Capìtulo 19- It's crazy what can happen when giving it your all

Well, I can't say i wasn't warned about how empty this city gets during Semana Santa, but i wasn't prepared for what happened. We go out to work, and it just seemed like a ghost town. Every single human being in the capital of Honduras was just gone. It wasn't too bad though, because we had changes wednesday, the middle of the week. My new companion came to the area, Elder Rohrbacher from Idaho. Yeah...and the members thought my name was hard to pronounce haha.

 We were able to fill up part of our days just walking around the area and showing him where everything is. Our area is huge though, so it'll take some time for him to learn it all. Of course, I only spent part of the day showing him the area. The other part was spent knocking on doors that had nobody in them. Even the memebers down here celebrate this very catholic holiday, so they weren't here either. At one point of the day, we were just done. The sun was blazing hot, nobody was answering, and the rare occasion that a person did answer, they were angry that we interupted their week of rest. I told my companion that I wanted to finish contacting the entire street. Just before giving up, reaching the last door of the street, someone answered and actually let us in. They seemed super interested throughout the entire lesson. Then after the lesson, without even bringing it up before, they asked "How can we be baptized in your church?" It was crazy, then one of them started talking in perfect english asking when we could come over again and where our church building was. It's crazy what can happen when giving it your all.

  That's all for this week. More stories next time.

New custom made suit

Some strange fruit we ate

Elder Anderson just about to go to the south

Capítulo 18 -Semana Santa (Holy Week)

Well, as I had just finished writing last week, I was walking out of the internet cafe thing place that we use to write home, and these people just look at us and start running over. They begged Elder Anderson (another white missionary) and I to do an interveiw with them for their class.  They told us that it was a project of theirs to interveiw some white people about Honduras. So we got permission and on Tuesday we went to the interveiw. It was the strangest thing ever, we arrive and just get swarmed by a bunch of people. We were asked questions about how Honduras has been treating us, and what was different. It was actually really fun and i felt pretty famous haha.

  This week is the start of Semana Santa (Holy Week) so every single human being is leaving their houses and going on vacation. It may just be a Catholic holiday, but every single person down here celebrates it. It makes missionary work just a little tough when there's nobody to teach, so we've had lot's of memebrs asking us to come and share a message with them, then they always want the white missionary to learn how to make Honduras food. Not complaining though, because I get to eat the food after too haha. so my companion and I have not gone hungry this week.

  That's all for this week, many more to come.

-Elder Case

Learning how to make
Honduran food

My new Crocs for my bucket showers

Capìtulo 17- Another great week down in Honduras

About a month ago, the missionaries told me that conference week is one of the fastest weeks out here, and they were very right about that one. I was also told that i will 100% not be watching the conference in spanish, and they were right about that one too. We walk in to the church building and find out that Richard, this super awesome guy that is from the good ol' U.S. of A and also in our stake presidency down here, hooked us up. He tells us that he set everything up for us in the high counsel room and that we would find everything to be perfet in there. Well he was right about that too. we walk in to the room to see gigantic chairs for us, the AC down to 17 degrees Celcius, a huge projector, with huge speakers. All just for the three of us greengos in this area. That was just amazing. Then i was just sitting there, conference just started, and all of the sudden they anounce who will say the closing prayer. i looked at what time it was, and somehow 2 hours had passed, in what seemed like, 15 minutes.

  I know that every single missionary and friend is probably sugesting talks to listen too from general conference, so i definitely won't suggest that you listen to the talk given by Elder Gary B Sabin about standing up inside and giving it your all.

  This week we were contacting a lot. I told my companion that we should contact people in an area called El Dorado, where all of the wealthier people in our area live. My comapnion told me it would be a waste because they were all pretty hard hearted, but we went anyways. We contacted three doors and ran out of time because each door we knocked on, let us in, and let us teach one of the lessons. Afterwards, my companion aplogizes and tell me El Dorado will be gold. Also, while we were contacting the other day, we ran into an athiest who doesn't believe in God or anything. That took me by surprise, especially being in Honduras, where every single person is either Catholic or Evangelico. It'll be interesting to see how things turn out there, we have an appointment with her later today.

Another great week down in Honduras.

Capítulo 16 -"So where are you from?"

Another week down out here in Honduras. This last week Honduras and the USA played in soccer. Of course I doubt anyone in the states really cared, but down here they went crazy. Every single person was out wearing their Honduras jersey and the Honduras pride was at an all time high. Then some members called me the next morning telling me that Honduras lost 6-0, and told me to tell everyone that asked that I was from Costa Rica, just for safety reasons. That's exactly what I did, and I didn't have any problems with that haha.

  Out of nowhere the following morning, this guy that i've never seen in my life comes up to me and asks, in english, "so where are you from?" I was thinking whether or not to say Costa Rica when my companion recognized him as a member, just really inactive, I mean really inactive. After that he took us to his house and we talked and we told him where we were from, he introduced us to his non-member nephew, we taught him one of the lessons, then things got... well, interesting. Throughout the lesson he had been drinking, just excessively and so by the end he was drunker than drunk. He started just giving my companion and I things. He gave us some coins from different countries, some antique plates, a little texas flag, and he tried to give me his laptop haha. Then he started asking me questions about President Trump, like every person out here, then out of nowhere he starts asking about Putin from Russia. Then he was dead set on the fact that i was a Russain spy sent here to spy on him haha. He started talking, in what i assume was Russian, then he'd ask if i understood him. He tried to get me to use the laptop and take a test to prove i wasn't a spy. I really can't explain it very well, but the whole time he was making dolphin noises and i couldn't stop laughing. He walked away to go get more things to give to my companion and i and we just ran out there door and didn't look back.

