Casi 3 meses in mi misión!!!! - Week 13

Casi 3 meses in mi misión!!!! Crazy right?! Este semana, yo tengo tres meses en la 17 de Diciembre. Cuando yo pienso acerca de el tiempo yo tengo aqui a veces tiempo es rapido pero en el mismo tiempo lento. 

English Translation:

Almost three months in my mission!!!!  Crazy right?!  This week, I have been out 3 months on December 17.  When I think about the time I have been here, sometimes it’s fast but at the same time slow.

That’s all the Spanish I feel like typing for now haha. But things are still going pretty good here for me. First off we had cambios (changes) and the news is..... wait for it...... I am still with my companion! Sweet! I was so relieved when I had figured out that we were going to be companions for another 6 more weeks and that I will be his last companion in his mission too. So on missions your first companion is called your Dad and I am his Son, and when you finish your mission you say that they will be Dead so thats kinda funny. But whats funnier is that I get to say that I have the privilege to kill my Dad in my mission! I’m pretty proud to say that. The only change that happened in my district is that the one Elder who is from California, ya he is gone from our district and now we have a new Elder named Elder Bastian from Utah and thank goodness that he is so much better than the other guy!

Also a few days ago I was on divisions with my Zone leader for a day in his area working with him and we visited people but we also went over to a river and turns out that we only had to walk like 15 minutes to this river which is the border of Guatemala and Mexico so now I get to say that I saw Mexico! It’s funny because there are a lot of people crossing it really easily with their make shift boats and stuff and the police don't do anything about it. But ya, I saw Mexico! Haha! 

Lessons and our investigators are going good. We are so close and working hard on having baptisms with a few people. The only hard thing is, is that they have to go to church at least 2 times before they are baptized so that means that if they don’t go to church then their baptism needs to be pushed back another week so that makes it even harder. We have 5 or 6 people, possibly 8 actually who are ready for baptism and who want to be baptized as well. One night with new investigators we were talking to them about God, Christ, and the Holy Ghost so they understand the Godhead better. We really focused in the Bible and we taught them the correct principles about the Godhead using the Bible instead of the Book of Mormon and they really believed what we were teaching them and the one daughter who we taught the day before, we challenged her to pray that night to know if what we were teaching was true because we taught her about the Gospel of Jesus Christ which is 1. Faith is Christ    2. Repentance    3. Baptism   4. The gift of the Holy Ghost   5. Persevering/enduring until the end. We taught her these, challenged her to be baptized. She rejected the first one because she said she was baptized 2 years ago, we taught about how this is the only true church with the priesthood authority from God to perform baptisms correctly and then we challenged her again that if she knew what we were teaching was true and if she feels and knows that La Iglesia de Jesucristo de los Santos de los Últimos Días is the only true church on the earth today that she will be baptized. She accepted and I asked her if she prayed and how she felt and she said that she prayed and felt peace and happiness and that she felt and believed the things we were teaching her was true. This made us happy and a really cool experience for me to see and be apart of. So her, her mom, her dad, and sister all have the desire to be baptized but they just need to act on this desire. So for the date of December 31st we will have 5 or 6 people to be baptized and one of them being a whole family. They just need to come to church now! A lot of people down here will say oh ya we will come to church with you guys this Sunday! Then in the mornings when we stop by to take them to church they always have excuses and say they have this or that or are sick. It makes us frustrated but when an investigator really comes to church, oh man are we happy!

Yesterday evening there was a choir in Malacatan with the whole state and it was a choir for Christmas. Oh my goodness... It was AMAZING. There were tons of instruments, the voices of the choir were incredible and it was just a really great event. Probably one of the best choirs I have ever seen in person. We had about 6 investigators come to the choir so that was really nice and they all really loved the choir. Dang it was good. Haha!

So something cool that has happened to me this week a few times. I would be talking to someone in Spanish about myself, and about them and just things in general and when they ask me how long I have been out on my mission I tell them almost 3 months. Then they say what?! Only that long? But you know so much Spanish and your accent is really good! This has happened like 4 or 5 times and when I hear them say that it gives me a confidence boost and makes me feel a lot better about my Spanish and really helps me out in that aspect. 

The people here are good and are really nice and I try to talk to them as much as possible with my little bit of Spanish that I know but I’m trying and I just have to remember to not be afraid of making mistakes nor be afraid of making a fool of myself either. That's one lesson I am learning because there is no other way I will be able to learn Spanish if I don’t throw myself out there and make a fool of myself!

Thanks for the updates with Sports mom! Go Broncos! I hope they win the super bowl this year and dang seems like CSU is kicking butt in sports as well, especially in basketball and it's awesome they are one of the 9 undefeated teams in the nation and are ranked pretty good! They need a higher rank though! I love hearing about Poudre and it makes me miss Poudre basketball and I wish I was out there playing with them again because man was it fun and I miss all the guys on the team and Coach Hawes and all the other coaches! Keep it up guys, I keep you guys in my prayers and I hope you all will have no regrets on the court! 

It’s been a good week though but I am so ready for Christmas to be here! The decorations here are not as nearly as good as the U.S but it still feels a little like Christmas though! Thanks for the love and support from you all! Sorry I didn't say too much this week about what happened with everything but with so little time to type its hard! Next week I will have more information! Love you all and miss you all too! Stay sweet!

Love,

Elder Kahl

This is me on the border of Guatemala and Mexico, if you look in the background you can see the sign that says Bienvenidos a Mexico!

This is my mini spanish book i got in the CCM and I made a cover for it of Christ that says Elder Kahl, usted puede hablar espanol (you can speak Spanish)! This is my motivation!

Here is who is on the top of our Christmas tree in our house! Good ol Tommy Monson!

Our other tree for Christmas! The tree of Sodas! Except I can’t find Root Beer anywhere down here.... Still cool though!