"Feliz Navidad de Honduras" December 19, 2011

Feliz Navidad de Honduras!

This is the first Spanish speaking Santa I have ever spoken to!

Sitting in our investigator's house. This is Oto, he is an Awesome guy and reminds me alot of Brooke. His wife and daughter remind me of Gina and Kelsi too.

We were saying "good bye" to our recent converts Familia Rapalo, when we thought I would be leaving the next day. This is Geovanni, he is always the one to run out and greet us.

This is the rooster we feasted on as a farewell lunch to Sagastume. As it turned out, my companion and I didn't get transferred after all.

This week was the week of Cambios, Changes. We thought for sure that I was leaving Wednesday so we decided to buy a live chicken and kill it and eat it for lunch. So we went and I chopped the head off with a machete and plucked the feathers off and we took it to someone to cook it up for us. Since we thought I was leaving, I said goodbye to everyone that day. That night, we had a lesson with one of our investigators. When I told him that we might have changes he went and grabbed his ties and told me to take one! It was awesome, I snagged a Jaguar print one. I offered to leave him mine, but he insisted on keeping them both. We found out that night that we were going to be staying the same, I was excited because I felt like that I wasn't ready to leave this area. My work here is not done. The two other Elders that I came in with from the MTC are now training new missionaries this change. That's about all that has happened this week. I have been hurting in my stomach lately, and my Comp told a member...great. So of course she insisted that we come over that night so she can give me some medicine she makes for this kind of stuff. I was a little skeptical going into this, but we showed up anyway. She had made Manzanilla tea or something with a clove of garlic in it also. It smelt horrible. I asked Elder Belnap if I could drink it, and he said "yeah". It was really gross, but it worked! I was fine for the rest of the night. We also had a power outage in our Colonia, and we aren't allowed to work with out lights because it can be dangerous, so we headed back to the house. We called our investigator and cancelled our appointment and explained the situation. First off, this investigator is a little on the wealthy side and he asked us if he we were hungry and told us he was going to pick up a pizza for us from Pricemart (Costco)! So we had pizza that night and went to bed full and happy. Sunday, the branch president had forgotten to assign talks...welcome to Honduras. So he asked me to give a talk 3 min before it started. I gathered all my thoughts together and decided to talk on the Atonement. I was really nervous, but I pulled through and gave a talk for 12 min and 15 secs. It ended being alright. Another thing that I realized, Christmas is nothing without your Family. Be grateful for the time you have with them. This time of year, I've only been thinking of my family and how much I miss them. Also, fake Christmas trees are no where close to real ones. I miss our real Christmas tree.

"Good for the Brain" December 12, 2011

This week we had another baptism. It went really well, but she said that she is sick and didn't want to be baptized in cold water because it would make her more sick. So my Comp and I went early to heat up the water. There is no hot water in the church, so we used our water heater that we use for our shower water. Its a little device made out of PVC pipes and it has a cord. First, you put it in the water and then you plug it into the wall and wait about 15 min and it gets a big tub of water boiling. the problem was, we didn't have a long enough cord to put it in the font so we ended up heating a bunch of buckets of water and throwing it in the font.

Remember the couple that I talked about in the letter last week that we ran into on the street and the girl was a member? Well we went to go teach her friend yesterday and he was home with all of his family. We taught him, his brother, sister, cousin and his mom the message of the Restoration of the Church and everything. They all said they wanted to pray and are willing and open to receiving an answer. None of them go to Church and they all accepted a baptismal date for the 14th of January. It was awesome!

Also this week, we ran into a member that owns a Pulperia (small store on the street where they sell chips and stuff) and she offered us Turtle Eggs. She said that she bought them from a guy that brings them from the beach. They're supposed to be good for the brain. So my companion and I accepted and we went inside to eat them. The catch was that you can't chew the egg or else you automatically throw up. So the way you eat turtle eggs is you get a cup of drink that you like (I used Orange Juice) and you pour the egg in there. The contents of the egg are one big ball of slimy yolk. It was interesting eating it or drinking it, however you want to say it. But I got it down!

