7 de Octubre

Photos Top to Bottom: Baptisim of Sharlotte (9/19),  Baptisim of Betty (9/23), And the view from my new area San Fancisco El Alto.

This week has been busy I"ve not ha much time to work in my new area yet as every day this week has been a diferent meeting.  Conference was great though, I felt nice to take a little break from the walking and teaching and just soak in the spirit of the prophet and apostals.  My New comp is Elder Vilca from Lima, Peru. We're getting along pretty well so far, and we have one investigator right now (Yessica) who's looking at getting baptized.
Elder Balhorn

12 de Agosto

Sorry for not writing for a while my blogger account got hacked, but i`ve pretty much figured it out.

These last few weeks have gone well, I`m with a new comp now named Elder Turner from Utah, He`s the first northamerican comp I`ve had since the MTC.  We`re getting along fine we`ve got 3 baptisamal dates that basicly a sure thing,  Noè for the 17th and a Couple, Edgar and Ivonn for the 24th.  We`re really excited for that but right now we`re busting it all out to find more people to be baptized and we`re not haveing a ton of success with that.  I love you all and miss you.
Elder Conner Balhorn

6 De Mayo

This week has gone fairly well, we had a baptisim of a family (Dad, Mom and Son with two childeren under the age of 8) they´re not really my converts though as they were already sure to be baptized when I came. But they´re a really cool family that know that the gospel is true and are completly willing to be part of the church and also they want their friends and family to join also, so I think that we can get a lot of help and references from them.

29 De Abril

Yeah it´s kind of a huge change bieng back in Xela,  I´ve learned how to teach and do missionary work in the aldeas (Olintepeque was pretty rural as well) and the city folk are just so much different to teach and work with. I´m now in a huge ward (about 160 active members) that atends stake center, we have a calender with lunch apointments for the month and it´s always full, the members always prepare something special ( Fried chicken, Spegettii, soup, mac&cheese, horchata etc. rice and tortillas are still used alot but they mix it up),
We still walk but the area´s pretty small and level so that and all this food are probably gonna round me up again, we are teaching several good families and we have one lined up for baptisim next week but they´re not my converts as they were already sure to be baptized before I came. About half of the zone is in trios because of the increase in missionaries and also because of a huge number of missionaries that are waiting for thier visas to go to other countries.

22 De Abril

So last monday in the night I got a call from the assistants and they told me where i was going and what i was going to do, I´m now a zone leader! My zone (and area) is called El Bosque but don´t let the name fool you it´s actually in Xela and my area is one of the busiest parts of the city.   It´s a bit of a culture shock coming out of Xepón and then all of the sudden having McDonalds in my area and also im trying to get my head around all the the dats and things that the assistants and president want us to keep track of.  I´m in a trio for now but it´s only temporary, my comp´s name is Elder Ube from Ecuador and the third wheel is Elder Aguilar from Honduras (we call him our secretary because he´s not a zone leader with us but we put him to work helping with the dats). They´re both good guys and we´re getting along great.  Anyway i´m trying to get adjusted to teaching educated people which is more challenging to me than anytning else because it´s a more in depth lesson and they have a harder time acepting the answers, but on the other hand they actually understand the doctrine and I feel like they´re following the gospel more knowingly than just blind acceptance.

15 De Abril

Well this next week I will turn one year old and never been kissed (If you dont count an old drunk guy who called me "Mi Amor" and gave me a big ol` Toothless smack on the cheek, but hey its the best kiss i`ve had in the last year)

So the other day a member in my area was working in a well and a big ol` boulder fell in, so we spent a couple days preparing the body and burying him (there is no such thing as a morgue here and he was pretty badly banged up) dunk realitives didn`t make anything easier and the entire family was screaming and crying something feirce, I never ever want to go through that agian. Anyway the mish is going great, we had 3 kids baptized last week and the parents of the kids we baptized last time schedueled for saturday,( and also the parents of the kids we just baptized want to also but the dad needs to attend,) But unfortunatly I`m not gonna be there as i`ve got changes and i`ll be going to my new area tomorrow :( . I`m glad to be getting away from my lazy comp but still I wanted to work a lot more in Xepòn before going ( The zone leaders say it`s probably the first time in history that someone has said that they dont want to leave Xepòn.) bu t that`s the way the cookie crumbles and the lord will send me where he needs me and I have to go.

