Week 53: The New Year

a new years tradition of Honduras- the Naka Tamale

So this last week went even faster than the last one!

On Christmas day, after talking with my family we quite honestly had nothing to do. Everything is closed for the holidays. 

Our week was full of inter-changes as Elder Banda and I are trying to find a way to help the zone out of a little holiday slump. We had some good experiences with the people we are teaching. It could be better, but they are committing to come to church. 

It´s hard to say it, but our week didn´t go how we wanted it too. I have been feeling more than a little exasperated with all the travel and being out of our area. We found out that two people that we have been teaching and had a baptism date left to a town, they moved and didn´t tell us... SO bummer. We are looking into staying in contact with them and hoping they come back. 

It is the first week of the New Year! I am hoping that this week goes way better. It is Elder Banda´s last week in his mission. We want it to be awesome. Pray for us!

I´ll tell you guys a little about a new year tradition here in Honduras, one of the biggest is Naka Tamales. They are just like tamales... and if you ask me, better the the tamales I have had at Doña Maria´s. They are a tamales, but inside they have meat --usually pig or chicken, potatoes, rice and corn inside, but the best part is the ketchup on top! 

The 31st went by really nice. We had a lot of members who gave us food. We got a ton of it! I felt enormous going home with our hands full of Naka tamales and fried chicken. You can´t even imagine how many I ate. Back at home Elder Banda and I sat around waiting for the new year. We listened to some music, we messed around and called other missionaries. The new years fire works here in Juticalpa weren´t anything too spectacular but the firecrackers here did the job announcing the new year. Banda started joking saying, ´I´m in the new year, I´m going home!´ I started telling him to stop being trunky or baggy. We laughed and we headed back down to the room from outside. He is going home next week.  The guy is awesome. I will miss him.

I hope you all had a happy New Year and I hope this next year can be better than the last, as magnificent as it was as a missionary of the Lord! 

I´m so grateful to be where I am, and I hope I can do so much more to be more like Christ.

I love you guys and 

Keep Truckin´ 

Elder Banda and I eating with our convert Javier for the New Year. 

Javier's dogs Peppa (the closest), and the blue eyed one is Pantera.

On Friday we had district meeting. After we had lunch at a texaco

I saw this rainbow while on interchanges in Guaimaca. 

It was so big that I couldn't get it all in one photo. Imagine that!!

The end of the rainbow is over there!

This is a torrejas. They are made of bread and stuff and are super good actually.

A missionary's Christmas call home

The best part of a missionary's Christmas is being able to call home and talk to family

Elder Roberts' testimony in Spanish.  He has been on his mission just 2 days shy of 1 year. 

(who's counting? This Momma!)

The goodbyes are always so hard. It was so wonderful to talk to him and see him smiling.

He is so happy! So happy, that he doesn't mind not having a hot shower.  He hasn't had hot water for the past nine months! He told us that where he is living now at least has a shower head and that he is grateful that he doesn't have to use a bowl and get water from the pila.  

It was wonderful to hear his stories, some funny, some scary.  We take comfort and know that he is in the Lord's hands. He is serving the Lord, we pray that he will be watched over and protected.

We love him and miss him so much.  We are very proud of him and look forward to next Christmas when he will be back with us all.

Merry Christmas! love all us Roberts'
We can't wait for next Christmas when both Christian and Alyssa will be home and our traditional Christmas morning stair picture won't feel so empty. 

Week 52: Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone!

I´ll tell you a little about what happened in my week leading up to the day we commemorate the Saviors birth. 

It went by super quick, we had a a lot of work to do for the zone. The zone Juticalpa has been struggling a bit, but it´s nothing a little diligence and obedience can´t fix. 

Elder Banda and I had found some cousins a couple weeks back. We have been working with them and they have been progressing. They are called Jary (pronounce Hary) and Luiz Miguel. The two of them are very positive and want to come unto Christ; it´s just a busy schedule that is stopping them with the Christmas season. 

