January 6, 2016

Happy New Year everyone! This is my first email of 2016! I hope you all had a memorable time with all the festivities and hope you enjoyed it. We went to the house of the mission Secretaries to spend new years with them. We didn't have permission to be up the whole night, so we went to bed and set an alarm for 11:55to shout Happy new Year. The alarm went off and we were all so tired so we all just heard the fireworks here and fell back asleep. That was my New Years experience. 

This week I had some awesome experiences. I got to do a baptismal interview for a lady who got baptized this last Sunday. She is deaf however, so her sister was there and helped translate. She also taught me how to say a few things in Spanish sign language like " Don't worry" or " congrats and good job" as well as " I am a mormon missionary" haha it was an awesome interview and was so cool to just focus on the spirit and watch this lady sign her testimony. That was a really cool experience! 

We also had a miracle this Sunday as we we going around reminding all of our investigators about church. We called one lady Hermana Rebekah who was super positive (Her dad was a member and has recently passed away, this prepared her to receive the gospel) and she said she was for sure going. We had less luck with all our other investigators but we went with high hopes to church. Sacrament meeting began and she didn't show up... then they passed the sacrament. I sat there the whole time watching the guys who push the button to open the gate and everytime they opened it I watched with high hopes that it would be this lady. Then 50 minutes into the meeting she showed up, late but she showed up! I can't explain how happy I was when she got there. She felt the spirit so much at church and absolutely loved it, next week she says she's going to bring her kids whether they want to or not because she wants to share the gospel with them! 

This was a great start to the new year. Today we had our zone training with the new zone and it was good to get to know everyone and talk about the attitude of our mind. That truly is a huge factor in this work! I love you all and hope you enjoy the many adventures that await you in this new year. My testimony ever remains the same that this is the true gospel and in and through our Savior Jesus Christ we can find peace and joy. Love you all, 

Elder Daybell

December 29, 2015

HAppy New YEar! 

I hope you all have a wonderful new year and enjoy the end of this holiday season with your families. 

Christmas was awesome this year and we were able to share it with a family that didn't really eat many tamales. We ate a ton of Steak! It was pretty great, and also... Santa showed up at midnight after all the fireworks went off! It was pretty awesome when he walked down the stairs, that's not something you see often in Guatemala and certainly helped it be a lot more memorable. We talked with our familias and that is always a special treat. I was there checking out all the calls of the missionaries in our zone and making sure everyone finished on time. It was a memorable Christmas that's for sure. 

This week we had a pretty awesome Christmas miracle. Working in the mornings before lunch here is tough to find people to teach. So we were planning one night and I had the thought to look at the future investigators in the area book and look for people in certain areas of our area that we can't get in because it is heavily guarded. So we went to Sector 2 and I found 3 people to go and visit. We found one of those 3 people and put a time to go visit her another day. We went Saturday and visited this lady and she told us about how she was really sick before and never went to church and did everything the Elders taught her, she even gave up coffee and continues to avoid it (that is a huge miracle here). She said she has been waiting to go to this church and she knows it's the true church and once she enters there it will be forever! Her name is margarita Morales and she has been a Widow for 30 years. Talk about a miracle, I am excited to work with her. I have learned even more that the Spirit is a feeling just a small feeling but it can be a big difference in someone's life. 

Yesterday, I played some basketball and that made me pretty happy. 

I hope you all have a happy new year and think of ways to do a little more and be a little better in this year. I am certainly going to do that. Love y'all

Elder Daybell

Max and his Companion with Santa.

Steak! 

December 22, 2015

Merry Christmas Everyone! I hope it's a good one and that you all enjoy the spirit of this season.

We are excited for this Christmas here and it should be a good one! We are ready for some Tamales and ponche as well to get us through this Christmas in Guate. Tonight is the ward Christmas party and there will be food.. and where there's food, there's the Elders as well. 

We also have plans to take some investigators so that they can get to know the members.

Yesterday we did not have Pday and so right now we are pretty tired. We are going to have Pday on Christmas day! I am so excited to talk with my family. Everyone here in our area is leaving to go be with their families this week and the next, it makes me think of being with the family on Christmas, but if 40 minutes is what I get then I will take every second of it. And then after my companion and I are going to play some basketball because we found a basketball here in a members house! Wahoo! It's going to be a great Christmas!

We have been working hard to help remember Christ at this time of year! Last week we had our mission Christmas activity. It was great to get together and remember the importance of Christ in our lives. Our zone had the chance to do the nativity and everyone loved it because we added a little Chapin spice to it, or more of a Guatemalan style.

