"The most stressful week" May 29, 2012

"El Jardin" is Harding in Spanish, meaning "Garden"

Well, this has been the most stressful week in all of my mission, maybe my life!! Oh man, I don't even know where to start. Its like there wasn't enough time. First, we barely got the papers to get the investigating couple married. We paid and had everything ready to turn in, but the investigator's witnesses for the wedding weren't ready and hadn't worked on the papers they had to do, so we ran and did that the last minute. We later had everything planned, they were going to get married at 11:30 in Pespire and they were going to be ready. We were able to squeeze them in to get married in Pespire but only thanks to my good pal Elder Folsom. Pespire is his area and he was able to talk to the people and convince them to marry this couple and to do it on a Saturday. Its almost never heard of. So Saturday we went over to the investigators house an hour early to make sure they were ready. They got ready and we were leaving to catch a bus at 10:30 to get to Pespire early. When we asked were the witnesses were, they said that they weren't coming.... (they cant get married without the registered witnesses) so Elder Garcia and I ran around looking for the witnesses and finally found them and we left in the bus at 11:30. I was nervous because we were so late. But everything went to plan and they were married and the baptisms all went through. One almost didn't want to come because she was playing soccer... Only in Honduras.

These were the first baptisms that I have contacted in the street and taught all the way to baptism. I cannot express the joy that I felt for them as I saw them all progress and grow spiritually and see them be baptized. They were all excited that night too because we had filled the room with members that came to support them. It was definitely a special day for them. After, one of the boys kept on telling his neighbor friends that I baptized him. He was so happy, so was his mom that was baptized too. After seeing everyone after the baptism, there is no doubt in my mind that this is the true church. That everything we do is done under the direction of Christ, that we are here doing the Lords work. "Él es la luz y la vida del mundo; sí, una luz que es infinita, que nunca se puede extinguir" (Mosíah 16:9)

"The streets turn into rivers" May 21, 2012

Well, this week was a crazy week! We have had nothing but a bunch of rain storms. Every day at 4:30pm you could see the black clouds rolling in and at 5 it would rain. It felt nice after having all of the heat that we've had, but the downfall to the rain was that it would only be more humid after. This week we also had Zone Conference down in Cholutecha with Elder Falabela of the 70! It was interesting to see his approach to teaching. He had nothing planned, nothing written down, just pure revelation. He got up and said, "I don't know what I'm supposed to tell you yet, but we will start with how many families are getting baptized." From there he just taught. He ended up shaving the Latin missionaries for not learning English. He told them that the reason that they are not learning is because they are prideful. He then said that that learning English would not only bless them, but their future family. I think this can apply to all of us. If we think that we don't need to learn a language because we live in the United States and we have that "we only speak English here" attitude, that we too, need to get ride of this pride and try to learn a second language.

Later, I then did divisions with the Zone Leaders in San Lorenzo. I went down there and we worked and did 5 baptismal interviews for other missionaries in our Zone. They all passed! One was a new couple that was just married. The husband owns a bunch of calves and is raising them to sell. When we finished and were about to leave, one of the calves tried to jump over my bike and landed on the tire! Ends up that my tire was popped and we had to walk in the rain the rest of the way. Once again, at 5 o'clock, it started to rain and the streets turned into rivers. We got so wet, we just didn't care anymore and walked in the floods and grabbed some dinner on our way home.

This Friday we are finally marrying the family that we found 3 months ago! All of the paperwork has come in and they will be baptized this Saturday. In total we will have 5 baptisms this weekend. It should be great.

"Happy Mother's Day call" May 14,2012

 

 

This was a great week! The thing that made it great was that I was able to talk to my mom and wake her up with a "Happy Mother's day call"!!! Oh man, I am so grateful for the family that I have and all the love we have. There are many that don't have the blessing of a family here in Honduras. There are alot of single parents that struggle looking for work and taking care of a family that they love and care for. The thing is, there are always things that happen, and there may be little arguments, but when it comes down to it all we have is our family and the love of our Heavenly father to pick us back up and get on our way.

