Tuesday, November 17, 2015 -- Month #8 - Week #40 - Day #274 - Santa Cruz de Yojoa

Today was interesting. Didn't really do much, and all our District is just kinda wiped and really out of it.

But we went to Potrerillos, like always, and the bus was slower than usual, so we got there a little late, even though we left on time-ish. Also got half the stuff we asked for in the Ruta. I swear I'm gonna smack those elderes on the head when I see them. All the office elderes that were there when I came to the mission are gone, and now everything is driving me crazy. Deep breaths. So we'll try again next week. We're just still really happy we got our stove last week. That was a really big step in the right direction! And now we're back to baby steps in the opposite direction. Ninos.

And it was a long bus ride back to Santa Cruz, walked home, had lunch, I wrote some more letters to various people that need some more encouragement in their lives while Hna Escobar took a quick nap (she wasn't feeling well). And we took off again, our Ward Mission Leader had said that he was gonna go on some visits with us today, but we called and called, and he didn't answer. Then when we were talking with some people he called and cancelled. So we'll try again tomorrow. And then we had choir practice as now we're getting ready for Christmas! That's kinda crazy.

And a local seasoning called achiote. 

You dry out the seeds, grind them up, and toss it in soups,
mantucas, tamales, whatever, to turn it orange.

So, fun story, we've still been without water these past few days, and now the light is also going out. We came home for lunch, and we were cooking on our little stove. I opened the microwave to put some food in to warm up, and as I shut the door and raised my finger to push the button, the power went out. Honduras!

On the bus we listened to a song that was talking about how this guy doesn't want to drink water, he just wants alcohol. Great message. I think the world has enough drunk people, I would suggest that water is better. Helps your liver, and you don't get so dehydrated. Hmhmm.

And we did an act of service in Potrerillos as we were leaving the meeting. Our district was walking over to the bus stop and we passed a lady carrying a lamina (sheet of corrugated metal for roofs) and her kids carrying a cooler and a bag of stuff, so good missionaries that we are, we carried everything for a good 20 minutes as we walked over to where she was going. E Ordonez and I manned the lamina, Hna Escobar got the bag, E Bate carried the cooler, and E Lorenzana was carrying Hna Escobar's and my box of copies of the Book of Mormon (there's 25 books, and it actually weighs a decent amount. I can carry it fine, but it's still heavy), and E Hess went and bought some pineapple. And talked to the lady. Together we're gonna conquer the world! With love and service!

So after contacting and inviting and dropping off the lady we walked another 20 minutes back to the bus stop, where E Hess bought more pineapple. The other elderes bought water and some chips. I swear these elderes buy food in every pulperia and fruit stand we pass. I usually carry little packs of cookies to give them when we're on the bus and they're hungry. They make me smile.

And fact about Honduras (and maybe Central America): parents tend to hold their children by their forearms and lead them around like that, as opposed to holding their hand like we do back home. Just thought that was interesting that it's different. I like holding hands better.

Monday, November 16, 2015 -- Month #8 - Week #39 - Day #273 - Santa Cruz de Yojoa

Pday! Cleaned house real fast and then headed to the church to play American football with the elderes. Then headed back over to Wings and More for lunch.

Me and my baleada shirt! Soy catracha!

Problem is, there was some group of people from the States that was there and so we waited over an hour for our food. The elderes were kinda ticked about that because we're very regular customers there and the other people got priority. They were some Christian group that goes around and builds churches or something. But the people already have a ridiculous amount of churches. Ha saber. So we FINALLY all ate and headed over to write our families, then bought a few groceries, got cleaned up, and went to our dinner appointment.

Later today our water went out. And it was raining towards the afternoon. Whoo!

But we did an act of service: there's a REALLY inactive lady that lives over in el Zapote, but her son is serving the mission. So she called us to meet her in Centro to give us a bag of stuff she wants to send to her son. So now we have to give this bag to Kathia Ramos, and she's gonna send it off to him because she's helping with all the arrangements and communication with this poor guy. 

And E Hess forgot his Missionary Manual-wallet in the internet place, so we gotta give it to him tomorrow in District Meeting. And E Bate somehow lost his camera charger, so I'm trying to figure out a solution for that as well. And I sent some stuff out for Christmas, and our Financial Secretary took the entire cost of mailing out of my stipend thing that we get every 15 days, instead of making regular deductions, so now I basically don't have any money. Yeah.

And had some really strange dreams waking up this morning. I don't think I'm sleeping very well. Maybe I'm stressed out again?

