March 13, 2017

hey whats up yall

quick update

Got a new sombrero 

Got a call this morning from the secretaries saying that my comps papers came out.... something that we expected would take months..... and he leaves next tuesday..............so yeah...lol

I get another new comp.....

There are going to be some changes in the mission..... as there are 3 people leaving for the MTC now..... not sure whats going to happen.... an idea is that ill be with my WOULD HAVE BEEN comp that got stuck in Guatemala since he is in a trio.... but who knows..... there are now going to be three missionaries in need of companions (me being one of them) and there is only one trio so idk whats going to happen.....

well i dont have a lot of pics this week but i did buy a sombrero to keep me from getting burnt

this week was long as heck because a few missionaries of my district got chicken pox and ive been running them meds...... and went to their area twice to do a baptismal interview that never showed up..... 

big mess..... all in all im slightly sunburnt and now have a memorized route to the other districts.....

really sucky situation, been running back and forth from their area to mine trying to help, was gunna do splits to help them but the gringo got sick too so they are kinda screwed.  Thursday i went to do a baptismal interview

kid wasnt there.  Friday i went to go pick up the gringo so we could have our interviews with Pres..... his comp stayed at home with a member.  Sunday both were sick but the ym pres. of their ward calls me and tells me to come over asap to do the interview.  I go.... wait for a few hours and nothing......

Training is going well..... sometimes it takes a little patience..... even more so when my comp is in his own world zoned out... lol but oh well.... been there too..... Its just tough because like i said last week he hasn't even gone through the mtc so its kinda starting from scratch really..... but its cool to study all the same principles and lessons i studied with de la cruz back in 2015..... yeah wow.... back in 2015

He does well though.... obviously there are just some small stuff he needs to learn as we work with our investigators....

Things are going well with the investigators...... still been teaching and working with the youth.... been trying to find some adults but its hard.... on the flip side Jose Bonilla, in order to get baptized, is just making another house for his lady spouse parnter thing whatever you wanna call her so hopefully with time it'll be set..... the walls are up..... so maybe in a month or two or who knows really..... but i plan on going over one of these days to lay some blocks and help get it done

we have a few baptismal dates for the 25th

im hoping that we have 2 baptisms

Alex..... a 13 year old kid thats been going to church for a while...... just trying to get permission from him family

And Lidennys..... a 15 year old girl who moved here recently and lives with a family of members..... shes basically set

been saving some decent parts of my money here.... decided to go outa do spend money on my breakfasts and eat better

March 6, 2017

My new kid, my other kid, his kid, and the kid of his kid  

well as always im only on for a bit in the morning to send off some papers and pics to the secretaries.....deff missing snow here but oh well.... it rained this week so it wasnt too hot

The investigators are going well.... we got a lot of potential.... just trying to work out small issues and details with them......We made some commitments this week.... currently have 5 dates set.... with more on the way but as always these dates are goals for our investigators.... they dont always reach em tho...

my new companion is interesting to say the least.....

So I had a last minuet switch up due to my comp getting stuck in guatemala for an extra ten days for some reason and I was given a visa waiter as a companion, who was going to be in a trio as he waited for his visa.... but now he is with me so I wouldn't be alone, while the trio can keep working without him..... He is from san pedro sula.... and he comes from a place called jardines del valle.   To say the least its one of the actually nice places in honduras ($$$) He is 22, the only member in his family annnd yeah.... little odd.... but all good

He is catracho but i think im more catracho than him because he doesnt eat with his hands and is really out of loop on some stuff that goes on in these poorer parts of honduras..... kinda makes me laugh like i said..... i act more honduran then him

but yeah 

he hasnt even gone through the mtc so i basically have to teach him everything..... everything.....

for pday today we are going shopping... then to pizza hut with nielson and various other missionaries to eat and play phase 10

so while going to the new trainers meeting i saw ariel..... not sure if yall remember him.....  my ward mission leader in san juan... who came and saw me in sonaguera.... he was dropping the missionaries from san jaun (elder maldonado who was with me in sonaguera before) at the same meeting and i got to caught up with him

What ive learned most is how to work effeciently and how to use my time wisely...... When i see that someone has lots of potential i visit them more often.... I can find people that are ready a lot faster..... i dont know how to explain it.... ive just become really good at finding people quickly and getting them baptized..... ive just set a rythmn of frequent baptisms for myself and when i dont have that set, i work quickly to make it happen

i always share james 2:17 with my investigators because a lot of times they are lazy and dont do anything

February 27, 2017

hey yall

time is flying.... just finished another change and we are basically done with febrero 

My current comp is on his way home and has finished his mission..... i got 3 changes left which is crazy (1 change is 6 weeks)....

And the best part is, these next twelve weeks will be spent training a new missionary! He arrives tomorrow.

Things shoud go pretty well here on out! Having some good sucess out here

well the week started well, we did divisions with the ZLs and we ended up getting eaten alive by mosquitos in their area even though i sprayed down everyday, but it was fun being with Nielson again,  here are various pics playing cards in my batman suit and breakfast at bk

helped a family set up their wood sale! firewood for cooking!

The last baleadas for for my comp tarqui

road side food

He got on to email for a few min, but had to go because his comp needed to go to the bank and get shoes.. so he came back on and was so irritated. This is what he said.. it made me giggle that something like and iron would get him fired up! ....

I'm now so glad my comp is leaving. I thought we were going to get him shoes..... we only went so he could sell the iron we had to some other missionary..... there are no other irons..... .looks like i gotta do some shopping now. I'm mad, everyday i iron my clothes and my comp sold the dang thing. 