Also the baptism that my District had this week was really cool. I went Friday to do the 4 interviews. It was originally 3, but we looked up the records of a member up there and she was never recorded as being baptized. It was fun to redo her baptism, she was 65 and was all worried about passing the "interview" she was cute. Then I interviewed the 3 other kids and they were all excited and ready to be baptized. they were 9, 11 and 13 years old. When I asked them who would they like to baptize them they all asked me if I would be at the baptism the next day. I told them that I didn't think I would... but then they insisted that I stay because they wanted me to baptize them! I felt honored, but first asked if they wanted the other Elders to do it, but they said no. Well, I didn't want to crush their hopes of being baptized by a giant from the United States so I stayed.

Oh also, I found out that I am a terrible marble player. I remember being good when I was little, but now, not so. The kids here are always outside playing each other in marbles. Each group of kids has their own game, its hard to follow. I lost.... to them all, actually.

"Jose Smith" May 7, 2012

This is my Crocodile skin Scripture case and a few wallets I've picked up made of Boa Constrictor and Crocodile skins.

Okay, well, this was a good week. We decided that we weren't having any more success in the city, so we planned on moving and expanding out to the small Colonies outside. It turns out that it was a good idea! We went out and contacted a bunch of houses and they all let us in (thats one thing that I love about the south, the people here all want to hear the word of God and invite you in). The first house we entered to had a ton of questions and goes to a Pentecostal church. She said that her pastor has taught her all about the "Mormon Religion". We were interested in what this included so we asked her what she knew. She said that we dont believe in God and that we worship a statue and the statue is of a man covered in hair and has a big belly and this statue's name is José Smith. My first reaction was to smile and start laughing, but I caught it so she didn't feel bad. We talked to her and taught her what we really believe. She said wanted us to know that she is firm in her church, but its okay if we teach her. So we talked a bit and we taught her how the gospel was restored on the earth once more and who José Smith really is. She was shocked that we were the opposite that her pastor has taught her. I was a little shocked too that someone would tear down other religions and teach their congregations this too. I can testify that I know for a fact that We as members of the Church of JESUS CHRIST of Later Day Saints are persecuted the most out of any other religion. All the time, people all ways have negative things to say and try and tear our beliefs down. Those who criticize only do so because they have never done the following: pray with real intent in their hearts to know if these things are true. People are too prideful to do so. Satan is only attacking the followers of Christ even harder and more than we know. We invited her to church but she didnt want to miss hers, so she said no. We then visited another family that we found last week. They have aproximately 12 people in the family and its hard to teach them all at once. We taught the dad, mom and the oldest daughters and gave them a Books of Mormon and we read the first paragraph and explained what the Book of Mormon was and then we read the last 2 paragraphs to challenge them to read it. We then read Moroni 10:3-5 and as soon as we finished we asked them what they understood and thought about the Book of Mormon so far. The mom said, "Its all true, the book, the restoration all of it." The daughter then said that the Book of Mormon was true also and they all prayed to know if our message was true that night and were all excited when we visited again. They would have gone to church, but the kids were sick so they couldn't. The hard part was that we woke up and left early to walk a long way to their house to bring them to church and they couldnt make it.

This Saturday we had a huge rain and Lightning storm hit. It went on all night and took out the power. To my demise, there was a hole in the roof right over where I sleep! With my craftmanship I fixed that baby right up!