"Listen" December 5, 2011

Elder Belnap, my companion and I have been exploring our area a little more and this is some beautiful scenery we have discovered.

I am definitely in the phase were the weeks and days are getting longer. With the baptism, we have to start over in looking for investigators. We've been walking over to our other area up the hill a ways. We have been searching and talking to everyone and are trying to find those that need the Lord in their life right now. This week I have learned to pray and listen with real intent. I cant express how important it is to pray and also LISTEN after you pray to receive guidance to your prayers. While we were doing our weekly planning, we prayed to receive guidance and inspiration on what we should do the next day. While we were planning we had planned to go conduct an baptismal interview at 3 and also to visit one of our investigators. We received a call from the other missionaries that needed the interview done and they asked if we could change and do it at 11 in the morning. We couldn't because it would have messed up our schedule that we felt that we needed to follow. So we first visited our investigator, she had been a little wobbly lately and not wanting to be baptized. So we asked her what had caused the change of heart and tried to have a heart to heart. It ended up being that her friends and family have been spreading rumors about the church and harassing her. We taught her and helped her realize that she had received a confirmation to her prayer, that she knows that everything that her family says is false about the church and she knows the truth. She got all excited and was filled with joy, that she said she wants to be baptized on the 10th of December. That was one thing that the Lord had wanted us to do that day. The next one was when we were walking down the street and there was a young couple. The girl ran over to us and said "Elders! hey, I'm a member of the church also! here's my friend, teach him!" He said he had seen us walk by his house, but he was too nervous to say anything. So we greeted and got to know him a bit and made an appointment to come back. This was someone that the Lord obviously wanted us to find. Then we were walking through Central and we passed a guy that was with the police. He and the police called us over and the guy ended up being from Cuba. He said that he had immigrated to Nicaragua and was living there and was baptized last weekend. He then moved here on Wednesday and was recently assaulted and robbed of all of his money and cards. He was looking for a Bishop that he could talk to. He didn't want money, he just wanted the help of a Bishop on what he should do. So we directed him to the Mission office so that he can make phone calls there. He thanked us a lot and said he couldn't express how grateful he is to be a member of this church. He said he was scared and didn't know what to do, because he doesn't know the city, or where to go. Then he saw us and he received the spark of hope because he recognized us as Missionaries like the ones that baptized him. None of these things could have been possible without the guidance we received after our prayer the night before.

"Cole is the Best"

Mom had to add this video clip to the blog. This is the conversation between Max and Jack Thanksgiving day as we were driving to a movie. Our first Thanksgiving without Cole! Sorry about the picture quality, It was a bit dark.

"Busy Week" November 28, 2011

Our Zone went to Chilis for Thanksgiving dinner. I had a burger, fries, lemonade, and a brownie with ice cream on top. It felt like I was in America for an hour. It really made me miss home!



My friends from my Zone, Elder Brooks, Elder Hepworth, me and Elder Belnap.



This is a picture of one of the big sound sytems that is in almost every home.

 

 

This is our investigators getting married, Marvin y Adolieda (middle two signing marriage certificate).

 

 

This is a picture of Central Park in Tegucigalpa from the marriage building.

 

 

Marvin asked me to baptism him! It is the very first baptism I have acually performed. I love these two little boys, they are the funniest little kids. They remind me of Max.

 

 

Geez, this week has been a busy one! We had something to do everyday this week. Monday was p-day, Tuesday was divisions with the Zone Leaders, Wednesday there was a meeting all morning with Presidente Hernéndez, Thursday we had our District Meeting/Thanksgiving, Friday we married one of our Families, Saturday I baptized my first baptism that I've ever actually done. Sunday was the only slow day. But yeah, this week was the first time I Baptized someone! These Latino 4 name names are still killing me! I was excited the whole morning of the Baptism that I was actually going to be helping him make this huge step in his life to come closer to Heavenly Father and Christ. He was excited and ready for the marriage also, he was the first one up in the building to get married. He practically ran the whole way. And when we were in our house getting ready, he called us and asked us if we were ready. He's such a great guy.