Went To The Market

Finally nice to get an email from you guys! ;) Well this week wasn't that crazy but we got to go to the market! Before we left one of the guys came in and told me that my mission was changed to Panama... but then after thirty min of freaking out he came in and told me that he was just kidding. We went to downtown to go to a market where they just had lots of trinkets and stuff so nothing that would of been really useful. But it was way cool! It was all underground and there were like 4 stories! People were always trying to get us to look at their stuff but little did they know we had no idea what they were talking about. After that we went to Wendy's and it was probably the greatest thing ever because after eating rice and beans for 4 weeks it kinda gets old. After I ordered all my food I realized that when I got it I didn’t get anything that I asked for.. they must of misunderstood me or something. After Wendy's we went to a Catholic church and it was pretty crazy! but also really depressing. We went to the plaza after and talked to people and handed out Book of Mormons. Me and my companion talked to 3 people. The first was not very interested. The second people we talked to already had a Book of Mormon so we just shared a message with them and after having no luck we talked to a really old guy that may or may not have been crazy.. But either way we were able to give away a BoM! We thought our Spanish was really good until we got out there and realized that is actually really bad and can't understand anyone.. But I'm so ready to get out in the field and start changing peoples lives for the better! Sorry my emails aren’t very long. It's hard to have anything to say when we do the same thing every day. Next week will be better! One interesting thing I saw on the way to the market was some guys fixing a light post but they didn’t have anything to put the ladder on. So they just had like 10 people holding the ladder on the bottom and had some poor guy at the top wobbling back and forth..

Love, Elder Stiles

2 More Weeks!

Here is Jake's email this week.  So awesome to hear from him each week but he caught us by surprise by writing us a day early.  There is a new picture attached.  Just some explanations:  Nortes apparently means Northerners. MTC Devo is a devotional talk given by Elder Bednar.  Prez. Cox is his MTC President. The talk Jake referred to by Elder Holland is titled Safety for the Soul.  It is also a Mormon Message titled "Testimony of The Book of Mormon" by Jeffrey R. Holland.  It is an awesome little video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHY-Y9yraR8 

Hey, So we got to write a day early because tomorrow we are going to be running around the town of Guatemala! I'll get to that in a bit. So first of all I'll start with were I ripped my pants last week... Kinda like in Spongebob but it was down the side below my pocket. I really hope they can last me two years. We had to have a sewing class taught by the Hermanas, and me... cause apparently I'm the only other one that knows how to sew stuff. And I'm not sure what kind of weird traditions they have down here because lately everyone has been setting off fireworks. Like at 5 in the morning... I think it might just be some kind of sick joke.. haha but when I first woke up to it the first time I could of sworn they were just gunshots. I was so tired I didn't even care at first, but after 20 min of it I had to go check it out and that's when I realized they were just fireworks. We had our first fast Sunday here and it was the longest Sunday ever. Don't get me wrong it was so amazing but there is only so much Personal study you can do.. One Spiritual experience that I thought was cool was that us Nortes were watching a MTC Devo by Bednar and we got about halfway through and it stopped working. We tried everything to get it to work. We even had the computer wiz come over and help us and he said it was just to scratched and we were going to have to watch it in Spanish. But that wasn't stopping Elder Magalei! He got up and told us we were going to have a prayer and if we had faith that it was going to work. So we all got on our knees and said a prayer and when we put it back in it played perfectly! "The church is true" - Elder Stiles. We are two weeks away from  being in the field and I know I'm going to miss my zone so much! We already making our reunion! Tomorrow we get to go to Wendy's and I'm pretty sure were going to buy the whole store out. After that we get to go to the market with the 2 weekers and buy stuff and hand out Book of Mormons! We just had a talk by Prez. Cox and every time he talks it just makes us want to get out there and do stuff! I can't explain how pumped I am! We are now the big boys on top! Its so funny when the new guys have to have us translate for them and they don't know how to talk. Our Spanish is pretty good as long as we can understand them. We can talk the gospel really well. One thing I would like you to look up is the talk by Elder Holland. I think its called the Testimony of the Book of Mormon. So powerful and I know it's true. There is absolutely no way that those men could find the faith they had in that book if they didn't KNOW it was true. I'll have more for you next week!

 

Love, Elder Stiles

Oh and also I finally got my mail. Only 20 days for me to get dear elder! I also want to let the young women know I got their package and it was the greatest surprise ever because I was so hungry and that candy was amazing! Also make sure to tell Montana that I do know who she is haha. At first I thought the whole package was from her and I was like what the heck, my bros friend sends me a package but my family doesn't?! haha but it was amazing! Letters are the best to get!

3 Weeks Down, 3 More to Go!

Here is Jake's letter he sent today.  If you don't know who Devin Graham is then Google Devin Supertramp.  He was in Guatemala City this last week.

