Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Semana de sesenta y cinco!

Week 65 of 101 (12/08-12/14)

Hello!

Well this last week was great!

We started the week out with a great last day on San Pedro. After we finished writing, my companion and I went and sat on the dock for a while before we decided to just start biking up the shore line. While we were biking up, we saw a group of people gathered around some fisher man by the dock. Naturally, we went to see what was going on. As it turns out, there was a large group of sting rays eating the chopped up bits of fish. We got to sit on the dock and pet the sting rays. It was a great experience. Then we continued up the coast until we reached the basket ball court by a place called Boca Del Rio. We saw some kids with a basket ball and we challenged them to a game of two on two. It was a great game of Oceanside basketball. Later on in the day, we quickly taught as many people as possible and I said goodbye.

The next day, I left early to go to Belize CIty with all of my bags. We got there and one of the senior couples took us to the chapel to wait for the changes meeting. While we were waiting we went and got something to eat with the rest of the people who had changes. The crazy thing is that almost no one in Belize had internal changes (changes between Belizean areas and not with El Salvador) and there were a few with changes to El Salvador. The meeting was super quick since there were so few changes. Turns out I just switched areas with another Elder. He went to the Island and I went to Santa Elena, which is in the Cayo district, which is western Belize. My companion is Elder Hiatt. He is from Arkansas and we were actually in the same district in the MTC. He is a great guy.

So far Santa Elena has been great, we started out with a tiny investigator pool at the beginning of the week but we have found some great people, including the most prepared person I have ever met during my mission. Her name is Hieke and she is great. She understands everything and accepts everything so readily.

Although I have been here for a short time, I really love the people here. I love sharing the gospel with them and serving them. It is interesting to feel that their well being becomes your number one priority and how much you care for them. It just reminds me how much I love being a missionary and how much I love BELIZE!


Elder Vierkant

Semana de sesenta y cuatro!

Week 64 of 101 (12/01-12/07)

Hello,

I am super happy this week for a a couple reasons:

First of all, we started teaching three kids named Jean Junior, Adrian and Ashton. We found them one day when they were cleaning up the outside of their house and we offered to help. They declined but they said we could back another day and talk to them. So we went back on Tuesday and we were able to teach them. They are great. They understand what we are teaching and they ask really good questions. They are also a ton of fun to be around.

Second, Last Sunday a member named Jana brought her friend and his sister. This week we were able to teach them at Janas house. They struggle to understand everything but they accepted to be baptized the 21st of December! They also went to church this Sunday and brought another friend. A bunch of blessings and miracles.

Third, I had a great birthday! So, as it turns out, I share the same birthday as the father-in- law as one of the people we are teaching. When she found out, she offered to throw a party for us both. Unfortunately, the Christmas devotional and the party coincided. We ended up having to go to their house twice. The first so they could sing happy birthday to me before they cut the cake (tres leches, somehow they always know that it is my favorite). I was treated to a nice chorus of "Happy Birthday"  followed by "May God Bless You Today" sung by my companion, the sister and a group of six year old girls. We went to the Christmas Devotional, which was incredible. We then returned to their house and they gave us cake and some barbeque chicken with mashed potatoes and rolls. It was great.

Last night Elder Gonzalez gave me a birthday card, which really thoughtful of him. It said " Happy Birthday Elder Vierkant. You have changes :( You are leaving the island."  Looks like I have been voted off the island. I leave tomorrow. I had a great stay here and I love it. I am sad to leave. But I know that the Lord has need of me some where else.


Elder Vierkant

Thursday, December 4, 2014

Semana de sesenta y tres!

Week 63 of 101 (11/24-11/30)

So much to be grateful for...but so little time! That is why I am so grateful that someone was smart enough to set aside a holiday to help us make time to be grateful for what God has given us.

This Monday, we went to Belize and we had a Thanksgiving with all of the missionaries in Belize! It was great. We played family feud. Then we took pictures by zone with the mission president and all of the senior couples. When our zone went up, we spontaneously started singing the National Anthem (Of the Untied States of course). It was great, although, I did feel bad for my companion because he was the only one who didn't know it because he is not from the US. Afterwards, we had a great Thanksgiving dinner and then we had some messages shared by the assistants to the president and President Hintze himself.

Tuesday was when we had our preparation day last week. Elder Tello and I went 5 miles south down the coast to find an old Mayan trading village. It was pretty cool, although all of the structures were covered up still. There was a lot of broken pottery. We had a lot of fun, especially because it is so beautiful down there.

On Wednesday we had a great day, although we got rained on. We also had a family from California take us out to a dinner in one of the resorts. It was really nice of them, since that was the only way we would get anything like a Thanksgiving dinner.

Thursday, we had a great day. We were able to find a lot of people in their houses and to teach them. I was really grateful for the chance that we had to visit Carlos and Alejandra. Carlos has been really struggling this last week and we are trying to visit them as much as possible.

This last weekend, it really rained hard. We were able to teach a couple named Elton and Ruth. They are a great family and have two really cute little kids. We taught them about the Restoration. They had been taught by other missionaries before and accepted it readily.

It was a great week,

Elder Vierkant


 

Semana de sesenta y dos!

Week 62 of 101 (11/17-11/23)

Gud evnin,

So, after the going to the ruins last week, we started an interchange with the zone leaders. Because it is expensive to travel back and forth between the island and Belize city a lot, the interchanges last a few days, Thus, Elder Kipisi was with us on the island until Thursday morning, when we went to zone meeting.

The first night, I went on interchanges in Elder Fords area. We had some really great lessons, getting to know some really positive people. We also just had a ton of fun.

On Tuesday, I went with Elder Kapisi in my area. It was a bit of a rough day. For one, both of our bikes broke, so we had to go to the bike shop twice, we were in a rain storm most of the day and pretty much every single appointment fell through, and we also had to go in at six because they are celebrating Garifuna day this week. But on the whole, it was a great day because we met a lot of positive people contacting. Elder Kapisi is a great missionary: he knows what his pupose is, he is very obedient and he works hard.

The rest of the week went really well. We taught a lot of positive new people, and we ended up committing lots of people to church, including less actives. However, come Sunday, not one of those people showed up. luckily some members brought some friends to church and we were able meet them and hopefully we will be teaching them this week.

Elder Vierkant