Saturday, September 12, 2015

Monday, September 7, 2015 -- Month #6 - Week #29 - Day #203 - Santa Cruz de Yojoa

Pday! Whoohoo! Washed clothes for an hour and a half, cleaned the house, got my stuff together, wrote a bunch of letters to peeps, and went and did some more tests for my salud, as we're still not quite sure what makes my tummy hurt. We then went and wrote our families and bought some food and things that we needed...I'm out of body wash, and it simply doesn't exist here. Mentira, it exists, but it's Dove brand, in a little 10 oz bottle, and costs about 300 lemps. So I figured I could get by with liquid hand soap at 40 lemps?  I'll keep you posted if I develop a rash or start turning green or something weird. I'd hate to turn into a swamp monster with only 6 months in the mission.

Anyways, as we were in the internet cafe E Hess somehow found these Addiction Recovery Program videos that the Church just put out about a week ago, and they are amazing. They are incredibly powerful and moving, and I honestly cried, E Hess and E Pocock just sat in their chairs, dumbfounded. They're really good.



You gotta search in YouTube: Mormon Channel Addiction Recovery Program Step 1 to get to the beginning, and I would encourage you to go watch some, but they deal with some very serious addictions, so be careful with kiddos. I haven't had to deal with addictions like these people, but it made it all the more real to hear and see their stories and understand a little bit more, especially with our investigators that are having difficulties. And each step is part of the repentance process, which everyone needs. Amazing how the gospel works.

So we went to have dinner with the stake president and his family as we usually do on Mondays, and we saw that he had his laptop (a rare laptop sighting in the Honduran bush!) on the table and seemed to be searching for church videos about something. I thought, "I should probably share these videos we just found with him, he could probably use them to help someone", as he's the stake president. So after dinner we started talking about them and he pulled them up and we watched the first one (we discovered that there's Spanish subtitles! Yeah!) and afterwards he sat there for a few seconds, and asked, "Hna Mower, why did you share this with me?"  And I explained that I felt the Spirit while watching them and felt that I needed to share them with him so that he could help people, and that they were a wonderful tool to use and maybe I couldn't use it very well, but he could. He then sat there for another few seconds, and then he looked up and said, "I've been preparing a message for the training meeting with all the bishops here. One of the key points is that of honesty. I've been looking all over today for a video that would help illustrate the importance of this quality to the bishops and how to cultivate it and use it when dealing with issues in their wards. I think this is the perfect demonstration for this purpose. I thank you for sharing these with me." So that was pretty neat. When ideas like that pop in your head, you just gotta roll with them, as they are for the benefit of many other people. So cool! 



One of the guys from the videos also shared an African proverb along the lines of "If there's no demon within, the demons outside can do no harm" and I think that is totally true. We all have demons, big and little, but if we choose to get them out and don't allow them to return (true repentance) then we are protected and are able to have the Holy Ghost dwell with us. Take out the weakening bad, fill the space with the fortifying good, and you're able to resist whatever outside forces push on you. It's like the talk by Sister Cheryl A. Esplin in this past April General Conference titled, "Filling Our Homes with Light and Truth". Makes a lot of sense! I love the gospel, you guys.

And, funny side note, there was a really big ant (not a sonpopo, but something like their half-cousin, twice removed, perhaps) crawling around the countertop by the sink, and I decided to smoosh it, but my hands were full with my little bag of churros (chips from the pulperia, the equivalent of a Salvadorean tienda) so I raised up my leg and with some well-aimed strikes dispatched the intruder with my trusty sandal-clad foot of justice. It was awesome. I think it scared Hna Rosas a little bit though, she couldn't understand how I could get my leg so high or why the manner of kicking was so effective, and I explained that I had taken self-defense before (I'm not a karate master, but some things still stuck in my head), and it's best to get the job done as quickly and effectively as possible.



She nodded her head and sat there thinking for a minute. "Yup, I'm glad to have you as a companion. You can take care of all the bad guys, right?" And we laughed. So that was kinda funny. But it is nice not to feel totally powerless in the midst of all the craziness here. At the very least I can kick decently well. The purpose is to avoid, incapacitate, and escape as quickly as possible. So you don't go deliberately seeking dangerous stuff and challenging to duels, either. That's stupid and unnecessary. It's serious, and there's some honestly scary stuff that happens here. Just gotta be careful and listen to the Holy Ghost. But yeah, Hna Rosas and I get along well, she's really happy that I can smoosh ants, it makes her laugh.

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