First "Changes" - Week 25

Hello. 

Changes (transfers) are this week. They happen every 6 weeks. I, unfortunately have changes and will be leaving my beloved Mita :´( But hopefully this change will be for the better and I will be on to bigger and better things. We don't find out where we're going until tonight. We find out who leaves on Sunday so they can pack and then where to on Monday and leave on Tuesday. I stayed up late last night getting my suitcases ready (so sad and stressful). I never really realized how much stuff I have. I pretty much finished but I was up till like 2. That's when I decided sleep was more important. Also, it doesn't help, the fact that I'm super OCD when packing and I get distracted every other thing I put in. XP

I haven't had the chance to make the recipe you sent. Because I have changes I don't think I'll be able to. Plus some of the things on the list I've looked for and I don't think they are available outside of the capital. And chicken breast is actually pretty expensive here... It´s kinda hard since we have to find a time when we are both available and when there's enough money to buy the things. I enjoy seeing all the little things you guys are doing back at home. I haven´t heard of a Hna Cardenas. Is she new? I'll keep an ear out. I just found out that one of the members here is Ingrid's BEST FRIEND's an when she looked at my and your facebook she had her in common with us.

Today we threw a party for a sister missionary who is going home. Sometimes I feel jealous that they have less time but most of the time I feel bad for them. They ONLY get 18 months. (sorry karissa, that's you too). You get cut short 6 months of learning and spiritual growth. Hopefully the growth continues after the mission and for a lifetime. That's part of being a 4th missionary/member. Continuing to be a disciple of Christ even after the mission. Continuing the routines of exercise and scripture study and being a witness of Christ in all aspects of your life. I'm really trying to be that 4th missionary. I know it is the only way to truly be happy and satisfied with my mission.

Got to go. I'm going to go around and say goodbye to all the families and converts I can tonight I should have a bunch of pics to share next week. Love to everyone on the homefront.

Until Next Week,

Elder Mattiaccio

#OnwardEverOnward

#BeTheFourthMember

I Am Never Alone - Week 24

This week we've had some pretty cool experiences. We were walking down the street from a lesson and someone yelled "hey you!" We had just passed by a couple of guys who looked like they'd been drinking so i wasn't too inclined to respond but I felt the a prompting to acknowledge him at least. I said "hey". One of them asked where our church was I explained how to get there. He then commented that he was meeting with missionaries in the capital but moved out here for work. He had been having troubles at home and couldn't afford to pay rent. He figured there would be more out here but he hadn't found us until then. We got his name and number and set up an appointment for Tuesday. We'll see how it goes.

Another experience we had was when we were on divisions with the Zone Leaders. I stayed in Mita and my companion went to Jutiapa. We were going to appointments and a few in a row fell through. While I was thinking of who we could visit, Elder Jackson asked if we had contacted this street, I looked around and said no. He said alright let's knock some doors. He went to one side of the street, I to the other. We knocked one door each and we found somebody who wanted to listen to us. He found a woman who had been searching for a church that was true but hasn't found it and felt like God had forgotten her. We taught her a small lesson on the restoration and set a time to come back. 

We then went to my contact who were the parents of our Primary President. They weren't members but they had a picture of the temple and Jesus Christ on the walls. The mom was an evangelist and was putting up a little bit of a fight, but the father was pretty much non-denominational and kind of gave a bit of chicote (he was correcting her and calling her out when she said she didn't want to pray). When commented to the daughter at church that we found her parents contacting. She said they were "special". She didn't have very much faith they would accept anything. But the dad was fairly receptive, it's just going to be hard to get him to church since he works. 

We went out to the Placetas to visit our convert and her family. They haven´t been coming to church :/. The father always comes but the girls and the wife don't. They sometimes come to Mita to sell or stay home and help make and deliver tortillas to the neighbors. We tried explaining the sabbath day is important and though they are poor and although giving up working on Sunday will be hard, the Lord will make up the rest and help them if they go to church. After we played a little bit of soccer with the neighborhood boys and used it to collect contacts and have a little bit of fun at the same time.

Lisseth has been a bit busy this week going to El Salvador and Guate, so we haven't been able to meet with her or have a lesson. Morris is always busy with work until night time and sometimes we don't have time late at night. We're working on visiting our converts more often and setting actual appointments with them. Also we just set up a program where a different family member is going to give us food every Sunday. That way we can meet the members and see where they live. We've been doing better and have been finding out where more members live and visiting them.  We use this to help them know how they can help us. We hand out a flyer called "Nunca Voy Solo" (I am Never Alone). I attached it, sorry but it's in Spanish. It's so that the members also help with missionary work and help preach to their family, neighbors and friends.

