Tuesday, June 07, 2016 -- Month #15 - Week #69 - Day #477 - Las Flores, Villanueva, Cortes

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LYNDSEY!!!!! I love you so much, sweet girl, and hope you have an awesome day! (she's the only one in my family that I've missed 2 birthdays in my mission, sorry, baby!)

My sister Lyndsey!

Today we had our Zone Meeting and got to know everyone in our zone...it's kinda weird going from Copan where there were 5 pairs of hnas in the zone to Villanueva where we're the new 2nd pair. Just to recap, almost half the hnas in the mission are in Zona Copan.

And then we were exhausted so we took a nap, and then we needed to head up to SPS for some business for Hna Artica, so we got that all taken care of, and headed back to Villanueva to go leave on visits with the youth of the ward (I'm in a ward again! Whoo!) so Hna Artica and I split up and got to know some more inactives and whatnot, and finally made it back home, still very exhausted. Long day, but good.

And we found some more churches! I'm interested to see all the ones here in Villanueva. But we'll start with the first 2: Iglesia Impacto de Dios, and la Iglesia Evangelica Getsemani (I have a feeling this one might be a repeat, I don't remember).

So yeah. Tomorrow's Wednesday. I like Wednesdays.

Monday, June 06, 2016 -- Month #15 - Week #68 - Day #476 - Las Flores, Villanueva, Cortes

06-06-16  Lots of sixes in this date! Today was good, we went up to the La Piedra (the Rock) as a district. Which basically consisted of us hiking up a burned mountain for 30 min so we could see all of our area and get oriented.

Our hiking trip up to La Piedra

All the lovely ash all over the place!

 

Then we hiked back down and had lunch at Wendy's and then headed to write our families (hi family!) and went shopping (we finally found the despensa familiar where we normally should buy our food! It's fun opening area...) and came back home and got changed and headed back out to do a FHE with the bishop and a part member family. Problem was that the nonmember dad disappeared so we invited the member sister of the hna and her kiddos because her nonmember husband also wasn't there. Yeah. So we had the bishop and his family, 2 other families, and us all in a little room having a wonderful meeting and helping the hnas keep their faith strong. Good people.

And my eye has been twitching for the past few days and it's kinda annoying. But it will go away soon when we get a little more calmed down and settled. We only have a week in our area!

But we're doing good, we've found a few people to teach and are trying to figure out where all the members live so we can work with them.

Sunday, June 05, 2016 -- Month #15 - Week #68 - Day #475 - Las Flores, Villanueva, Cortes

Sunday! We had Church and met all our new members and everyone...they're all pretty estactic (I can't spell) because there hasn't been hnas over here in about 13 years. Yeah. I'm just pushing boundaries! So they pretty much love us to death and I'm really hoping we can fulfill their expectations.

And then we came home and had lunch and it started down-pouring again...all day long. So we attempted quite a few contacts but nobody liked us, so we came back and finished up a few little things around the house and then headed out to a lesson we had set with a family, and the dad wanted to fight about Joseph Smith. So we tried to help him out.

And we went contacting in the rain until our dinner appointment, and so we got to swap some stories with the elderes (they're both VERY young...18, 19 yrs old and with 5, 3 months in the mission) and then headed back home.

Long day, and I'm pretty much very worn out. But tomorrow's Pday! That's a good thing. I have no idea what we're gonna do, but it'll be interesting.

Saturday, June 04, 2016 -- Month #15 - Week #68 - Day #474 - Las Flores, Villanueva, Cortes

Saturday! Tomorrow's Sunday! And then it's Monday!

Today was interesting...we had 12 Semanas again and then went contacting! Yay! But we were also able to find a place where they sell paper so we can make a lechuga preguntona for when we visit members this next week, and also a knife so we can cut food items! (The secretaries finally brought everything we needed the other day and even some folletos and copies of the BoM so we can actually do some real contacting! We're really happy!) So we're pretty much set in our house now, we're just missing curtains. But we will find a way!

And we had a lunch given to us by a member lady who gave us 1/2 lb of spaghetti and 1/4 lb of rice and a big glass of Pepsi. To each of us. So I kindly asked her if I could take the remaining third of my food home and eat it a little later. You gotta do that a lot, sometimes.

