"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.

"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.

Happy Halloween! October 31, 2011

First off I need to say Happy Birthday to my little brother Max! He turned 5 and judging by the pictures I've seen, is getting huge! And also a Happy Halloween! We are actually allowed to dress up here for it, Its going to be awesome. I'm going to dress up as a Missionary and preach the words of Christ all day! I really miss the fall season with the leaves changing colors and the Halloween decorations in general. We walked by these cows and there was hay and it reminded me of the Kern County Fair. Man, I miss it. We have three families with kids that are going to be baptized in November/December. We don't have an exact date for them yet because they need to be married first. We have one family that might get married on 11/11/11! That would be cool. So that would make... 8-10 baptisms in the next month or two. Something interesting that I discovered here is the Soda. I tried: Grapefruit, Coconut, a fruit called Tamarindo, and Banana. The only one I really liked was grapefruit, the others taste weird. Oh! and on Friday, I went out into the bathroom and I look up and there was a bat! it started screeching at me, so I may or may not have screamed and I flew into the shower and flew out. What is up with all of these animals here?!

I always tell the priest, Alejandro, that I want a pet chicken. Because that's what they have down here, pet chickens. You whistle and they come, they chase after you and follow you, and also sit in your lap or on your arm. Alejandro always says, "No, if i give you Peep, the name of the chicken, You'll eat him!" so we took this picture as a joke to him. This class of chicken start out with bright colored feathers when they are chicks. His was all pink, it was really cool. But as they grow up they turn all white and normal looking.