Capítulo 8- The week started off greatly

I dont even know where to start this email. i guess ill start off by saying that the keyboard im using should never be used by anyone, and im sorry for my terrible spelling.

The week started off greatly, with 6 people accepting our invitation to be baptized, for a total of 17. i thought that was insane, but my companion told me that most people flake on their baptism, so i guess thats not so special haha.

When we were on our way to the top part of our area, we ran into a super drunk guy. or i guess i should say that he stummbled into us. im still not close to having the laguage down, but for some odd reason i could understand thisdrunk guy perfectly. it was a quick conversation, he told us that he loved us and then he lost his balance, fell, caught himself on me, and then hugged me again stating that he loved me.

Sometimes during lessons, i can understand spanish perfectly. its crazy, but one night during a lesson i was asking one of our investigators some deep questions, and she just responds with "wow, your spanish is so cute!" i was just like "no, this is for your salvation, stop flirting!" of course i said that in my head, in actuallity, i just ingnored it and asked again, but my companion thought it was the funniest thing ever.

Today, we had our p-day and we went up to some waterfalls, which was really cool. my campanion and i made an appointment during the day today because our invetigator asked us to a few days ago. i just thought "she's going to be baptized on tuesday, so im willing to make that sacrfice" however she lives at the top of a mountain, so we hiked up there and she just told us that she doesnt want to be baptized tomorrow, so that hurt quite a bit. i think itll all work out though. it always does. thats just how our church is.

that's all for this week.

-Elder Case

MTC buddies

P-day waterfall hike

Welcome to Honduras

Capítulo 7- I get to shower with 2 buckets!

Wow... I really don’t even know where to start. so many things have happened just since i got here. I guess i'll just start from the beginning. 

So right after getting my companion, Elder Hernandez who is from Mexico, we find out our area, and we head out to our house. After taking a taxi to the middle of nowhere, we walk on a dirt road for a while, and then we get to our house. I set down my suit cases, and my companion says "alright, lets go work" so without unpacking my stuff, we left for the day. also, my companion literally just finished being trained, so he's been out here for 3 months, and is now my trainer. he's also district leader, he will be receiving many blessings haha.

So the first house we walk into, right in the middle of the room is a rabbit, and i didn’t really think anything of it, just a little strange. we sat down and started teaching, and all of the sudden the rabbit came over to me and starts nibbling on my shoe. i just tried to ignore it, but then a few minutes later, i feel a different feeling, i look down and there was just a random chicken pecking at my foot, in this persons house. then the rabbit left and laid down in the corner. then the chicken followed and just started jumping on the rabbit. the chicken and the rabbit were like best friends or something, then i thought, "the beginning of two years starts now" haha.

My area is called La Honduras, and is in the middle of the city, on a sort of mountain. everything here is hilly, everywhere i walk is either straight up hill, or straight down hill. also, they don’t speak Spanish here. or at least, thats what it feels like. the missionaries say that the best Spanish is in the city, and once you get outside the city, the accent gets a lot worse. when they talk, the don’t use the letter "s" and i just have no clue what they're trying to say, sometimes. then we get back to our house, we plan for the next day, and then in the morning, I get to shower with 2 buckets! not one bucket, TWO haha i have one to hold the water and the other is a smaller one to pour it on me. its the coolest thing ever!

The food here actually isn’t bad at all. Baleadas are absolutely amazing. but something I ate the other day got me a little sick, i’m not sure what it was, but it was only a slight fever of 39 degrees Celsius and its gone now, so don’t worry about that. all is well out here, this will be a hard yet amazing 2 years.

-Elder Case

Elder Case and Elder Hernandez

Capítulo 6 - NOT DEAD :)

Hey mom, they're giving us a few minutes to write and let you guys know that we are still alive here. i dont think that im going to be able to write much to you, because they told me to keep it very short, because i am one of the last people to go and everyone took up all the time. my week was good. it really flew bye. saying goodbye to my two teachers was super hard. we've gotten really close to them over the past 6 weeks. however, now i am in Honduras, and it's time to start the work. i hope everything is going well out there for everyone.