"Honduras National Registration"April 30, 2012

Well, this week have gone by fast! We were kept busy. First, I started by doing divisions with my new ZL, Elder Martinson. We had to go to Tegucigalpa to restart the papers for our investigating family. The paper that says that the husband is single was destroyed over time. They didn't take care of the books and the paper got wet and ruined. So we headed to Tegus Tuesday and went to the national registration building that had all of the papers of every single person in Honduras. This place was packed with people and cardboard boxes that had the info of everyone. We were waiting in line a long time and we finally made it up front. The lady then told us that we have to come back tomorrow to do the work. We were a little frustrated and said that we came all the way from Nacaome (4 hours by bus) to take these papers out. A different worker there heard that we were missionaries and she pulled us aside and she said she could help us out. She gave us names of people and their offices in the building that were members of the church. So we went to all of the offices behind the scenes and we got all of the papers taken care of. Now we have to wait another 2 weeks until they remake the paper. I'm so thankful that there were members working there and that we were able to find them or else it would have taken us days to do it.

Next, we were coming back from District meeting in San Lorenzo, and some people in the street called me over. They had a panicked look on their faces and invited us in. There inside was a Gringa (lady from the USA). She was huge! Everyone was freaking out because she was sleeping on the street so they brought her in to take care of her. They asked me to talk to her in English, because she couldn't speak Spanish. It turns out that she just moved down to live in Tegucigalpa for the rest of her life. She doesn't know Spanish, lives alone and wanted to explore little cities in Honduras. She was robbed and was sick from the heat here. So I talked to her and translated everything for everyone. We helped arrange her ride back to Tegucigalpa. Everything turned out fine, the only thing was I think she was a little bit crazy... she was talking about how she was mind probed and stuff by aliens. But don't worry, shes back at her house in Tegucigalpa.

"Crazy Lightning Storms" April 23, 2012

Well, I don't know about you guys, but we were expecting changes this week. Elder Garcia has now finished his training and we were expecting him to leave. The branch president and some members threw a party for us Tuesday night to celebrate our time here. They set up chairs in the sacrament room and gave testimonies and said how grateful they were for our work and how they loved going out and teaching with us. It was really nice. Then at the end, Elder Garcia got up and bore his testimony. We ate baleadas and had a good time. When we got home, we received our change calls...NOBODY WAS LEAVING!!! Presidente Hernéndez told the Zone Leaders that he is satisfied with the work in Nacaome and is glad he can take a break from worrying about the Elders here. He also said, "This is the first time in a long time that I haven't received a phone call or had to worry about the Elders there." Great, that only means more heat and more crazy lightning storms. I was sleeping one night in my hammock right by the window and at 2 in the morning a huge rain storm came in and blew rain all over my face. What a wake up call! I was tired and frustrated to learn that it was only 2 in the morning so I worked on blocking the window from letting water in.

Some thing interesting: we went to go teach some investigators and the daughter had a turtle. She was playing with it on the floor and it would run around. It reminded me of my old box turtle, "Speedy", and I asked her where she got it from. Then the mom told us that when it rains, all of the turtles come out of the river and walk the streets out in this colony. I was amazed! The daughter then offered me the turtle because they are all over in this colony outside of Nacaome. I told her to keep it and that i would find one some day.

"The hottest city in all of Honduras" April 16, 2012

Well, first I want to say R.I.P. to my fighter fish, "Falcon", that I left behind in Bakersfield. He finally died after 1 year and 4 months of having him. I bought him in December during first semester at BYUI after driving all the way to Idaho Falls to pick him up.

So, back to life, This week is the week of Changes! One of us is going to leave, we find out Tuesday night. I personally want to stay, but if I go that's fine too. It's what the Lord wants. We have been working really hard to get our family here married but as it turns out, the wife's papers are in Choluteca and we will have to go to Tegucigalpa to get the husband's papers signed because they're lost! So its going to be a couple more weeks until they get married and baptized. The wife is amazing, my testimony grows every time she goes to church. She fights and drags the three kids to church and we walk with them and she never complains about how far away the church is like other people do. It makes me think of the effect this will have on the family's life. Her 11 year old son helps her, but she is a trooper!

