Thursday, March 10, 2016 -- Month #12 - Week #56 - Day #388 - El Dorado, La Entrada, Copan

Weekly Planning! Lunch! Visits! Home! Nothing really interesting happened today, other than the fact that it's been quite warm the past few days. And I found out that you can dye chicks different colors and sell them for 5 lemps apiece. Although they say that the chicks die because of all the chemicals. But they use natural colorings. But I don't really know any natural coloring that will give you bright magenta. Chemistry people, look into that for me.

We got to hold a purple chick!

Hna Cruz

And we found another church, Ministerio Internacional: Libres para Adorar. Very creative names, I gotta hand it to these people. I remember in my sophomore year of high school, I think it was, that we had to do a religion project in our World Geography class or whatever it was, and we had to make up a religion with a name and everything. I think most people here would get an A on that assignment.

Wednesday, March 09, 2016 -- Month #12 - Week #56 - Day #387 - El Dorado, La Entrada, Copan

Wednesday! Which means cambios! Got everyone up and ready early, and hauled all the suitcases and backpacks and whatnot over to the church so the cambios bus could pick everyone and everything up. Then we came back home and slept for a little bit because we were exhausted from the past 2 days of craziness. And then got ourselves ready and studied and had lunch with Hna Olympia who will have eye surgery tomorrow, she's a sweet old lady. Kinda quirky, but I love her.

Then we sorted some more stuff out with the ZL's, and did some visits. We were supposed to help teach the hnas of the Relief Society a country dance, but they never came to the church, so we just kinda waited a little bit and swept the church until la Noche de Hermanamiento. That all went well, and we headed home. Overall, fairly quiet day, still kinda tired.

Tuesday, March 08, 2016 -- Month #12 - Week #56 - Day #386 - El Dorado, La Entrada, Copan

Alright, today was a crazy day. I will sum it up by saying "2 duos and then it turned into 2 trios of hnas walking around in our area all day long and then sleeping in our house". Yeah.

We had our last Zone Meeting where all the people having changes and those finishing their missions shared their testimonies and our ZL's talked about how Alma 17, 18, 26 talk about the mission: cambios, working with the leaders. giving service, being obedient, all that fun stuff. It was actually really neat, it's fun when you can apply the scriptures in different ways. There have been thousands of years of missionaries and they all follow the same pattern. Just gotta do the right things and it will be fine.

Our District

Then we went to lunch and then things started getting crazy. Originally the Copan Ruinas hnas were gonna stay with us because they had a doctor's appointment in the morning and they get carsick, so they came early today and dropped their stuff off at our house and waited until we needed to leave for Zone Meeting. And the Dolores hnas had changes and needed to get up to SPS on the change bus. Then the Copan Ruinas hnas changed their minds and said that they would come up tomorrow and just be carsick. And then the Santa Cruz hnas needed to stay with us because they had an interview with Pres Dester and they also needed to get on the changes bus. But they had to go back to their area (about an 1.5 hour bus ride) and pack up and come back because they arranged the interview on the bus ride up to La Entrada. So we needed to go back to our house to let the Copan Ruinas hnas get their stuff and go home, and drop the stuff off of the Dolores hnas, and then haul everybody back to lunch and then back to the house to plan for this crazy day. It's like the logic puzzle about the boat crossing the stream with the goat, hay and lion, or whatever, and they can't all go together so you have to figure out how to get everyone across in 3 trips. But everything was figured out and we got ourselves ready to work in the afternoon, I went with Hna Lopez and Hna Cruz went with Hna Rodriguez, Did a few lessons and some contacting, then we had to regroup at the house again because the Santa Rosa hnas had come back with their stuff. So then we went in trios, me with Lopez and Rodriguez, and Cruz with Phillips and Jimenez. Continued lessons and whatnot, then grabbed some baleadas for dinner and crashed at the house.

Got everyone showered and teeth brushed and prayed and got to bed! We dragged in the other mattress from the spare room and we slept each companionship in a bed. Yup! Long day, super tired!

Monday, March 07, 2016 -- Month #12 - Week #55 - Day #385 - El Dorado, La Entrada, Copan

Pday! We went to the Ruinas (for my 3rd time, I think) because Hna Cruz, Bautista and E Alfaro, Martinez and Benitez hadn't gone. So we all trooped down and explored the ruins, had a good time.

Back in time to Copan Ruinas!

Together with our Zone

Hna Mower and Hna Cruz

We found some bats in one of the recesses in the Ruinas

Got all hot and sweaty (it's gonna be really hot this week) but we had a good time. There was a tour group of Germans looking around, and one of them actually ended up being in one of our pictures. Go Germany! It's interesting to be in Copan Ruinas because there are people from all over the place, usually lots of Europeans.

A random German lady was in one of our pics...

Hna Mower - Copan Ruinas

We had a LONG bus ride back to La Entrada, and wrote our families and bought a few things, and made a birthday cake for Keyla, our recent convert, as today is her birthday and we're gonna do a surprise party for her.

Made the cake (it was a tiramisu-esque cake...soaked these big cookie things in chocolate milk and layered it with whipped cream with cinnamon and cherries on top) and took it over to Wilmer's house and had the party. Everything went well and we got back home after a very long and crazy day.