And since the water was out and we went to play ball with the elderes we didn't have time to wash clothes. But the water came back for about 20 minutes so I washed some things real fast, and then it went out again before I could shower. So we hauled water to the house from the pila, and we're working with that now.

And a freaky spider creature we found out in our pila the other night. Ick.

And our dinner was cold spaghetti with under-cooked red beans and fried green plantains. Not my favorite. Eatable, but not my favorite. Fried green plantains are mealy and bitter and make your teeth and gums just feel weird. They're not quite tajadas, but aren't ripe enough to be the good fried plantains that taste sweet and a little bit banana-y.

And the elderes went and got their hair cut and they all got nicked and their hair turned out badly because the guy was new. And has gripe or something. So we're all just a bunch of happy campers right now. Kinda a lame Pday. Sorry such a sad update. Hopefully tomorrow's better.

Sunday, November 15, 2015 -- Month #8 - Week #39 - Day #272 - Santa Cruz de Yojoa

15-11-15

Fun little date, right? I like it when it mirrors itself...numerical palindrome! (didn't think I remembered that word, huh? brain power!)

JAVIER CAME TO CHURCH!!!!!!!!!!!!! Applause! Shouts! Cheers! Whoohoo! Finally someone got some of the joke. Hopefully he'll come back next week. We've been working with him since I got here, way back in August. We actually left him for a time, and went and visited again yesterday, pulled a machete scripture out on him, and he came to church today. There you go.

Maybe we just gotta be even MORE direct with our messages and start pulling punches to wake the people up a bit. Who knows. We're just happy he came. Good guy, just needs a lot of nudging and pushing. 3 Nefi 13:31-32 works miracles.

And we did the Supercontacto in Yojoa, so that was good. We just did it with the leaders, not everyone. I was in the group that went and visited some less-actives. Yojoa is less-developed than Santa Cruz, so there's a lot more plants. Very pretty.

And a shot from Yojoa. The thing is that the land is really pretty.
The living conditions, not so much, but the plants and trees
and everything look really nice.

And I had cacao for the first time! Interesting little fruit. You smack the pod against a tree or the pila or whatever, and crack it open. Then you see a whole ton of white pulpy seeds in a 5 sided arrangement. Scoop out a triangle seed, suck off the sweet/acidic white stuff, and spit out the seed. You then wash and set the seeds out to dry, take off the skin, and grind them into cocao powder. Add some water and sugar, heat it up, and you got chocolate.  You're welcome.

Saturday, November 14, 2015 -- Month #8 - Week #39 - Day #271 - Santa Cruz de Yojoa

Today we got to work! I love working! Lots of walking and talking and finding and listening to a bunch of ridiculous stuff. We have some very creative minds here. But we had some good lessons, hopefully somebody will come to church tomorrow. Nobody we're teaching comes to church. Seriously. But yeah, nothing really notable happened.

Tonight we got all the stuff ready for the Supercontacto in Yojoa tomorrow. 

Friday, November 13, 2015 -- Month #8 - Week #39 - Day #270 - Santa Cruz de Yojoa

Divisions! With Karolhyna and Elizabeth, 2 Young Women, so that was awesome. We made up some ground from not working so much this week, so we were happy. Also had our Coordinacion Misional, so that was also good. We've officially moved it to Friday since Legran always moves it to that day because of his work or whatever.

And we found some less actives that weren't very happy to see us. We have some really lovely people here.

Thursday, November 12, 2015 -- Month #8 - Week #39 - Day #269 - Santa Cruz de Yojoa

We had Weekly Planning and lunch, then the elderes from Yojoa came down to Santa Cruz and all 6 of us walked around Heart Attacking the doors of the ward members this afternoon so that those from Yojoa and us would get to know the members and where they all live (99.9% live in the area of the elderes in Santa Cruz).

Actually pretty fun experience...the elderes are ridiculous. But it was interesting to see how they contact and interact with the people in their missionary modes, and not when they're joking around with us. Kinda fun to see how other missionaries work, as we don't do divisions with the elderes, we have the Hna Lideres Entrenadores that come once every change. Little bit different situation. But, still good.

We found a rainbow in our Heart Attack! It started raining,
and then afterwards we saw a huge rainbow!

