Thursday, August 20, 2015 -- Month #6 - Week #27 - Day #185 - Santa Cruz de Yojoa

I will just say that I don't like microwaved egg. Blegh. We ran by a member's house to have dinner, and they had already eaten, so they pulled out our dinners from the fridge and microwaved everything to warm it back up, and usually that's fine, but with eggs you just can't do that, at least for me. But it was all really good and I did manage to eat all my eggs. We had rice, beans, platano, chorizo, mantequilla, huevo, and the ever-present fresco (soda). La comida catracha!

Here everybody says "va, pues" as a shortened version of "vaya, pues", which basically means "alright" or "go on, then", kinda of like a closing statement of a conversation or a goodbye. That's a little different than in SPS where they use the long version. Hna Fidelina always says "vaya, pues, hermanitas, que les vaya bien." She's awesome. I miss her. 

And I got to hold a 3 day old baby girl, which was also suprising. Everyone's having babies all of a sudden. Hna Rosas gets uncomfortable around newborns and is afraid to hold babies, as she thinks she'll break them. So usually I'm the one that holds the baby during the lesson, which I'm fine with, they're all soft and warm and snuggly. And so tiny! This little girl was 6 lbs, and itsy bitsy. But that's the interesting thing about perspective. You look at a newborn and think, wow, they're so small! But then you think, that little person was inside their mother, and then they're actually quite big. The Miracle of Life, right?

Wednesday, August 19, 2015 -- Month #6 - Week #27 - Day #184 - Santa Cruz de Yojoa

Today I got to help a 5 year old with her English homework, that was fun. You have to color a picture with things related to the letter of the alphabet you're studying, then mark the things that start with that letter with an X, and then practice writing the letter below...I wish that was my homework! I enjoyed that immensely.

We also found an umbrella for Hna Rosas, so that's good. She's been having headaches from not having one and walking around all day, but she borrowed my other one a few times until we found one for her.

I think I also saw a dead coral or king snake on the road, smooshed, of course. Nothing here dies normally, it's always smashed flat. I actually couldn't make out very well what kind of snake it was, but it had some red and some black on the skin, so I'm assuming that's what it was. First snake sighting in Honduras. 

Also, there seems to be some various foot defects around here. I now know a lady with 2 big toes in one on each foot, and a girl with 6 toes on each foot. Interesting. They're not related by the way, in case you were wondering.

Overall good day, did our thing, taught some lessons, walked a lot. Bought myself a little bag of chips for 2 lemps and was very happy.

And a pic of me before getting ready for the day completely, missing my tag! But I wanted to show you how my hair's growing, I'm excited!

Tuesday, August 18, 2015 -- Month #6 - Week #27 - Day #183 - Santa Cruz de Yojoa

Happy 6 months to me! Pretty crazy, but yes, in a year I'll be home again. Weird.

Today we had our Multi-zone Conference, so I really enjoyed that. We got to travel by bus about 1.5 hrs there, and another 1.5 hrs back, and 6 hrs of conferencing, but it was great. We all met up in Merendon, which with Chamelecon, are the most dangerous areas of the mission. So we made sure to stick together with the elderes, and we were fine.

Hna Dester had to leave in the beginning of the meeting after her talk, and didn't come back as she had to do some hospitaling trips as Hna Robles was busy as well. So I missed talking to her again, but Pres sat with our group for lunch, so that was nice. The Dester's are seriously awesome people.

Hey, good news! We somehow found a bottle of Pyrethrum (which is illegal in Honduras) so now we have access to that! Yay!  [Pyrethrum, is a contact insecticide made from a formulation of the natural occurring botanical pesticide pyrethrum. It is a powerful organic pesticide and works extremely well to kill insects rapidly at very low concentrations].  We're all pretty much thrilled to have some serious insect repellent. So we'll be treating our clothes and curtains and sheets and everything over the next few days. We still gotta use the normal insect repellent, but hopefully the Pyrethrum will help lower the amount of mosquito bites and Chikungunya. That would be fantastic.

And I saw stars for the first time in forever, so I was thrilled. I love looking at the stars, I feel like I saw them more back home than I do here. Probably because it gets cloudy at night because it rains. Always makes me think of when we were in the CCM, and Hna Brady and Kleinman and I would sing the "Stars" song from Les Miserable's so terribly and burst out laughing. "Stahz! Inyumultituuuuuude!"  Good times.

Monday, August 17, 2015 -- Week #26 - Day #182 - Santa Cruz de Yojoa

Today we went to Joya Grande as a zone, it's like a zoo with a bunch of stuff you can do if you want to pay a lot more money. Pretty neat, we walked around and saw all the animals, got to touch a lot of them, so that was pretty neat.

And bought an ice cream and went through some man-made caves, and went back to Santa Cruz and had wings and fries for lunch, then wrote out families. Pretty good day, all in all, it was nice to be outside and pet some ponies and water buffalo.

Highlight of the day, I saw fireflies in the nighttime! I can't remember the last time I saw fireflies, so I thought that was pretty special. Reminds me of home, somehow, so that was kinda neat, made me happy.