We had a power outage last Tuesday. It went out while we were in the middle of a lesson. One of the Transformers blew out and wouldn't be back on until the next day.... Oh what a long night we were in for! We slept in the hottest city in all of Honduras without fans! It was close to impossible to sleep because of the heat. I was somewhat alright in my hammock, but my comp was dying in his bed. He was up all night until at 2 the power came on and he put both the fans on himself, haha.

"Semana Santa" April 9, 2012

Well, this week was definitely different. The Spring Break week down here is called the Semana Santa. Every single person took the week off. Sooo this meaning everywhere we could buy food to eat this week was closed. The despensa was open but we could only buy food that didn't have to be refrigerated or frozen because this week our refrigerator broke as well. It was the worst possible timing in the world for our fridge to break! Don't worry, we both are still living and found a "pulperia" (a house that people sell groceries, soda and water out of) right next to the house. During this week on Thursday every single person in Central America goes to the beach to "bathe" themselves and to spend the whole day there. So as we walked out of the house, we noticed this eerie silence as we walked the streets to contact. There was no one on the streets and no one in their houses.

In my 11 weeks here I have heard that it gets so hot that it looks like its snowing. Well, this week it finally got so hot, that when water would fall, it looked like little snowflakes falling. It was crazy looking, I wasn't sure if my eyes were playing tricks on me or not. I have also have had my hammock for 3 weeks now and I have slept in it every single night. Its so much more comfortable then a bed that I often think at nights how I can put a hammock up in my room in Bakersfield....just a heads up.

This week we had a date for this new family to get married and also baptized. The day before that we go to take out the papers to get them married, they get in a huge fight and she threatened him that he needs to move out and be separated. I can solemnly say that this is the sly work of the devil. This is the 4th family that I have worked with to get baptized and married and every time before they get married, they get it huge fights and talk about separating or dropping baptism in general. Its not a coincidence that this always happens! Satan is always attacking the family. Whether we know it or not, Satan is always trying to slowly work his way into the homes of many happy families to try and tear them apart through temptations. Why is it that Satan is always attacking the family? Its because families are a part of the plan of God to be married and live a happy life together as a family here on the earth and for all eternity. He is always throwing in the thought that we don't need to be married to have children or to start a family, but the truth is that we do! I know that the Family is a basic part of the Plan that God has for us and I know that through families, we can be more happy and get through life more easily.

"General Conference" April 2, 2012

This week has gone by really fast mostly because of General Conference. Oh man, it was amazing! There was so many good talks given, it was hard to write them all down in my notes! Well first it was a little difficult to get the District President to let us watch it because he kept on telling us English Speakers that we need to watch it in Spanish and he didn't want to set up a room for us to watch it. He kept on saying, "We're going to need all 4 rooms because we are expecting over 500 people to come to all 4 sessions. HA! there aren't even that many members in the San Lorenzo District. I don't know why he thought that. but we finally got our little "bunker" settled in where we watched General Conference in English. The only thing that I was disappointed in this whole week was that the Satellite connection in San Lorenzo went down during the Priesthood Session, so we didn't get to see any of it. We called the other Areas in the South and they all were watching it. That night we (Elders) all slept in the Zone Leader's house because there wasn't transportation back to our areas at night. They had asked us that had hammocks to bring them so that we could have somewhere to sleep. It was a good thing I brought mine, or else I would have been sleeping on the ground!

One of our families that are investigating have finally decided to get married! The husband wants to change his life from drinking and going to Billiard Halls all night. It feels great when the Spirit witnesses to those that need help that we are here. He came to us and told us he is ready to stop everything and be with his family.

