"6 months to beauty" January 21, 2013

Well its official... I am starting my "6 months to beauty" work out plan!!

As you can tell, I have taken off the skirt and I am finishing my mission as an Elder (because the sisters only serve 18months). Its been a great 18 months and I am looking forward to all of the work that I have left to do here. Its going to get busy!

This week was really busy. I went with an Elder in the zone to Tegus so that he could get some dental work done. That ate up Tue and Wed. We were able to go eat real food at least! We then had splits on Thursday to help out an area in the zone and I was able to stay and work in our area with Elder Stone. He's a cool guy, he came in the transfer after me. We were busy the whole day running around from appointment to appointment. We were able to contact a referral with the member that gave it to us. They look really positive. Its a mom that lives with her kids and they make tortillas literally every day. Its nuts how much they make. They live right in the middle of 2 different churches. Like, literally their neighbors on both sides are different churches. When we passed by, the mom told us that she has been wanting to go to our church for a long time because she likes the standards that it teaches. So she is really excited to go with her member friend now.

We had a wedding we set up and baptism on Saturday. Everything went fine thank goodness.

"The time has flown by" January 14, 2013

Yeah tell me about it! Why travel all the way to Tegus with your pet chicken or parrot? I got on the bus to come use internet and I saw a lady with a hen and her baby chicks. I did a double check to see if there were any parrots on the bus before I sat down hahaha.

But, yeah this week nothing exciting really happened. We were able to get more work done though! We put more baptismal dates; one of them a family we are going to complete. The work is going great, I was thinking while I was sitting on the bus and I really am going to miss being on a mission. My only worries being about investigators and if there are chickens and parrots on the same bus as me. But seriously, these past 17 months and 21 days have been amazing and life changing. I just feel like the time has flown by...

"Screeching and Squawking" January 7, 2013

This week was ZL Consejo week, so that meant that we would be spending a couple days for that. I've got to tell you about the bus ride experience I had.......

So, we get catch the bus from Choluteca to Tegucigalpa and when I get on I saw that the 2 people in front of me had their pets with them: one with her chicken and the other with her green parrot. I knew from personal experiences with chickens and parrots that this wasn't going to turn out well. So we get going and after about 30min the chicken starts to squawk and make noise. The parrot didn't like that, and I could see it was a little annoyed so it started screeching and squawking for no reason. This continued for a good while. The parrot was restless of this chicken and eventually a huge fight broke out and I just sat back in my seat and stared at the ceiling thinking, "Why in the world would you sit next to a chicken when you have a parrot? Don't these people know better?!" So that was the beginning of a long bus right to Tegus.

We had an alright weekend, we're looking for more people to teach and trying to contact referrals. Yep, so that's about as exciting as my week got besides eating good food with President in the Consejo we had! No luck yet, but we're getting there.

6 more fast Sundays!!

"Priesthood blessing of comfort" December 31, 2012

This week was great! It was awesome to hear from you guys on Christmas. The next day, I went on divisions to Los Llanos with Elder Glassett. They had asked us for help with some of their investigadors, so we visited them to see how they were. We first went to a family they were teaching. Elder Glassett had said that the mom really likes to examine what she reads and has a lot of questions. I was excited for that, someone who was reading el Libro de Mormòn and having questions about it. She and the kids had read 3rd Nephi 11 and right after I introduced myself she began with her questions. She was really serious at first and I felt like she was feeling a little contentious. After we answered her questions and began to talk to her more she opened up and was smiling and joking around with us. It was a huge difference! It wasn't until we opened up first that she saw that she could trust us and that we weren't just pure "preachers" and that we were concerned for her and her family. We had a great time with them and they all decided that they wanted to be baptized this month. The mom had a few doubts because she was baptized in a different church, but we explained the difference and how it was okay. We later went to the house of members where their mom wasn't a member. We entered their house and we began to talk to her and I introduced myself. Elder Glassett had told me beforehand that she was really shy, doesn't talk much and that she thinks before she answers. So the plan was to read chapter 10 with her and explain it. But after we read verses 1-6 I strongly felt that we shouldn't read the whole chapter and that we needed to just talk to her. So when she went to take care of her grandson, I told E. Glassett the plan and he said it was alright. So I started us off and just began to talk about verses 3-5 and how God answers our prayers and reveals to us the truth in this life through the Holy Spirit and I began to explain the fruits of the Spirit and how we can recognize our answers. She had told us that she had never felt like she has ever received an answer to her prayer. I then asked her if she has ever felt the prompting of the Spirit to do something and she said no. Then her daughter (recent convert) cuts in and says, "Mom that's not necessarily true. Do you remember when you came to us one day and asked us to pray for you?" We waited for a moment and you can tell that it was sinking in and that she was a little confused on what she was feeling. So we asked her what she was feeling in this time and she said that she has felt a little depressed lately. We continued on to talk to her and try to find out why she was feeling like this so that we could help her,but she didn't know why. We ran out of things to say to her so we sat thinking for a bit. Then I remembered something that Dad told me the day before "Don't be afraid to use your Priesthood. You have it to help you in dangerous situations and to help others..." So then we offered her if she would like a Priesthood Blessing of comfort. E. Glassett gave her a beautiful blessing and we left shortly after. Her daughter was happy that we passed by and said that she was going to talk to her. E. Glassett then made me a delicious dinner of rice and beans and an egg.

"I love the culture here!" December 24, 2012

It's been a busy week, I cant believe that its Christmas!! This last week we has Transfers and I had to take our Third companion to the Mission Home for his Dinner with President. When we got to the Mission Home, it was packed with new Elders! We had received 34 and 2 new Hermanas. There wasn't enough room in Presi's house so us who had dropped off Elders to go home went out and The AP's bought us McDonalds for dinner. After that, we just stayed the night in Tegus for Transfers the next day. We received new elders in our area, so now we had to look for a house for them. They're staying in our house until we get them settled down.

One thing that I don't like about the ZL business is that we hardly have time to work in our area. We had to run so many errands and do so much paperwork for the zone these past 2 weeks. But I guess its good that our zone is so busy getting work in, we will have 4 families baptized as a zone.

Well here, they celebrate Christmas on the 24th, not the 25th. Its kinda weird because no one celebrates the 25th. Its a lot different here. I don't even feel like its Christmas. Everyone is running around and preparing food for the parties today. Its hot, everyone is outside, and they are lighting a bunch of fireworks. I really feel like its the Fourth of July!! We've been invited to eat at everyone's house today, all day!! I'm going to be so full. I love the culture here. They all call up their family and friends and they just have a good time and enjoy everything. They are grateful for every little thing they have.