Saturday, October 31, 2015 -- Month #8 - Week #37 - Day #257 - Santa Cruz de Yojoa

Happy Halloween! Hna Escobar and I were gonna switch tags (to dress up) today, but we forgot. Whoops. We didn't really remember it was Halloween either, as there were no trick or treating, or decorations, or anything. Just a normal day. But I hope you guys had a fun time, I want to see yall's costumes!

But, weirdest thing in the world, I saw a lawnmower for the first time in Honduras! Crazy! Normally if you want to cut your grass you get yourself a machete and start attacking the ground, or you can use a weed-whacker if you have more money and don't want to destroy your back. But a lawnmower...that's unheard of. So that threw me for a loop this afternoon.

Today was good, did some lessons in the morning, went WAY out in La Gloria to go contacting, and came back to make all the popcorn and bring it to the church for the baptism. Then we cleaned the entire church, and had choir practice. And came home and ate and planned and now I'm writing.

The baptism went well, the elderes of Yojoa have been teaching this hermano the past month of so, and he's really sincere and quiet, is a very good person. So we were really excited for everybody, and helped out with everything as well.

Pretty much exhausted, and ready for bed. Goodnight.

Friday, October 30, 2015 -- Month #8 - Week #37 - Day #256 - Santa Cruz de Yojoa

We got money in our accounts today! So we went and bought a bunch of food since we didn't on Monday due to uncertainty of changes, and stuff to make caramel popcorn for the refreshment for the baptism tomorrow. And I bought a camera! It was great because I got it for half the original price, and it's a decent camera. Not my favorite in the world, but it's better than the other 2 cameras that exist in Santa Cruz, and it was a pretty sweet deal.

We had some lessons in the morning, and dropped some people. It's kinda rare to have more than 1 or 2 lessons with someone, as we usually have to drop everyone. Because no one reads the folletos or the scriptures, no one prays, and no one will come to church. They don't do anything. So we drop them.

We had lunch and went and did some more lessons, and finally had our Coordinacion! Got me a little riled up again, but we got the baptism planned out and discovered that we do in fact have a Ward Mission Plan that no one knew about, fun little detail. We're gonna have to go over that with all the leaders and everybody.

And we had more choir practice...I am looking forward to Sunday because that is Ward Conference when we present all our songs, and then I'm restricting my availability to an hour on Saturday and an hour on Sunday for practices. If the people want to practice more, that's fine, but I'm not the ward pianist and we gotta work in our areas. I'm up for service and helping the ward out, but they've survived before I came, and they'll be fine when I go. And we lose about 2 hours a day of working time with all the practices and waiting and everything. So we'll see how this all works out.

And, according to what people have heard about Mormons, we have a special day a week where we can sin. That doesn't make any sense, as we shouldn't be looking for opportunities to go against God and His commandments. And that we don't worship God, we worship a governor in the states. I think there are a lot of misinformed people out there. We gotta work on that.

But, to finish off the day on a good note, Hna Escobar and I made a practice batch of caramel popcorn, and it was REALLY good! I tried to remember how we made popcorn balls back home, and we managed to find everything we needed...even Karo corn syrup! It was super expensive, but we got it. So I put some corn syrup, sugar, butter and milk in a pot, got it all boiling and bubbly, reduced the water content, took it off the heat, added some vanilla extract, and poured all that goodness on some popcorn we made (oil, kernels, salt in a pot, stir around as it pops) and we enjoyed ourselves immensely.

Hna Escobar was in awe of my cooking skills, and I was honestly a little afraid it wouldn't turn out well as I haven't seen a recipe for anything in 8 months. But we were quite successful and ready for making a whole lot more for tomorrow.

Thursday, October 29, 2015 -- Month #8 - Week #37 - Day #255 - Santa Cruz de Yojoa

The bug guy came today and sprayed out house! So we should have less bugs now. That will be wonderful.

And they canceled Coordinacion Misional on us again, so we walked all over creation and did some visits and choir practice. Pretty quiet day, we're trying to find a spot to hang our hammock outside, but we bought some plastic rope, so we're almost set!

