t... When I pray am I praying with faith, KNOWING and BELIEVING that my Heavenly Father is listening to me, trying to help me become better? or Do I pray just because that´s what all the other good little elders do... It says in Moroni 7 that if we are doing things for the wrong reasons it´s just like we´re not even doing them at all... Which to me is really interesting! If we can do everything we do with sincerity of heart, with real intent, really having the desires to come closer to our Heavenly Father, he´s going to really show us he cares. We´re going to be able to FEEL it. I love that so much.

So I just wanted to tell you all how much I miss Elder Lanham... I´m not even kidding. This girl in our ward started talking about this Elder who came and could speak JUST like a latino. I knew right then who she was talking about, and said OH MAN THAT´S ELDER LANHAM! haha Then I showed her the little picture that I have on my Book of Mormon cover and we talked about how awesome Elder Lanham is. It´s just not the same without him in the mission, and I really miss him a ton. He´s famous even in the areas he wasn´t assigned to!

Just so you know ricky, I see Elder Patterson all the time. We´re both training together in the same zone, and I love him so much! We´re buddies and we´ll definitely have to hang out after the mission. I see him just about every Tuesday.

Well, it´s time to sign off, but just know I love you all so much, I think you´re all awesome and really appreciate your emails. I miss you all like crazy, but like always, there isn´t any work like this work and i´m so happy to be here!

Love you much,

Elder Micah Melville