"Standing Firm" January 23, 2012

Moments before the demise of our beloved "Semita"

These are some of the local kids here in Colonia Sagastume.

This is the Church building in Sagastume.

This is a semita. Its a sweet roll. We eat them for breakfast. They are usually small. This is a giant one that happens to be the same size as my head! And Yes, I shared.

 

This week has gone by pretty well. Last Monday, we went and rented a turf fùtbol field and played against each other in the zone. It was a ton of fun, I don't remember having so much fun playing fùbol before either. Our team dominated the zone once again. I was goaly and also moved up the midfield and I even scored a couple times. This week was mostly a busy one, we had a bunch of baptismal interviews to do for our district. That took two days out of our week doing that. Then we had meetings and other goal planning with the branch here. These past couple of weeks I've been cooking for myself because we were getting over charged and for other reasons. So for lunches and dinners I've been eating spaghetti, burgers, salad, apples, mac&cheese and baleadas. We've been eating so much better now, and its even cheaper.  All my cooking skills that I have learned all come from Mom & Dad. This past Friday I completed 6 months in the mission! I've learned so much from just these past couple of months that I'm afraid of what more I could possibly learn. Also this week, my companion and I stood up and contacted the bus down to Centro. The bus I talked to had 41 people in it, and Elder Belnap's had 48. It was a great experience to get up and bear testimony of the church and to stand there firm in my beliefs. Everyone was looking at me too! Holy cow, all 82 eyes couldn't believe that a giant "gringo", who cant even fit in the bus, was standing up and speaking Spanish. It was an awesome time. Today for P-Day, we went and saw the Temple again, but this time Angel Moroni was on top of the steeple. The progression is coming along nicely.

The work on the Temple is coming along. On this visit, the Angel Moroni was on top!

Pointing to my area, Sagastume. It's in the furthest mountain on the left.

Zona Tegucigalpa.

"6 Months" Monday, January 16, 2012

Completing the 6 month tradition for the Mission.

 

Well this week, I would first like to confirm the saying that the days are long, but the weeks go by really fast in the mission. This past week went by really fast. I have contacted all of the colony that I live in, so these past couple of days we've gone out to the more deserted villages in our area. We've been having some luck out there, but not much. The Pentecostal church here did a bunch of service projects out in the small villages and put on orange roofs on the houses they built. So we know where to expect a bible bash when we contact the houses with orange roofs. But that's alright, I personally am not out here to bible bash with people or the prove these other churches wrong, its about helping others. Whether it's through the gospel or through service, that's my purpose. We have one solid family that we are teaching out there though. We were in the middle of teaching when the husband's uncle pulled up with a truck full of Coconuts! So we ended the lesson and they gave us 3 each so we could drink the water and eat them. It was a ton of fun. Lets see, what more happened this week... oh! Friday night at 3 o'clock in the morning we were all of a sudden woken up by some cats fighting on our roof...our tin roof! It was so loud and annoying, it woke us both up. They were up there for about 10 min and then one fell off the roof and sat there in front of the door and growled at the one on the roof for another 5 min! Holy smokes, I couldn't believe this was really happening. So I went up and hit the door and the one on the ground took off and the other on the roof walked slowly back across the roof crunching the roof with every step. Then Sunday morning, I was outside brushing my teeth when all of a sudden I heard chickens on our roof. So I went up there and was about to run up and catch them, when all of a sudden, the dog next door crawled through the fence and started chasing the chickens on the roof! It was so loud, I could hear my comp yelling, "What in the world Harding?!" and then the chickens flew off the roof and made it over the fence. Sadly, the rooster flew and ran straight into a post and fell down into our backyard. The dog jumped off the roof and caught the rooster! In my fury at the dog, I grabbed a rock and I threw it at the dog and the rooster ran into our shower room and I locked it in there. That dog was running around everywhere with feathers on its mouth looking for that stinkin' rooster. Once the dog went away, I let the rooster go. It was crazy! This Friday I will be completing 6 months in the Mission! At the 6 month mark, you're supposed to burn a tie so I'm going to be doing that as part of the Mission tradition.

"Evangelio de Jesucristo" January 9, 2012

This is one of my mission friends, Elder Cuque. He is from Guatemala and is the shortest elder here. When we go on divisions together we are a funny pair...The shortest and tallest missionary walking together on the streets!