Hello everyone!
So we were able to get new missionaries in last week. Some of them are going to El Salvador but not my mission. Next week we will get the new Latinos going to my mission. So our schedule is basically like this: wake up at 6:30 then we work out for an hour and then study till breakfast. Study till lunch and then finally... Study till dinner. Oh and study till bed. So lots of studying.. The weather is always perfect and I love it! We saw rain for the first time today but it was only for a min and now its like a trillion degrees outside. It's awesome to hear about everything at home! This week we are doing an English fast and we aren't allowed to speak any English. It's really hard but we learn a ton
and it makes things pretty funny. We took another picture but we still haven't gotten it. Oh and it says that we can't receive packages but we can. The prez was telling us that they always let them in, just make sure it says Elder Stiles. One of my friends just got a package from his mom with a bunch of stuff in it. And I have not gotten any of the Dear Elders. They usually take 7 to 14 days. This new group we got lot of Dominicans and their Spanish is really bad. They make their J's sound like S's which is quite annoying. Something interesting we learned this week which I thought was pretty funny was that we are Matchmakers here in the mission and we are out here to find our investigators one true love... God. We are like that friend that hooks two of your other friends up. We have come to the conclusion that they ARE starving us for the mission field. Cause every week we are more and more hungry. I've learned to love salad cause its good to fill up on after we scarf down all our food. Devin Graham came and spoke at one of our teacher's wards and he was telling us how much he loved him and I showing him the picture of the drift trikes and he thought they were the coolest things ever.

Love Elder Stiles
3 weeks down, 3 more to go! 

Week Two

Hey everyone!

So I'll start out with my companion. His name is Elder Buhrley and he is from highland Utah and we have a lot in common. We try and play lots of basketball when we have free time. There is just me and 3 other Hermanas going to my mission. Hopefully tomorrow when we get our new group there are some more going to my mission. I still have no idea what the CCM stands for mostly cause we don't really even have time to ask. We do work for 16 hours each day and if we don't get to bed at 10:30 then we don't get any sleep. They keep the cameras for the whole MTC because they said they don't want people taking pictures of people in the shower... whatever that means.  The food is really good but for all of us Elders it feels like they are trying to starve us for the mission field. They serve just about any food you can think here but you just get whatever they make. I don't remember if i said anything about the volcano or not but we had to close our windows because there was ash everywhere. Some of the elders said they heard it but I'm not so sure how much I believe them. The cars are really interesting down her. All of them are either cars like mine or they are a BMW or Mercedes. And they are just different. I don't know how to explain it. I finally opened everyone's letters they gave me because we had a 15 min free time on Sunday and I loved it! All the Latinos left yesterday and it was really sad. My friend Elder Garcia gave me a tie and I felt like I had to give him one of mine so I gave him my green tie. We sung Until We Meet Again and it was really powerful. Such an amazing experience. Can't wait for the new ones to come in! After Emailing our zone is going to ball up the other elders in a game of basketball so wish us luck! Emailing is hard cause the keyboards are Spanish ones and they make no sense and have of them are broken so sorry if I don't email long.

Love Elder Stiles

Hey Everyone

Hey everyone!

First of all I'm sorry if my spelling is not the best. The Mtc is amazing! Here it is called the CCM. Things got crazy right from the start! it has been nothing but nonstop work. but man it is amazing! On my first flight to LA they said that they had a problem with one of the wings but then it passed all the tests so we ended up flying out on time! Nothing really exciting happened on the flight. Not even sleep while we flew to Guatemala. So when we got to the ccm we got to sleep for a couple hours. I made a couple friends in Utah and met the rest of my group in LA. My very first flight I got to sit next to the window and the other two flights were on the isle seat. My last meal was a $15 sandwich from the airport just about the cheapest I could find... Before I forget Dad, if you end up sending a package if you could send a picture of my truck that would be awesome and maybe if there is one of Clay that would be awesome! My gate to Guatemala was right next to where we got off. The plane was pretty cool. We had a tv, movies and games which I was so "happy" to refrain from... I did take some pictures. The ones of me on the plane, in the city, the CCM and I also took a picture of the tire of the bus which made the tires on the truck look brand new. it had NO tread. like it was flat, rubber was falling off and there were rips right in the middle. I'm not sure how it was still on. It is pretty boring without my phone but we  kept busy. The things we do the most are counting down the time we have till we can eat breakfast lunch and dinner. and also when we can go to bed. Sleep is something I wish I had more of because it is really hard to keep awake. My companero is way cool. He is also about as big as Gary Callis. We eat lunch with the Latinos and we try and practice our Spanish with them. Most the time my vocab involves "mas dispacio" which means slow down, then "que significa" which is what does that mean and finally "no se" which is idk. so basically we ask them "renaldo or messi" and then that's it. A lot of the time I just take a shot in the dark and say "si" laugh with them and then walk away hoping they didn't ask me anything weird. Some of the two that we eat with are elder Garcia and elder Pineda because they are the funniest and can get mostly what we say. We went to the temple today which was amazing! Well I don't have any more time to say anything so just some things to wrap it up. Mom and dad I know you love emailing me everyday but its really hard to read 7 different emails talking about the same thing so if you could just write one on that Monday wrapping up everything you want to tell me that would be awesome:) then have the kids write me a separate email. Make sure to send me lots of pictures because that is one of the most exciting things! Cant wait to write next week!

love Elder Stiles

I've Made It

I made it to the MtC alive! Delta is not my favorite airline but I did get a picture in the captains seat! They took our cameras and sd cards so I wont be able to send any pictures home for 6 weeks... Ive only got like 2 hours of sleep so I can't really get what I want to say out. Guatemala is pretty crazy. They have a police officer with a military shotgun on every street corner. Every car has dents and everything looks very run down. The temple is right across the street and it looks so amazing. They are so awesome here and very welcoming. All the kids that I came down with are way cool too. We only have 5 min to say stuff but I'll have more to say on our P-Day (on Monday I think)... Well things are gettin' real

Love, Elder Stiles

Departure Day

Today, February 3, 2015 Jake flies out from the Boise Airport to the Guatemala City MTC.  He chose to have his last American meal at Main Street Burger.