Overall it was a very good week, full of spiritual experiences and promptings. It's weeks like these that help me and my companion continue working to find people to share the gospel with. They are out there, we just have to look and listen to the promptings of the spirit. A reminder that WE ARE NEVER ALONE! Heavenly Father is constantly helping us and guiding us. 

Well, I better get going. Here´s a picture of me eating the first mature mango of my mission. Until now it has only been mango verde which is good when I'm in the mood for something sour but that isn't too often and it is offered to me alot. I like the taste it just gives me heartburn. I've also tried platanos, queso fresco, caldo. I don't think I've tried marañon or guayaba or jocotes. At least not that I know of since I don't know their spanish names.

 

Until Next Time,

Elder Mattiaccio

Asunción Mita, Zona Jutiapa, Guatemala Sur

Conference Week - Week 23

This week was an awesome week because this week we got to listen to a real prophet of the Lord speak to us! That's right! IT'S CONFERENCE WEEK! In our District Council we were challenged to mention modern prophets in each lesson, but me and my companion took it even further. We decided we wanted to talk about modern day prophets in our contacts as well. As we did this, there were a lot of people who would not listen to us. But those who did are showing a great potential to progress and really accept our message. 

In each lesson, we invited people to come to the General Conference sessions in Jutiapa. Unfortunately no one arrived. It is understandable though, it's a bit inconvenient to go to another town for church... The Saturday sessions were a bit discouraging. Few members showed up. We decided to go back to Mita since buses don't run after 7. When we got back we were going to ask the Branch President for the keys so we could set up a projector in the chapel for Priesthood session. We went to his house and talked to his wife to see if the keys were there. She said he had left and took the keys with him. We were frantic. We had nowhere to watch conference and it was looming on 7:30. 

There was no way to go back to Jutiapa and there were no keys to the chapel. We decided to go to an internet cafe and pay to watch it but right as we were leaving the president's house he came back. He told us that he had the impression to come back since they had left late and would be arriving late but ignored it. A few minutes later the car overheated. They had to wait for it to cool down and drive back to Mita to arrive just as we were leaving. We told him we wanted to watch conference in the chapel. So he threw water in the radiator got his laptop and he took us to the chapel to watch the priesthood session of conference. They watched on the projector and  I watched on the computer in the secretary's office in English. There is no replacing the words and voice of the prophets. Even in Jutiapa they had a special room for all the English speaking Elders to watch it in English. My favorite talk by far was that of Elder Holland. But my favorite moment of conference was seeing Pres. Uchtdorf come up after Elder Kearon's talk with tears on his face. To see him choke on his words because of how Elder Kearon's topic. I realized he was crying because he too was a refugee in a war he had no part in starting. And the things that are passing to the people fleeing Turkey and Syria are very close to his heart. 

(Pictures are of us in conference. The family of four is the family Ipromised to cook for, Familia Monzón.

We went out to eat as a district in between the saturday morning and afternoon sessions.)

Until Next Time,
Elder Mattiaccio

#LDSConf

#IAmAChildOfGod

#BeTheFourthMissionary

Holy Week - Week 22

Semana Santa (Holy Week) was really interesting. Here in Mita, Semana Santa is notoriously HOT! 30 ºC inside our house at ALL TIMES. I'm not sure exactly how hot it was outside but I'm sure it was pushing 40º. We left on sunday at 8 o'clock and we were sweating bullets before we got to church. Needless to say we've been drinking a boatload of water. Besides that, everyone in all of mita was gone on vacations. All the stores were closed. A few days there wasn't ANYONE on the streets. I felt out of place ahahaha. The lessons we had though were really good. The good thing about nobody being in the streets meant that they were all in their homes together as families. 

Here are some pictures of the alfombras (carpets) made from sawdust and flowers by the (catholic) people during Semana Santa. They are made to cover the streets as they were covered for kings in the past. On Easter week the processions (big floats) bearing Christ on the cross walk on these alfombras.

This week we had a Multi-Zone Conference with Pres. Caffaro and the Assistants. They talked about a talk called "The Fourth Missionary" It explains that there are 4 kinds of missionaries. 1st: Disobedient, goes home. 2nd: Disobedient: Serves entire mission. 3rd: Obedient, has success, unchanged by his mission. And 4th: Obedient to the fullest, Has success, is happy and satisfied with his service, the mission changes his life forever. You can read more about it here. It was a really good reminder and way to help me refocus on the type of missionary I want to be.