Wednesday, October 28, 2015 -- Month #8 - Week #37 - Day #254 - Santa Cruz de Yojoa

Cambios! We got permission to go up to SPS even though we don't have changes, so I could send stuff off in the mail, smack E Nunez on the head for not sending our stove that we've been asking for for 3 months, and say goodbye to Hna Robles. So we got up at 5:00 am to get ready, and hopped on the special bus at 6:00 am. Picked up a ton of elders on the way, did the whole change mess, found out who's going with who and where, and finally found Hna Robles. It was actually kinda funny when she arrived, because everyone started taking pictures and crying and saying goodbye...she's basically a celebrity!  Kinda funny to see all her adoring fans. So I kinda hid behind a pillar until most of that died down (as I don't have changes and she didn't know I was coming to the Benque) and as she walked past my pillar I waved, and she stopped and stared like she does, and yelled, "QUE?!?!" and then we screamed like little girls and hugged and everything. It was awesome. She gave me a little package with notes for goodbye, Halloween, my birthday, and Christmas...she's prepared! And I gave her a little note and some chocolate from my family package (thanks, family!) I'm gonna miss her, but I'm glad she can go home and be with her family for a while now, and get back into work and everything. I can't believe that one day I'll be saying goodbye to my hija (mission daughter...the families here are ridiculously complicated) and hopping on a plane back to the States the next day. Weird. But I feel kinda special because I'm Hna Robles's only hija, and she was a wonderful mama and trainer and nurse. We're gonna miss her!

So we finally got back to SPS and had some lunch. Then went and taught a lesson, visited all 3 members in our part of the area, and did choir practice.

We also found some more new churches:

- La Iglesia de Jesucristo Renacer (also in SPS)

- La Iglesia de Dios Central a Pimienta

- La Iglesia de Dios Jehovah Jireh

- La Iglesia del Senor: La Vida Nueva

And you can pretty much spell Spanish how you like. The proper spelling is "haz" but you can put "has", and "hacia" is often "asia" or "hasia", depending on how you feel like/know how to spell. And all the names are different. Eskarleth (Scarlett), Yeyson (Jason), Karolhyna (Carolina). You can spell Edith the same, but you say "eh'DEET". And a bunch of more local names: Eliseo, Ondina, Yamileth, Plutarco, Paola, Dolores, Guadalupe, Damaris, Yolani, Legran, Amador, Herling, Theofila, Griselda, Myrna, Rodolfo. You can also write the accents in the words or not. Usually not, as that's too much effort, but it changes the meaning of the entire sentence. But ya know, whatever works.

And my camera got dropped and broke. So that isn't very fun. It still takes pictures and everything, but the screen is busted and I can't see a thing. So I walked around and took pictures today, hoping that they turned out well. I'll have to go camera hunting in the next day or two. Wish me luck!

Tuesday, October 27, 2015 -- Month #8 - Week #37 - Day #253 - Santa Cruz de Yojoa

We contacted this one guy who was saying how there was a prophet that predicted that there would be a meteor coming soon that would destroy part of North, Central, and South America. But, it could be prevented if we all fasted and prayed. Which makes some sense. But we better all hold on to our seats, guys, because it's gonna be Jurassic Park all over again. I love listening to all the prophecies around here...basically anyone who says anything about the Bible is a considered to be a prophet, so I guess according to that commonly accepted definition, I (as my normal self, not even as a missionary) am a prophet. Which I am most definitely NOT, just FYI.

Today we went to Potrerillos again for our last Zone Meeting, and took a bunch of pictures where everyone looks very brown and latino, except for me...I'm still white! Yay!

District

Zone

I also showed off my gymnastics skills (which are very limited, mind you) and did a back bend into bridge, walked around like that for a minute, and stood back up, which freaked everyone out.

So E Hess tried, but he definitely does not bend that way very well.  And couldn't do bridge starting on the ground either. He made some really funny faces, and some other elderes even tried spotting him, and that didn't work either.

He also tried splits, and that was funny as well. I am SOOOO close to full splits, I'm kinda excited. I haven't been working on them as much as I should, but there's still progress! So that was a fun little time after the meeting, we laughed a lot!

Came back, had lunch, and met some really interesting people who had a lot of interesting things to say, none of which made any sense or had correct doctrine. Had some more lessons, met some more interesting people, and had choir practice. We're practicing every night this week as we have Ward Conference this coming Sunday, and we need to learn 4 hymns. A lot of work! But we're going with that, should calm down a lot after the conference, so I'm excited about that.

So yeah, today was fun. Got a big day tomorrow!

Monday, October 26, 2015 -- Month #8 - Week #36 - Day #252 - Santa Cruz de Yojoa

Today we stayed home and chilled in the house, so that was nice. Did our normal Pday stuff, but didn't buy a whole lot of food as we still don't know if we have changes. Then we went over to Daily (I don't know how to spell that, that's how she's called), a less-active member and we made baleadas with her.