Our days just before Christmas were jam packed with visits with investigators before they either headed out of town or had family come and visit. 

Elder Banda and I worked hard and have been looking for more people to teach. The Lord works in mysterious ways... we had almost no luck. We found some people but we were no where near reaching our goal for the week. On Sunday the 24th, it´s the day we celebrate in Latin America as Christmas or the Good Night. We leave our lunch visit with the Soleno Family and we get looking, knocking on doors and contacting in the street, looking for some new people. We had a bit of time just before we had to be at a members home to celebrate the holiday. It starts pouring rain. Banda and I began knocking a little bit more to get out of the rain and find someone with an open heart, someone to open their door to two soaked missionaries... but nothing, it seemed that no one would open. We finally got lucky. Well, they just put us on their porch to wait out the rain while they finished cooking their Christmas dinner. Then the rain stopped for a bit, and with heads down, Elder Banda and I headed out again to keep looking. We knocked a couple more doors, and nothing. At 4:30, thirty minutes before we had to basically turn out for the day because people will be celebrating Christmas. And I´m exhausted, and wet and cold, and more than a little grumpy and Banda says to me, ´´lets knock one more door.´´ I give in, and while we are walking to the next door Banda is talking and saying with his faithful imagination... ´´we´re going to go in and it´ll just be the parents, but it´ll be a family of 8... and the parents, they´ll have 6 kids all over the age of 8. They´ll let us in and give us a drink and we´ll be able to teach them and they´ll like it, but we have to be on it.´´  I laughed a little bit at his overly perfect situation and I knocked on the door. Well, A man answered and asked what we wanted. We gave him our regular spiel-- that we are missionaries and we want to share a message of Jesus Christ. The guy said SURE and let us in! The moment started to click the man had let us in pretty quick. We sat down and his wife came in and saw us and gave us a drink. I was thinking in my head that this was all just them being nice and having true Christmas Spirit. Well, we began to talk and we quickly found out that it was a family of eight! All of their children are over the age of eight. (the only thing is that their children are grown and have families of their own and live in the States.)  But I won´t lie-- I almost fainted! We left the lesson finding out that Guiermon isn´t assisting a church, but that his wife is less active but loves the church. 

I felt blessed and humbled by this Christmas miracle. 

I´m very happy to have talked to my family today and I wish you all the Merriest of Christmases and I hope you all can have a Happy New Year! 

keep truckin´

A missionary Christmas dinner at the church.
Elder Roberts, Hermana Latimer, Elder Valadez, Elder Banda, Hermana Gamez, Hermana Bravo, (Hermana Da Silva is in the bathroom), and Elder Garcia (Elder Garcia is Valdez's companion and is going home in January with Banda)

Banda helping with the set-up

Hermano Leo from the Belen Branch made our dinner.

Thursday was a good day. We went to Oh Crepas. I ordered a waffle. It was 90 limps

Merry Christmas! It's Christmas Eve or The Good Night... the day that latin America celebrates Christmas.

Taking a Santa pic... and this Santa is trying to tell you that fireworks are super loud. 4 limps buys a packet of fire crackers. The kids here light them off all year. They have been going off all day.

We did a secret santa gift exchange with the Hermana's from the Belen Branch and Hermana Melba.
Hermana Latimer got Elder Banda a gift. Hermana Gamez got Latimer a gift. Elder Banda got Hermana Gamez a gift, and Hermana Melba and I drew each other. 

Hermana Melba got me a red tie.

Christmas gifts from home for Elder Roberts. Mom was on it when she sent the package so early. (globalmissionshipping.com) With all this political stuff going on I won't get my other Christmas and Hump day stuff until January 9th or so.

Elder Banda with his Christmas present

Elder Banda seriously loves Sour Patch!

Best part of Christmas--- Talking with my family! (blog post of call home)

20 Years Old!!

Banda's 1st time shaving!

Shaving ad!!