This week I feel like not a whole lot happened. But the truth is, ALOT happened. We went to a further part of my Area called La Alta Villa and Reina Nacer. In Reina Nacer, we finally found a complete family this week! Usually its either only the husband or the wife home, but we found the whole family there. We taught them a little bit about the Evangelio de Jesucristo and we set a return cita. Then we went to La Alta Villa and we found a house that had 3 other families inside and we taught them and made another cita to come back. We were on our way back yesterday and we passed by the first family and said "hi", and made our way to La Alta Villa for our cita there (But what we didn't see was that the Iglesia Pentecostes was there with the family and saw us talk to them and swooped in to talk to them and spread nonsense about us.) So we finally arrived and taught a beautiful lesson on the Restoration of Christ's Church and all three of the families were still interested and one even said,"No hay una duda que este es la Iglesia de Jesucristo" So we'll see how they progress! As we went to return back to the family in Reina Nacer, we definitely noticed the difference in the family. They weren't as welcoming and they told us that our religions are different and were too different and they didn't want anything. That was a bunch of nonsense, I don't know why, but the churches here don't like us. They always ignore us and think that we're bad people. We ended the night well with dinner in the Mission Presidents house! His wife, Hermana Hernèndez, invited us to dinner. We also had ice cream! We were talking all night and he asked us if we wanted to stay the night in the Mission Home. So we stayed the night with 2 other missionaries and had a good night.

"Valle de Angeles" January 2, 2012

Valle de Angeles, this is a hole that is cut in the side of a mountain.

Pathway through the jungle to the waterfalls in Valle de Angeles.

My companion, Elder Belnap and I in the middle of a jungle river.



The waterfall at the end of the trail.



I made it!

Me posing under the waterfall.



Drinking delicious vitamin water (not really, just kidding mom!)

Some of my fellow hikers, Elder Martinson(top), Elder Hall (middle), Elder Quevedo(right).



This week went by fast, I don't really remember much that happened. With New Years Eve being this weekend, alot of people had us over for food again. Saturday morning my companion woke up and we were eating breakfast and he asked me how my sleep was. I replied, "It was good". He then said, "That's good, cause I couldn't get much sleep... because you were sleep talking to me all night!" I started busting up laughing. He also said, "You wouldn't stop talking to yourself, you were asking me things in Spanish and worse of all, you were singing in English!" It was a funny morning, I'm just happy that I can now sleep talk in Spanish too. Today for P-Day we went up to a town called Valle de Angeles. We had planned as a Zone to go hike up to the waterfalls a little ways outside of town. It was a beautiful drive up there, there were pine trees everywhere, it felt like I was back in the states driving in the mountains. We arrived, changed, and headed up there. It was a really cool hike, we walked through the jungle a bit and took pictures along the way. We finally made it there and we relaxed and made our way closer towards the waterfall and took pictures and enjoyed the scenery. It was a ton of fun, we then came back down and walked around the town for a bit (Valle de Angeles is famous for being a tourist attraction). They sell alot of hammocks, shirts, sweatshirts, elaborate carved wooden chests, and paintings all done by hand.

"The Good Day" December 28, 2011

Mission Christmas Party with me and some of my mission friends.

Me with one of my Zone Leaders, Elder Gardner

This week went by really fast! First, we had P-Day Monday, Then Tuesday was the only full day that we had to actually do work in our area. Next on Wednesday, we had to go and do baptismal interviews for the Hermanas in our district. So we spent almost the full day there because they had one scheduled for 10 am and the other at 7 pm. So we worked in their area and they have all of the nice rich people houses. It was hard! We had to push the buzzer and then they would talk to us through the box and watch us with the cameras they had outside. No one would talk, they would always cut in and say "I'm Catholic" and stop. We went to do an interview and I waited outside, but during this time their kids had been playing in the river by their house and found a bag of gun powder floating down the river! So they brought it up and poured it in a line like the cartoons and lit it. This place is crazy! Thursday, we had the mission Christmas party. We watched A Christmas Carol, the new one with Jim Carrey, and then ate lunch made by a professional chef and after played volleyball. Friday we had our District Meeting and then another Baptismal Interview for the Elders in our District. Now to Saturday the 24th... they call this day "The Good Day". The reason for this, is because they celebrate Christmas this day. So all day, at every appointment we had we were either eating Torejas (french toast with tres leches sauce on it) or Tamales (these tamales are huge, not like the ones we know). So in total by the end of the night my companion and I were stuffed. We had 6 Tamales each and 6 Torejas in the morning. We were full and ready for a goodnight sleep...but wait! They also like to light big fire crackers and bombs off at midnight to celebrate some more. So we were woken up by all of the explosions right outside our window. We finally made it to Christmas morning Sunday and went to church and opened up our gifts from our parents. It was great. After lunch, I was able to call home and talk to my family and that made it a great Christmas for me.

"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.

"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.

"New Companion" November 21, 2011

My new companion, Elder Belnap and I have bought this hen to feed and when she gets bigger, we are going to eat her!