 

"It tasted like Chicken" March 27, 2012

Well, these past two months have been flying by. This week for P-Day, we went to San Lorenzo to play fútbol at the church there. During the game, the Sisters filled up a bunch of water balloons and we all had a water war. It felt great in the scorching heat. We then went after to eat as a Zone and went back to our areas. Saturday morning, I went back up to Langue to do a Baptism Interview for them. When we were done and waiting for a bus, a police truck passed by and called us over. We were a little unsure at first but he was only asking where we were headed. So he gave us a ride all the way back down to Nacaome. While in the truck, he asked us why we didn't ask him for a ride. We told him that we didn't know that Police give rides. He then said, "Are you sure its not because of the stories you hear about the Police here in Honduras? Because I can assure you that every country has their bad cops and... " bla bla bla bla bla. He ended up being the Head of all of the police in the area and told us that we don't need to worry because his squad is working. We then told him who we were he started asking us questions about our missions and the church. After we talked a while about the church, we got to talking about his family. He said he has 3 sons and 2 daughters. He also had to mention that his 22 yr old daughter wants to marry a "gringo" and move to the United States. HA! I told him I can NOT help him out with that now or ever! The police here always carry around their big machine guns and when he dropped us off, I asked him if I could have a bullet from it and he popped out the magazine and gave me one. I was surprised that he actually did it, but then again we are in Honduras...

I have once again eaten something rare, Shocking! Right? We were at an investigadors house and he said he had killed a Garrovo with his slingshot and had cooked it up. A Garrovo is just like an Iguana, only more black and dark colored. We had some and it was really good, it tasted like chicken (no joke!) there was just a lot of bones in it. Yum!

"Feliz Dia de Padre" March 19, 2012

Feliz Dia de Padre! At least, down here it's fathers day. Well here we are, sweating and dying of heat here in Nacaome. Its so incredibly hot, I cant believe it. We have been working hard out here. We right now have 17 investigators and 1 complete family that we are working on getting married so they can be baptized. We have a lot of people that only have a mom and kids, its really sad to see. We have an investigator that has a 2 year old little girl and the father doesn't even know she exists because the father got up and left the mom. She is one of the strongest investigators that I have ever had. She is always excited for the appointments and we are even teaching her sister and her family. It has been a super busy week and has flown by. Well this Thursday was my first district meeting I had to teach as the new District Leader! Man was I nervous. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, mostly because we're all good friends in my district and were able to listen and help each other so we could make our baptism goal this month. As District Leader, it is also my job to go around in the different areas and do divisiones with the different companionship's and get to know their investigators. This week, I headed up to Langue and did divisiones with a fairly new Elder who is still in training. Elder Redd and I took on the day by teaching a small pueblo about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It was so crazy! We also went around and I was able to meet alot of the church leaders up there. That night when we went back to their house there in Langue, the owner of their room had told us that he picked a bunch of fresh mangos and brought them to us. Oh man, they were so good. I had about 3 that night, I was so full. When we were getting ready for bed, we had the choice of sleeping in the hammocks or the bed (Langue is known for their hammocks). I of course chose to sleep in the hammock, but Elder Redd said that by 3 o'clock in the morning, It gets uncomfortable and that I would end up switching to laying down the bed. The night started out fantastic, I was out. That is...until 2:56am. I woke up and i couldn't got back to sleep, so I hopped in my bed.

"New District Leader" March 12, 2012

This week was really busy! Well Cambios were this Wednesday and we had received a call saying that we would be receiving sisters in the area. This only meant one thing...we had to give up our nice Air Conditioned room to them... we weren't too excited about going out and finding a new house, but we found one. Now we have Hermana Piksma (from Idaho) and Hermana Maya (from Mexico). They are training and opening up the area like me and my comp were. I also had received a call saying that I had been suped up to District Leader! Wow, so I am now one of the district leaders here in the mission. On Sunday, we had over filled the church with investigators and didn't have enough room for some to sit down; in total we had 120 in assistance. Our new family that we had found contacting is progressing and they came and attended all 3 hours of church.

We were definitely tested this week. We gave the hermanas some of our old investigator's and they are all responding to the sisters and want to be baptized and married. We couldn't believe it because with us, they didn't want to be married or baptized yet. Then we visited our investigating family (different) and they had told us that they didn't want to be married or go to church. I was quite frustrated with this, mostly because we had already spent 500 Limpiras to get their paper work ready. But most of all I was sad for them because of the blessing that they would miss out on.

