Capítulo 33 - This week, we started our english classes!

So this week started of with divisions with the zone leaders.  And when I was with Elder Horning, I finally got the picture with a little baby pig!! This time I was a little more careful about the mom, and made sure that she was tied to a tree before taking a picture with the baby pig. The pig mom wasnt happy, but I got my picture and got out of there before that pig mom ripped the tree out of the ground haha. Then we went off, and were able to take pictures with some shrimp. however, my zone leader has the pictures, so I have to wait until he sends them to me before I can send them to you guys.

  This week, we started our english classes! It's honestly really hard to teach english, but it's really fun. The first class we had started on wednesday at 6 o'clock. At 6, there were only 3 people. my companion was ready to just start the class right there, and so he brought three chairs for the people that were there. I went out and brought another 17 chairs, just to make it an even 20. Everyone looked at me like I was crazy. That was until 3 minutes later, 15 more people walked in the class. It was amazing! And we were able to start with a full class.

  After our district meeting one day, we were all sitting down at some taco stand (the only civilization here) we were enjoying the cool weather when we noticed that it was actually 95 degrees! We all ust started laughing, because we were literally cold. We didn't believe it though, until we saw two more places that said the same thing haha.

  This week, I had one of the weirdest nights ever. At midnight, we got woken up by a random call, that just hung up right away, then at about 2 in the morning, my companion asked me for a blessing because he felt really sick, and then about 2 hours later, the sister elders in our district call us asking for a blessing too. One of them got really sick too, so we asked permission from the zone leaders at 4 in the morning to leave and give the blessing. Lets just say, Honduras at 4 in the morning is a different experience. Every animal was trying to kill us it felt like. We just started picking up rocks and throwing them at the animals trying to eat us, and it worked really well. we walked over to their house, gave the blessing, and walked back. we got back at about 5 in the morning. Things are going great though, have a great week!

Capítulo 32 -Holding a baby pig sounds like a great idea, but believe me, it's not...

This week has been crazy! Not like crazy busy with meetings, but just like a lot has been going down out here. After giving our talks about the missionary work, a lot of the members want to start helping us now. They've been giving us a lot of references. After contacting one of the references, I really wanted to take a picture holding one of their baby pigs. So I chase this baby pig down, I pick it up, and nobody had a camera, so I couldnt take the picture. Holding a baby pig sounds like a great idea, but believe me, it's not... After picking that thing up, the pig mom was pissed! and you would think "it's a pig, what can it do?" you think twice when that 300-400 pound pig mom is chasing you around all of Honduras for messing with her little baby haha.

  After being chased around for about 30 minutes, someone came in with a whip looking thing to save my life. Then we went to a calm lunch with a member... or so we thought. we sit down in the burning hot house, and she brings out a steaming hot soup. she tells us " this is a bean soup, you can put like whatever you want in it." we look at the soup to find a little stomach, liver, and an eyeball...I thought she was joking, but she walked away...The soup smelled like my physiology class while dissecting. it was gross. I got the stomach and liver down, but there was no way I was eating that eye ball. Luckily, a friendly pig was walking around and he was happy to eat the eye for me after I threw it out the window haha.

  Not much else crazy has happened with food this week, just taking hot sauce shots with my companion(Dont try that at home), but a lot has been changing with the missionary work out here. At least we're trying to change methods of the work. The branch has called a family as a "missionary family" and from now on, there calling is to help us. Whether it be by letting us use their house to have FHE with our investigators, or helping us with visiting and contacting. Also, this week, my companion and I are starting english classes. So many people are interested in that, and I'm pretty sure that more people are going to show up to my english class then sacrament meeting haha.

   Things are going great here, have a great week everyone!

