Week 70

First off, this week was awesome! I would say it was the best week of my mission, but we ran into some tough days on Friday and Saturday. Other than that though, it was a pretty amazing week!

Even with all the positives, there are a few things that really annoy me. For instance, it's been an inferno here for the last couple weeks! It's so hot, that I sweat in my bed even with my fan blowing full blast on me! That is definitely not a good sign. Honestly, the only way to truly cool off is to take a shower. Funny how the "not having any hot water" thing hasn't really bothered me for the last 14 months. It's just that hot here. Also, the Honduran soccer team played Mexico this past Friday here in San Pedro (about 15 minutes from where I am). It would be great if I wasn't a missionary, but it makes missionary work pretty much impossible. The whole country just closes down for two hours to watch the game. Actually, we could follow the game ok just from walking in the streets and hearing EVERY SINGLE PERSON's TV playing the game. From what I hear, the game was an exciting tie, which kinda seems like an oxymoron haha. Also, everyone told us that the US beat Costa Rica the same day in a snowstorm in Denver. This country is just soccer crazy! Sadly, Honduras plays again on Tuesday, so we're trying to find an appointment with someone that doesn't like soccer (which is quite difficult).

Ok, now to the positives... We shattered my old record of number of investigators in church when we had 13 yesterday! It was a pretty hectic church experience, and I actually got to church about 20 minutes late with three of our investigators. But it was good to have so many people there, and so much work to do! We're planning on four baptisms this coming Saturday, but it all depends on if the papers come to marry our family. We'll at least baptize Claudia, who we thought we were going to baptize a couple weeks ago (that's a long story). But if the papers come, we will baptize a family of three as well! I'm stoked!

Time for a pretty awesome spiritual experience. So my comp and I were having a tough day last week. A couple appointments dropped, it was hotter than Hades, and we just weren't having the best time. Elder Sweat (my comp) said something like "I just wanna find a family! Why can't we teach a family?" That comment got us to talking, and we decided to say a prayer right there in the street so that we could find a family. We walked up the street a couple houses, saw a small gray house, and that's when we both just knew. We went and knocked on the door, they invited us in, and now we're teaching a family of three! Two of them went to church yesterday too! Just another cool instance of God answering prayers.

Also, the members in this ward are really stoked about missionary work! We had nineteen lessons with a member present this past week! And I feel like there's even more room to improve. Everyone is just animated to be missionaries! Cool right?

Well, I wish everyone a good week! Hope you stay safe during Semana Santa! Adios!

Week 69

Hey guys! It was another exciting week here in Las Lomas. There's quite a bit of excitement for members here in Honduras after the dedication of the Tegucigalpa Temple yesterday. President Uchtdorf and Elder Holland came to dedicate the temple, and we watched the transmission from the stake center. It was sweet! The coolest part was when Elder Holland stopped using his translator and bore his testimony in Spanish! It was a very simple testimony, but everyone felt the spirit so strong! The gift of tongues is alive and well haha

Saturday night was the cultural night for the temple, where the youth from the entire country went to perform in Teguc. We even spotted a couple of the youth from my ward, which was pretty cool. They performed a bunch of dances and skits, and everything came off without a hitch! We also took some investiagators to see it, and they all loved it! And apparently, the son of a recent convert saw the Cultural Night and wants to get baptized now! Which reminds me we need to go talk to him...

Anywho, we also had two baptisms this past Thursday! A member did the baptisms, and I had to perform the confirmations because no other men brought a white shirt :( We had a great turnout though, and it was a good experience for everyone involved. This week, we might have a baptism (depends on if the lady watched the Cultural Night on tv or not), and we have a family of three set up for the week after. Also, we're looking pretty good for April, although I don't want to get ahead of myself.

Funny stories of the week! First, we found this pulperia (those are like tiny stores they have everywhere here) that sells PriceMart doughnuts. They're like doughnuts from the US! My comp and I bought a box and hid it from our other two roommates so we could eat the whole thing. This looks like it might become a regular occurrence too :) Second, we went to dinner the other night, and the family gave us baleadas (typical). They LOADED them with cheese though, and Honduran cheese is pretty terrible. They gave us four too (which is a lot), so my comp and I were struggling a little with it. I was able to finish, but my comp was still struggling. He was like "If I had a place to hide these right now, I would totally do it." I responded by pointing to the empty orange juice carton on the table. And then he actually did it! He put an entire baleada in the orange juice carton (very sneakily so the lady wouldn't notice), and then left with the orange juice carton. I was impressed that he actually went through with it, and that he pulled it off successfully.