"15 Days Later!" March 6, 2012

Well, it's good to be able to write to you guys after a long week with no Internet! I couldn't believe it when we went looking for Internet every day last week so I could write. Good news is that it's now back up! So much has happened in these past two weeks. First off, I learned to use one of the old fashioned sewing machines. It may not be as exciting news as you may have thought, but it is a new skill I now have. We were teaching our investigator and after the lesson, she jumped on and was using the machine. I asked if she would teach me, so she did. This past week, my bike broke as we were riding across town to drop off our laundry. So we dropped my bike off at a member's house and made our way clear across town. We were running short on time to catch the bus, so my companion jumped on the back pegs of the bike and I had to pedal. We got so many weird looks riding down the main road with a giant man on a small bike and a small Latino on the back.

Last Sunday, we were sitting in our room studying when we received a call from our Branch President saying that there is a man looking for us. So we went outside and he ended up being a missionary from Guatemala that served here over 12 years ago! He introduced himself and we jumped in his car and he took us around to all of his old investigators that he taught 12 years ago. I was actually surprised that they all recognized him. We visited other inactive members that he had baptized and they said that we were the first Missionaries to visit them in over 12 years since he came last. The only problem is that they live 15 minutes outside of Nacaome and they don't want to spend the money on a taxi to go and come back for church on Sundays. We're currently trying to figure the situation out.

This week we had scheduled service to go and chop wood for a member. When we arrived I was thinking maybe a couple of logs that needed to be split. To my surprise, there was a tree lying there in the backyard waiting to be cut up! She said she only wanted a couple of pieces (BIG pieces) chopped that day. My companion wasn't too thrilled.

"The Taller you are, the Older you are" February 20, 2012

We had a bit of a different week this week. We first received a call from our Zone Leaders Tuesday afternoon saying that we had to be in Tegucigalpa the next morning at 8 am for a Workshop with the Trainers and Trainees. This only meant one thing...no sleep! I was a little skeptical about leaving and trying to catch a taxi out to the main Freeway to catch a bus to Tegus (pronounced Tay-Goose) at 4 in the morning. I asked my Zone Leaders if there were taxis that early and they said there was. Well, to my surprise, there was 1...but when we came up to take it they said no, because they wanted to sleep. So we were walking around looking for a way to get out to the freeway, but there was nothing that would get us out there on time. We ended up making it to Tegus at 9, but to my surprise there was no one there! I was a little frustrated because I didn't know where everyone was. So we went out to grab us some breakfast at Burger King and found everyone there. They said the meeting had been moved to 10. On the bus home, we were talking to some people and they thought I was 40 years old! I couldn't believe it! I explained that I was only 19 and they didn't believe me. They said the taller you are, the older you are. Man, I don't know what they taught these people in school.
Our investigators are doing good. They are surprised at how much we actually care about them and listen to them whenever we talk with them. We are now officially working on marriage papers for a couple who what to get baptized. We also have 3 other investigators who are progressing nicely and are coming to know the truth in the Gospel we bring. I'm thankful for the power the Lord has blessed me with the ability to speak the language here smoothly and close to fluent. After every lesson I always think to myself, "Wow did I just say all of that?" I have learned to calm down and just speak and it all comes out perfect. The ability I have is only possible through Gods will.

