Week 96

This week flew by! To be honest, all the weeks are starting to blur together, so I'm sorry if I repeat stories or something. Elder Polendo and I keep so busy that it's just a constant whirlwind of awesome missionary work. Here were the highlights (I think they're all from this week haha)

- We had a sweet P-day today where the zone got together to eat carne asada and watch a movie! It took some serious preparation though! And honestly, if we didn't have sisters in the zone, the whole thing would have been a giant disaster. Thank goodness for sisters! Honestly, I've learned that the church absolutely cannot function without the Relief Society. So thanks to all you women out there for your hard work! Anyway, now that I'm off that tangent, it was a really successful activity (a little stressful though so I don't know if we'll do that again).

- To be honest, Elder Polendo and my greatest joy comes from the zone's success. And being with the other missionaries are the best moments of the week! I really love the whole zone, and we're working amazing together! We should have about 15 baptisms this next week and October looks really good!

- It looks like we might have had a breakthrough with Rosemary, the investigator we've been teaching for a couple months now. We had been giving her a little space recently with the whole baptism issue, but we prayed, fasted, and put a date with her for the 28th. She kind of accepted. But then she came to church again yesterday, and between classes, I showed her the baptismal font, and explained a little about how a baptismal service is. She seems a lot more comfortable with the idea. We should get a definite answer from her tomorrow. Whenever it happens, it will be one of the best baptisms of my mission. She'll be a leader in the church one day :)

- My comp, Elder Polendo, is hitting that realization that he's finishing the mission in 10 days. I think he's starting to freak out a little bit, but he continues working really well. Also, Elder Hebert, my old MTC comp, turned in his application to BYU! He tells me that something I told him made him change his mind, and he feels really good about the decision.

I hope all you guys had a great week, and that you have an even better week starting today! I love you all! Adios!

Elder Birt

Week 95

Hey everyone! This week just disappeared! I can't believe how fast things are going now!

Elder Polendo and I are focusing a ton on helping the zone these days, and we're seeing some great results! I think we had the most successful zone (as far as numbers) for the second straight week, so that's reason to celebrate!

This past Thursday, I was on divisions with one of our district leaders when it started POURING! I've never seen it rain so hard here in Honduras. We got drenched, but the worst part was the flooding. We had to wade through this one part where the water was almost up to my belt! And there were a bunch of cars that had died and the owners had abandoned them. It was pretty crazy!

Yesterday, was Independence Day in Honduras, which basically ruined everything at church. For some reason, the schools make it mandatory that the kids march in parades. Anyway, our attendance got cut in half yesterday (a mighty 63 in a ward), and we only had one investigator show up :( The majority of the zone had similar results.

We had a couple really sweet experiences yesterday! First, we set up an appointment in the morning with a member family that we had never visited before. This family is active and everything, but we'd never really talked to them before and they're not that involved with the ward. But we went over a few hours after church, and they had their non-member neighbors waiting for us in their house! We taught a simple, powerful lesson, and set up another appointment for this week. But for all you members out there, there's nothing that makes the missionaries more happy than doing something like that. I would know because my comp and I were high-fiving after leaving their house haha

Also, we showed up at one of our investigator family's houses the other day, only to receive the news that they had gotten married the day before! This is after we had been working on getting papers for them for about 2 months. Apparently, they just took matters into their own hands and got married themselves! Now, we just have to help them get baptized, which will be another project.

Thanks to everyone who still reads my blog! I'm impressed with everyone that's hung in there for 22 months. Heck, I don't even know if I would have done it haha. But seriously, thanks for everything and I love all you guys!

Week 94

Hey everyone! Sorry if anyone was waiting for my blog entry last week (mainly my mom), but we had an activity that went a little long. We´re keeping SUPER busy the last few weeks, and today is actually the first time in a while that I´ve been able to rest a little bit. Here´s the breakdown:

- Tuesday, we had a zone meeting. Instead of the district leaders controlling their own meeting like normal, Elder Polendo and I planned a totally beast 2 hour meeting! We felt like it was time to machete the missionaries (that´s what we say when leaders scold their missionaries for crappy numbers haha). For those of you who know me well, you probably know that´s not my personality at all, but that´s what the situation called for. And I think we did it in the right way too. Then, we had a little church tour after that turned out to be super spiritual! One of the sisters in our zone even started crying because the spirit was so strong. All in all, it was a sweet meeting.

- That same day, we did divisions. Elder Polendo went to another area to go dominate, while I held down the fort in Puerto Cortes.