Capítulo 31- When we put all of our focus on God, everything else just falls in place

Well This week was... well an interesting week to say the least. This week we met our new mission president. We had a zone conference with him, and all of the missionaries that are in the south

  

   Because of that, we had more Elders stay in our house the night before. Elder Johnson and Elder Prot showed up to our area around 6 o'clock, and somehow, we talked a member into giving us all baleadas. As we're walking to this house, people started staring at us, because we are two greengos, a Mexican, and well Elder Prot looks like he could be from Africa. They just look at us like "What the heck are they doing in Honduras" 

   So to make things more interesting, Elder Prot and I start pretending to talk Chinese between ourselves, and you should have seen the look on the people's face when that started. But then, out of nowhere, Elder Johnson turns around to say something to us while we were speaking our made up chinese, and fell.... right into a sewer hole. We just about died of laughter as he comes jumping out, just soaked from his bellybutton down in this sewer water. All of our admirers got a good laugh out of that one too.

  Alright, now about the new president. This guy is SOOO awesome!! He's the funniest guy ever. Like, he's just like, that super energetic guy. I can't explain it. Like... Here's an example. We started the conference with a hymn, and about the second verse, this guy is running around the room yelling at us to sing louder, runs up to the pianist to play louder, and was just running around the whole song. It was a pretty funny sight. Then later, when we went to eat lunch (the typical pizza with water) He made us all peanutbutetr fingers!!! I literally almost cried it was so good haha.

  The the next day was super busy because we had a baptism, and like everything that could have gone wrong, went wrong, but in the end, everything worked out. Then we had to prepare talks for the next day (Sunday). Just remember, when we put all of our focus on God, everything else just falls in place. Have a great week!

Capítulo 30 - A piñata helped us find 8 new investigators in one day

This week was really crazy. We almost didn't have time to do much visiting with our investigators. On Tuesday, we got half the day to visit our investigators, then we had to go get the Elders from a different area, because they were going to be staying the night in our house because at 1:30 in the morning we woke up to get ready to go to the temple. The Temple here is AMAZING. In pictures it doesn't look super amazing, but the moment I saw it in person, my jaw dropped. it made the waking up at 1:30 and taking the 5 hour bus ride so very worth it.

  After the temple, our whole zone got back on the bus, and had the craziest 5 hour bus ride on the way back. We had the 16 of us singing church songs at the top of our lungs like the whole bus ride. We got caught in some traffic on the way, and I took my companion off the little private bus, and I walked on to a huge yellow school bus full of people, and started preaching to all of them. It was great! especially because all 70 of them had nowhere to go, and had to listen to my every word haha. It actually turned out into a really good lesson about prayer, and the blessings we can recieve through praying. Then suddenly the traffic started moving, and we literally were chasing our little bus for a good while before they realized we weren't there.

  We got back to our area in the middle of the night, and had District meeting the next morning. After district meeting, we finally got the chance to go visit more of our investigators. when it was getting dark, this family starts yelling at us to come to their house. so we went to go see what was going on. It turned out that they just wanted the white guy to hit their piñata haha. After destroying that piñata in one hit, we had a great lesson about the restoration. So yes, a piñata helped us find 8 new investigators in one day haha.

Capítulo 29 - Roads turn into rivers

This week has been a crazy week. Right after writing last week, we went to go buy a few things for the week in the store. I FOUND CHERRY COKE AND DR.PEPPER. Those don't exist down here, so going to an american import store definitely paid off.

  The following day, we had Zone Conference. So since we are all in the middle of nowhere down here, we have to travel hours to get to our zone conferences, and a lot of elders have to come to our house the night before, because our house is the closest to the bus stop. Anyways, after getting these elders, we started walking to our house in the rain. My entire area is dirt, and the roads turn into rivers, so we were walking around these rivers and sometimes had to jump over them. I go to jump over a river on, what looked to be, dry land. But, the moment I landed, I had landed in quick sand, or something like that and sunk down to my waist instantly, and was still sinking down. I scrambled to get out, and was just covered in mud. We all had a good laugh about that.

  During the week, my new companion ( Elder Martinez from Mexico, 22 years old and a graduated Chemical Engineer) got a package from his family. I was all thinking "super cool, i'll get to see some mexican candies" He opens the package and shouts for joy as he pulls out a million peppers. I just had to laugh at the unexpected difference.