February 20, 2017 

hey whats up yall

Pretty good week..... lets just say it had lots to do with a batman onesie (Addison sent that) and eggo waffles that i found....

anyways we started the week on wednsday with a multizona meeting..... got to see some old comps and friends and the Pres. bought us pizza.

I gave a capacitation to the two zones on how to teach investigators to pray..... Focused on 3 scriptures.... basically explained that the investigators need to understand that there are many reasons we need to pray. for forgiveness or strength. Counsel and help..... stuff like that.  All in all it went well!

Got to see elder gomez ´´my son´´ who goes home this change

At the end of the meeting i finally got some scripture covers......

that same day we had a nother baptism from the same part member family..... his name is mario

Now that ive gotten 3 baptisms from part member families its time to focus more on finding and baptizing my investigators

Today we spent the morning cleaning the literal pounds of dust from the house windows and filters.... this place is soooo dusty....

got some help from the ym and they were properly rewarded 

February 13, 2017

Hey guys whats up

This week was a little slow and really lame to be honest..... numbers where a bit low... didn't have a good turnout to church

Met some good new investigators....

Found a really cool family thats really into the idea of going to church and everything..... so we used this weeks family history activity as a way to get them involved in the church and to meet members....

Sadly the ward completely failed in every possible way of prep for this activity because nothing was ready at all and it was a huge hair pulling mess..... 

It got a worse when the cool family showed up.... and brough 12 more people..... great missionary oppertunity but the ward activity was a mess and i was losing it with the lack of organization and planning and everything....We at least in the end saved the day at the end with the families by setting up old school games like jump rope and some other games that i don't know what they are called....I was really annoyed because the activity was nearly a flop but the mom of the family actually walked away saying it was amazing and that she loved the organization (wut lol) and we set up a visit to meet the 12 other members of her family.... so at least there was a small win....

Today we had our meeting with 2 members of the 70.... went well.... did some self evaluating and am going to make some big changes here on out. It was good..... we had to leave pretty early like at 6 15 am we took a bus with another zone to the center in san pedro outside of the mission..... They gave good talks.... along with their wives..... then did some Q&A which was good.... gave us advice on how to teach... analyzing investigators needs.... importance of studying and stuff like that.   More than anything making sure the investigators understand the message of the restoration before anything else.... making sure they understand well the principles and meaning of the message that way they are not getting baptized just because..... What they want is real converts. Not just whatever baptism. If they don't understand the restoration they wont understand the need or importance of the other lessons

I got to see Josh! josh is good...sadly I didn't get to eat with him but it was good to see him.... almost like efy again or something lol

theres a pic of the dead center of SPS

some other church that just happens to be ours.....2 floors

February 6, 2017

so heres my update for the week

Sadly i dont carry my camera around much for security problems but things have been going well as of late. 

I think i mentioned a few weeks ago that i was really focusing on the youth here..... and to be honest its been working out well

Before hand i wasnt the biggest fan of activities and all as i usually found them to be a waste of time but we have had a few changes in mission rules and now we have a little more liberty. We now longer report the numbers of lessons we do..... that being said ive been doing my best to use this newly found liberty to my advantage.... 

Like i said, beforehand i found acitivites to be a waste of good proselyting time so i typically avoided them.... now im all for it

We have been hosting regular young men futbol tournaments.... which has played out nicely seeing as we have 5 or so upcoming baptisms that are young men or soon to be young men.... the youth are becoming more and more active as we hold them responsible for not just coming to church to play. On top of that the youth have become actually really good friends with our investigators and have begun to take them to church and activities AND give us references....

On friday we did a cool acitivity for the youth in general..... we made arroz chino

I mean Chinese rice..... Between the bishop, one other youth, and i, we got all the needed ingredients to make the famous plate of chinese rice that is so craved here in honduras..... and it went soooooo well...... felt soooooo happy having all the youth come out and make arroz chino and just hang out... our ward is low on its activity level due to inactiveness but this activity was killer..... 

Really seeing some of our efforts paying off within the youth.....

We had a baptism this week.....  came from a part member family..... my goal when i got here (once i realized that there was nothing of investigators) was to find part member families and work with them as much as i could till i could find a good investigator pool..... and as of late its been working.... will have one more baptism coming up from part member families.... then i should see some of the people weve been contacting get baptized.....

Pretty fufilling to see how the hard work is paying off. Everything is pulling together nicely.

this is what it looks like when you clean a house in honduras:

January 30, 2017

well the idea today was to go to the beach and play volleyball.... but that didnt happen.... pres. made a new rule yesterday that we cant go to the beach for whatever reason.... we ended up planning on playing basketball but everyone flaked out so we went to burger king.... walked around the center a bit and went grocery shopping

just picked up some cornflakes for 2 bucks..... here there is everything.... even honey bunches of oats..... but it costs almost 10 bucks

We sadly did not have our baptism..... kinda lame.... his problem is that he lives in the same house with his ex lady but in different rooms.... they only live in the same house because their son bought them the house but they live seperate lives... we, at first, had permission to baptize him but pres. changed his mind.... 

ill keep you updated on the cook situation later on..... 

this up coming week should be fun though

Like i said really trying to work with the youth in this area..... something i really didn't do as much in Sonaguera...... We seem to be having luck with game nights and soccer activities..... i usually dont like activities because i feel like they waste my time but they have been getting the youth together and getting them to church too..... best part is we now have a handfull of investigators that fall into the YM organization and they are making plenty of friends so we should have some YM baptisms coming up which is really what this ward needs....

For now im still rocking the part member family system..... got another kid that'll get baptized this week.... her older sister is a recent convert, and her gma is a member (cant go now due to health issues)...... and two weeks later in the same family, one of the brothers whos 11 is getting baptized..... he just picked a later date to get baptized