December 21st

Hey everybody! Hope everyone is doing well!  Just want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas!

This years christmas is going to be very different without a doubt!  However Christmas isn't just about good food and cold weather! Its a time to focus on others, and remember the birth of Christ! I hope you all can do something for someone else in this time of the year!

Good news from this past Sunday. 2 adults we've been teaching came to church! They are looking forward to baptism January 2nd! 

We had a ward Christmas dinner which was fun.  We did a play with the young men and did a skit of the 10 virgins but instead of lamps and oil we used cell phones and chargers to make it more modern! I played an angel Blanco y guapo. (Translation white handsome one)   I had to do some improve to make it funny.  Then we ended with a song and dance with the primary.  The youth then lit sparklers to end off with a bang and then one of them dropped the sparkler.... into the christmas tree

lol that was actually hilarious. 

Hope you all have a good Christmas Break!

- Elder Dover!

December 14
Well out here things have been kinda crazy out here!  I have really caught on to what all needs to be done here and I have been working really well with the bishop here. The bishop is insanely occupied,  he is like 27 years old, studying, working, and has to little girls..... I have never seen someone more occupied then him.... his job as a bishop is huge...with this bishop, I've learned a lot..... he sees a lot in me, and gives me more responsibilities than the other missionaries of the ward..... never mind that I'm the newest.....

Im hoping that I'll be here for one more change, because my first change and a half had me clueless..... now that I somewhat have a bearing for the language, and grounds on the mission work, Ive become the bishops right hand man....

Rented out an indoor soccer court today again  played with youth and missionaries

was fun! 

We get a good variety of food, some of it just is bad for your health - fried- and you kinda got to eat it all here! 

I understand 90 percent of the language.... still stuff I'm learning. I just started this big textbook so hopefully that helps. Im working on english with my comp. 

December 7

The other week we rented out the Estadio Municipal Ceibeno and had a big Zone V. Zone Soccer game

Complete with custom zone Miramar jerseys 

well, im not that great at futbol but its a lot of fun, and im learning!

This week we also went to the local hospital, in  the spirit of Christmas! 

We took three toys each, and went around and passed them out to sick kids there.

Honduras is a growing country, lot of people.... transportation is kind of crazy, not a lot of order in the country. The hospital trip was interesting. Got to see how hospitals are structured. Nothing too different, but it was more like an open campus high school. Lots of open hallways leading to different sections of the Hospital. A lot youth in the hospitals. A lot of normal first aid and hygine isnt always avaliable to these kids. There aren't an abundance of pharmacies, and the Pharmacies that we do have aren't exactly the same. 

However it was a nice trip!

Got to make some kids more happy!

Getting excited for Christmas!There are some houses have lights, just about everybody has something because everyone is Christian out here! There is a massive tree on the beach right by my apartment!

Hope everyone is Doing well!

This weeks Scripture study

1 john ch. 1-5

Matthew ch. 10-15

Nov 30

My ward mission leader has photos on his phone but he forgot to send em to me..so no photos because I don't have my camera. 

For Thanksgiving I took a few youth, my comp, and ML to super chicken! I dropped what i think was a whooping 13 bucks on a massive amount of food.  Everyone was in shock that i would spend 270 lemp at once lol it was thanksgiving..

This week we changed up the areas.   Things were slowing down in our area, as well as the area of the sister missionaries. So we are now working a lot more in a area called los maestros

I think you can find it in google maps.  Its pretty cool area.... a lot more modernized.... The other area doesn't have real roads or real restaurants.  This area is very different.... some Chinese food as well as other things. 

We figured that introducing new missionaries in the areas would hopefully bring more success because we were running out of people to contact... and new missionaries might pull in different people.  So the sister missionaries worked in our area and found 6 new people and we found 12 in theirs!   However Los maestros is largely catholic and not a lot of people want to talk, we still managed to find 12 new people in about 2 days! Also while finding new people in Los Maestros we found a less active part member family that has flown under the ward radar.

We got them to church last Sunday for the first time in a while which was cool!

I'm still with my 3rd comp Elder Yzquierdo, still in La Ceiba but yeah it stretches kinda all over the place, but we are focused on miramar and los maestros right now. We walk a lot! and sometimes we take buses but only when we go to the centers and stuff. sometimes taxis but yeah... walking to lessons mostly. 

Today we played zone futbol, My zone against another. We rented out Estadio Nilmo Edwards Stadium in La Ceiba for two hours and played legit 11 on 11 futbol! We also got custom jerseys made which are sweet! Blue jerseys with captain american shield in the front, but says captain Moroni , Dover 2   Miramar on the back,  they are pretty sweet!!

Looking forward to Christmas

Nov. 23

i got my stuff stolen

didnt get assulted or anything.... just got robbed

however dont freak out just yet... i know who did it and i may get my stuff back....

I know the head ladron, basically gangster, here and he told me 

no se precupe, voy sacar su cosas

which means, dont you worry about it, im going to get your stuff. (Didn't get stuff back yet) 

yeah honduras doesnt really have a real justice system.... 

however the kid we just baptized is part of this family who is like our second home.... well the grandma of the house raises this cholos chickens so she talked to him, and he talked to us and said he will take care of it...

Supposedly if you steal something, and plan on selling (i dont remember the name of the location, but theres a place where people go to sell there drugs or stolen goods) you gotta show it to this guy, GEKO..... 

I know who it is..... some stupid teen

But Geko said that this kid is always causing problems, and he will go straighten it out..... 

