Week 91 in the Field - Transfers, Jumique Family, and the Common Law of Life

Well, I´m being transferred to Guatemala City to finish my mission!

Teculután has treated me well. This week we placed a baptismal date with each of the members of Henry Jumique´s family. They´re reading the Book of Mormon and want to know if the church is true. Henry says he already got his answer and he´s helping his family a lot.

I like this poem I heard in a talk by Sterling W Sill:

“The tree that never had to fight
For sun and sky and air and light,
But stood out in the open plain
And always got its share of rain,
Never became a forest king
But lived and died a scrubby thing.

The man who never had to toil to live,
Who never had to win his share
Of sun and sky and light and air,
Never became a manly man
But lived and died as he began.

“Good timber does not grow at ease,
The stronger wind, the stronger trees.
The further sky, the greater length,
The more the storm, the more the strength.

By sun and cold, in rain and snow,
in trees and men good timbers grow.
Where thickest lies the forest growth
We find the patriarchs of both.
And they hold council with the stars
Whose broken branches show the scars
Of many winds and much of strife.
This is the common law of life.”

I Love you all, have a great week!

Elder Ruiz, Kimberly, Andrea, and the Lobos Family

Branch President, President Morales

Week 90 in the Field - ´Murica, 4 Investigators, and Edward VIII

Weekly Letter 4th July, 2016

Hey guys; happy independence day! I hope everyone has had a great week.

This week was great. We met the mission goal for this week, had four investigators in sacrament meeting, and had several lessons with our golden investigator Henry who will be baptized on the 30th of this month.

77 people came to church on Sunday and with attendance levels at 50 or 60 a couple of months ago things are looking pretty good in Teculutan.

This week we will get news about transfers. I think I will get transferred for my last change but who knows.

I enjoyed a quote I heard this week attributed to Richard L. Evans, "If you don't change directions, you're gonna get where you're going". At first impression, this is just a statement of fact but for me it has a least 2 profound lessons: 1. If we are on the right track we're gonna make it to the celestial kingdom and 2. If we're on any other track we're simply gonna make it somewhere else.

I find that this eternal truth has a lot to do with a story I heard in a talk by Spencer W. Kimball. In the address, President Kimball discusses the life of Edward the VIII. Born a child of promise and royalty, Edward the VIII was destined to be king of the British Empire. In his youth he was a literal Prince Charming and perhaps the most loved of any British Prince ever. He ascended to the throne as a single man and ruled over a fourth of the world's population but eventually fell in love with a married woman and was forced to abdicate the throne and he died as a common citizen.

We, like Henry VIII are heirs to a royal throne. If we don't change directions we may be forced to abdicate. I love you all.

-Elder Dawson

Murica

River selfie

Week 89 in the Field - Ketchup, Gualán Revisited, Henry

Weekly Letter June 27, 2016

Hey guys; I hope everyone has had a great week.

On Monday this week we had a family home evening with the Valenzuela family. They are all members but they come to church pretty irregularly so we visited them, talked about the restoration of the gospel, and they invited us to some pizza. As a sidenote, everyone here puts ketchup on their pizza. I wonder if that's just a Guatemalan thing.

On Tuesday we had a multizone conference with President and Sister Crapo, the assistants, and all of the missionaries who are serving outside of Guatemala City. Much was mentioned about obedience, exercising faith, and planning effectively. It was a great conference. 

...(cut of) elders in Gualan and all four of us worked in their area. I was able to visit many of my converts and old investigators. First we visited the Ramirez Family and the dad, Lucio, invited his sister and her daughters to the discussion. In the course of the lesson we asked Lucio's sister Rosa if she'd like to be baptized and she said that she had been searching for someone to baptize her. She and two of her daughters now have a baptism date scheduled for the 30th of July. Lucio and Gloria Ramirez and the four children they have that are over the age of eight are all baptized members of the church and they recounted with joy to Rosa the experience of their baptism. The Ramirez family are some of the humblest people I know and yet they are such happy people.  They fed us bone soup before we left (literally just cow bones boiled in water), showing us their generosity in spite of their limited resources.

