Week 12: 6 weeks in Honduras

So this week was really weird, last Pday after I wrote you guys we played soccer and I got this weird pain above my left leg. It made walking up the hills and mountains of Campamento super painful. It took a lot out of me for two days. I don´t know what it was but it was pretty scary. I was super worried because of all that had occurred before my mission. I don´t want any of that stuff coming back from the dead! I asked for a blessing from my companion. He gave me one and all has been getting way better. I even talked to the mission nurse and she says it´s probably a muscle and it´s normal, but to watch it. So I have, and slowly but surely we´ve been making our way through the streets of this pueblo this week. I´m fine now and can go the distances we need. It was probably just the muscle.

This week Dania (a less active member) and Ariel (an investigator) who we thought were separating are getting married! It was a surprise. We went to Dania´s house on a prompting of the spirit, and there she was happy, smiling, and putting nail polish on. We asked her what has changed and she said she was having a special dinner with Ariel. I didn´t want to ask further, but my companion did!  She said “I´ve seen the ring basically, and he´s been really excited”. So this is cool. It means we can teach them both, and hopefully turn them into an active family who will endure to the end. That´s my hope for her. She is a very happy person and has been lost for a bit. I hope she will come back to the path and hold to the rod with her soon to be spouse. 

I´m sitting next to Dania and Ariel.
The others in the picture are Alexander and Soleny.

A couple of nights ago we found some spiders in the back yard. I have a video of us "exterminating" them which was really just me with my redneck flamethrower. My companion hates Spiders, so I took a can of OFF and some matches and went to work. (see spider picture, nasty little arachnid)  Elder Giraldo thought it was super cool and was laughing like a little kid after. 

doomed spider

roberts' makeshift redneck flamethrower

I had inter changes with Elder Zachreson (he´s from Kingman, AZ) in Guiamaca which was fun. We talked in English and taught the gospel. We had some good lessons. One of them was with a guy named Jorge Rivera. It was really a lucky call.  Jorge had just got home from work and was getting ready to go to sleep. We were able to catch him right before... we taught him about the restoration and we later had the impression to challenge baptism. Crazy, I know... we did, and he accepted for the 22 of April! Super CRAZY! It was my first time challenging someone to be baptized in the first lesson. Jorge is super excited. 

eating dinner with Elder Zachreson

We had a district conference yesterday (Sunday), which was cool. We traveled to Cata Camas for free. We had a whole family show up randomly because one of the people who we gave an invitation to had thrown it out and the invitation found it´s way into one of their hands and they decided to come. This was super cool, a whole family who have been Catholic all of their lives show up to a Mormon District Conference (which is kind of like a Stake Conference for you guys). Something that doesn´t happen very much. They even said they enjoyed it and thanked us. We just have to find them again which will be a little tough, hoping the Lord provides a way. 

Sunday night we were talking with Carla Murrilo about the plan of salvation which went really well. I was leading the discussion and bore my testimony of this plan with some tears because thoughts of Grandma Julie came up. I testified about how grateful I am for the chance to be with her and grandpa Mark again. Then I asked the question "how do you feel when we are here?" and she said, “calm and happy”. I then testified of the spirit and how it is testifying to her through our presence which was super cool and awesome. I asked her if she will be baptized by the proper authority when she receives an answer to her prayers, the answer was yes. 

me with my Grandma Julie (it's been 10 years since she passed away)

I know when we testify we change lives, the Spirit is felt. It has a stronger presence than us just reading scripture. A testimony is something special and individual to every person. When we share our testimonies we are doing so because of love, and want others to feel the Spirit so that they can be strengthened and grow through our personal experiences. This I know, testify and the spirit will be there. Even if a person is kicking you out of the house, testify and their hearts change. Be a disciple as Stephen in the Bible just a man in the face of execution, a disciple, not an apostle testified and placed the seed in the heart of Paul. 

Testifying is hard and a bit awkward, but bear your testimony.

Love you all, have a wonderful week, and stay happy! 

Week 11: When you want to quit walking but keep truckin

This is a hot and tired Elder

SO this week was a crap ton of walking! (pardon the language)

It was actually kind of crazy. We went to Lima to help this member -Karla, and her brother- get the paperwork for seminary. Lima is 15 minutes by bus from our area, and then an hour walk up hill to their house, which sucked! The house was in the middle of nowhere and it was kind of freaky, but we got there.  We ended up getting everything we needed. Thank goodness we don´t have to go back that way at least for a while. 

The next day we had interviews with the President. He talked about our (little) success with new investigators and commended us for our work with less actives. And then this week they didn´t show up --all of them! It was devastating! 