- Wednesday morning, we finished divisions by playing basketball in the morning at the church. I´m a little rusty, but actually not as much as I thought I would be. Also, just a fun fact, we have an elder in the zone that has a basketball scholarship to go to University of San Diego, so he´s pretty dang good.

- Thursday, we did weekly planning as a zone (we´re basically trying to get the zone together as much as possible to help the unity). And then we had another division, where I left the area with Elder Madsen to dominate and my comp Polendo held down the fort.

- Friday, after doing a church tour with Madsen, the office called us, saying that Polendo had to go to San Pedro so he wouldn´t get thrown out of Honduras for being illegal haha. That lasted pretty much all day. It was super boring, but I got to catch up a bit with my friend Elder Bergquist from my MTC district

- Saturday, the APs called us on short notice, telling us that they were gonna visit us in our area. I got to do divisions with Elder Hebert again! It was a blast! And then the four of us tried to sleep on two mattresses in our house. It was pretty uncomfortable - I´ll just leave it at that.

With all that effort, the zone improved A TON! Seriously, I´ve never seen numbers in my entire mission as good as the ones we got last night. It´s extremely satisfying to see an entire zone buy in to what we said and improve so much. Elder Polendo and I just have to get even better next week though!

Funny (and stupid) story of the week: On Saturday, we started a fast with the APs, and prepared to break the fast Sunday night by buying a ton of junk food. So after church finishes Sunday, we race back to the house, finish our fast, and start going to town. We drank a couple cups of water each, ate a whole box of Vanilla Wafers (thanks for sending that mom!), drank a 3-liter of soda, and ate a bunch of other snacks. Turns out after, we felt pretty terrible. And even more terrible when we went to our lunch appointment, and the lady gave us soup. Hahaha looking back on it, we were pretty dumb, but hey, it was fun!

We´re working on 3 weddings in my area right now, but they´re all getting held up for various reasons. Also, Rosemary (I talked about her forever ago) is still going to church (9 straight weeks, I think). But she still won´t get baptized, although it gets closer in every visit. So there are baptisms coming, but we just don´t know exactly when :(

Thanks for all the love and support! You guys are awesome! Love you all! Nos vemos!

-Elder Birt

 

Two points that Cam wanted me to put on the blog from our questions to him

We do have a cook that makes us lunch every day, and a different member makes us dinner every night. We pay for the lunch - the dinner no. It´s pretty much the same honduran food as always, and I don´t think I´ve eaten fish the whole time actually. I did, however, try sopa de mondongo (cow stomach soup) for the first time a couple weeks ago. It´s probably the most infamous dish in the mission, but I actually didn´t mind it that much. It just tasted a little rubbery haha

The Honduras-Mexico soccer match was all anyone was talking about this week. It´s crazy here- it´s like a national holiday every time there´s an international match. As missionaries, we literally know the score of the game just from walking in the street and hearing the cheers (or cussing) after every goal. There´s also some fireworks and the occasional gunshots when Honduras scores. Everyone´s making fun of my comp because he´s Mexican haha

Week 93

Time kind of got away from us today with a zone activity, and there was an issue with the computer. But I love you all and hope you're doing great! Sorry, I'll write more next week!

Week 92

Hey everybody, hope everyone had a great week! From what I've heard, there's a lot of excitement with school starting up! Good luck to everyone who's starting up! For me, there was a TON of change this past week, so I'll try to hit the high points for you guys.

 

- My new comp is Elder Polendo, from Chihuahua, Mexico. He has 23 months in the mission, and yet again, I will be someone's last comp (for the fourth time). He was AP for the last 8 months, so he's regarded as one of the best. We're firing on all cylinders right now, but we need to incorporate some of our ideas to help the zone.

- We'll have a baptism this week! Her name is Reina, a lady in her 60s that heard the missionaries before. She's a little crazy- she doesn't have any filter, so it's anyone's guess what she's going to say. She's already made a few offensive comments, so we are going to try to fix that problem before it gets worse.

- Skousen and I found a sweet family about 3 weeks ago that have gone to church the last two weeks. As usual, the woman wants to get married, and the man doesn't for some reason.

- We should have a wedding/baptism for Carlos and Jade, but it probably won't happen until the second or third week of September. They're on board, but he has work on Sundays, which is the only thing in the way.

- We went to a place called Omoa today for a zone activity! It's kind of a touristy place, and there's this sweet castle we visited. Then we went to the beach after (to be honest, I don't know why we go to the beach as missionaries. We all just wanted to get in the water, but couldn't haha). And we ate at Pizza Hut after! So it was a sweet little activity.