Tortilla time! 

So I got some more practice in tortilla-making, and I will say that this stuff really takes practice. And I burned the base of my thumb flipping the tortillas, as you flip them by hand. So that kinda hurts, but I'm alright.

I wish I had a spatula or even a small stick to lift up the edge, and the plate close by to flop the tortillas onto, but no, we use our fingers and hold on to the tortilla as we walk a few meters over to the table where the plate is. That's how we roll on Honduras!

So the baleadas turned out really well, and we had a nice little lesson with her. And we ran by the Flores to bring our other dinner back to the house to eat for lunch tomorrow. Good day overall.

9:32 pm
Update: we don't have changes! Hna Escobar and I are together for another change! Whoohoo!

We found a frog! And I picked it up and held it and it was awesome! I felt like 4 year old me playing with bugs and critters again. 

Hna Escobar said I was her hero for doing all the stuff that she can't do. Like drive, swim, ride a bike, back bend, hold frogs, and make caramel popcorn. She's so sweet!

Sunday, October 25, 2015 -- Month #8 - Week #36 - Day #251 - Santa Cruz de Yojoa

We're almost finishing this change and the month of October! It's starting to feel more like fall here, although it's still really hot and you still get all sweaty and dirty and gross. Love it! But there's been some really cool clouds lately, and there's usually a nice little breeze running around.

This day was REALLY hot!!  My clothes were soaked with sweat!

See my backpack lines???  Uuugh!

Today was a good Sunday, none of our investigators wanted to come to church, but we got some good exercise running around all over the place this morning to find them all. I think there's a quote from Pokemon along the lines of "gotta catch em all!", I'm not sure, as I've never really watched or played Pokemon, too many people running around with spiky hair and strange hybrid animals.

Someone accidentally kicked my foot as we were leaving the chapel, and broke my big toenail. So that started bleeding, and E Olivas (good District Leader that he is) gave me a Beauty and the Beast bandaid to help it not be a huge mess. So I walked around today with Belle plastered on my toe, which made me smile. So I'll be sure to take good care of it so it doesn't get worse, and hope that my nail doesn't fall off. It kinda still hurts. Ouch.

My poor toe...

But, bright spot of the day, Hna Escobar and I got pulled out of the class with the investigators to help teach the Primary kiddos a song, as the leaders didn't know it. So we drew on our combined Primary time knowledge, and I read the music, and we taught those kids! Whoo! The song was "I Know That My Savior Loves Me," I think, and I remembered for a little bit about my Mom when she was Primary chorister and would make all the posters to help teach the Primary kids the words. I miss Primary!

We also passed by Esperanza (the lady whose mother died about 2 weeks ago) and it turned out that she was making a whole bunch of tamales, like 120 of them. So we stayed 2 hours to help her out, as she was alone, and making tamales is not a 1 person job. So we got those all cooked and hauled upstairs to cool, and washed everything, and she gave us some dinner and we talked about how she's doing and everything.

Tamale time!

She's an awesome lady. Her husband travels for days at a time, so she's often alone. So we go and visit her from time to time to she how's she's doing and help her out. And we got to play with Rocky, their pit-bull (who was originally named Sultan, and he was tiny! Now he's HUGE and keeps on growing!) and he's adorable and so happy and playful, and has about 4 or 5 months, I think.

Playing with Rocky!

Hna Escobar has a pit-bull at home (and a golden retriever and a boxer as well) and fell in love with Rocky right away. I like him really well, too, but Hna Rosas never did, she doesn't like animals. Or dead things. But that's normal. Anyways, we enjoyed our time with Esperanza.

And we came home to find un MONTON de leafcutter ants carrying their pieces of leaves out back. Crazy! They cut the leaves of a tree near the front of the house, and carried them all the way down the trunk, up on the back wall, behind the pila, and all the way across the other small wall, across the grass, up the neighboring wall, and I don't know where else because they disappeared there. A distance of about 70 feet or so, I would guess.

And leaf cutter ants! All over the place!

And they also came from another tree at the back of the house and joined up at the neighboring wall as well. Crazy ants. So that was a neat discovery, we sat there watching them for like 15 minutes, mesmerized. 