I hope you all have a merry Christmas, but more than anything remember who it is for. Remember that He was Born, lived and died for us. I love you all and hope you have a great Christmas, I know it's a common scripture but it has a strong message. John 3: 16 to 17

Love, 

Elder Daybell

December 15, 2015

Hey everyone,. 

It was a rough week last week that's all I have to say. But we are working hard. I guess the Christmas season is a little tough. Yesterday we had an awesome miracle that made all the trials and suffering worth it! 

Last week we were rejected and with not having investigators progressing that makes it the worst. Also we always have splits with missionaries and that makes things so tiring. Great experience but so tiring. One of these times we were heading back to our house after being on splits and I had my splits bag. My companion contacted the bus and I put my splits bag with my clothes, hygiene stuff and my english quad on the top rack of the bus. I contacted everyone and then we got off the bus. Then about 3 minutes later I realized something... my bag was still on the bus and I wasn't there. We called other missionaries to see if they could check at the bus stop in Villa Canales but it was nowhere to be found. That made the week so much harder for me. I wasn't too sad about the clothes. mostly just for my scriptures but it's ok I have a Book of Mormon and the secretaries are bringing me a bible on Thursday so that's all good. 

One thing I have learned is that with a lot of trials like this, something good is going to happen. Yesterday we left to visit people and we met up with a lady I had contacted 2 days before and she told us to stop by. This Hermana Susi's mom let us in and there was the whole family, then we turned to sit down and saw a picture of the temple. That surprised us a lot so we got talking about it. Turns out that half of the family members are members and the other half no, and the ones that are members are inactive. We were able to have a super spiritual lesson with them and Hermana Susi siad she would pray and try her hardest to go to church this week. The missionaries taught her about a year ago and she wasn't very interested but now she is so ready to receive the gospel it's awesome! 

Well I hope that you all have a great week and enjoy the holiday season! Love you all, 

Elder Daybell

December 8, 2015

Hey Everyone, 

This week was one of the hardest weeks of my mission. Mostly because we were rejected many times. But hey that's part of why I'm here! It's at times like those where we need to think of Christ and how he was rejected as well by the people he loved and yet he continued loving them until the end! So we were rejected a lot but it was a good week to learn and to keep pushing forward. We were running around a lot as well with lots of meetings and interviews it was awesome. 

Yesterday was a holiday here in Guatemala. It was the " burn the Devil day" so what they do is buy these huge pinatas of the Devil and burn them in the street. So there was a lot of fire in the streets of Guatemala yesterday. I guess that's why the Devil went down to Georgia because here in Guatemala they'd burn him. haha I just came up with that one, you can all quote me on that one! 

My companion and I are the zone leaders of the secretaries of the mission and so we asked them to put a few talks on our USB's in order to listen to some stuff on Pday. So yesterday we put in my companion's memory in order to see what they gave us... and the first talk up until the 8th talk was about marriage... My companion only has like 2 months left in the mission. The secretaries said they felt inspired to put those on to help him be focused on the next goal in life. haha they are some funny guys. 

We have been working hard and look forward to this week, it should be a little different and we expect to see many miracles. We got to teach today in zone conference and it was very inpsiring and everyone is pumped to continue working hard. I love you all and hope you have an amazing week! Love, 

Elder Daybell

December 1, 2015

It's December! How fast and awesome all at the same time!

This week has been great! I have an amazing companion and we have had some sweet experiences here this week and we have also had some very tough ones as well. We were rejected a lot this week but we kept working hard. We thought that we would have 0 investigators at church and that has only happened 2 times in my time here on the mission. I was sad, but then we had the miracle of having 9 investigators attend! And it was the primary program which helped them all enjoy the sacrament meeting and feel the spirit. 

We did have a thanksgiving dinner this week and ate some turkey thanks to a member here! It was cool to share it with them. Their extended family was there and we all gave thanks and then ate. It was their 1st time doing this but they loved it and it wouldn't surprise me if they continued this tradition! I got to cut the turkey.

Despite all the trials, Elder Larsen and I are working hard to find new people and keep the zone inspired to work hard. We also have been enjoying a little bit of our time. On Pday we went to Walmart and found... Rootbeer! We bought quite a bit and have been enjoying it! What a miracle!

I hope you all have a great December and enjoy some time with family! Have a great week and if you all get the chance you should check out the new video from the church! Love you all, 

Elder Daybell