- Elder Duncan from the Area Presidency will be visiting this week! We'll have a mission conference on Thursday, and then a leadership meeting for the ZLs on Friday. I'm looking forward to it a lot!

- Crazy story of the week: We saw a dog sleeping in the street one day. He got up and there was a car coming toward him pretty fast. For some reason, the dog didn't do anything and got nailed by the car! The collision was surprisingly loud. But more amazingly, the dog just got up and ran away after. Everybody that saw was just like "Did that really happen?"

Well, that's about it for today. Hope y'all (decided to be Texan today) have a great week! Adios!

Week 91

Hey folks! It was a wonderful week this week, and thanks to everyone who sent birthday messages or packages! I can't believe I'm 21 now!

Well, my comp went home yesterday, so I'm currently with Elder Taafua, an elder finishing his first change in Honduras. We'll just be together until Wednesday, when we'll have changes for the whole mission. But for three days, I'm the only zone leader for the biggest zone of the mission! Yippee! But I'll be e-mailing you guys next week with another new comp!

I gotta tip my hat to Elder Skousen, who worked until the very end. Heck, we had three people go to church for the first time yesterday (and six total), despite some challenges here in Puerto Cortes (more on that later). The APs just came yesterday, and whisked him away to San Pedro though. Amazing how it all finishes so fast!

The members tried to throw a surprise party for Elder Skousen on Saturday. They told me about it Saturday morning, so I could get him to the church at the right time. It was all going perfectly- he didn't even have a clue what was going on. And then, we were visiting a member in the afternoon, and she let it slip. Skousen ended up finding out, but more than anything, he was just glad they were throwing him a party. Also, the surprise would have been foiled anyway when we showed up at 5 (the time they told me) and hardly anyone was there. Latins are great, but they have a thing for being late for ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING.

Also, there was like a 2 week-long party here in Puerto Cortes these last two weeks. Apparently, it was for some Catholic holiday; no one here even knows, they just know they celebrate with parties. It was pretty cool actually! Every day, there was a party in a different neighborhood. And then, they had a parade for the whole town on Friday and "Carnaval" on Saturday! We passed by a couple of these parties during the two weeks they had them- not exactly the most Mormon of parties... I'll just leave it at that. Also, our attendance almost got cut in half because people all stayed up late on Saturday for Carnaval. What can you do?

We have a baptism set up for the 31st for a lady named Reina. She's actually kinda crazy. When we first met her, we thought she wasn't all there, but it turns out she's just a little odd. But she's super smart and knows about our church from when the missionaries visited her in Belize. Plus she's super nice! She gives us some kind of dessert every time we visit her! So we're happy about her baptism, and hope it inspires others to follow.

That's about it for this week! Thanks to my parents and grandparents for the packages! I love them! And I love all of you guys! Adios!

Week 90

Hey peeps! Hope everyone had a great week! There was a little bit of everything this past week, so we´re gonna go at this bullet-list style.

- First, we had a stake conference yesterday! It started at 8:00 though! Whoever made that decision did not think it through. It made it pretty much impossible to bring people to church (Honduran people really love sleeping), so we only had 2 investigators yesterday. It was similar luck for most of the zone as well. Also, they're splitting our zone in October!

- Second, we had a multi-zone conference on Friday! It lasted five hours, which is a little longer than usual. President gave some good advice, but the highlight for me was Elder Hebert's great training class.

- Third, we just went on a little shopping spree! Normally, that doesn't excite me that much, but I just bought tennis shoes for 11 bucks! No Honduran people have size 12 shoes, so they sell them for dirt cheap haha. Also, I bought a machete to cut the lawn when I get back (I'm just kidding, it takes forever and really sucks. But it's still a cool machete).

- We continue to bring people to church, but NO ONE will accept a set-in-stone baptismal date. It's driving me insane! We should be marrying and baptizing a really awesome couple soon (hopefully by the end of the month), but the Honduran government office isn't giving us the papers we need to marry them. We always leave that place pretty annoyed actually. Just imagine the driver's license office in the States, but like 500 times more inefficient. Yeah, that's what we're up against :(

Well, that's my update for the week. I'm surrounded by bagginess (trunkiness) lately! My comp leaves next week, and my best friend Rory Jones is finishing up this week! Congrats to them for finishing with honor! Adios y nos vemos la proxima semana!