  That same day we went to go set up for a baptism. We started filling up the font and we noticed that the water level was dropping. We looked around to see what was going on and we found the problem was with the drain plug. My campanion was so sure he knew how to fix it, I look over at him and he's rolling up his sleeves  I was about to tell him how to fix it the easy way, but I noticed he was about to jump in, so I sat down and enjoyed the show. To my delight, he just jumps in practically belly flopping, just to find out that it was a much simpler fix than he thought haha. All is well out here in the great country of Honduras.

Capítulo 15 - Humility just hits you like a brick wall out here

    Well this week we had zone conference on Tuesday, which is super nice to see everyone, but it also means that we didn't have district meeting on Friday. So It was a long time from Tuesday to Monday, we normally have district meeting Friday to break up the week. So, to make things a little easier, Elder Anderson and I went on divisions Friday.

   Humility just hits you like a brick wall out here. On divisions, we went to the house of one of his investigators. Then a few minutes later this man just walks in. First thing I notice about this guy is that he was super happy. Out of habit, I shook his hand and asked how he's doing. Then he makes hand gestures to me saying that he's deaf and doesn't speak. For like 20 minutes we communicated solely through hand gestures and facial expressions. That guy made me laugh so hard, and he was like the happiest and nicest guy you'll ever meet. Just goes to show that we don't need so much to be happy, we choose to be happy.

   Then literally our next appointment was the complete opposite. We went to go eat at a member's house in his area. He warned me before we went, that the lady that is about to give us food is a very successful professional chef. And just... yeah, that was... that was an amazing meal haha. They gave us gigantic subs that were toasted, coca-cola, american chips,M&M's, peanuts, watermelon,and anything I could have ever wanted to eat haha. believe me, it doesn't sound like a good combination, but it was amazing.

  The spanish is coming along, I can teach about the church, I don't have a problem there, but just talking to people is where I struggle a bit, but it's coming along. Just a few hiccups this week, like conjugating a verb wrong, calling myself attractive by accident, accidently telling a girl I loved her. Nothing too bad.

  Then to end the week, sunday night, my companion and I had a long talk with some parents for like an hour and walked out with a signature giving us permission to baptized their son.  So yeah, wasn't too bad of a week.

Jancarlos can get baptized!

Full Catracho

Messi

Capítulo 14 - "Tangalo"

This week was a pretty great week for missionary work out in Honduras. I'm not sure why, but it seems like people are finally willing to hear what we have to say. My companion and I worked super hard this week and found 18 new investigators! We've never had numbers like that before, so it felt really good.

  Everyone has been doing really well with not spending a ton of money, so as a zone we went to McDonald's, and the strangest thing happened. Elder Mantaipule and I were sitting down about to dig into our beautiful "american" food, when I notice someone outside just frantically running around. He looks at us, and just in a full sprint, the guy runs inside, right to our table. And in the most out of breathe, scared voice, he repeatedly asks if we were from the USA, in english, just over and over. So we tell the guy yes and he just starts going off. He tells us that he's from korea and that he has a relative serving his mission here. Then he says " you guys have P-day on Monday, right? we said yes, then he says " see i know everything about the missionaries, i know everything!" then two military men come up to us and just took him away. Still confused about it to this day haha.

  Anyways, my companion and i were doing divisions with the Elders in an area called the Kennedy (Every single person in Honduras loves President JFK so they named a city after him) and with one of the elders from that area, we went to go eat baleadas at a member's house, bless their souls haha. anyways, we were talking about our favorite foods from back home, and with a thought of rememberance i told them that just about every day I would eat a peanutbutter sandwich. Then with a smirk on their faces, the disappeared. They returned with a gigantic jar of AMERICAN peanut butter, and said "Tangalo" (Have it). I literally almost passed out from excitement.

That's all for this week.

Capìtulo 13 - "bruh, you asked the wrong missionary"

Well this week we had stake conference. All of the missionaries in my zone were invited to a session on Saturday that started at 3. We all showed up, and the Area Seventy of Central America was there. The session was about missionary work and was more of a devotional than anything else. Anyways, it was the kind of thing were Elder Duncan (the area seventy) was walking around and talking about how we can imrpove as missionaries. The whole stake was there, and the whole thing was in spanish. I was just kinda chillin in my seat, having been zoned out for the last 20 minutes minding my own business because its Spanish, when Elder Duncan just starts asking me a question. He goes, all in spanish of course, "Elder... Case, What's the difference between teaching an investigator in their house, and the house of a member?" while he was asking the question, I was handed a microphone, and i just gave him a look that said "bruh, you asked the wrong missionary. I've been out here for 6 weeks." then he just gave me a look in the middle of his question that said "bruh, I know you don't know spanish, just say something!" haha Then, having somehow understood the question I responded perfectly! score one for Elder Case.

  Then after the Sunday session of the conference, we were walking back to our area. Some drunk guys came up to us and were like "you're from the States aren't you?" then my idiot self said "yup, I'm from California" then I really don't even know what happened next they just said a few things and started hugging me, saying "you know more than me, you know more than me" just over and over. all I was thinking was that I was starving and I had no food, and it was sunday so I couldn't buy anything. Then I think they started to try to push me over, I really didn't know what was going on haha. Then they realized that they couldn't push me over, and they started apologizing and they gave us a bunch of candy. like, a bunch, they just filled all of our pockets and our hands with candy and walked away. so all was well with my stomache haha.

That's all for this week.

My companion turned 19 on Thursday

A typical ant out here. these things are huge!