And then we had 5 hours of solid contacting. I don't think I've ever done that in my life. And I don't really recommend it. But that's what we gotta do because we have literally nothing to work with. And it was raining the entire afternoon we were wandering around outside. But we did get 5 lessons in, so I'm happy. This is definitely a sort of crash-course training for Hna Artica, but she's holding up great. Only been 4 days, but she seems to doing pretty well. Right now I'm still getting a feel for how she works and her preparedness, and we'll go from there. Although she is very well-taught on a doctrinal level. We just need to learn to take turns speaking in lessons and changing a few phrases and words. But other than that, she's like a hermana with a few months in the field, and not a few days. And she's a convert of 3 years! Go figure.

Friday, June 03, 2016 -- Month #15 - Week #68 - Day #473 - Las Flores, Villanueva, Cortes

Another day! This is day 3 in our area that we're still unsure of what it consists of, but we're doing something! Did our 12 Semanas again, studying about the 8 Fundamentals, and went around contacting again before lunch. We then came home and made some tortillas and quesillo with chimol on top because we didn't really have any other food and my tummy was a little upset. That always happens in changes. It's hard to eat and it's hard to sleep.

Anyways, we rested up a bit and then headed out to try and find some people that we had put citas to visit, but they weren't home, as usual, so we went contacting some more people and then we were called over by a member lady as we were walking past her house to give comfort and counsel to a YW that apparently had a falling out with the lady that's raising her (we don't know where her actual mom is) and so we tried to help out that situation, and then the elderes showed us to the house of a lady that gave us dinner, which was tajadas with a whole bunch of stuff on top. My tummy's still not up to speed to eat a bunch of deep fried green bananas, so I ate a few and then said I was full and would take the rest home to eat it. The nice lady didn't believe me, though, and went over to the fridge and pulled out a bowl of grape Jell-O and handed it to me, so I had Jell-O for dinner. Every kid's dream, right?

And my Jell-O dinner. Can't forget that!

Thursday, June 02, 2016 -- Month #15 - Week #68 - Day #472 - Las Flores, Villanueva, Cortes

Today was fun! We did Weekly Planning and didn't really have much to plan...so we got a little bit of a head start on the First 12 Weeks. We also don't have a DVD player or the District 1 and 2 DVDs, so we just kinda read scriptures and talked about how missionary work is down here. I just hope I don't scare Hna Artica!

And then we had lunch at Wendy's and went around like crazy people to figure out where we were going. We get lost a lot in our area. And the elderes still haven't really told us where our boundaries are at or anything super helpful, so we're kinda roughing it right now. I think it's mostly because we're basically taking over part of their area and "opening" it, but we're still unsure which part we're actually going to be in charge of. So I'm really hoping that on Sunday or Tuesday (most likely) we can talk to them about that with somebody in charge of something. But right now we're just contacting pretty much all the neighbors and people we see. Lots of contacting...

Wednesday, June 01, 2016 -- Month #15 - Week #68 - Day #471 - Las Flores, Villanueva, Cortes

We made it through changes! Got to wake up at 5:00 am to get ready and hopped on the bus at 6:00 am to head to SPS. Finally got there at 8:30 am, then ran upstairs to the meeting with Pres Dester where we were assigned our new trainees and areas. And I'm training Hna Artica (ar-TEEK-ah) from Comayaguela, Honduras and we'll be opening Las Flores in Villanueva! Whoo! These are gonna be a fun last few changes I've got here.

Hermana Mower & Hermana Artica

But we all got on our bus and headed over to Villanueva and got to our new house alright. The elderes helped move our suitcases upstairs, which was a blessing, as I've found that mine weigh a lot. I'll have to leave lots of things when I head back home! Mostly because I've accumulated lots of Liahona's and books :)

But we got mostly settled and started cleaning EVERYTHING since the house seems to be recently built and is very pretty, just that it's full of the normal construction stuff... and I like my own clean dirt, thank you very much! So we set ourselves to wiping out all the dust and sweeping and figuring how to set up the fans and putting our sheets on our beds. And buying some food. That's important. That's the fun thing about opening an area, you have absolutely no idea where anything is or who anybody is.

New apartment in Las Flores, Villanueva, Cortes

And it turns out that we have a set of pots, but no dishes. And we don't have a phone yet. But we do have house keys! But we don't have a little dresser/closet thing to put our clothes, or a table for our books, so we'll be living in our suitcases for a little bit until the secretaries can bring them to us. But it's good that we're in Villanueva and about 40 mins from SPS as it's a shorter trip than all the way to Copan. Yup!

So yeah, we're just kinda chilling in our new area, the elderes arranged for a member to show us around to a few member families and point out a few streets, so we did that for about 3 hours. It seems like we have some good people here, so I'm happy.

Our new area - Las Flores