Cementario, it's not just a clever name

But anyway, President left Campamento and the rest of the zone with a blessing that we would have success. And we had even more success! We are above our average of 21 for every week. We have 29 new investigators! It is crazy! 
Elder Giraldo and I have just been praying and praying.  The Lord has strengthened us. We have been walking to the point of like we are on a death march. Where you get to a point and your legs just stop wanting to continue, and you start stumbling, and sometimes you even fall from exhaustion, but somehow... we are able to wake up the next day ready to do it all over again! 
We have been blessed, a lot. I´ve seen it in my Spanish and in my ability to work for the 16 hours a day that we work. 

Elder Giraldo and I are getting along better and this is great. But, we are having little success with our two investigators with a baptism date -Cristina and Stephanie. Cristina is 36, the mom of Stephanie, who is 10. The only day we can meet with them is on Sundays. They have been busy recently and the adversary has been messing with their feelings -the feelings they have had in the lesson when they accepted baptism. They aren´t too interested now and it's sad! But we aren´t giving up. We keep going, we are still trying to teach them the lessons and leave them with the Spirit. 

always a silly side to every day

SO Sunday we had almost no one in church. I had to give a 15 minute talk to about 30 people which was cool. I got through it.  I had people come and thank me after.  I talked about how everyone is a missionary, and that the Sacrament is important for all those who have been baptized. I told them that there are people who aren´t here in church who need this ordinance. 

Mom and Dad note: We think this is dinner - we can identify most of it, at least he is eating well!

Everything is going by faster and its kind of scary. It´s been a month since I left the CCM! Crazy. I hope I´m ready for what comes next. 

Love you guys and hope all is well. 

I know the Lord gives us strength when we are doing his will and living the gospel -love you guys!

Week 10: Fruits of our Labor - Just not the fruit we planned!

Nothing like a good, hard, Honduran rain to get everything soaked

So, I´ll start this letter off with why this week was difficult. I finally have enough knowledge in Spanish that I know what my companion is saying now. I´m getting used to his Spanish. In our lessons what was once a cool moment of ¨my companion is helping me!¨ has turned to, ¨why are you doing this?¨ He used to say, ¨what my companion is trying to say..¨ and then explain my mediocre Spanish. But now from what I understand, it is him basically telling the person new and complex doctrine that he uses in every lesson. When I speak, (which is a very small amount) I do it when I feel a prompting of the Spirit to say something that might help this person learn and grow. So, now a lot has changed, I´m trying to speed up my learning of Spanish, basically pushing the language at a faster pace by studying and asking a lot more questions etc. Hopefully we will be able teach future lessons without having this annoying road block. I´m a little frustrated, but I know my companion is just doing what he knows and feels is right.  

This past week we had a very small number of new investigators, which I know happens, but we fell way below our goal at 3, which is pretty bad. But we did have time for a lot of service, and talked to a lot of less actives members. 

The best part of the week was on Sunday when it was all coming to an end. My companion and I were feeling down about not meeting our goal... while we were at church 11 of our less actives -that we had been talking to- walked into the chapel about a minute before sacrament started!! Yay! Fruits had grown from our words, and these people decided to come to church! This made the entire week better. When we had visited with them these people had conveyed that going to church wasn´t that important to them. Something changed after, and they came! I don`t know what. I`m bummed, because we didn`t get a chance to talk to them because we were in charge of all the Young Men that have just now started attending church regularly.  We taught them about the priesthood, preparing for a mission and the blessings we have received.

This was a week of hard work spent doing service for some people. The people call me, basically, "a man with no eyes or ears," essentially "deaf and blind" when I´m doing service; because I just keep working when the other people take a break. I´m proud to say Elder Roberts and Elder Giraldo are still working (though at times Elder Giraldo stops, but that's not important). These people see that we care enough and want to help them. We willingly go through bodily strain for their benefit; we help finish the project with them for no pay. We are just hoping they show gratitude by making it to church the next Sunday. 

This week I also had my first time proselyting in the pouring Honduran rain, which was an experience. My shoes  don`t have the best traction in mud so it was a lot of slipping and sliding, and wet chairs and bags. But is was fun! I was wet, cold and ready for bed by the end of the day... but Elder Giraldo had forgotten his agenda at our last appointment! So we had to go back another 20 minutes in the rain. It wasn`t too bad, but I got pretty sick. It was rough because we had service on our agenda the next day. We got up, pushed through, and got to work. We moved some adobe bricks (dried mud bricks), and helped a member build a little casita. When we finished we took a well needed nap after 4 hours service. It helped, I feel better and hope we can stay rain free for a little bit.

We are opening a new neighborhood in our area, called Cementario. It is next to a cemetery. No missionaries have proselyted there yet, we are hoping to find some new people to teach the gospel to. 

I hope everyone is doing good, and I pray to have more success in the coming week. 

Hasta Luego