  That's all for ths week, more to come next week.

Capítulo 28 - My area is twice as big. more to love, right?

Well, this is going to take a lot of explaining, so bare with me haha. Alright, so a little over three weeks ago, I got moved into my new area. This place is super huge, and all of the dirt roads and stick houses look the same. My companion Elder Limones had 9 weeks in the area, and still didn't know it all when I got there.  In  2 weeks, we will be receiving our new mission president. Because of the change of president, they made one of the changes(transfers?) 3 weeks, before the new president comes, and one 9 weeks. so that they new president wouldn't have to worry about changing the missionaries around his first day in the mission.

  Alright, now that we've established this, Elder Limones received a call from president telling him that he needed to move him to being a zone leader in another area. So only having three weeks in this huge area, I'll be taking on a new companion. I spent the whole day going to the main city to get my companion, and heading back to the area. The following day, we head over to the district meeting, and we get told that some elders on the other side of the mission were being sent home (nobody knows why) and the sister elders (super funny story, I just don't have enough room to explain it all) that we were sharing the branch with, would be going to the area of the elders that just got sent home. So... now my area is twice as big. more to love, right?

  Now there's more. We were in the new area teaching a lesson to one of the old investigators of the sister elders, and I swear it was the strangest situation ever. She's this super old lady, with like two teeth, who lives with her daughter, or something like that. Anyways, we were teaching, and out of nowhere like 40 people show up right outside her house and start playing poker, or something to that extent. These guys were all yelling at the top of their lungs while playing. And when asked upon about the people outside, the investigator just says ''oh they're just friends'' It was strange, but anyways, the point is that my companion left the area phone in that house by accident, and when we went back, it wasn't there. We asked a member to call it for us, so we could see if it was in his backpack or something, and it was turned off. So yeah, someone has our phone, and we're phonless missionaries in a new area.

  However, a little distraught, I read in a church magazine that God gives us areas, as missionaries, and situations, because he trusts us, and know we'll grow from it. We'll see what happens. Oh esta, todo bien.

Capítulo 27 - Lots of ups and downs, but ultimately, the good always outways the bad

This week was a really good. Lots of ups and downs, but ultimately, the good always outways the bad when we look back at it. Sunday night, I got something called the Dengue fever. Let me just tell you, it's not fun. However, God always finds a way to make me stop complaining. It was dark, and we were on our was back to the apartment. I was feeling super sick, and I may have accidently hurt my ankle ballin' some kids up in soccer. It started raining, and I was thinking life was just super rough. Then I saw a kid in the distance walking with crutches, and it reminded me of the many months I was walking around with crutches and how terrible that was. The kid got a little closer and it turned out to be a super young boy who was missing a leg. I instantly stopped feeling bad for myself, and tried my best to walk around with a smile.

  Then on Wednesday, we had the privilege of hearing from Elder Rendlund of the qourum of the 12 apostles. We had to wake up at midnight, to make it to the bus stop at 1 in the morning, and then take the 7 hour bus ride to the city, with all of the missionaries from the southern part of our mission, to be there at 8 o'clock. It was a rough morning, but totally worth it. He talked about President Monson, and applied it to all of us. He said that our 89 year old prophet gets up out of his bed every day, and gives every last bit of his energy he has to this church. So then I felt even worse for complaining. It doesnt matter how bad Dengue is, I will always be able to give my all to this work.

  Alright, so the other day we werent allowed to leave the house because I was a little sick, just a little sick. They told me that I had to eat some bananas. So we asked a member to get us some bananas, becuse we couldnt leave the house. This member came back, and I coulnt tell you why, but they gave me sopa de mondongo, which is a cow stomach soup. It's literally the worst thing on the planet, and they decided to give it to us. I just kinda looked at them like, ''What part of 'banana' did you get cow stomach soup from?'' I was glad they just gave it to us and left, because I tried it... and yeah, there was no way I was going to finish that. You can't say I didn't try it haha

Well that's all for this week, I hope everyone has a great week.