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Capítulo 64 - San Lorenzo!

This week started off with a video conference for all of Central America, presided by Elder Cook, on Sunday. We had a lot of investigators at church that day, and they were all very impressed by the talks given by the general authorites. The sad part was that it wasn't in spanish until the very last 10 minutes. I mean the people giving talks that knew spanish, spoke in spanish like Elder Duncan, and President Ochoa. But Elder Cook was speaking in english, and there was no translator. Luckily we were right next to a family of investigators, and so I started translating for them. After a few minutes, everyone around me started leaning in closer and closer to hear what I was saying. Before I knew it, there were like 30 people trying to hear what I was translating.

  Then the next day Elder Rodriguez and I went down to the south. We decided to stay the night in San Lorenzo, right next to my old area "Obrera". The next day we cleaned up a house and headed down further to Choluteca with a bunch of house materials: 2 beds, 2 wardrobes, a mircowave,  a fridge, 2 fans, a stove, a table, 2 chairs, and an extra matress. The point is that is was really dark when we were driving, and the wind started picking up and all of the sudden we heard a super loud bang. I pulled over the truck, and we noticed that the rope we had used to tie everything down broke, and everything in the back of the truck went flying. Luckily, and I have no idea how, the truck was perfectly fine, nobody was behind us, and there was no damage done to the materials. I honestly have no idea how that happened because that stuff went flying all over the place. We put it all back in the truck, and headed the remaining 5 miles to choluteca.

  Well...It's official. I got called by President the day after we got back from the south, and he told me who my replacement is, and when he's coming. My replacement is going to be Elder Flood, and he comes tomorrow. So we'll see how that goes. Palmira has had a lot of progress since I came here, and it's really sad to think that after two weeks of training Elder Flood, I'll be leaving.


We found a statue of a dolphin in San Lorenzo!












Capítulo 63 - We did an area attack

This week we've slowing been progressing the entire atmosphere of missionary work in the ward. This Thursday, we did an area attack. We are 4 missionaries in the ward, and we all came together, paried up with someone and went out as 8 people in the area. 

  We've already been seeing results, and the stake president and bishop are very happy with us because a few months ago, the church attendance was around 60, and this last sunday we got it up to 129! At least that's what the ward secretary counted. I normally likie to count to see the progress, but I was translating everything for Hermana Chase who decided to come to the ward while President Chase was in a very big lider counsel by the Temple.

The coolest part about the divisions is that my companion for the divisions was Humberto, who was baptized 2 weeks ago, and last sunday I got to watch him bless the sacrament. It made all the hard work worth it being able to see him up there and seeing his wife so happy that he was there too.

  We've been finding a lot of very positive investigators this week, and we have a good future coming up for the work in this ward.

  So... a long time ago, we promised a few people that we would go to church with them if they went to church with us. Well the thing is that they showed up to church with us, and we completely forgot about the whole deal because it was before the mission shut down in december. the other day, we went to visit them, and they reminded us about the deal, and so we went with them on Friday. It was a very small group of people, but once they started the first prayer, it didn't seem like a small group. EVERY ONE OF THEM were screaming at the top of their lungs during the prayer, and everyone was saying different things. it was... interesting.

  This week I also had my interview with President Chase, and from what he was telling me, I'll be leaving my area this change, after completing 4 changes here (6 months). We'll see what happens.

Capítulo 62 - I fit the luggage of 15 people in that beast of a truck

Okay so this week we've really been taking a look into the efficiency of everything we do. President Chase wanted a meeting with all of us to go over practically everything we do in the office just to make sure that we aren't doing the same job twice, or to see if we could get to jobs done in one. He was honestly shocked at how efficient we already are and that nobody was overlapping jobs. So that was good.  

  Right after that meeting we all 4 went to go clean out a house of a closed area so that we could give the materiales out to another area. After cleening out the house we put everything in the truck bed. I honestly have no idea how we did that, but we fit two wordrobes, two beds, a table, two chairs, two extra matresses, a fridge, a microwave, and a fan in that short bed. I've gotten pretty good at stacking things in that truck. The other week, I fit the luggage of 15 people in that beast of a truck.

  Then we went over to the new are to drop everything off, and well... I had no idea where I was going. The new missionaries were giving us directions and well...the directions weren't very good, and we got lost and ended up in the parking lot of the biggest cotholic church in all of Honduras (La Suyapa) so we took advantage of the moment and took a picture outside haha.

  We've been having a lot of progress in the ward. This week they finally called an Elder's Quorum president, and we have already done divisions with him and his first counselor. The divisions were awesome, and have already helped a ton in the missionary work.  

  This week we were invited to eat dinner with a family in our ward. The family doesn't live anywhere close to our area (nobody knows why they come to this ward) but they wanted us to come over to their house so bad that when President Chase came to sacrament meeting last week, they begged him to let us come over...and he said yes!! Their house is SUPER nice! both the mom and the dad are doctors that work in a clinic in Tegucigalpa.

Saying goodbye to Elder Pineda last week

We bought ICEES!!

 ICEES!!

la suyapa. We took the picture in like half of a second because people starting noticing that we were mormons haha


The biggest cotholic church in all of Honduras (La Suyapa)



Capítulo 61 - "They got married!!"

Well this week Elder Alvarado officially left the office. It was really sad to see him leave, and a lot of the members were really sad too. We were together for 3 changes (4 and a half months) and we got a really good system going in the office and in the area. The good thing is that Elder Rodriguez is super awesome, so that will definitely make sure the momentum that we started stays moving.

  This was changes week, and one of the biggest ones we've had in a very long time, with 19 missionaries finishing their missions, and 21 coming in to start their missions. We also had 2 emergency changes this week. Our house is really big, but we only have a total of 24 beds in the house. So... when all the 17 new Elders came to sleep in the house, 2 other misisonaries that were having emergency changes, the AP's, and the 4 of us...we didn't have enough, and I decided to sleep on the ground with my blanket and pillow. It was fun, but also super hard to keep that many missionaries under control in the house.

  We had a miracle happen this week with the wedding of Humberto and Jheny. I woke up that morning and instantly started receiving calls from one of the witnesses of the wedding. The alcaldia didn't let anyone but the family and the witnesses in the wedding, so we didnt get to go. He told me that the other witness wasn't there, and that they could do the wedding without the witness, so I called her, and she didn't answer me. I got nervous, and called her at least 8 more times. Still no answer. So I called her neighbor, to talk to her sister to get me the number of the person that she works with to ask where she was. I basically found out that she bailed on us. I told that to the other witness who was at the wedding, and he says that they can't get married without a second witness and in order to change the witness, they need a 3 day warning in advance. So basically I thought they weren't getting married.

  It was a rough day, but then Hermana Paola calls me and says "They got married!!" she then explained to me the whole process that they went through that she ran over and her and the other witness convinced the lady over there to change the witness in that moment, and they got married! Hermana Paola saved the day! We have their baptism at 5 today, so let's hope that everything goes well.