25 de Marzo

This week has gone fairly well, we had 3 investigators come to church and they`re all fairly positive, we also challenged 3 of our investigators to baptisim although  2 said no,  the reason being is the same with them both , that they have been baptized before in the the catholic church and although they both like attending church and don`t believe in catholisisim they feel like being baptized again would be mocking god,  im pretty sure that thay will eventually baptized but it may take a bit to resolve thier doubts.

18 De Marzo

It´s been a while since I was last able to write here, but things have been going well in Xepón and we had a couple baptisims a couple weeks back on the 9th, ( two more kids of the same family ) the mom and dad still are positives but he needs to attend twice more before being baptized and she is afraid of water and won´t accept a date although she says she wants to, We also have three other families in the same área that are attending and one of the families have accepted the baptisimal challenge we just need to get out there with someone who speaks Quiche to make plans for the baptisim with them.
anyway alls well in the work of the lord here.
Elder Balhorn

A Microbús full of Investigators that came to the baptisim 

A Guatemalan Dentist (I´m pretty sure he´s working without a lisence)

 

18 de Febrero

Things are going well in Xepòn, Except my comp broke his glasses and we had to go to HueHue friday to buy new frames, the problem is that we got permission from the mission nurse but not from President, and he didn`t find out until we were already there, while he wasn`t angry at us he wasn`t exactly pleased either and told us that we couldn`t go down to Momos for P-day so as not to wast time although we did get permission to come down and go back up on the same pickup so we`re here for about 2 hours then we`ve gotta go back for another week of exile in xepòn.  But on the good side we have 5 baptisms scheduled for this saturday that are all pretty sure things, they are 1 son of a member who we reactivated and they thought was baptized but doesn`t appear on the records and 4 investigator kids who we`ve been working with for a while, we went to visit them with a member and mentioned to her that we wanted to challenge them to be baptized saturday and she just said ¨we`ll see¨ and walked right up and challenged them and they all said yes, so we talked with the parents and while the father can`t be baptized because he hasn`t come to church he said he was fine with their baptism and wanted to follow them later, the mother does have attendances in church but wants to wait for her husband. 

21 de Enero

Ok so first off my zone leader`s a liar and I am not opening an area, my current area is called Xepon (shepone) I`d might as well be opening it though as the missionaries that have been there before have been pretty lazy and when I came we had only one investigator, and my comp who`s been there for 6 weeks, only wants to work with members and inactives Oh and play soccer. But i´m senor Comp and as soon as i can ease into the reins we`re gonna contact like crazy. The wierd thing about Xepon is that it`s still in momos zone but it is nothing like the other areas first of all it`s the farthest away (bout an hour and a half by car) and the transport only comes once every two days so when we come down for p-day we have to spend a couple nights at the zone leaders wasting all of tuesday and half of wednesday, because of this president only wants us coming down twice a month, which super sucks because there is nothing in Xepon buy to eat except locally grown veggies and beans and although there is a computer lab with internet we`re told that it takes five hours to send one email, no joke, so we`ll see how that goes. As of right know they let us come down because there`s a conference next week which would make us unable to buy for or use internet for 2 and a half week. But I`m trying to figure out a way for us to get into momos and back the same day. As for how it looks its sierra which means deserty with pine trees also the city is built atop mountains wtih many deep gorges making visiting most parts of our area extreamly hard, and we walk a ton.

  With the area change I no longer live in the church but in a small house located on church grounds. (which is a new building and everything is pretty sweet, with a lot more space too. But its not as quite as theres an evangelical church nextdoor, ( I don`t know how much you know about Evangelical churches but they love to sing into megaphones and guatemalans in general can`t sing). Anyway thats about it for now.

7 de Enero

This week has been a rather interesting one, our really positive investigators got back from HueHue but unfortunatly the husbands aging father is living there also and he is a big time catholic, and as soon as he heard that we were visiting hello this is Elder ballhorns friend hows it going we  t that we were visiting he forbid them from taking lessons on the grounds that they are living in the house of his brother who is in the states and they don´t have the right to invite the mormons over and further more if they want to talk with us they will have to pay him for the right.  Fortunatly they are concerned about it and I still think they will get baptized and face the concequences