Saturday, October 24, 2015 -- Month #8 - Week #36 - Day #250 - Santa Cruz de Yojoa

Quote that I liked from my personal study of the Book of Mormon and the manual this morning: (keep in mind I'm translating from Spanish so it's not a word for word original quote)

"In the very moment when everything seems ideal, sometimes many difficulties arise simultaneously. If these trials are not the result of disobedience, they are evidence that the Lord knows that you are prepared to progress. So, He gives you experiences that stimulate your progress, your understanding and compassion and that refine you for your eternal well-being (Proverbs 3:11-12). To go from where you are to where He wants you to be is a (difficult/arduous/hard) effort that generally is accompanied by (sorrow/sadness) and pain."  Elder Richard G. Scott

Good perspective for trials, huh? I'm earning those gray hairs of mine!

Today was good, we contacted up a storm this morning, and it was really hot! I used sun block and I still got burned. And super sweaty and tired. So we drank a lot of water and hiked up some more lovely mountains to visit some lovely people who didn't want to listen to us. Love it! But we went and bought some fried chicken for lunch, so I was really happy after that. And then we went over to Villanueva with everyone for the Stake Talent Show/Culture Night to finish of la Semana de la Familia.

At the talent show in Villanueva

There were some good acts, and it was great to see the talents of everyone here. And we hopped back on the bus to go back home, and we finally got to our house, and the lights went out. So we went around and planned and ate by candlelight until the lights came back on about an hour later, so now we are currently making a shower head for our water spout in the bathroom. Hna Escobar has some wonderful engineering skills! We're poking holes with a candle-heated fork into a plastic Coke bottle, and then we'll stick it on our PVC pipe in the shower and enjoy our water! So I'll try it out tonight and give feedback on it.

Our shower head!

We also found another church this morning, this one is La Iglesia Libre de Dios Pentacostes, so we can add that to the list. I'm seriously surprised at how many church are here. Crazy.

And as we were waiting with some members for the bus to pick us up to go to Villanueva there was a somewhat drunk hermano that walked by and started talking to me, but I honestly couldn't understand him very well, mostly all I got was that the other people at the stop were supposed to take good care of the virgencita ("little virgin"...that would be me, as I look like the Virgen of Suyapa, the local Virgen, like the Virgen of Guadalupe in Mexico...every Central American country has a Virgen) and make sure I'm safe, because my eyes are so beautiful and I walk "en las cosas de Dios". And some other interesting comments. The whole episode made the members really uncomfortable and they were shocked that this was a normal experience for me out here.

Please, please, please don't drink or do drugs or other completely nonsensical and pointless things in your life. I can't tell you just how not smart that is and how you will lose so much.

But, today was a good day, nonetheless, didn't get to do as much work as we could have, but it was a good day.

Friday, October 23, 2015 -- Month #8 - Week #36 - Day #249 - Santa Cruz de Yojoa

Last night I dreamed that they didn't make the big, hardcover hymnbooks anymore, so we had to protect our hymn books and write on our names a bunch of times in them, because people were stealing them and tearing out the pages with the names so they could be theirs. I have no idea where that dream came from.  Hna Escobar says I talk a lot in my sleep, all in Spanish.

Today was interesting, we went and taught some people in the morning that didn't want anything to do with us. One of them was a contact I made on the bus a few days ago, he was fairly receptive and interested and willing to have us pass by and visit. Then, we came to teach, he was a completely different person, kinda arrogant, actually, and was completely disinterested. And we dropped another one of our few progressing investigators, because she decided that her pastor received a revelation and that the church she now goes to is right. We've been working with her all this change, so that's kinda rough. Good girl, but we just can't get through to her. And just a rough morning with all the walking around, it's gotten really hot in the mornings, but usually by the late afternoon it gets cloudy and a little cooler.

Some cool clouds

I actually found 2 gray hairs on my head the other day, and they have the length that would correspond to about 8 months of growth. Way to go, stress. I felt like Annabeth Chase and Percy Jackson for a minute, with the weight of the world and the responsibility to be a missionary hanging above my head.

There's a saying here that when we wait forever for something,
"me hace viejito!", or I'm growing old!

But we had a good lunch at home and set out for another afternoon of work.

And a delicious lunch I made! I'm proud of my cooking skills.
And we are still eating abundant avocado, so I'm happy!

It went decently well, we had a first lesson with a lady that is super receptive and kinda gets the joke on a lot of things, she's got her head on straight. So we were really happy for that. She won't be able to come to church this Sunday because she's got to go to SPS to help celebrate the birthday of a niece, I think, but she'll try to come next time. So we're keeping our fingers crossed with that one.

