Sunday, October 18, 2015 -- Month #8 - Week #35 - Day #244 - Santa Cruz de Yojoa

Whoohoo! I have 8 months! And Hna Escobar has 7!  Next month I'll be halfway through the mission. 

Today was good, had good meetings in the church, and I played all the hymns again, although they changed the Sacrament hymn on me. I love it when they do that.

And we did a Supercontacto this afternoon as an activity of la Obra Misional, and had pizza afterwards. I'll tell more about that later, but basically we got a bunch of members together and the other 4 elderes and we all did divisions and contacted all around our area for 2 hours. It was awesome!

Hna Escobar and me! I love that girl!

Saturday, October 17, 2015 -- Month #7 - Week #35 - Day #243 - Santa Cruz de Yojoa

It's fun because I'm learning a whole bunch of words that are Honduran, just like the other latinos that come here for the mission, so that's a fun little factoid. Everyone's learning here. 

Some words so far are:

- chinear (carry-give a lift-hold on lap)

- macizo (cool-neat)

- pichingo (cartoon)

- va'pue' (go on then, alright)

- pollo chuco ("dirty chicken", fried chicken with tajadas)

- macanudo (cool-crazy-fun)

- que pasada (what craziness: like when responding to someone telling a story, as a side comment)

- chiki (referring to persons, people calling from rapiditos if they want a ride: "Maeco, chiki, maeco van")

- cheque leque (okey-dokey)

- chancho (pig-animal)

- dentren (come in, really isn't a word, should be without the d at the beginning)

- piscina (pool, but they say "peekseena" which is incorrect pronounciation)

- costurar (sew: normally it's "coser")

- la calor and el tele which is using the incorrect gender of words

- revuelto (all mixed up, a mess)

- churros (chips)

- pulperia (those little house stores that sell churros and soda)

- guirro/guirra (boy/girl)

- Ejene (the way they say "ensene")

- compa (man/buddy)

- chasta (bad/that sucks)

- chuna (barefoot)

And other assorted words. I love Honduran Spanish.

And everyone's convinced that I'm a ballerina, so that's fun as well. It is true that I know the basic ballet forms, but everyone says it's because I sit up straight. No one sits up straight here.

And cows literally cross the roads all the time. More when you're going up to el Zapote, but there's always a whole ton of chickens and dogs and everything all over the place. I love animals!

And we made a fun little FHE teaching tool: La Lechuga Preguntona! You write little questions or things to get to know people on pieces of paper shaped like leaves, and tape them to a ball, and then you pass the Lettuce around like hot potato and then you have to answer the question when it lands on you. We're gonna use it in a FHE we have planned for Monday.

La Lechuga Preguntona! :P  

Friday, October 16, 2015 -- Month #7 - Week #35 - Day #242 - Santa Cruz de Yojoa

Hna Robles and Hna Archila have 18 months! Can't believe they finish the mission on the 28th. El fin se acerca, y hay poco tiempo!  (The end is near, and there is very little time!)

Me playing around with my hair, Hna Escobar is astounded
with my braiding skills!

And we were told that we had Coordinacion Misional a few hours beforehand today, so that was hard because we already had set plans to be in el Zapote in the afternoon, so we were kinda late to the meeting, but we never start on time anyways so we didn't feel bad. Then we went around looking for a reference we received, but as the addresses here aren't really addresses, so good luck. You always end up contacting at least 5-6 people while trying to find someone, and when you finally get to the right house they people aren't home or don't want to listen. Just how the world works.

But as we were wandering around, we met up with a family and I finally learned how to form and cook flour tortillas, so that's pretty neat. I'm still a little uncertain on the recipe part, but we're making progress! I really enjoyed playing with the masa.

It also rained a whole lot this morning/afternoon/night, so it's been pretty wet and cool. We decided to go to el Zapote in the afternoon and stay there for lunch to not take up so much time traveling, but it started raining, so we took shelter in the porch of a house that nobody was living in to eat. Nothing creepy, just sat on the cinder block ledge and ate our PBJ's.

As it was raining, a dog decided to come join us as well, really nice animal. Of course all the dogs live in the street, so he wasn't the most beautiful dog ever, but he had a nice white coat and brown and blue eyes. We named him Quasi because his eyes are different colors. 

Quasi - Our Protector!

 We gave him bits of our sandwiches, and some granola, and he let us rub his head. Then a boxer dog came in under the porch, and Hna Escobar got a little concerned because they're very aggressive dogs and get big, so we were afraid to have the two dogs in the same spot, but Quasi sat himself in between us and the boxer and curled his body towards us and everything was alright until the boxer left a few minutes later.

Hna Escobar said that Quasi was protecting us from the boxer, so that was neat. Good dog, gonna miss him and I'm sad he doesn't have a home. 