Later I visited Cristino Garcia, one of the first people I taught in my entire mission. When he saw me he almost started to cry and said "Elder Dawson, is that you?" He reminded me that when I said goodbye to him when I left Gualan I had told him that every time he remembered me that he should remember what I taught him about keeping the commandments and going to church. Cristino has been struggling with alcoholism but he told me that in his dark moments that he always remembers me and remembers what I taught him about the things of God.

Some of my converts are struggling to go to church and keep the commandments but I told each one of them that the great desire of my heart is to live with them in the celestial kingdom. I told them that I would perhaps be giving them my last mortal goodbye but that if they kept the faith that we would have a glorious reunion in the life to come.

One more experience and I'll wrap this letter up. On Monday we got a call from a guy named Henry who had found a piece of church literature with our phone number on it. The pamphlet was titled "The Plan of Salvation" and he was intrigued by what he read. So intrigued, it turns out, that he feels that what he read was a sign from God indicating that he should join the church. On Thursday we visited his home and after talking about his purpose on earth he expressed desires to be baptized. On Saturday we gave him a tour of the chapel and taught him about the restoration and he says he believes that Joseph Smith was a prophet. On Sunday he came to church and told us he had read from the Book of Mormon for several hours the previous evening and he participated in Sunday school and priesthood meeting, answering questions that the teachers posed to the students.

A couple of weeks ago we fasted for a miracle in our area and I think Henry is that miracle. I'll keep you updated on his progress.

"Mormonism" taught Joseph F. Smith, "makes good men better men, and ... takes even bad men and makes good ones of them. That is what 'Mormonism' will do if we will only permit it to do it. If we will bow to its mandates and adopt its precepts in our lives, it will make us the sons and daughters of God, worthy eventually to dwell in the presence of the Almighty in the heavens."

I know this to be true. I love you all and hope you have great week. - Elder Dawson

Elder Proby

Elder Alarcon

Ramirez Family

Cristino

Tona

Silvia and Dennis

Cuyan Family

Week 88 in the Field - 7, Raw Milk, and Glasses

Weekly Letter June 20, 2016

Hey guys; I hope everyone has had a great week.

This week has treated us pretty well. We have about 7 investigators who we thing can really progress and be baptized and we continue to see fruits of our reactivation efforts.

This week I  found out that there's a guy who drives around Teculutan selling fresh cow milk. I bought some from him and since it's unpasteurized I had to boil it but it is super tasty. All stores in Guatemala exclusively sell ultra pasteurized milk that doesn't need to be refrigerated and costs like $1.50 a liter. But his guy sells the real stuff for like $0.70 a liter. How didn't I know about this earlier?

This week we had branch conference and the district president told a neat story that I'd like to share. The district president uses glasses and he had a pair that just wouldn't fit on his head. The glasses always looked lop-sided in the mirror and one day he bent and twisted the glasses so much with the intent to get them to fit right that the glasses broke. He went to the optometrist and they told him that the glasses weren't the cause of the problem, it was his face! He has facial asymmetry and one eye is a tiny bit higher on his face than the other. He wasn't trying to adjust a bad pair of glasses to his symmetrical face; he was trying to adjust a good pair of glasses to his asymmetrical face. 

The district president went on to explain that this is what many people do with the gospel. Instead of molding themselves to the gospel they want to mold the gospel to themselves and it doesn't work. The problem lies not in the gospel; but in ourselves. When we try to bend a commandment or twist a principle the gospel ceases to bring us blessings because when we almost keep a commandment God almost blesses us. 

I know this to be true and I hope that each of us will strive to be obedient so that we might receive the blessings God has in store for us.

I love you all; have a great week!

-Elder Dawson

Grass Selfie

Divisions with the Elders from Guastatoya

Week 87 in the Field - Graves, Unexpected Find, and Every Gift and Blessing

Weekly Letter June 13, 2016

Week 86 in the Field - Leaders´ Meeting, Elder Jackson, and Emulation

Weekly Letter June 6th 2016

Hey guys; I hope you've all had a great week.