And we had Paola's baptism today!  Whoohoo!

Paola, the girl that's baptized and confirmed!

Hna Escobar and I ended up filling the font, setting up the chairs, helping Paola with nerves and directions and getting dressed and moral/emotional support (her family doesn't live here and isn't supportive of her baptism) and everything else, and getting the refreshment ready and served to everyone. Little details to help everyone be happy, right?

And to finish off the day, guess what is the best thing to do when it's 9:30 pm, you don't have clothes for tomorrow and there's water in the pila? Wash your laundry that you weren't able to wash on Monday! Yay! So I did that for an hour and got ready for bed and went to sleep. I'll finish the rest of that funness in the morning.

Other than that and all the work that a baptism entails, pretty chill day. Definitely ready for bed, goodnight.

Thursday, October 22, 2015 -- Month #8 - Week #36 - Day #248 - Santa Cruz de Yojoa

Today we didn't get the chance to do much missionary work. Had Weekly Planning in the morning, lunch, finally left the house to look for a reference we received, unsuccessfully, but we did contact someone else, so that was good.

Antics at the church - a ball had gotten stuck on the roof,
so the elderes went and saved it. And Hna Escobar and her guitar skills!

Then hiked back over to the church for Coordinacion Misional, stayed a little bit afterward to help plan the baptism of Paola for tomorrow (the elderes of Santa Cruz are teaching her), then Hna Escobar and I went and bought ingredients to make cookies as refreshment for the baptism as no one has money or knows how to make anything, and we then went back to the church to help the choir practice and we stayed for the workshop on Family History as there was low attendance and the family we would have dinner with said they would bring it to the church.

A giant baleada that we had for dinner, delish!

And then we went back home, planned, made the cookies, and got ready for bed.

Cookie time!

"No-bake" cookies!

I will just say that there are some serious gender stereotypes here, anything to do with cooking, cleaning, children and preparation is immediately mandated to women. I'm not a feminist, I don't hate men, I recognize the importance of roles in a family and I actually enjoy doing all of the above. It just rubbed me the wrong way when our mission leader just started delegating all the piano music, refreshment, and building cleaning to us (Hna Escobar and I) without prior consultation and didn't expect any objections. So we objected and made reassignments to just do the cookies. Poor guys sat there with their jaws dropped. Crazy how I actually do have a brain and I will use it to think, thank you very much.

Other than that it was a good day, lots of walking around, and now my body is tired. But I am really enjoying my mango body wash (thanks, Mom!) so that's a bright spot.

Wednesday, October 21, 2015 -- Month #8 - Week #36 - Day #247 - Santa Cruz de Yojoa

Today was tough, we visited some very interesting people who said a lot of interesting things and didn't really want to listen to us. Got preached to for 40 minutes at a time about stuff that is incorrect and doesn't make any sense, logical or doctrinal.

We were talking with this one lady, and at the end of the lesson this little old grandpa came out and had a seat, and when we said goodbye to everyone (because you personally say hello and goodbye to every single person in the room/space where you are) we shook his hand and he said that he sends his greetings to our husbands...so that was kinda funny. Lots of people are very surprised to learn that we are single, don't have children, pay for our own missions, and are so young (although 23-27 years old really isn't actually that young to go on a mission...at 19 yrs old I'm practically an embryo!) to be "andando en las cosas de Dios, predicando la Palabra". To be honest those phrases kinda bother me, but that's how people talk here. Anyways.

We also ran over to the bank to pay our light bill of 5 lemps. Pretty cheap for a month of electricity! You just go over to whatever bank with your money and your little receipt, and say "I would like to pay my light bill, please" and they type in the numbers and take your money, give you another receipt, and that's it. 5 minutes.

And we still have an abundance of naked kids (literally) running around, bathing in the pila, nursing, whatever. And none of the dogs or cats or anything are fixed, so imagine that as well. And very public breastfeeding. And shirtless guys walking around. And a whole lot of other stuff. I feel very protected and safe in my clothes, thank you very much! Even though it gets hot, I'm happy wearing my 3 layers with sleeves and longer skirts. Rock those clothes!

But, upside to everything of today, we had papaya y miel! Or steamed/boiled papaya with honey and sugar, very delicious, tastes kinda caramelly. We were talking to another lady and she was making dinner, so she invited us to try papaya y miel. So that was pretty awesome.