And we finally found this one lady we've been trying to visit for the past few weeks, we found her washing laundry in the pila, so we decided it would be a very good idea to help her, as she's 8 months pregnant and her tummy was enormous. So we got to wash clothes for an hour, but we got a lesson in! Whoohoo! I actually enjoy washing clothes, it's fun to play with all the bubbles.

We also met some wonderful Catholics who had no idea about the Trinity/Godhead (the same word in Spanish: Trinidad) which was a little strange as that's a very Catholic idea. So we taught them some more about that and the Plan of Salvation. Good people.

And I've also seen 2 children with Down's syndrome here in Santa Cruz, the dearest little kiddos. God sends spectacular spirits in imperfect bodies.

And I thought I'd mention that I'm reading the Book of Mormon in Spanish from beginning to end, and studying with the manual from Rel 121-122 as well for every chapter (also in Spanish). Really neat experience, Nephi is seriously awesome. Laman and Lemuel are knuckleheads, but everyone else is pretty good. I enjoy having the different perspective of a language and the commentaries from the manual. Good stuff!

Thursday, October 15, 2015 -- Month #7 - Week #35 - Day #241 - Santa Cruz de Yojoa

Planeamiento Semanal, did some visits, Coordinacion Misional got canceled on us, so we did some more visits, and went and played for choir practice. I think we're gonna have this be a permanent thing (at least for another 6 weeks if I don't go this change on the 28th of this month) with practice on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. It also rained again all day long.

And we had hamburgers for dinner! Granted they're not the same as American burgers or the ones we always made at home, but they were reasonably close and tasted pretty good.

We were also informed that the lady that gave us dinner on Fridays isn't able to anymore, so that's interesting news. We'll just eat at home, and it gives us some more time to go teach, so we're not upset or anything.

But, Hna Escobar and I made cookies! Whoohoo! Partly because we felt like making something yummy to offset so much rain, and have something to share with the elderes. So we were pretty happy tonight. They're no-bake cookies (we don't have an oven, just a 2 burner stove), as they hardened up in the fridge, but they're a very welcome burst of chocolate and peanut butter and sugar. So that was really fun.

Wednesday, October 14, 2015 -- Month #7 - Week #35 - Day #240 - Santa Cruz de Yojoa

Divisions with the Hnas Lideres Entrenadores! Things went well, they came late so we didn't have quite as many lessons as we wanted, but good day overall. I finally went with Hna Archila for the first and last time, as she's finishing the mission on the 28th with Hna Robles. So we'll see who's the new companion of Hna Estracuy (the nurse now) and who'll be the new companion of Hna Delgadillo. Changes are coming!

Really wasn't that exciting of a day, to be honest, just went around and did our stuff. Got rained on, but that's becoming a normal occurrence.

Tuesday, October 13, 2015 -- Month #7 - Week #35 - Day #239 - Santa Cruz de Yojoa

Tuesday! Went to Potrerillos, received some palabritas de amor from E Olivas, came home, made a fantabulous lunch, went and contacted up a storm for 3 hours, and then went to the church so that I could play piano and help teach the newly formed ward choir how to sing some hymns.

We're really tired and hungry from so much walking. And we were informed out of the blue that the Hermanas Lideres Entrenadores are gonna come and do divisions with us tomorrow. Suprise!

I had a cool experience as we were going back to Santa Cruz in the bus, as earlier E Olivas had given us some counsel about different aspects of missionary work, and how a lot of times just saying hi and asking how people are doing as you contact helps to start everything off right and helps them feel good and more interested. So on the bus, good little missionary that I am, started talking to the gentleman next to me, and after everything he made the comment that he was happy that I had said hi and asked how we were. He had received a good impression of us and was willing for us to come visit him and his family. It was actually a pretty neat little experience. So there's some blessings for being obedient!

As we were eating lunch today we watched the Restoration video (20 min version) and part of "The Testaments" in Spanish, and we got to the part where Kohor starts talking to Jacob, and the voice is obviously different in Spanish because it's a different person doing the voice-over, a lot more friendly and normal than the actual actor's voice. But I wanted to show Hna Escobar how creepy his voice really is, so we stopped it, switched over to English, fast-forwarded until the part again, played, and we both freaked out over his voice. It sounds like how dirty feels and looks. Ugh. Hna Escobar's eyes went wide and she got the shivers. Then we switched back into Spanish and were fine.

I also made a quesillo and red bean tortilla folded in half for part of my dinner tonight, and was quite pleased with myself. I have no idea what you would call it, but it was good. And I had some bell pepper and finished up my little bottle of banana-flavored soda. 

And a very common phrase that we're encountered:

"Hola, hermanita, que tal? Como esta?"

"Pues, aqui, mirando/viendo-las."

Which translates to us asking how someone's doing and them answering that they're there, looking at us. Kinda an interesting response, a little bit hard to make a comment somehow connected to the subject of us standing in front of them. Anyways, just wanted to let y'all know that we get that a lot.

