Sunday, February 07, 2016 -- Month #11 - Week #51 - Day #356 - El Dorado, La Entrada, Copan

Domingo! This week has gone by really fast, mostly because we were out in who knows where for the better part of it. But we went to Church, Josue came, so that was good. Had some lunch, and then went waiting in the church for a meeting. However, it turns out that the people we were supposed to have the meeting with went out to eat lunch, so we sat there waiting until Branch Counsel. Had that lovely activity, and then de-stressed at home for a few minutes. And headed back out into the rainy cold with both my sweater and my jacket to go contacting. We were able to teach a lesson, and did some more contacts. We are so tired and hungry and cold! Glad we can go to bed tonight and have Pday tomorrow.

Saturday, February 06, 2016 -- Month #11 - Week #51 - Day #355 - El Dorado, La Entrada, Copan

Today we got to work in our area! Whoohoo! Went looking for some people that weren't there, and updated the calendar for the branch. Went over to Hna Aide for lunch, and came back and did some contacting and whatnot, and later on in the evening we went with Wilmer and Hno Francis and his son to go visit this one reference of a YM that we needed to get permission from his mother so we could teach him. She accepted, so now we can start working with Josue. So that was exciting to now have a definite that we can teach.

Found a PINK house!!

Funny story from this morning: we were taking the trash out to the street so our gate-metal door thing was open for a few seconds. Well, this cat from the street decides to just run into our house all over in every room, so I chased after it and got it back out the door outside. Random Honduras.

But, good news, after 20 years of life, I finally figured how to successfully put my hair up with a pen stuck in it. I feel like an accomplished human being.

We also somehow contacted the second most important guy here in town, second to the alcade, or mayor type of person, so that was interesting. His mom was a member, but now she's Evangelical and he never got baptized. He also is under the impression that the Church was founded by one of the local members here. Which isn't true. But we did a good contact with him and hopefully he can progress in the future.

Friday, February 05, 2016 -- Month #11 - Week #51 - Day #354 - El Dorado, La Entrada, Copan

We got to go from Villanueva to SPS for a leadership meeting in the morning with Pres Dester, Hna Dester, the AP's, all the Zone Leaders, and the other pair of HLE.

Cool flower we saw while walking around

Random Galaxy Jesus poster in the bus... there was an
Evangelical radio pastor yelling at us the entire bus ride

Our Leadership Meeting was actually a good meeting, I have a better understanding of what's happening in the mission and what we can do to be better HLE and normal working hnas. So that was pretty neat. Really long (about 3 hours of meeting), but we got lunch (chicken fingers and fries...Honduras style but still really good) as there was part two with all the DL's joining us for some further training-counseling-idea bouncing around. So we finally finished about 3:00 pm and then we all got back on the bus to head back down to Copan. Keep in mind that I was carrying my work backpack, plus my divisions backpack, and my giant Valentine's box that my family sent me! So it felt like I was carrying around 3 children, pretty fun.

LOVE Box from HOME!!

But around 6:00 pm we FINALLY got back to our beautiful house in El Dorado! It was hard being away for 3 days. Now, we normally won't do 3 days like that, but we figured it would be good to take advantage of the situation of being over there already. Anyways, it's good being an "alta autoridad". Lots more work and responsibility, but it's a new way of doing things. Change is good.

However, the change in the weather was not good! Now it's all cold and cloudy again and Hna Cruz and I are freezing, it's awful! In fact, since we were carrying around our divisions backpacks this entire time, I lent my green microfiber towel to Hna Cruz to use as a poncho because it was so cold and she didn't bring a sweater. It actually coordinated with her shirt and kept her warm, so it all worked out well.

And as we were having lunch, Elder Mejia starting going around collecting the empty plates and calling "basura" or trash rapidly, so Hna Dester leaned over and asked me what he was saying, so I explained to her. Then she made a comment about how you can be sitting in Church and all of a sudden you hear some random guy yelling who knows what, selling stuff in the street. So then I did an imitation of this one guy you always hear selling fruits, and Pres Dester busted out laughing and said I did it exactly like they do. So that was a fun moment of the day, I like it when Pres Dester laughs. He squints up his eyes and throws his head back and he doesn't seem to have so much weight on him in that moment.

Thursday, February 04, 2016 -- Month #11 - Week #51 - Day #353 - El Dorado, La Entrada, Copan

Second day of divisions!

Normally you don't have to do divisions back to back like we're doing, but we need to go up to SPS on Friday anyway, so we decided to kill 3 birds with 1 stone. It's kinda fun living out of 2 backpacks for a few days. I was able to buy a second backpack in the Terminal so I wasn't using a plastic bag anymore!

And me with my HLE backpack! It's like a second baby

But today was good, we stayed in Potrerillos in the morning to do Weekly Planning as the hnas in Villanueva all of a sudden had to go up to SPS and get Hna Lopez's residencia picture and everything, so they got back in the early afternoon. So we got our stuff together and headed up to Villanueva and had lunch at Wendy's, and dropped our stuff off at the house. This morning it was really cloudy and windy, and when we got to the house it was sprinkling a little bit.

Planned and got some plans straightened out, and headed off. I got to meet some really cool people and teach about the Family Proclamation, so I enjoyed that. It's so nice talking to people that have their heads on straight. Although there is a LOT of weird ideas out here. Like there's a religion of anti-homophobists that somehow believe that humans literally evolved from marine algae. I will have to say there's a lot of apostasy over here.