"I felt like I was in a Drag Race!" February 13, 2012

This week has been a busy one. We found out Tuesday night that the other missionaries that we shared the area with were taken out. Instead of putting more missionaries in (as usual) President Hernández decided to keep just us two here. This is the 1st time in a long time (years) that there has only been 1 pair of missionaries here. Oh man, we were so busy with the members and references and investigators that the other Elders had left behind. It felt so good to have something to do once again! Before, we had already contacted the whole area and weren't going anywhere. We have been in contact with the members more, since we now have the whole Nacaome Valle to ourselves. All of the Investigators that we have right now are references and friends to members. We have a couple that are really positive and are wanting to get married and baptized. They are doing excellent and look forward to coming to church every week. This week, we also were rounded up by the branch president's wife to sing in the choir for the branch conference last Sunday. Oh man, she must have been desperate if she had to ask me and my compañero to sing. We were the first men to be a part of it, but once the other members saw us, the teenaged guys started to come.
Oh yeah! On Saturday we went with a member to put a new light fixture in an other members house. When we showed up, she wasnt there, just her son. He was in the main room with two cords hooked up to his motorcycle coming from the outlet in the wall. When we asked what he was doing, he asked us if we knew how to start a motorcycle without they keys. Out of all the people, my kid, Elder Garcia said he did. Wow! Shocking! He jumped over there and started cutting cords and messing with some stuff from under inside and kicked it to life. The member and I were standing back, staring in awe at how fast he got that thing on. So he took off and we waited outside on the steps of the house waiting for the member to come. When she came up, the first thing she said was, "Who was the one that got his motorcycle running?!" My companion replied (hesitantly) and she told us that she had taken the keys away from him to ground him for his grades. Haha my comp apologized and we explained the situation on how we didnt know he was grounded. I later asked Elder Garcia how he knew how to start a motorcycle without the keys. I found out that he had worked in a workshop with only motorcycles and he learned in there. He can start almost any bike with out keys. I Want One!
Today I had the craziest bus ride of my life. We went to Choluteca, down south, for a multizone activity and the roads down there are flat and have long straightaways. So the buses always compete with each other and have races to go and get to the bus stops first, to get more passengers. I felt like I was in a drag race! We sat down and then the bus took off and wove in and out of traffic to get ahead of the bus in front. It was so funny watching the face of the other bus driver when we first passed. They were weaving and honking and yelling at each other the whole time...that didnt help with car sickness at all, but it was still enjoyable.

"The Girlfriend to the Sun" February 6, 2012

Ok, this week has been ridiculously slow. We have tried everything we can to find people to teach, but nothing seems to work. For example, We have talked to the leaders and members of the branch here, but they don't have anything. I was told that they were the best at giving a ton of references, oh well. Any way, we have been talking to everyone, but they usually run or close the door when they see us pass by. I feel like I'm back in the States, because its so hard here. The heat here is incredibly strong. The people here usually joke around and say that the devil walks these streets from 12-3 in the afternoon because its so hot. At first, I didn't really catch why they call this place "the girlfriend to the sun"... but to my demise, I now know. Training is going good, its just hard for my new companion because nobody is letting us in to teach. But, you know me, I always look for something to do to have fun.

"Cambios (changes)" January 30, 2012

Oh man, I don't even know where to begin! Alright, so I did end up
having changes this transfer. I got the phone call last Tuesday night
and they told me that I would be leaving tomorrow to go to the town
Nacaome. I automatically knew what that meant...This town is infamous
for its heat during the Semana Santa (first two weeks in April). I
then found out that I had to be at the Mission Home at 8 in the
morning. That only meant one thing... I was training! Oh man, when
they told me that I had been called to train, the first thing I said
was,"No, really. Who's my new companion?!" But sure enough, I have been
called to be a trainer, in Nacaome. To make things EVEN BETTER I was
going to be opening the area that I was going to. So now, I am
starting from scratch in this area and I'm training Elder Garcia from
Guatemala (he is now 1 of the 6 Garcia's in the mission). Everything
has gone good so far, we luckily share this town with 2 other Elders
and I have a ward I can work with. Its so hot down here right now,
that I cant wait for la semana santa...yeppi! Nah, it'll be fun, its a
calm little town. Its definitely bigger then my last area, and a lot
more flat. As nerdy as it sounds, the mission calls trainers Jedi
Masters. So therefore, I also have my padawan.