And a list of some of the churches that we've encountered so far in our areas of Santa Cruz, there's quite a few, and we somehow manage to find new ones every few days. And there's even more in the parts where the elderes are at. Just something to think about.

- La Cosecha

- La Sala Evangelica

- La Iglesia de Dios, Hermandad Cristiana

- El Templo de Sinai (La Asamblea de Dios)

- Alfa y Omega

- Los Adventistas del Septimo Dia

- La Iglesia de Jesus, el Verdadero Dios

- La Iglesia del Dios de la Biblia

- La Iglesia Biblica Bautista Independiente

- El Ministerio Iglesia de Jesucristo: Alfa y Omega

- El Ministerio Internacional: La Arca del Pacto del Vino y Aceite Nuevo (they've got their own apostle and a prophetess as well...they're husband and wife and lead the church)

- La Iglesia de Cristo

- La Iglesia Luterana Monte Getsemani

- Congregacion Evangelica Centroamericana: Genesaret (their sign also has the words "Mas vosotros sois linaje escogido")

- Los Testigos de Jehova (their sign out front says "El Salon del Reino de los Testigos de Jehova")

- La Iglesia Livertando a los Cautibos

- La Iglesia Catolica

- La Iglesia Evangelica Filadelfia

- MAAM (El Ministerio Apostolico Avance Misionero)

- La Luz del Mundo (an Evangelical church)

- La Iglesia Evangelica Reformada

- La Iglesia Shaddai

- La Iglesia Fuente Luminosa Centroamericana

- La Iglesia de Cristo Ebenezer

- La Iglesia Bautista

And a Jewish denomination that I didn't quite catch the name of, but they meet in SPS, so the member have to travel quite a bit to get there.

Quite the list, huh? And we somehow keep finding new churches all the time. Amazing how we have so many religions all in just one little town. "But we all worship the same God, right? So the path doesn't matter" ...umm, don't think so!

Monday, October 12, 2015 -- Month #7 - Week #34 - Day #238 - Santa Cruz de Yojoa

Pday! We stayed home and washed clothes for 3 hours, cleaned house, wrote some letters, and painted our toes. Then we went and wrote our homies (hi homies!), bought a bunch of food for the week, got ourselves ready again at home, and visited Lolita and then had dinner with la familia Flores. And came back home, planned for tomorrow, took a normal shower (as our pila/house water came back! Whoohoo!) and hopped into bed.

Big events of today: I painted my toesies a beautiful, sparkly, raspberry jam sort of color, with some nail polish I found in a store a few weeks back and had been wanting to try out, which is part of the reason I'm painting my toes again. So that was awesome, I was really happy with my sparkly raspberry toes!

We also bought a flyswatter (matamoscas, or "fly-killer"), por fin!  So now we're killing 8-10 flies a day that decide they want to live in our house and land on us and eat our food. No more! Die flies, die! So we have some fun adventures as we're jumping around, swatting a plethora of flies. Good times.

And all the music everywhere today was of the usual bachata-reggaeton-pop mix, but there was a whole lot of 80's classic rock thrown in there, so I was jamming on that. Made me think of my Dad, and all the times he's in the computer room or the garage, doing his stuff, playing his songs at full volume. I miss him.

But yeah, good day, actually went by really fast. But we're ready to get back into gear for another week! Only have this and another week left before cambios again.  

[Excerpt from a personal email to the Madre:]

"That's awesome that y'all are ponderizing, praying and getting spiritually fed even before seminary. Very good start to the day. As missionaries, we start each day with 2 hours of studying the scriptures, General Conference talks, Church manuals, Liahonas, Preach My Gospel, and other materials individually and as a companionship.

I am developing an unshakable testimony of this Church. It is of Christ, and He has given us, as missionaries, the authority and calling to teach about it. There is power in knowledge, and the Spirit is the Teacher of all things. The plan of God is perfect for us. We are His children, and He loves us. He knows us personally and wants us to be happy. We have families to help us learn and grow, and the prophets guide us today as they have done in ancient times. Christ established His Church upon the pillars of prophets, apostles, priesthood power, revelation, and the scriptures. Due to the wickedness of the world, this great light was taken from the earth for a time, but God called again to a worthy young man to prepare himself to be an instrument in the hands of the Lord to restore the gospel in its fullness. We have the same organization of the true Church of Jesus Christ, and we enjoy great blessings.

These are the principles of the first lesson we teach to people, and they pretty much reject it all and have no interest when we teach. They do not listen, and they do not understand. So that is sad. It really is. But I am all the more grateful to know that my family is trying to do what is right and am happy to know that you guys are being blessed and becoming stronger as a family. That brings me a lot of comfort. Keep on keeping on!"  :)