 

 

This week we received a call from one of the Assistants to the President at 9:30pm Tuesday night... my companion Elder Ames was moved up to be a Zone Leader and I would be receiving a new trainer the next morning! Holy cow! So Wednesday we went to the office and I received Elder Belnap from Utah. He's a really cool guy, he has 19 months in the mission and is finishing in April. Man, what a crazy week. It was Elder Belnap's first time in Tegucigalpa because he's been in Chulateca (south) his whole mission. He said its cold here...he's crazy! It gets so hot! I don't want to see the heat that the south brings. We still have the marriage and baptism this Friday and Saturday but of course there's an obstacle...The road to Central is closed to all vehicles so that they can finally pave the road. And we all have to be down in Central at 8am, so we need to get everyone together and leave early. This is about that is going on this week, its a little bit, but alot at the same time for us. Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Save me a plate of stuffing! 

Service Project

This past week we did service for a family by cutting the weeds away from their bean plants. We worked for 2 hours and barely covered all of it.

"Seek, and Ye Shall Find" November14, 2011

This week has been really long. We haven't had the best of luck with our investigators that aren't progressing. It seems like there is a pattern to the way things happen here; there are times when we have weeks full of appointments and positive people, and others were we are having to go out and contact to find new families "y otro hijos de Dios". We had contacted a man that was buying oranges in Sagastume and he said that if we ever find him he would let us in and bring all of his family together, and left. We asked where he lived and only said El Torre (another colonia above us) and left in a hurry. That was two weeks ago. On Wednesday, we went to contact a new area. We were walking down this road and there was a group of kids that were bothering us and saying things about us. We continued to walk and we ended up running into the same guy from the oranges! he was just as surprised as we were that we accidentally found him. He called us over and called for his family to come and listen and the group of kids that were bothering us ended up being his! Oh man, they were squirming and felt bad because their father had only good things to say about us and respected us. They definitely learned her lesson. Oh and also! I was walking through a market in Central this morning and there was a Northwest Baseball Bakersfield, CA sweatshirt! It was crazy. I was tempted to buy it, but I didn't. We have a wedding planned for a family that we have for the 25th of this month! Marvin y Adoleda Ràpalo. Their 2 boys are hilarious together. their always playing and wrestling with each other. Alexander is 6 and Geovanni is 2 or 3. the baptism is set for the next day.

"A Fight to the Death" November 7, 2011

Sword fighting one of the two Scorpions found in our room!

Disarming the Scorpion...

This Scorpion is eating a baby Gecko...

The Baby Gecko walking away after being freed! It only had two legs left and it still walked away!

This last week was Cambios (Changes). I'm still with my trainer and alot of people from my zone have left. At least I get to meet new people in the mission! We have sisters in our Zone this change which is really weird, I don't know why, but it is. We also have a new Elder in our Zone so I'm not the youngest anymore! Last week, we went as a zone to a Bishop's house to eat pizza. Little did I know, that he is a professional cook and makes fancy meals for the important people here. People now hire him to come tell them what they need and critic them. So these pizzas, and his house, were awesome! His house was on top of this mountain and the dining room had a huge window so you could look out over Tegucigalpa.

Earlier this week, we went tracking down in an area that we have never been too. It was actually really cool because it was just a dirt road and we were surrounded by jungle and trees. We ran into a couple houses and made appointments to come back. We kept on walking and we ended up in a chicken farm. We kept on walking and the owner came and talked to us and showed us this huge shack full of baby chicks. You could smell them before you could see them and it reminded me of the many visits to the Kern County Fair and the chicken exhibit there. It was really cool. It was like being on an episode of Dirty Jobs (the one with the turkey farm). Also, out there in the middle of nowhere, we met this cowboy and he had on his button up shirt and jeans. The cool part was that he had silver teeth! And to match his teeth, he had silver cowboy boots, a real albino snakeskin belt and a cowboy hat with silver on it. His cowboy attitude and look reminded me alot of my Grandpa Reno.

Also, this week I was able to try this drink called Pínol. It basically was warmed up milk with soggy cornflakes on the bottom and also big balls of pasta down there as well. It was really weird and kinda gross to drink it. When the hermana asked my companion for more, he said "no". She was really upset about it, so of course I had to fix things. I drank 3 more small glasses of it. I said I was full, but wanted more and she was alot happier. Freak, I'm done covering for my companion, it was hard!

Last night was exciting also, when we walked into our apartment, there was a scorpion on the wall. I went over to kill it and realized it was eating something, that something was a baby gecko! It was still alive and wiggling in the scorpions mouth. I pull out my knife and started sword fighting it in a fight to the death. I finally stabbed it without it stabbing me. Locals here say that there are scorpions here that get as big as my hand and you need a machete to kill them! well I'm glad that hasn't happened yet.