 We had two flights on the way here. we had a layover in San Salvador, El Salvador, and then took a smaller plane to Tegucigalpa because the airport here is freaking crazy. we had to land super rough and then come to a stop within seconds because the runway here is super short. the rest of our day today, we will be having devotionals by our mission president, and his assistants. They told me i couldnt open any emails, so im really sorry if you asked me any questions. i dont know my area yet, but im sure i will have p-day on monday, so i guess you'll just have to wait till then to hear from me again. i feel bad that i cant respond to anyone else.

Getting ready to leave the MTC for Honduras!

Capítulo 5- " Elder Case venga! nosotros somos teniendo una fiesta!"

Wow, 5 weeks down. it honestly feels like its barely been any time at all, but then i look at everyone in my district and it feels like i have known them for years. and the next time i email, i will probably be in the field. we leave tuesday morning for honduras and they may or may not let us write before we leave.

this week wasnt too crazy. we had fast sunday, and they actually made us fast for 24 hours! insane, right?! i thought i was going to die, and as i was conducting meetings, my stomach just decided to start making whale noises. luckily however, after the 24 hours, they gave us some good food! we got chicken! haha it doesnt sound amazing, but believe me, it was.

also, along with fast sunday, everyone in my district got up to bear their testimonies... all in spanish! its amazing how fast we've been able to learn the language. i feel good now, but im pretty sure ill get into the field and be completely lost, especially becasue hondurians have a crazy accent and pronounce "s" like a "j". im excited though. im ready to get out of here haha.

so a few days ago, some of the latinos here said " Elder Case venga! nosotros somos teniendo una fiesta!" or something like that. so i went into their room and they shut the door, turned off the lights, and started attacking me with their pillows! it was crazy, and the funny part is that nobody could see, so i just moved to a corner, and when they turned on the lights, they were just hitting each other haha. 

Sincerely, Elder Case

Guatemala MTC pictures

Capítulo 4- They actually let us go outside and teach random people

Well this week was definitly a lot more eventful than the last one. the spanish in my district is going slightly downhill because of the new group here. before we were best friends with the latinos in the MTC, but now they're all new and don't really want to talk. eventually they'll start talking and our spanish will get better.

The day after we got to email, they actually let us go outside and teach random people. the handed us restoration pamphlets and told us to hand them out and share a short message. My comanion and I handed out and talked to 8 people in 30 minutes! We got their names and their addresses and gave it to the teachers here to give to the missionaries in the feild.

i almost forgot to talk about the market. the market wasnt at all what i expected, it was a lot calmer than i thought haha. people just had stands set up and sold whatever they had. i ended up buying a pair of shoes, a sweater, and a few ties. but the best part of our day was the zoo. so the zoo here is... interesting. i guess because they have so many exotic animals just outside roaming everywhere, the zoo suffers. they literally had a gigantic cage labeled "american pigeons" and it had over 100 pigeons from the united states haha. another cage had a cow and another had a pig. it was more of a farm than a zoo haha. but the people here loved it.

Sundays in the mtc here are nice and relaxing. you dont really have to worry about learning. You just sit back and enjoy church and devotionals. however, sundays aren't like that anymore, they made me zone leader over the mtc, so i have to go around meeting to meeting conducting all of the devotionals. thats fine but they have me do it in spanish becasue the mtc is mostly spanish speaking elders, so yeah... not relaxing anymore haha.

The new group of americans came in the past week too, and lets just say, they need a big slice of humble pie. they got their slice and then some haha. they thought they could beat my distract at sports, so we played them in volleyball and basketball and we completely destroyed their will to do sports anymore, and then they got their hair buzzed like we did haha. 

thats all for this week,

sincerely, Elder Case