Week 81 SPS

What was your Spiritual experience of the week?  Well this was another week that was slow at times but there was one very interesting experience I had last night. I had the opportunity to do a baptismal interview of Hno. J. He is 17 and it was really interesting. I had no idea what to say but all turned out fine. It was very exciting to see that he was prepared to get baptized and also be able to share how the gospel has truly blessed his life.

Anything new with your investigators? Yes we started to teach a sister named C. P. and she is really prepared it seems. We got there and the missionary had taught her before and she had just moved and she likes the church and has gone a lot. Only problem is that she is pregnant and that she has to work on Sundays but she will be going on leave from her work and she says that they will be changing her schedule to work in the nights so she will always be able to come to church. She set her own baptismal date. She told us she would be getting baptized on the 12th of May. She says that is the day and she told us it has to be in the stake center. We will have some work to make sure that she truly is going to make the changes necessary in her life.  Did the doctor set a date yet?  Yes we are set for 16 of April.  So you have two solid baptisms coming up, that's great.  We hope that all goes well. M. has come to church like 2 weeks straight she just gets there really late, right after we start the second hour that's that only problem that we have with her right now.  Yes but she is making the efforts with her schedule, is that not enough?  Well it will be enough. I think they would like to get married in the temple as soon as they can. But the best part is that her husband is a return missionary so he will help her when times are rough.

What will you do for Easter? Do you have any dinner appointment?  We don’t have any dinner appointments. Everyone is on trips and everything is closed. Today for lunch we ate at KFC only some of the fast food restaurants are open today. Today we have 3 lessons scheduled at night so it will be a good day.

What is the weirdest thing that happened this week?  Nothing weird happened this week, everything was normal.  It was a good week, we did some interesting things and well at least this week the police didn't try and take away my license. Today we were in the car and elder Pieper was driving downtown, he hit one of the police cones and it just smashed and we just kept on going, it was embarrassing but at least they were the soft rubber coned so they just unashamed it and put it back up.

Elder Olsen’s Family is heading into Mexico today to build a house and this is the advice Elder Olsen shared.  “It is safe, just if it things get sketchy or it is at night roll down the windows and all will be fine.” We have our truck loaded with food and tools.  Some of us are worried about eating out so we brought most of our food from the U.S.  Really lots of missionaries have had problems with food poisoning, but I say if it is well done and really hot its good for me. This is a picture Elder Olsen shared with us. Can’t be loaded more than this truck.

Plus now for me I mix English and Spanish together.  This week I had to call a landlord who lives in New York and we had an English Spanish talk it was interesting.  How are you doing on getting all of the landlords on direct deposit? Almost done, I just needed his ID so I could do everything by electronic transfers.

How is your excel spreadsheet working?  Well it works great; I finally finished one part of it and everything works, but I might just change some small things, there are still many things that I want to do.

How warm is it down there?  It is about 95 degrees right now.

How much was that ford ranger?  Probably 10 to 18 thousand max.  Can they send it to the U.S. for you?  No I am sure they don't meet emissions because there turbo diesels, otherwise they would have them there.

Have they purchased your ticket home yet?  No they haven't purchased my ticket not for another 2 months.  I think that I will leave the office in June and then have one transfer in the field before I come home.

Love you all and hope to see some good pictures next week.

Week 80 SPS

How was your week? My week was long sometimes, I just want to leave the office and go to a normal area where you don't have to worry about anything but wake up and work and get home at night and sleep, it is so much easier that way. Overall we have accomplished a lot this week but we have been very busy with many weird cases and things to buy from fridges to Dollies for boxes we have bought it all. I am tired and just want to rest for a second but there is no time. Not even at night we get home and we plan and then there is no time for anything else I end up getting to bed at 11:30 every night because I have to read my scriptures for the day or do something important.

Do you have any new investigators? This week we haven't found anyone new yet. We got a reference from some other missionaries saying that a person who was now living in our area had received the missionaries before and wanted to get baptized. He gave us the name, the address and the phone number. The phone number was wrong for some reason and the address was confusing. We found the house after a couple days and then we tried to contact her and she never was there or she didn't answer. So we just decided that we were going to give a pamphlet to the guards in this street and when they saw her, we asked that they give the pamphlet to her. She got the pamphlet and a few days later found some other missionaries walking through our area and she gave them her telephone number, we finally talked with her and we have an appointment planned for Monday at 4. It is interesting to see how many times things just work our even though we couldn't contact her the lord put others in the way to help us find her.

