"Promptings" July 23, 2012

Jack Harding

I don't even know what to write. With the accident of Jack the only think I can think of is that the Lord is watching over our family. I am here in Office Depot in Tegucigalpa with tears coming down and my comp asking whats wrong. Its strange how our testimonies grow in so many different ways and how the spirit can guide us to actions. Thursday night, when I was saying my personal prayer, I had the desire to pray and ask for protection over Jack, Conner and Riley. I knew that they could be reckless and I felt a weird tension or fear that something would happen to Jack. I even had a dream that he had fallen off a mountain that night. In the morning, out of fear for his safety and of the family, I knelt down and prayed again. Friday night, we were at a Funeral Service for a member that had lost their grandfather. In the middle of the social and food part, I had the prompting to pray for the family, in general, that were at the ranch. I was wondering that night, why? Why was that prompting so faint, but yet it struck me to the soul that I should pray in that instant. I now know why. I am tearing up here and "crying" because I am recognizing to blessings that my Heavenly Father has for us/me. It was a miracle that it wasn't worse than it was, especially with the recent concussion he had. Its strange that my spiritual thought at our Zone baptism was about "The Gift of the Holy Ghost & Recognizing the Promptings of this gift". Live what you teach.

My mind is clouded right now thinking about Jack, but here are a couple notes I took through out the week to write to you.

This week was another long week. We have been working on and planning the wedding and baptism of our investigators for this Saturday. We are going to have a family of 6 that is going to be baptized!! Another family that is changing and coming unto the Lord! They are all really excited and ready. One of them will be a great leader in the church, I know it. His name is Wilmer and is 22 years old and I can just tell from the way he pays attention, reads and answers everything that he will be great.

On Thursday, we were waiting after our District Meeting in Zamorano for a bus to pass by to our area. While we where waiting, there was a family of "gringos" that were in the gas station waving to us. We started to wave back. When they started to leave, they drove by in front of us really slow and yelled out,"We Love You Elders!". There were about 3 girls and 1 boy in the back yelling it to us with the parents in front waving. It was so great to hear. It helped all of us get excited even more to get back to the Lord's Work.

"ONE MORE YEAR!!!" July 7, 2012

Man, this week has gone by super slow!! On the most part, it was because it was the week of Cambios. On Tuesday afternoon we received a phone call from the AP's and they told us that we were going to be receiving 2 Hermanas into the area. We were then assigned to go out and find them a house between the citas (appointments). We ended up spending over 6 hours that day walking and making phone calls just to find the Hermanas a house. We told Presidente Hernàndez that we couldn't find one and he said to keep up the faith and look more. Well we picked up the Hermanas the next day and we received Hna Fronk from California and Hna Moore from Nicaragua. I found out on Wednesday also that Hna Fronk is the cousin to one of my BYU-I friends, Elyse! It was surprising to talk about all of the people we each knew from BYU-I. So now we have to share the area with the Hermanas... again.

We are now making wedding plans for next week! We are going to marry an older couple and baptize all of their family on the 28th de Julio! They are a family of 6. It'll be an amazing day for all of us.

The temple dedication of the Temple here will be in December. The sure date is still a little sketchy, but all of the members are excited for it. Our converts are asking us more and more about the temple. We were able to explain to them what it is and how it is not the same as a church building. Some of them even signed up and are practicing a dance they are going to do on the dedication day. We got a sneak peek of it at one of their dance practices, it should be cool.

Its not a big deal or anything but in case you were wondering....I COMPLETE A YEAR ON FRIDAY!!! I'm not exactly sure what the plans are for celebrating, but I've got to keep up the missionary tradition of burning an article of clothing. Next up to bat is a shirt, so I've got to decide which one is the gnarliest and get it some peace and rest. Maybe we'll be dining on my favorite Catracho (hondureño) food; BALEADAS! rica rica.

"Hey Gringo, ¿quiere café?" July 9, 2012

First off, I would like to explain why I couldn't write last week. We had just logged on to use Internet, when a giant rainstorm came in from out of nowhere! We were sitting there and you can hear the faint "ping" of rain on the aluminum roofs and then it rolled all the way over to us. Here in La Villa de San Francisco, whenever there is a lot of wind or when it rains, the power goes out. So I hurried and emailed a quick explanation to mom before the power went out. We were basically stuck in this room waiting for the power/rain to stop. 30 min passed and we got tired of waiting, so we called a MotoTaxi to come and pick us up and we went over to a member's house and learned how to make Baleadas (my favorite food here) and flour tortillas. It turned out to be a fun night.

Well, these past few weeks have been really busy. This week we didn't really have any cool adventures. We have finally had a little bit of time to go and work in our Area for once! We received another great reference from a sister in the branch. She said that her sister wants to be baptized. We were excited, but a little worried at first because we went to the home and the husband would go run off and hide in their backyard of sugar cane. But the rest of the family slowly started to stop being shy and listened to us and realized we are fun normal people. I'm pretty sure that one of her kids has yelled at us, "Hey gringo, ¿quiere café?" before. They as a family are looking positive and are going to be married so the parents can be baptized with everyone. I just hope the marriage papers go through in time. One thing is for sure, the people in the National Registro know me way too well from all of these marriages.
We had to go to Consejo de Líderes de Zona (zone leader counsel) with Presidente Hernández. It was good, he helped everyone out alot with the different problems in the zones. The best part of the meeting that everyone looks forward to is the food. We always get fed a ton by Presidente y Hermana Hernández at ZL Consejo.

On a side note, I just have to say that the 4th of July is not celebrated here...