(yes I did receive Banka's package. Tell her thank you for the ties. I love them. And the CHOCOLATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! MMMMMMMM) 

Until Next Time, 

Elder Mattiaccio

Looking for Direction(s) - Week 21

(Elder Mattiaccio was having technical difficulties while he was writing today)

This week was a little slow. We didn't have anything big or exciting happen. We've been trying to figure things out on how to find more investigators. We haven't been finding very many people who are willing to listen to us and who are ready to make the necessary changes in their lives. We are going to try dividing our area into 3 sectors instead of 2 so we can cover more ground and hopefully that will translate into finding more investigators. We have been focusing lately on finding where all the members live (since neither I nor Elder Belmar really ever found out). I know where a few live but since there are no directions, finding places from the directions people give is a bit hard.

That's all I have time to write.... SORRYYYYY

Until next time,

Elder Mattiaccio

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This is Gabby (Frankie's mom), I wanted to share a small note Frankie wrote me in Spanish. It's so cool to see his improvement in the language and even seeing the Guatemalan sayings in his writing.

Les quiero muchisimo. Me da pena de oír que uds son enfermos de nuevo. Nunca hemos tenido strep antes. Quizás es por eso que está tan fuerte y agresivo¿? Sí, todavía hay muchísimo de aprender. He aprendido mucho en solo estas dos semanas que ha pasado con Elder Alvarado. Y que chula CC con Remington. Me hace feliz de ver esas cosas y ellos sonriendo. 

New Companion and His Faith - Week 20

This week has been interesting. I got my new companion last tuesday. I went with Elder Belmar and came back with Elder Alvarado. He´s Honduran. He´s a really great missionary. I've learned so much from him and we've only been together a week. I have a feeling this change is going to be great! 

This week has been a little bit of an adjustment since I have to lead and manage the area since he doesn't know anything about our investigators, where they live, anything really. So I've been adapting to that a little bit but this week I'm feeling confident. He´s taught me a lot about having faith in our investigators. Previously we've only had 2 or 3 investigators come to church. And that was with going by their houses, calling them to wake them up and everything. This week he tested my faith. We didn't go by a single investigator's house. We called a few but they said they couldn't come. We only went by our recent converts to invite them and bring them to church. When we arrived, (I'm ashamed to admit) I was astonished to see that 5 of our investigators had come of their own will. We invited them during our lessons and just left it at that. That was such a faith builder. My companion was asked to speak in sacrament meeting since it is his first week. He shared an awesome story about humility and it is better to be humble than rich or smart or powerful. That the Lord looks on the heart of his servants not only on their deeds or accomplishments.

Here are some of our final pictures with Elder Belmar. Sorry I don't have any of my new companion, my camera has been acting up. I should have some next week.

Until then...

Elder Mattiaccio

True Conversion - Week 19

This week was a pretty fun, full week. This week we were in charge of the "noche de hermanamiento" (Neighborhood Family Home Evening) We decided to do it on the Book of Mormon since most people don't read too much. We had them divide into 5 groups and had them do a word search for people from the Book of Mormon. Then they got to choose a passage of scripture with a story from the Book of Mormon and they had 15 minutes to read it as a group and relate the story. It turned out really well. Everyone had a really good time. We took a picture with everyone and their favorite character from the Book of Mormon at the end. 

Then friday we had the baptism of Lisseth. We downloaded a video to watch with everyone since her family was coming to support her even though they aren't members. We decided to download "The Touch of The Master's Hand". (Scan QR code below to see the video). It turned out really well. A good amount of people came and she looked angelic in the baptismal dress. It was very spiritual and emotional. She got baptized and came up out of the water smiling. I love that moment. Seeing the smile of someone who is absolutely pure and free of sins. She got changed and bore her testimony of her journey to baptism. It was so pure. The pure testimony of someone who is truly converted to the gospel. Nothing was borrowed from other people, all was  just the thoughts and feelings of her heart. We stayed talking with her family and they seemed interested in our church. So we took down their information and are planning to visit them sometime this week.

Then there's today... There are changes here in Mita. Elder Belmar is leaving me and I am staying here. We have to go to Guatemala tomorrow so I can receive my new Elder and he can go to his new area. We still don't know where Elder Belmar going, just know that he´s gotta pack his bags. It's been a little emotional. I was hoping we´d have one more change together, but I know that God has someone else for me and we are going to "hechar fuego" in this next change. 

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A little note from Elder Belmar (his trainer):

(ahora escribe elder belmar en español wiii)

Pues tia Gabby todo fue muy calidad con su hijo, creo que lo aprendi a querer mucho, es muy bueno y a ustedes los quieren mucho, pues yo me voy del area y junto con Elder Mattiaccio bautizamos a 4 personas Morris y Diego, Elsa y Lisseth, todo fue muy loco en estas 13 semanas solo diganle que siempre siga adelante, yo les quiero mucho a ustedes a pesar de que nunca hemos conversado ajajjaja pero bueeee nos vemos en la boda de mi hijo jijiji adiosssssssssssssss Elder Belm
ar CHILE SUDAMERICA!!!!!!!!!!