LAX

LAX
Ready to go!

Capítulo 86- The bishop asked me to speak about marriage

This week started off in divisions. We did divisions with the other set of Elders in the ward. It was really good, and I got to know the other half of the ward. We also did division in an area called Paraíso, and that was really fun too. I've heard a lot of good things about that area, especially because Elder Alvarado started the mission there, and Elder Marcellino, and Elder Ramirez were both in that ward, and we were all together in the office, so all they did was talk about that ward haha. It lives up to it's legend.

This week we also had a meeting with the stake president to talk about the missionary work in the stake. That went really well, and there will be a few exciting changes that he's going to make to make sure that the missionaries have the help and support that they need. Right after that meeting (Saturday night) I get a call from the bishop telling me that I have to give a talk in church. So... I waited till the morning when we were sitting in Sacrament meeting to prepare my talk. I didn't think it went too well, but a lot of people said they liked it. The bishop asked me to speak about marriage, and the family proclamation... weird, right? A missionary talking about marriage. I thought it was pretty weird.

This week we went to visit a recent convert, and she ask for a blessing for her daughter (non-member) who was sick. We gave her the blessing and we sat down and started talking a bit. Then out of nowhere, the recent convert says, "Elders, can you give me some of that oil?" we asked her why, and she responded with "No, it's cause my neck hurts and I wanted to rub it on my neck." Elder Rodríguez and I couldn't hold in the laughter as we started explaining that that's not how it works.

Capítulo 84 y 85 - That name is so beautiful, I'm going to name my son after you!

Well... I completely forgot to write a letter last week. So I'll have to write about the two weeks at once. So last week, I had to leave my area "La Era" and say goodbye to everyone. It was really sad, but from the looks of it, that will be the last time that I have to do that before I go home.

Saying goodbye was really hard, and I felt like I was leaving my family again. We were with one family saying goodbye, and they asked for my name (that always happens when someone leaves an area) anyways, I told them "Trevor Ryan Case" and the pregnant mom started freaking out and says "that name is so beautiful, I'm going to name my son after you!" I kid you not, that lady almost started crying when she said that she's been looking for a good name for a long time, and so she went with Trevor.

On Tuesday, I got on a bus with a bunch of missionaries and we headed over to Danli. My new area is called "Buena Esperanza" and my companion is Elder Rodriguez from Mexico. Elder Rodriguez is super awesome! I've known him ever since he came to the mission. He's about to hit 18 months in the mission. The new area is great. It's a lot more tropical than Tegus and it looks a lot more like San Lorenzo. In the sense of the dirt roads and the houses, the heat isn't as bad though haha. We share the ward with two more Elders, Elder Martinez (Guatemala) and Elder Reyes (Honduras). They are both super cool! 

It was sad to leave my last area, the members, and the investigators, but this new area seems to make up for it. We'll see how things keep going.

Capítulo 83 - Blonde hair and blues eyes

 Where do I start for this week.... 4TH OF JULY!!! This wednesday we passed the 4th of july, and we got to celebrate with a family here in the ward. They didn't really understand why we were celebrating on Wednesday, so I had to do a lot of explaining haha. But after they understood why, everything was great. We got there, and the family was already cooking all the food. It smelled so great! and when we started eating the family put on a bunch of patriotic music from the states. It was a great celebration, and there may or may not have been fireworks involved haha.

  This family put like 6 pounds of meat on my plate! They put like 3 pork chops, 2 pounds of carne asada, and another pound of two of chorizo. Then to make things even worse, they put and BUNCH of beans, and rice, and platano of the plate too. The plate was HUGE. I couldn't finish. I felt bad, but it was just wayyyy too  uch for me to eat at once hahaha. Right after that, we went to our ward mission leader's house for our correlation meeting, and he offered us food. I was already dying of how much I had eaten right before, and I just had to explain everything right there.

  This week we were able to visit a lot of families. One family we were with started telling us a story of one of their family members that recently had a baby. I kid you not when they say to me "they baby is just like you, blonde hair and blues eyes" ,I think I sat there in silence for like 5 minutes thinking about my whole life, actually wondering If I have blonde hair and blue eyes. Then I asked, I have blonde hair and blue eyes? They said yes, but then they started looking closer, and they were like "... oh, your eyes aren't blue" and I said, "and my hair??" and they are still convinced that I have blonde hair haha

Capítulo 82 - We had 99 baptisms

This week flew by! I'm honestly not even sure how this week flew by so fast, but wow, here I am, another monday writing home. This week marks a big change in the mission. Ever since I've started the mission, there's only been around 60-80 baptisms a month in the whole mission. Well, the past 2 months, we've been over 100 baptisms for the mission, and we were about to not make it last month. We had 99 baptisms.

  Well, we all thought that was it for the streak, and 3 months having over 100 would have been incredible and would have motivated people to work harder and help more people. Then all of the sudden a baptism that happened in the area of the University got moved forward a few days, changing it to the month of June. I went over to do the baptismal interview, and there were a lot of problems with the baptism. Not problems with the interview, but just a few problems with communication in the ward. The baptism almost got cancelled, but it happened by a miracle. Making it the 100th baptism last month.

  Long story short, President invited us to ice cream afterwards at McDonalds. Once we got there, we got told that we could buy food if we wanted to (which was a miracle because we didn't have dinner that day. While we were eating, a lady comes up to us and asks us if we would like a tour of the kitchen. We all looked at Hermana Chase, and she says, well, if they accept a book of mormon, we'll do it. And they did haha. It was so cool, and they even let me make a hamburger. So yeah, that was a fun day haha.

  It hasn't been raining a lot recently, so there aren't any crazy rain stories this week. However, Elder Farías, my companion that I had in Guapinol, got really sick last week and was sent home for surgery. That was really sad, he called me out of nowhere and told me that he was leaving.

Capítulo 81- Memories from home just started pouring in!

 Wow... next week is already the month of July. I don't even know how time is going by so fast, I could have sworn that last month was January. Time really does fly out here. 

  This week was really great. There's a family in my ward that asked me to cook something from California in their house for dinner one night. I had to think really hard, and then out of nowhere the greatest idea came to me. We made BREAKFAST BURRITOS with them!! It was the BEST thing ever! Oh my gosh, I just took that first bite of the breakfast burrito, and the memories from home just started pouring in. The family was laughing because I had the biggest smile on my face as we were eating. They all LOVED it too. It turned out really well. I may not be a chef, but I make some mean breakfast burritos haha.

  This Tuesday we had our zone conference and that was great! we heard of a lot of changes that are coming in the missionary work, like a new preach my gospel, the missionary library is gone, and district meeting don't exist anymore. We don't know all the details, but President will be giving us all of the information this week. We'll see how that goes.

  Sunday was also really great. We had a lot of investigators in church, and it was a great sunday, the talks wre great, and the classes were awesome. They all seemed to love church, and so we'll be talking to them this week to see how everything was, and what they actually thought about it.