Well, that's it for this week, but we'll see what's in store for the coming week. Hope everyone has a good week! Stay safe and have fun!

Week 68

 

 

Hey everyone! Hope all is going well! After a tough week last week, we bounced back with a good effort this week. Apparently, last week was just a test or something because it was a pretty terrible week. I don't know if you guys picked that up from my blog. Haha I try to stay positive, but sometimes it's difficult. But anyway, I'm super stoked about this week, and that things are turning around! Ok, there's actually a ton of news this week, so I'll have to go bullet-list style for you guys.

- The Tegucigalpa temple (the first temple in Honduras) will be dedicated this Sunday, the 17th. In preparation, there will be a cultural night on Saturday, and all the youth from my ward are going to participate! Since Tegucigalpa is outside our mission's boundaries, we will watch it in the stake center :)

- We will have two baptisms this Thursday, coincidentally for two youth that are going to be in the program for the cultural night. It has never happened before, but they will be baptized and confirmed the same day so they can watch the temple dedication on Sunday.

- Ok, I gotta tell you guys the story about one of these baptisms. We received her as a reference this past Saturday... as in two days ago. She went to our bishop about a week ago to get a recommend to watch the temple dedication. Well, turns out she never got confirmed a member of the church. She was baptized by water, but for some reason never got confirmed. So she doesn't show up as a member of the church, and needs to be baptized. She already goes to church, seminary, mutual, etc. So we talked to her yesterday, and set up her baptism for this Thursday. Talk about an easy baptism, right? Haha

- The family we were going to marry and baptize this week is flaking out. The mom is especially making me mad because she just sends her kid out to talk to us while she is in the house. But what can you do? We'll probably leave them alone for a while, and go back in a week or two.

- We found this AWESOME new investigator a little more than a week ago. We taught her the Book of Mormon and the Joseph Smith story in our second lesson, and went back for our third lesson with her, and she already believed it! She read an entire chapter (we only left a couple verses), and she just said she felt great reading it. So she accepted a baptismal date for the 23rd. The only problem? She's 18 and already has a kid and lives with the dad of the kid. I really hope it works out for her because she loves the church, but we'll see this week when we teach the law of chastity...

- Haha ok, funny story of the week... and this one's a gem! So my comp is still learning Spanish, and makes a decent number of mistakes. It's a work in progress, but this past week he had two hilarious mistakes. The first one was when we saw a horse on the side of the road (which is actually fairly common here). My comp said "Let's ride that caballero into the sunset." He thought caballero meant horse, but it actually means gentleman. Lol it gave me a good laugh. The second one was when we asked a girl where her parents were. He said "Donde estan sus papas?" but put the accent on the wrong syllable. So instead of asking "Where are your parents?," he asked "Where are your potatoes?." The little girl was a little confused, and I was laughing my head off. I couldn't help it. I told my comp, and he was a good sport about it and had a good laugh as well haha

- So this last week, we had a multi-zone conference AND a meeting for all the district leaders in the mission. The same day as the district leader meeting, I did divisions and did my first baptismal interview for someone else's investigator (in Utila, I did interviews for my own investigators). This week, I should have a couple more interviews because the other companionship in my district also has two baptisms! Four baptisms in the district! :)

Enjoy the pics from my last few weeks in Utila! Have a great week!

Week 67

It was a challenging second week in Las Lomas. We had a ton of lessons fall early in the week, but got back on track during the last part of the week. But the biggest disappointment was what happened yesterday. We went to the house of five different investigator families, and all of them made excuses about why they couldn't go to church. And most of them had promised us that they would. Also, our potential March 9th baptism, Claudia, just disappeared! We still don't know what happened, and she won't answer her phone. Let's just say we dealt with some pretty frustrating things this week.

But even with the difficulties, the Lord blessed us with some minor successes. Also, I've learned that in the most difficult times of my mission, I've learned the most and grown the most. So I'm optimistic that will happen again in this situation. After all, the members are still great and really involved in the missionary work. And we have some solid investigators as well- they just need that extra spark to keep our commitments.

Here's the quick recap of our investigators: We're working on two weddings right now for families that want to get baptized. The Hernandez family is super legit, the Urquoia family just needs a little extra push. The hard part in this situation is that it's a nightmare trying to get the paperwork to marry families here. Who knows how long it will end up taking... We have a plethora (big word!) of other investigators, but each have their own challenges and need a little more work to get baptized.

Also, today was a sweet P-day! We went to the Lima zone to play soccer and drink licuados in this famous licuado shop. And you guys know how much I love licuados! I got a chocolate banana combo that was excellent! The soccer was fun as well!