Birthday party for Keyla

Fun fact from Honduras: people tend to write "N" backwards in signs and whatnot. I don't know why, but it's hard to find a normal "N". And there's quotation marks all over the place. We don't underline things here, we put " ".  Also don't know why. It makes everything seem kinda sarcastic. We're gonna go to the pulperia "La Bendicion" (that's a real name, it's up the street from our house), the Sunday School class is on "Faith". Just different way of doing things.

But yeah, good day, exhausted and we're gonna have a crazy week with changes and everything. Love it!

We found a katydid on a tree stump!

Sunday, March 06, 2016 -- Month #12 - Week #55 - Day #384 - El Dorado, La Entrada, Copan

Today we watched a satellite transmission for the 2 hour Conferencia de Centroamerica. We listened to Elder Mervyn B. Arnold, Elder Enrique R. Falabella, Sister Carole M. Stephens, Elder Kevin R. Duncan, and Elder Neil L. Andersen. That was good. They all talked about missionary work, retention, and keeping the Sabbath day holy. They also mentioned a lot of stories from SPS and Copan Ruinas, so that was a cool moment for Honduras. It was kinda weird to hear such strong gringo accents, I felt uncomfortable and it was a little hard to understand them, although Elder Andersen was fun to listen to because his French accent slipped through a lot and there was some Portuguese in there as well. But he was my favorite speaker, he was so happy and friendly, even though he couldn't see us. He visited this mission a little bit before I got here, so I missed that. But it was a good conference overall.

Hna Cruz, Hna Mower at the Conference on Sunday

And we had tomato soup for lunch! Yesterday we bought a bunch of tomatoes and borrowed the eldere's blender, and this morning we got everything made so it would be ready to eat when we got back. Hna Cruz was very impressed and she happily ate all her soup with a bunch of rice. In Ecuador they always have soup for lunch, as in every single day that's what you have for lunch. And a large serving of rice plopped in the bowl. So she was really happy today!

And we had a few citas and we found Josue! FINALLY! This was the 9th or 10th time that we've looked for this kid and we finally found him. We'll visit him again next Sunday, and then his work schedule should calm down and we can teach him more often. But yes, persistence is important! Everyone had been getting on us because we haven't taught him yet (he's a referral from members) but we honestly just haven't been able to find the kid. But now we have! Yay!

And we visited some other members and we made ourselves a typical Honduran dinner and ate it and we were happy. Good day.

Saturday, March 05, 2016 -- Month #12 - Week #55 - Day #383 - El Dorado, La Entrada, Copan

Saturday! Tomorrow's Sunday, and then it's Pday! Today was good, really quiet. We finally had Coordinacion with Wilmer, and we had lunch with Aide, made some little handicrafts to help out the Relief Society activity, went to that, and had a few visits afterwards.

But, for the Weekly Honduras Update, we found out today that Gloria is 4 months pregnant and she didn't even know. That was surprising. They're hoping for a girl, since they have 4 boys already, but they're a good family. It's hard for them to come to church, but we're working with them.

And everyone (cars, moto-taxis, motorcycles) that has a horn always does the "beep beep-beep-beep-beep!" "beep beep!" Question/Answer thing in the street whenever they pass someone.

And I had a beautiful moment of inspiration during lunch today. Here, everyone cooks on a comal, so there's a fire with a metal plate on top, and that's the cooking surface. And whatever trash accumulates as you cook goes into the fire, in this case, eggshells. The shells were almost whole, so as they burned they cracked but stayed intact and filled with ash and flames dancing around within the eggshell, it actually looked really beautiful. And it was an interesting contrast as the egg is a symbol of life, and the fire of destruction, and the two of them were together. Made me sit and think for a second.

And we pet a cow! We were wandering around a little and we saw some cows grazing, so we went and watched them for a few minutes. And one of them was close to the fence, so we pet its head and side. It moved away, but it was fun to be with the cows again. It's common to see horses and cows and sheep grazing freely wherever there's grass.

And yeah, that's about it up until now. Good day.

Friday, March 04, 2016 -- Month #12 - Week #55 - Day #382 - El Dorado, La Entrada, Copan

Today nothing went to plan. We walked all over creation looking for our people, and nobody was home or was in another part of La Entrada. So we walked a lot.

Our Coordinacion Misional got moved to tomorrow as Wilmer had people in his house and we couldn't come. But we'll have it, eventually. We have a number of things we need to talk to him about.

So, after wandering all over the place (I hate having to wander, I feel useless) we finally had a cita with Heidi, our investigator that has a baptismal date for the 19th of March. Every time she tells us all kinds of stories from her life, which are all quite interesting. Today's theme was ghost stories and dreams with warnings. I'm personally not one to believe urban legends or old wife's tales...for example, it is scientifically impossible for a girl and a dog to have children that are half human-half dog, due to the different numbers of chromosomes. Thank you, genetics!

After all that we went looking for some other people, and they weren't home, so we went over to a little grandma in our branch and played with her 2 year old twin grandsons, and helped her around her house and whatnot for a little bit. One of them, Santiago, took a shine to me and we were buddies today. Those twins are SO full of energy! Running and screaming and jumping and laughing and opening and closing things and running some more. But that was fun, I haven't played hide and seek behind the couch or sang "Head, shoulders, knees and toes" with a 2 year old in a while.