Wednesday, February 03, 2016 -- Month #11 - Week #51 - Day #352 - El Dorado, La Entrada, Copan

Todaaaaaaaay...started at 5:00 am. Whoo! Got ourselves up and ready and had a little bfast and got ourselves out the door with all our backpacks and bags to the bus stop thing for the bus that leaves at 7:00 am up to SPS. So we sat on that for 2 hours to get up to the Terminal, where we hopped off and I bought myself a cheap, big backpack. And put all my stuff in it. Then got ourselves some baleadas and banana milkshakes for a more decent breakfast. And then went and bought some t-shirts for 50 lemps apiece. Then trekked back down and bought our tickets to Potrerillos and waited on the bus.

I bought some strawberry gummies 
for the bus ride to divisions

That took us another hour and a half to get to Potrerillos, but the bus kept on going and didn't let us get off. So we overshot that and we hopped ourselves off and waited on the side of the road for a rapidito to take us back up to Potrerillos. We finally got there, found the hermanas' house, and asked around the neighbors for somewhere that sold food close by. Found the food, took it back to the house, and ate it (the other hnas had already gone to their lunch appointment). Got ourselves all prepared for divisions, and then it turns out that Hna Ordonez needed to stay home because she had injured her back, and that just Hna Mendoza would be able to leave. So we decided that I would stay home the first half of the afternoon, and then they would come back and Hna Cruz would stay here and I'd leave with Mendoza. 

Now, a few hours later, I left with Hna Mendoza and Hna Cruz stayed with Hna Ordonez. We went around looking for people that weren't there, and did a few contacts. And then explained the Law of Chastity to a 12 year old boy who's getting baptized on Saturday. And went to 4 pulperias looking for quesillo to make some tortillas fritas for dinner. We finally found everything we needed, and headed back to the house where Hna Cruz and I made the food. We all ate together, did some talking with Hna Mendoza about the day and how it went, answering some questions and giving some advice on a few things.

And Divisions with Hna Mower and Hna Cruz and Hna Mendoza
and Hna Ordonez in Portrerillos

And then I hauled a small bucket of water 4 or 5 times from the pila downstairs outside to the big shower bucket upstairs and inside. (The hnas live on the 2nd floor.) Showered, got changed and ready for bed. And now I'm finishing up this happy day! First time doing divisions, check!

Tuesday, February 02, 2016 -- Month #11 - Week #51 - Day #351 - El Dorado, La Entrada, Copan

The second day of February! Que macizo.

We had District Meeting and went out to lunch. Then I didn't feel very good so we stayed home most of the afternoon, but we did get a meeting with Wilmer in and got the info of another person that could get baptized. We'll meet with him on Saturday after we get back from playing around in SPS. We got ourselves packed up and ready for our trip  tomorrow morning. Problem is, I don't have an extra backpack to put all my personal stuff (my work backpack is already full and weighs a lot) so I put everything in a plastic bag, Honduras style. Viva la mision.

Monday, February 01, 2016 -- Month #11 - Week #50 - Day #350 - El Dorado, La Entrada, Copan

Pday! Whoohoo! Today was really fun as we went to Tejute, which is a series of waterfalls that turns into a stream that you have to walk through all the time to get up the waterfall part.

Tadpoles on the way to Tejute! 

Hna Mower at Tejute Waterfall

 

Some cascadas of Tejute

E Poulson was our tour guide with his trusty Gandalf walking stick that he found, and we all walked for a little over an hour along the trail/rocks/in the stream water. Very beautiful, and it was awesome because I wore my sandals and got to feel all the water on my toes! Such a cool feeling!

More water...and the part at the bottom where you leave to the main road

I've missed swimming and being in water a lot. As we climbed up we passed a series of cascades, all of them gorgeous. And we found some river snails! And caught tadpoles! And deteriorated leaves with just the veins intact, really neat. So after climbing an hour to get there, we played in the water for a little bit and relaxed, and then took an hour to get back down. Then we hitched a rapidito ride back to La Entrada de Copan, got ourselves some lunch and changed into missionary clothes, and went and wrote our families (hi family!) and went shopping for just a few things as we'll be out of town for 3 days straight doing divisions and meetings and whatnot. More responsibility makes everything way more interesting!

So we got all finished up with that and headed over for a FHE with our recent converts Keyla and Alexandra and Wilmer and his daughters, and we got cake to celebrate their baptism and Angie's birthday. So that was pretty awesome. They're good people.

Cake with Keyla and Alexandra and everyone

And some very big misconceptions people here have of the members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints:

- Once again, we worship a statue of Joseph Smith with an altar in front of it in the churches

- And that we all drink alcohol on Sundays. Just on Sundays, though.

- That we drink coffee on Saturdays, and then repent on Sundays.

- We sacrifice children in the church.

- We do in fact have horns and a tail.

- The baptisms we perform do not have saving power. In fact, we're actually condemning a whole lot of people, apparently.

- People can't figure out why I'm wearing sandals and not socks because they think we're Jehovah's Witnesses.

- We shouldn't invite people to church because then they're changing churches and that's playing with God and you should never, ever, ever, ever play with the things of God. So they'd rather stay in their own church, thank you very much.

- You have to pay to enter the church building.

- All members have a ridiculous amount of money and that's why the church building is so nice.

And a whole bunch of other silly things that we get to listen to all day. Everyday. Yup.