How has the weather been? It has been really hot and humid it is close to the hottest part of the year right now.

Will you be OK carting the stuff that you purchased around, or should we see about sending something home with dip shipping? Yes I don't have that much stuff it easily fits in my suitcase. I talked with a guy from dip ship when he came here to the office to drop off the package that you sent for Easter.

What was a spiritual experience from this week?

They are always really small experiences that we have. This week there were several small experiences. I will share two. The first one happened last Sunday when the Hna M.

showed up to the second hour of church. She has to make such a sacrifice to come, it is amazing, she has to know that it is true and she is ready to be baptized.   We are just waiting for her to come to sacrament meeting two more times. We have a lesson with her tomorrow and it should be good we are going to have some members come. The other was, one night all of our lessons fell through so we just sat down for a few minutes and began to call all of the numbers we have in our phones to find someone to visit. It is hard to just show up to someone’s house in this area because it is so enclosed and there are lots of guards. We called Hna G. one of our investigators and he said we could go and visit him right then. We had a lesson, in the super short amount of time we had in our area. What a miracle. He has a desire to know if the church is true, he has even come to church; he just needs to understand the answers to his prayers. It will come overtime if he begins to keep all the invitations that we leave behind.

Tell us about something that made you laugh this week. Well the trip to Copán that we made today was pretty funny. Every so often there are some cones in the road and there are police there. On one of these I passed a car and then entered into the lane to pass the police and they got real mad and tried to stop me, he waved his hand but I didn't understand so I kept on going a bit then I stopped and backed up. The police guy was mad and he wanted to give me a ticket, he asked for my license and the registration and everything so I gave it to him. He was set on giving me a ticket and he just started to write it. I looked at the other elders and I said I am going to talk him out of it. I said my quick prayer, and thought for a second.  I looked back at him and said “I have a question, where do I have to pay it.”  He said in Santa Rosa de Copan and he would retain my license. I said OK, could I just pay you. You have got to look how genius this question is because it isn't technically a bribe it is a good question because I didn't know.  He said no. The must be the first police officer that isn't corrupt here in Honduras. So I asked “how would I get my license back?”   He said it would end up in Tegucigalpa. OK in this moment I was thinking O boy. I think I just talked him out of giving me a ticket.  Well I didn't know there aren't lines on the road to tell me where and were I can and can’t be. So he called over the other guy in charge and I explained to him about the lines and he asked the other guy if he had written the ticket yet and he said not completely. The one police officer convinced the other officer that I didn't deserve a ticket and they let me off yet another time, we were saved again. I gave them both cards from the church from Christmas and we drove off.  The funny part is that all the buses can pass in whatever place and they don't get in trouble. But it is what it is. I just look back and say wow weren't we blessed today.

How is the companionship going?  Good my companion is very old he just had a birthday and turned 28. He doesn’t quite know what he is doing yet,  so it takes him along time to do everything but he will get faster with time.

Did you eat any good food this week?  Not really, just the usual, Chicken wings and Chinese food.

OK sounds good. I have to go. Love you all and have a good time on your trip to Mexico. See you later. 

Week 79 SPS

Can you relate any spiritual experiences from the week? Well as I said they are always really small. I just had one a few minutes ago. I was sitting here on the computer just verifying that all the missionaries were going to receive money for the next 15 days and it came up to the number 181 and there are 182 missionaries in the mission. I just sat here for a second and I felt like it was Elder L. P., I looked it up and it was this elder that was missing from the list. This had to be revelation because it came from nowhere, 1 in 182 and the exact name came to my head. Wow, really cool things do happen in the mission.

What gift card could we get Elder P. for bringing home your trinkets? I would just say we should take him out to tandoori oven when he gets to Logan he really likes that. I just sent one small picture frame with a feather inside that I thought was cool. I just decided, I will bring all my things home when I finish.

How is it being in a twosome again?  It will be short lived, as you replacement should be there in about four weeks. It is interesting; right now I don't get much time to talk in the lessons.   My comp is great but he talks forever. It is better because you can make a decision on where to eat a lot faster and it is easier to teach.

Goodby Elder C.

How are the excel sheet coming along.  Did you get the ones finished that you wanted to before transfers? No I haven't had time to work on them, we have been so busy going to the airport and doing that there has been no time.

What did you do for p-day.  Is there an indoor soccer field that you could go play at and enjoy some exercise? We went to the airport for the second p day in a row.

Did you try any new foods this week? No we didn't try any new foods this week hopefully some of the other Elders will want to try something new next week.