This week we had a leaders' meeting in the capital and we stayed the night at the assistants' house. The meeting was good; we talked about focusing on families, having effective planning sessions and developing leadership qualities.

Someone this week called me Elder Jackson. Felt like I'd been struck by a smooth criminal.

Other than that this week has been pretty normal. I'm getting along well with my companion and generally enjoying life.

My spiritual thought for this week has its root in a quote by Neal A. Maxwell who said: "We simply can't get most mortal things by celestial customs. Only the eternal things are portable."

Jeffrey R. Holland has taught that the only two things we really retain after this life are our personal character (character being the sum of our testimony, intelligence, Christ-like attributes, etc.) and the family relationships we have which have been sealed by priesthood power found in the Holy Temples of God.

How important it is, therefore, that we refine our personal character and strengthen our family relationships. Joseph F. Smith sums up this principle very well:

"Our affections and our desires are found fitted and prepared to endure not only throughout the temporal or mortal life, but through all eternity...We are living for eternity and not merely for the moment. We are immortal beings, and we are looking forward to the growth that is to be attained in an exalted life after we have proved ourselves faithful and true to the convenants that we have entered into here, and then we will receive a fulness of joy. A man and woman...should be able by their power, example and influence to cause their children to emulate them in lives of virtue, honor, and in integrity to the kingdom of God which will redound to their own interest and salvation We are, therefore, to develop our personal character to such a degree that our children, by emulating us, might receive their exaltation along with us. By having this as our goal, we focus on the two things that we really can take through celestial customs.

I love you all; have a great week!

-Elder Dawson

Nuestro tres amigos! The Arizona Missionaries. Elder Dawson, Elder Flygare, Elder Aubrey

Really good ceviche I ate this week.

Week 85 in the Field - Staying, Gringo Rejection, and Brother Brigham

Weekly Letter May 30th 2016

Hey guys I hope everyone has had a great week.

Well, we got news about transfers yesterday and I'll be staying here in Teculutan. As a matter of fact, no one is being transferred from the entire zone. I'm content to stay here with Elder Ruiz and to keep working with our investigators.

This week we went on splits with the assistants which was neat. I went with Elder Savage who is from Genola, Utah. He's a cool guy and a hard worker. On splits we found a house where a bunch of volunteers from the United States were living. None of them wanted to talk to us which was really sad and reminded us how people feel about Mormons back in the states.

We also went on splits with the elders from Gualan and I went with Elder Gutierrez from Huehuetenango, Guatemala. He's new in the mission and still kind of timid but he's a neat guy and we got to know each other pretty well.

This week I gave a talk in sacrament meeting and I shared a story about the prophet Brigham Young. As a little bit of background, let's remember that in the early years of this dispensation the saints built a temple in Kirtland but were soon forced to leave the temple in the hands of apostates. They fled to Missouri, their New Jerusalem and were again forced to leave. Finally they got to Nauvoo and thought it would be a place of permanent residence but then their prophet was murdered during the building of the temple and again they fled. When they got to the Salt Lake Valley Brigham Young announced that they would build a temple. Basically the common response was "Look Brother Brigham; we've tried this temple building stuff and it doesn't work. Maybe you're going to build a temple; but I'm not." In a general conference address Brigham Young replied and said: "some will inquire: 'Do you suppose we'll finish the temple Brother Brigham?' Well I've had such questions put to me already. My answer is: I don't know. And further more, I don't care. I have never cared but for one thing: and that is simply to know that I am now, this day, right before my Father in Heaven. If I am this moment, this day, doing the things God requires of my hands, and precisely where my Father in Heaven wants me to be, I care no more about tomorrow  than though it would never come. I do not know where I will be tomorrow, and I do not know whether this temple shall be completed. But his I do know: there should be a temple built. And I know it is the duty of this people to commence to build it."

I hope that this attitude of diligent faith will be our collective mindset.

Have a great week!

-Elder Dawson