Elder Christian Joshua Roberts in Honduras: Week 13

This picture was taken on the road to Cacao.
The mountain behind me with the steps,
the bottom of those steps is a 2 minutes walk from my house.

So I guess I´ll start off this letter and say that the beginning of this week was pretty slow. We were having a lot of appointments fall through and were feeling really bummed. Then I accidentally got dates messed up (don´t know how) and missed dad’s birthday on Wednesday. I went out and bought a piece of cake for him and mom on Thursday. I had a fun time with my comp as he tried to sneak little bites throughout the rest of the week and I had to put a stop to him cause the cake needed to last until mom’s birthday on Sunday. I now know how mom felt when I was sneaking cookie dough for all these years!

Thursday we taught seminary and institute which was hard to do in Spanish. A lot of the stuff that is taught is kind of complicated and not something I go through in missionary lessons and kind of deep. You don´t realize it until you have to try to say it in another language.

Friday came, which was awesome. I got to meet our new Hermana in the district. Her name is Hermana Barrera, she is from Maryland. She has a big advantage... she learned Spanish before she came out and kind of surprised me when she spoke English in our district meeting because I had been thinking she was just another latino. I looked at Elder Zachreson and said a big "WHAAAAAAAAAAAT?!" He laughed and said, "I was waiting for that". He met her her first day in the mission so he knew and didn´t tell me.

This is our district. This picture was taken before the district changes.
One of the Hermana's was going home.

After we finished district meeting we went back to Campamento where we had no success. We were once again bummed. As we were walking I was now looking for a restaurant that had a tv that was playing the Honduras - USA game. We found one in the street so we sat there for 30 or so minutes of the first half where we watched a blow out! We were eating dinner and were "contacting". Sorry if you are disappointed. At least I didn´t have my US jersey on! But some drunks started showing up and the score was 3-0 so we left. I didn´t find out the game turnout until later. It was sad Saturday, because a lot of the people were talking about it and I had no idea. They were really disappointed because now Honduras is on the bottom of qualifying, but I turned it into a teaching opportunity. I talked about our purpose on Earth, and how we are here to gain experience and to have joy. But basically saying that futbol isn´t life, just from that we started connecting and having success. I stopped thinking of the world and just started using those moments to teach, and doors opened. We found families who wanted to talk to an American who´s team just the night before beat pretty badly (6-0) their team. We were able to use that moment and teach the gospel. We had so many new investigators on Saturday that our zone leaders called to talk to us to make sure we weren´t lying about our numbers.

Me and my comp sitting in the street with the USA playing Honduras on the big screen.

Sunday was church. I wasn´t feeling well. I think I got food poisoning from something I ate on Saturday. I absolutely could not leave the bathroom. It was terrible. I grabbed my scriptures and studied all day. It was funny, Elder Giraldo thought I was lying and kept trying to take me out. I kept saying, no and that I didn´t want to be too far away from the bathroom. So it was a day of studying.

I get to do something that will lead to hopefully some major spíritual growth. We do this study together the first 12 weeks in the mission. It´s for new missionaries learning how to teach, contact and invite. We study different things like importance of prayer, book of mormon, church attendance etc. Well, my knowledge of the Spanish language is growing. I have learned a lot about my companion these last 7 weeks. I would say I understand him more than others. So we are sitting down and studying and talking and he said something along the lines of, "hey I know your testimony is kind of small and you need help with it" --and I stopped him there... and asked, "why do you think this?" and he said, "well, you bear testimony and it´s really simple". I was a little frustrated, and the Spirit was telling me to calm down. I took a breath then said to him, "I´m a gringo, I didn´t learn a lot of Spanish before my mission and am still learning to speak Spanish, so my testimony sounds like its simple, but I´m proud of my testimony and don´t really appreciate it when you take my poor Spanish as my testimony". He apologized and I did as well for the frustration I was feeling in the beginning and it got better. I love my companion all the more because he apologized. He wants to help me. I truly appreciate his willingness and love when he helps me with the language.

I just want to say a mission is hard. We have to be quick to forgive, apologize and get back to work. We can´t let words that are said set us back. The Savior is our best example. He had patience and forgave everyone. He worked to the end. He lived perfect his whole life and finished with the atonement and crucifixion at the end. If he can do that, I can give him my all these two years and then return to my family. What a joyous reunion it will be. I love you guys.

Hope all is well and good, back home. I´m doing good, better than I was on Sunday. I´m ready to work!

love you guys, keep trucking