So we did that all the afternoon, and then we somehow ended up in a member's house, chopping wood. I really enjoyed that, actually. I'm not an expert, and I've only chopped wood a few times before, but it was pretty fun. You get really tired, but it was fun. Problem was, there was this trunk they were cutting apart that had a whole bunch of knots in it, which makes everything WAY more complicated. So all 6 six of us took turns hammering in pins and shims and whatnot to split this trunk with a 15 lb sledgehammer.

Sledgehammer time! Feeling like Thor :)

We ended up "tree-wrestling"... quite an interesting sport, requires much strength, precision, and exclamations of frustration in Spanish!

Yeah, took us about an hour or so, but we did it! So we were all pretty proud of ourselves. The service we do in Honduras is mostly of a hard physical labor nature (which is why the hnas almost never get invited to do service), like digging giant 10 foot holes, building walls with cinder block and concrete, splitting tree trucks, helping people move houses...that sort of stuff. But it was nice to finally have a physical outlet. I explained the psychology of exercise to Hna Escobar, and she was quite amazed. Definitely important to do stuff! Outside! You'll feel much better, promise.

Oh yeah, almost forgot to mention that we visited this one family that has a VERY nice house. Like they have granite counter tops. I have NEVER seen granite anything in Honduras. Ever. Blew my mind.

And we FINALLY got our stove! Happy Day!
We don't have to wait 40 minutes for water to boil!

Wednesday, November 11, 2015 -- Month #8 - Week #39 - Day #268 - Santa Cruz de Yojoa

Let's go to the most dangerous zone in the most dangerous city in the world for a missionary conference! Yeah, so we went back up to Chamelecon (which is basically the southeast part of SPS) for the Multi-zone, but we went with our 4 elderes, so we were ok. Mostly it's the bus ride that kills, between 1.5-2 hours. So I slept some of it on Hna Escobar's lap, as I was tired and still a little gripey (although staying home and sleeping a whole day really helped me feel a lot better this time...last time we just kept working and I was feeling terrible for over a week). And then the bus overshot our stop, so we had to walk a few minutes to get to the actual stop and then head over to the chapel. Everyone says that as a member you learn to recognize the presence of the Spirit, and that as a missionary you learn to recognize when He's not there. And in Chamelecon it is hard to feel the Holy Ghost. You just feel dark and dirty and bothered and a little fearful. It was in interesting experience.  I can't say I liked it very much. But once you walk into the church, you feel safe and light and ok and know you can trust the people you see. Quite a stark contrast, actually. Made me wonder if that's kinda how people feel when they come to the church for the first time. I'll keep thinking about that.

So had our conference, where I led all the music (as no one else in the universe likes to / knows how to lead music) and had lunch, talked with Pres and Hna Dester about how things are going with the members, ward, general health stuff, and how I'm doing and everything. I like talking to them, they're really good people.

Notes from the Multi-Zone with a little chart thing about the importance
of the Atonement...I take notes in both Spanish and English,
in case you were wondering.

Finished up the conference, hung out a little while afterwards as everyone caught up with everyone, and headed back home on another blessed bus, but this one drove really fast and we got there in about an hour and 15 mins. World record. So we got home to Santa Cruz with it pouring rain, and the power out. Fantastic! So we decided to go to the church and eat our dinner and wait out the storm and the power outage. So we did that, and the lights came on just in time for Hna Escobar and I to go back to our house. So that was our day.

Fact of the day: Every time the phone vibrates on our plastic table it startles Hna Escobar. So I hear a lot of sharp breaths and "gran poder!" as she jumps in her chair. It's really funny, makes me laugh. I love Hna Escobar!

But today was actually a pretty good day, the conference was mostly about the Atonement and what this implies in relation to the Creation and the Fall. The Creation supplied many good things, and the Fall allowed other good things, but only with the Atonement is everything complete. There's a few talks in the Liahona that I was reading in my personal study about this as well.

-  The Temple and the Natural Order of Marriage by Elder Bruce C. Hafen

-  The Plan of Salvation: A Sacred Treasure of Knowledge to Guide Us by Elder Robert D. Hales

-  Where Justice, Love, and Mercy Meet by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland

-  The Gift of Grace by President Dieter F. Uchtdorf

-  The Eternal Perspective of the Gospel by Elder Rafael E. Pino

And, it should be noted that the Atonement of Jesus Christ was in 3 parts: in Gethsemane, on the Cross, and the Resurrection, thus bringing about salvation from physical death (separation of spirit and body) as well as spiritual death (separation of us and God).  So simple, yet permeates all the lives of everyone in all of time.  It's amazing. I would suggest a study of this subject as well.