Wednesday, September 23, 2015 -- Month #7 - Week #32 - Day #219 - Santa Cruz de Yojoa

Rained again today!

Some more streets of Honduras

We went with Karolhyna to do some lessons with a member,
and we got rained on!

Tuesday, September 22, 2015 -- Month #7 - Week #32 - Day #218 - Santa Cruz de Yojoa

I made French toast for breakfast and was happy! Other splurge of the week: maple syrup! Tasted really good. 

Arm wrestling in District Meeting!  These elders are goofballs!

Always a lady!  Ha!!

  Went to District Meeting in Potrerillos, had lunch, went to Las Flores, one of the parts of our areas we have to go in bus, about 15-20 mins or so, and did a whole lot of contacts over there. Came back to base camp and did some more lessons. Good day. Been raining a lot during the night and day, so we got caught in the rain again today. Thanks for my sandals!

Me by this bougainvillea plant/tree thing that was FULL of pretty flowers! Yay!

Food! YUM!

Monday, September 21, 2015 -- Month #7 - Week #31 - Day #217 - Santa Cruz de Yojoa

We went to el Lago de Yojoa as a zone! We hopped on the bus that goes to Siguatapeque and hopped off at the lake, about 20 mins or so, not too bad.

el Lago de Yojoa

Purple lily flowers in el Lago! So pretty! Match my shirt, too, right?!

Hna Escobar and Hna Mower

We then played touch football for a little over an hour, and then ate lunch! I ate a whole fried fish and traded my tajadas with Hna Phillips for her french fries, and drank ginger ale (it's been a VERY long time without ginger ale!) and was quite happy and full afterwards.

My fish! Very delicious!

We then hopped on a bus heading back to Santa Cruz and went to write our peeps back home, and had a lesson.

Good day, washed a TON of laundry, about 3 hours worth. Problem is that it's been raining everyday the past while, so it's a little hard to get everything to dry completely. But, you go outside and get all wet again, so it's not a huge deal. But I think we've officially, officially entered the rainy season. Lots of rain.

Oh, and I also found eggnog, of all things! So I bought myself a little carton and have been enjoying a few sips everyday. Actually tastes pretty good, it's called rompopo in Spanish.  I don't think eggnog's available in the States in September, right?

Eggnog!

Also, fun fact, there's an article in the September Liahona from a mother in Guatemala that tells about how her prayers for her son were answered...turns out that it's about my District Leader! Small world, huh?  We have some really good elders in our district this change, I'm happy to be serving with them.

And, Hna Escobar prayed in English the other day! Whoohoo! She really wants to work on her language skills, and is doing marvelously. Has very good pronunciation and a good grip on comprehension, I think she'll pick it up fast.

Sunday, September 20, 2015 -- Month #7 - Week #31 - Day #216 - Santa Cruz de Yojoa

More Stake Conference! This time in Portrerillos, so a little closer to home. More about families, the Priesthood, how women support families in callings, and missionary work. Good stuff.

E Bate, with a bunch of bananas in the church after Coordinacion Misional...he's a goofball, and companion of E Olivas.
They're really good guys!

We then did some visits, and got back home again. Lots of walking today! Gotta tell ya'll about my latest splurge: Yoplait strawberry yogurt! SO GOOD! Tastes like those little yogurt cream cups with the blue labels we always bought a few years ago. Dang those are good.

I also made some pancakes and put Nutella on top (other huge splurge!) and was VERY happy with myself. It's been too long since I've had Nutella. I also had some apple slices with chile powder on top, and liked it! Kinda like mango verde with vineger-lime juice and chile. Apparently in Mexico EVERYTHING is with chile, all the fruits included.

Down here there's no lawnmowers, so you gotta use a weed-whacker or a machete to cut all the abundant grass. We have a guy that comes by every 2 weeks or so to clear up the forest we hike through every day to get to our house.  I like him, he's a good guy, very good with a machete.

A little river in our area! I wanted to swim soooooo bad! I miss it.

Saturday, September 19, 2015 -- Month #7 - Week #31 - Day #215 - Santa Cruz de Yojoa

We went looking for a contact we made last Saturday, but she wasn't home, so we did a whole lot of contacting to other people! I'm actually pretty happy when we contact, the cambio before I felt like we didn't do enough of it, so it's been really nice to have a "new start" with Hna Escobar. And she loves to talk, so I don't feel pressured to speak all the time, but we share everything well and are a good little team.

Turns out that she has an avocado tree growing in the middle of her house, so that's an interesting fun fact. They eat lots of the avocados that fall, and I just think it is super neat they have a tree in their house.

Today for breakfast I had oatmeal, a PBJ, a pear, and orange juice, and I was quite pleased with myself. Most of my breakfasts are still pretty American, lunch and dinner are kinda a mix of whatever with la comida catracha. Turns out pretty well, I'm still eating lots of avocados (yum!).