How is the weather today?  It looks very hot. It is hot all the time now. I almost couldn’t sleep last night I was baking hot.  So is there any rain at night or is it the dry hot season starting?  The hot and dry season is starting.

Have you set a baptism date for the doctor?  No we haven't had time to visit her and she hasn't had time to visit with us.

How was saying goodbye to 2 of your companions?  Good.  Did Elder P sleep at your house the night before he came home?  Yes he stayed there that night.  Was your house dirty after they all left?  They just left some garbage in the house like all the missionaries do.   How many extra bunk beds do you have in the house?  We have like 10, and 10 more not set up, that we could put up to sleep over 40 people.  Was this one of the biggest transfers, or about normal?  It was normal, like 18 or 19 new missionaries.   Are you keeping the same number of missionaries or are you opening or closing areas?  We are keeping about the same number.  Are you done with airport trips for a while?  I hope so.  How many trips total to the airport this week and why did you have to go today?  I have been to the airport over 5 times this week; today we had to take another missionary.  What time did the American elders leave on their flights?  Usually at 12:50.  Do they fly Delta or American?  They fly both.  How long does it take to get the airport and who usually drives?  I drive, and it usually takes like 15 to 30 minutes. 

Love you all too. I will try and look for my camera this week.

Week 78 SPS

What was the spiritual experience of the week? Well this is very hard because there are so many that I can’t choose one. I need to get better at keeping my journal, I did really well up until the time I came here to the office but now every entry would be as follows: I woke up ate, went to the office and talked to an angry landlord or a missionary. But it is still amazing there are always small miracles and as I sit down at the end of each day I can realize them. Most of the time I don't realize them in the moment but until after. Like yesterday we took a mattress to a house, we took it out and then we got in the truck and it started to rain really hard. It was definitely a blessing and a small miracle that the mattress didn't get ruined.

Does your comp that is leaving know where he is going to, or does the president keep that a secret up until transfers? My president had everything on a big board in his office so you could look and see where all the missionaries were but yours is probably all on the computer. Well yes and no. President D. does have a changes board in his office but that does not get updated until the day or so after the changes so no one knows their change. The only thing we know is that my companion has changes, that’s all we know. To where we have no idea, we think Choloma but we will have to wait and see.  Does the new secretary know his job well enough to be alone?  He doesn't know everything yet? 

What did you do for p day today? Did you do anything fun this week? Well we did some running around and we had to wake up really early. But on our way back from doing some things we stopped by a store that sells Honduras things and I ended up buying some cool things, I still haven't figured out what I am going to do, I might just send a suitcase home with Elder P. I would pay for the third bag that could weigh 50lbs and would cost like 130 dollars to ship, and I know it would get there quickly.  Has Elder P. agreed to this?  He said I could put some stuff in his bags I am just going to send an other bag with him checked to SLC he will be fine with it.  I have to do him a favor; he can do me one too.

How were your investigators this week? Well they are all so busy and this week we have also been busy and the next week we will be even more busy. It has been hard to have lessons because they are always falling through and also we don't have time to go some days. There is one sister that has been listening to the lessons and she seems like she is interested.   Her sister got baptized about a year ago and she shows an interest. We tried to teach her months ago but she wouldn't let us, now she wants to learn and her time may have arrived.

Do you have any funny stories, or did anything interesting happen this week? There hasn't been anything interesting that has happened this week. The really cool thing was that we went to La Jutosa, my old area, and we picked up an id card because the missionary forgot to send it to us and we needed it the next day, so I took a picture in front of the church just for fun.

Tell us about your ward. Well our ward is called Jardines del Valle its like a the Cliffside of Honduras all the people are really busy with their jobs and are really dedicated to work.  They like to be overly formal at times but that's fine, I like it like that, it’s a good change. There are about 100 members that come every week; last week there wasn’t a very high attendance of priesthood holders.   We the 4 elders, passed the sacrament and one elder helped bless. We also teach the Gospel Principals Class and there are usually several people in the class.

How did rent payments go only two more times to do that job?  Good, there are still 3 landlords that I haven’t paid, I just need them to call me so I can make a deposit in their account, I am forcing them out of having us pay in cash because that is more risky. We will now be able to do electronic transfers with them. There were only 4 landlords, and now only 3 left.

After 30 minutes of no emails, we got this message from Elder Olsen:

Well, I got stuck on a long call with a bank and now I don’t have any time. I have to go, Love you ALL.