Sunday, August 16, 2015 -- Week #26 - Day #181 - Santa Cruz de Yojoa

Soooo all our citas fell through today...I honestly don't want to have you read all my complaints from this week, as that's not the purpose of this journal, but today was a bit of a hard day. And it also rained as we were walking around, so that was fun to share my umbrella with Hna Rosas, but I had my handy-dandy sandals on (thanks again, Dad!), so I was happy.

We walked all over creation, and no one was home or they were all busy with visitors, as it usually is on Sundays, so we felt kinda useless today. And our dinner appointment got canceled, so that was awesome as well.

Anyways, enough sad stuff, I got some interesting news for ya! Apparently you can have a raccoon as a pet, as we saw it going on a walk with the owner this afternoon...I have honestly forgotten that raccoons existed, as I haven't seen one in forever it feels like. So that really surprised me, Hna Rosas doesn't know what it's called in Spanish, so I'm guessing she hasn't seen very many in her lifetime, she was very, very surprised to see a raccoon.

Racoon (mapache)

Today also felt like an autumn day, which was bizarre, reminded me a lot of home all throughout the afternoon. It was the angle of the sun and the way the air felt and smelled, kinda cool and clean, and the sun was still really warm on you when you're in the light, but the shadows are cool...it seriously felt like an early Texas autumn.Totally weird.

Also, it's interesting to move areas and find people with the same names as those in your previous areas, you have to learn to assign them to the same name, even though they're totally different people. Naturally, that's how the world works, but it's still tricky sometimes because you associate so strongly with the name that person, and then to have to tell yourself that someone else is that name as well is interesting because that name is so much that person. All part of adjusting, you know.

Aaaaand tomorrow's Pday again! Whoohoo! Apparently our zone is going to some kind of wildlife park called "Joya Grande," so I'll see how that all turns out tomorrow. Goodnight!

Saturday, August 15, 2015 -- Week #26 - Day #180 - Santa Cruz de Yojoa

The date is symmetric! [15-8-15]  I love it when that happens. Today was good, pretty much walked all over creation, looking for people that were never home, did manage to teach some lessons, though, so that's good. But my legs and ankles got incredibly achy today, so a big thank you to Momma for sending me "Icy Hot" stuff for my poor little body, I will sleep well tonight!

We went to one house and asked to use the bathroom, and the sink is one of those pushy ones where you push on the button thing, and a predetermined amount of water comes out, then you have to push it again to get more water... it was actually kind of neat. Reminded me of the bathrooms in stores or movie theaters, and so I thought that was kinda funny that it was in a house. You just gotta roll with whatever in Honduras, if it works, it works, we're just happy there's water that day.

Friday, August 14, 2015 -- Week #26 - Day #179 - Santa Cruz de Yojoa

So cars (and mototaxis, buses and motorcycles) pass by really, really close to pedestrians, you gotta be careful here. Sometimes they almost brush up against you, so that's a little startling. There's only so much edge of the road you can walk on, and they still hug the edge, even when there's no one else on the road. Little bit different than SPS.

There's also a lot of younger girls with babies already, we're teaching a couple where the guy's 23 years old, the girl's about to turn 18 years old in November, and they have a little girl who'll also turn 2 years old in November, they've been together since a little before they got pregnant. Makes you sit back and think a minute about how your life's going. It's still hard to get people married, and I would venture to say that most people are in an (union libre), or are just living together, having kids whenever. A little bit different than the way I was raised, and I'm glad that I've had the gospel in my life to help give me some direction. Anyways, we're happy to teach them, we'll discuss the importance of families as a part of the "Plan of Salvation," and see what needs to happen to get them married so they can be baptized. Gonna be interesting. The whole public breastfeeding thing is still very much a thing, by the way, still haven't gotten quite used to that. And every one lives with all the family, so sometimes we end up teaching a group of 8 people, although it's really hard to have seriously progressing investigators here. To be honest I sometimes feel like I'm talking to a wall, because there is absolutely zero expression or commitment from the said parties... just kinda the culture here I guess. It's also very hard to find and teach males, as they're usually working and it's just the women in the house with the kids. And if the guy's not on board with everything (aka, we haven't been able to teach him), it is really hard to have the women be strong in their decisions. Plus you've got the grandparents and all they have to say about whatever it is they think, and a whole lot of babies and toddlers all over the place... it's really interesting. Plus a lot of people can't / don't know how to read, so that adds another layer of interestingness to the whole equation. All in all, the mission is just really interesting right now! We've gotta find more people to teach, but there seems to be very little results right now, so the whole process is quite draining to be honest, and also that we have to walk 20-30 minutes to wherever they are uphill, both ways, on all those blessed rocks, it's a little physically draining as well. But, it's what we do here, so we'll just keep on rolling with it! We've made a goal to increase our contacts this week, so we'll see how that turns out.

And, as the crowning event, Hna Rosas's umbrella broke! So that's pretty sad, as she uses it every afternoon as we're walking around to block the sun, as she really doesn't like being hot (I've also taken to using my umbrella in the early afternoon, as the sun is a bit strong, although I'm not quite as religious in my usage as she is) and now she misses carrying it around. Plus, it was a nice umbrella. So now we have to go find a new umbrella for her. Ah, la mision!