This geko dude is this big dude... and hes on crutches now because someone was fighting his cousin, and he went to go help and someone ran into him with a motorcycle and it went through his leg.... but hes the boss around here so we will see what happens.

The youth out here are pretty solid... They like to come out on lessons with us often so we get a lot of work done through them

we need the adults in our ward to work with us though, because we have a lot more youth baptisms than adults

Nov. 16th 

Hey whats up all!

Had a pretty crazy week.... tons of service projects!

Moved some families out of their collapsing house

Chopped down endless amounts of forrests with my machete

But yeah... we do a lot of macheteing out here

a common service activity is chopping down overgrown forrests, all while chewing on sugar cane!

Sooo yeah we had a baptismal service, and we accidentally filled up the font a little too much... and flooded the church. There used to be a hole in one of the pipes, and that meant we had to slowly fill it up.... the hermanas said it would take three or more hours.  Well,  My comp and i went and fixed it, and we figured 40 minuets would be good. So we went and started it, went down the street, had lunch, and came back to a mess lol. This happened to the other missionaries two weeks ago too, but that was because of the hole, basically this has happened a few times.We had no clue how long it would take to fill the font, since we are both pretty new!  But all is well..... we cleaned it all up, and ended up having a clip n slide in the church basically with all the youth.

We had a baptismal service for a few investigators, and one of ours showed up very late. Light right before I baptized one of the investigators of the hermanas. Instead of rushing him to get dressed for the baptism, we decided best to postpone the baptism. I  figured that a baptism is a sacred thing, not something just to be rushed through. We figured we could make the experience better for our investigator if we held off till next week.

I believe that feeling the spirit is a crucial part in baptism. The spirit can testify that what we are doing is right or wrong in the eyes of the Lord. I knew that if we just went on with his baptism, without his family, without listening to the talks and everything, he wouldn't have felt that confirmation. 

It would have been nice to have a baptism this week, but Id prefer our investigator to recieve that confirmation through the power of the holy ghost.

All is good here in Honduras!

Bus ride with plasma TV and surround sound

Gingerbread for breakfast

Made pancakes for my comps birthday! 

Gearing up for christmas!!!

Nov. 9

The weeks are starting to fly by!! 

Hosted an activity the other night for the youth, and challenged them to bring a friend....

we ended up with like 40 something people

we watched A movie called the testaments, had refreshments, and afterwards played soccer

biggggg crowd showed up for that! Big hair!

chilling in the hammock with a snow cone

Clothes hanging up to dry since i had to hand wash them this week -_-

The kid I baptized the other week has a mom who is a member and a dad who isn't.  we are working to get the parents a legit marriage (it's expensive to get married, they have a ceremony but it isn't legal)  so he can get baptized also!

A youth that we have a baptism for tomorrow was kind of a spires for me.  He is in a part member family, and never really seemed all that interested in the lessons or anything whenever we taught.  However not too long ago we had a lesson with just him, and invited him to be baptized, and he said yes. He has been coming to church, and all the activities, and kinda surprised me. You never know who's paying attention. It's cool to see how people can change like that.

I'm off to do some Noche De hogars 

aka FHE with some peeps  see ya guys later

 

 

 

 

Nov. 2

Nov. 2

This week was a tough one in regards to my stomach. My stomach has been very odd,  its been upset, and then it gets worse with really any honduranian food.... I'm  just genuinely sick of it because its always the same oily greasy stuff.

so i finally found a place with root beer and some other goodies and went a little cray cray

Before

After

 

 

Finished off the last of our food on some chocolate pancakes

Hosted more futbol

Consists of playing with the youth, the youth inviting friends, and then having a lesson

this week we are gonna watch the restoration movie before hand, with baliadas, and then play 

Took the youth to BK also,  hooked them up with some americano 

Some dude teaching us how he fishes. this dock used to be longer but long ago it collapsed 

 

you can see the foundations out there

and this dude just fishes off of whats left. this dock was sweet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The buses here are so fun just old ghetto school buses rigged with tons of lights, horns, and speakers

inside is just bumping with music!

 

that is  the name of the hotel by the beach,  if you want to see where i was geographically, plug it into google maps you can see it

this week I learned the importance of teaching with love and patience!

the two newbies (I'm in a trio) didn't have a lot of patience or love for one of our long time investigators, and ended up just trying to bail out.  We had a youth with us so I told them Id stay and teach.... so I did.  Until that point they didn't even let me talk, our investigator Alejandria  was frustrated, and i was just trying to get us back on track.   It all just kinda flowed out perfectly though.... I'm getting better with my Spanish, but I still have my days.  We had the lesson, and reviewed the Book of Mormon.  She has had tons of lessons, wants to be baptized, but hasn't received a confirmation yet through prayer... This youth and I taught her all about the Book of Mormon again, answered all of her questions, and then some.....

We just had a great lesson, only the youth and with me completely in charge and I didn't struggle at all with my Spanish. I don't recall making any noticeable mistakes.  At the end Alejandria just told me about how grateful she is that I can speak.... she was like the first person I meet, and complemented me on how much I've changed.  That was pretty sweet. It was rather interesting because the other two can teach better than I can, and they know more scriptures, they can do it all better. But without the love and patience it was an awful lesson. I'm no longer in that trio anymore. I'm good. 

my area is sweet, its just so incredibly hot here, there is like no relief from it ..just dripping in sweat everyday 

 

 

Learning how to sharpen my machete: disobedient companions..not really, they are for service when we need em, we chopped this dudes grass the other day with machetes. It takes forever but no lawn mowers here.