More food! (can you tell I like to document my eating habits?)

We were also teaching a lesson and a cowherd ran his cows by us, that was interesting. There's lots of animals here...dogs, cats, birds, cows, goats, sheep, pigs, horses...it's kinda like a foresty farm sort of thing we got going on here. E-I-E-I-O!

We also went over and listened to Stake Conference in Villanueva, about a 40-50 min bus ride. Main themes: self-sufficiency, honoring the Priesthood, and ward council. Very instructive, the elders said that the Priesthood session was the exact same messages, guess they really needed to get everything across clearly.

We got rained on again! We sought shelter under a little tin roof

to wait out the worst of the shower.

Just gotta love all the rain!

Friday, September 18, 2015 -- Month #7 - Week #31 - Day #214 - Santa Cruz de Yojoa

Today I got 7 months, and Hna Escobar has 6!  It's actually really neat to be with her, we get along really well. She came in my arrival group, but is Latina, so has a month less than me, I'll go home a change before her, I think. But she's a really hard worker, and has some tips and tricks I hadn't heard of before, so I've been learning a lot as well.

March 31, 2015 Arrived at Honduras Airport (from Guatemala MTC)
Hna Escobar is two sisters on the left from Hna Mower

Hna Escobar is from Guatemala, is 23 years old, and is the youngest of 4 kids in her family. Has been in Copan all this time, Santa Cruz is her second area and I'm her 3rd companion.

Went around today and showed her some of our area, we actually have a lot of ground to cover. Our area in Santa Cruz is way bigger than Smith or El Dorado, where she was at. So we got some work to do just getting to know the area.

And, more good news, we finally got water in the house! The sinks in the kitchen and bathroom work, the toilet flushes, there's water in the shower, and the pila spouts out water normally again. Pretty awesome, right?! In the shower the water comes out of a spigot about waist height, so you gotta crouch down to get wet, and it's still really cold, but we're just happy that it works!

Also, as we were teaching a lesson outdoors (which is completely normal, a lot of times standing up outside their gate thing the entire time...we're really happy when we can go inside the porch or house to sit for a minute) some neighbor up the street (remember I mean rock path when I say street) decided that 4:00 pm is the perfect time to burn all their trash, so we were totally filled with smoke for a while as we were teaching...gotta take a shower and wash out my hair again. I'm pretty sure that we just always smell like smoke, add that to the Eternal Girl's Camp list.

Thursday, September 17, 2015 -- Month #6 - Week #31 - Day #213 - Santa Cruz de Yojoa

Today was good, we went back to SPS to see a doctor for Hna Escobar, as she wasn't feeling so good for assorted reasons, and I got some more meds for my tummy, so that was a fun day to travel and go hospitaling and travel again...I love public transportation. We seriously cram in sooooo many people into a bus, and it's amazing how we all fit. I honestly think they would have us sit on laps if they could fit more people in. Crazy. But, we got there and back well, and it was fun to see Hnas Robles and Estacuy again. Hna Estacuy is playing a more major role in the things of the enfermera, as Hna Robles is finishing her mission this change at the end of October. Hna Escobar hasn't left Copan since she got here with me back in April, so it was good that I knew how to talk to the taxis and get us to where we needed to go and navigate the hospital to the doctor's office and everything...she also saw how my life was like, and thought it was a little crazy.  It's hard to be a normal missionary when you're the mission nurse. Now that I'm in the "actual" field, I can definitely see that. But, I'm happy either way, although it was nice to go and be so hands-off, gives a break from so much responsibility.

Hna Escobar and me!

Fun picture of my name tag in some flowers.

We went and saw Dra. Fasquelle, who is awesome, and she kept asking me if my eyebrows are tattoos or natural, and said that Hna Escobar should drink water in industrial quantities, which was kinda funny. But she also recommended gargling with hydrogen peroxide when your tonsils and throat are inflamed. Tastes super not delicious, but works really, really well. I recommend it as well.

I'll also let you know that I've switched over to powdered milk. The milk here goes bad really fast, and just doesn't taste right. Ech. So I'm making a batch of milk in a water bottle every few days with my milk powder and water and some vanilla extract to cut the chalky taste of the milk. Actually turns out pretty well, reminds me of the little cartons of vanilla milk from Costco that we always bought for school lunches. First time in my life that I remember ever drinking powdered milk. Interesting stuff.

My breakfast, little bread thingy and some milk

So that was our day, we had Weekly Planning in the morning, went and bought some food, partied in SPS, got home too late to go teach, so we basically didn't leave to give lessons today, which wasn't super fun. But, we should be good to go tomorrow, so hopefully we just go up from here!