Papaya y miel

Tuesday, October 20, 2015 -- Month #8 - Week #36 - Day #246 - Santa Cruz de Yojoa

This morning we went and bought and hauled our 5 gallon jug of water to our house. I sometimes pretend it's a big, awkward child that doesn't want to move but has to be carried all the way uphill and into the house. My arms are tired.

Today we Hna Escobar and I gave the capacitacion during Reunion de Distrito. We've ALL been having somewhat of a rough time right now, for one thing or another, whether it be impatience, poor health, waiting girlfriend troubles, almost finishing the mission, can't sleep at night, having difficulty with Spanish, some tension between companions (Hna Escobar and I are totally fine on this one, don't worry!), misconceptions some ward members have of the missionaries...all sorts of stuff is happening over here.

So we decided to have a message mostly about our well-being as a whole and kinda help ourselves get back on track and re-centered in our calling to be full-time missionaries. We each shared our testimonies in turn, and each spoke about some things that were special for them, and we all felt better and more at peace afterward. And to help us laugh and be happy, we played with La Lechuga Preguntona from last night's FHE, and gave out some candies. So in all it was a good time, so we were happy about that.

And in the ruta I received a letter and I GOT MY PACKAGE!!! Thank you family!

Box from home!

My flat iron!  Guess mom didn't like me taking a regular iron to my head?!!

We also got a box of copies of the Book of Mormon, 3 packages of folletos about the Restoration, and some first aid kit items. So we were heavily laden as we traveled on the bus and hiked all the way to our house. (From the bus stop to our house it's about a 10-15 min walk on a 40-degree grade, which isn't too bad, but with all those blasted rocks and our boxes and backpacks and everything, it was a little more tricky than usual, and I was already tired from hauling water and not eating a filling breakfast). We were very hungry and thirsty and tired when we got home, to say the least. But we got everything up to our house (even our "yard" is hiking uphill in calf-high grass), collapsed on the floor, turned the fan on high, and started going through my package and snacking on gummy worms and freeze dried ice cream and Goldfish.

It's the little things that bring you back home...just for a second!

So we were a lot happier then. Got everything put away, and made ourselves some lunch and settled our heart rates.

We then took off to go clean the church as some service, and I got to clean the baptism font! Whoohoo! So that was probably my favorite part. Got to take off my sandals and hike up my skirt (to my knees, thank you) and slide around in the bubbles! Hna Escobar hadn't cleaned a baptism font before, so she watched in awe and laughed as I enjoyed myself swishing around. Service with a smile, right?

It also rained today, but that's becoming quite normal, and honestly not my favorite thing in the world, but it happens. Just to let ya'll know.

And we practiced again with the choir...problem is that this is the Semana de la Familia, and everyone wants to do a musical number all of a sudden, so that doesn't work out very well for accompaniment. But, we'll get along eventually. Growing pains.

Monday, October 19, 2015 -- Month #8 - Week #35 - Day #245 - Santa Cruz de Yojoa

Today we went to El Cajon, the (I think) biggest dam in Honduras, so that was really neat.

Typical dangly thingies in cars / buses - everyone has religion out the wazoo!

We made it to El Cajon!!

The dam is REALLY big!

One of the guys there said that it was built by the Italians, which surprised me. We walked across the top of the dam and farther along on the ground, and also a bridge that's being built, so that was also very cool.

An "Indiana Jones" style bridge that we did NOT go on!!

We had a heck of a time figuring out rides to and from, as there's not actually normal transport that runs over there, so we ended up hitching rides with buses and rapiditos, as a district plus our zone leaders (8 missionaries) which made it even harder as most of those busses and rapiditos were already full, but we were all safe and ok. I will say that it was a totally typical Honduran adventure. Yeehaw!

So we got back finally from all that fun, and wrote and bought some food, and got back home to change and get ready for a FHE with a less active family we're working with to help teach their 9 year old daughter and prepare the dad so he can baptize her. So that was fun, we prepared a game with La Lechuga Preguntona that turned out really well.

It was fun because her whole life, Hna Escobar had thought that you say lettuce like "leht-WEES" with a French accent, so we had a good laugh when I figured out what she meant. Ah, languages. But I recently learned that eggplant is berenjena and artichoke is alcachofa, somewhat similar in pronunciation. Everyone has a hard time with saying fruits and veggies in English, so I'll just stick to learning what everything is in Spanish!

Good day overall, we didn't have time to wash clothes due to our excursion all day long, so we'll have to find time during the week to do that. But, good news, we've had water in the pila and the house these past few days, so that's been wonderful!