December 1, 2014

Yes, the spencers visit was awesome! I'm so glad they were able to make it. They gave us a little inflatable tree which is the best so we have a christmas tree and a nativity scene in our apartment haha. And their buying us groceries was much appreciated and sorely needed. It was kinda cool being their guide for the night and talking to the waiter for them in spanish and showing them around a little-made me feel like a real local. And it was great to hear of things from home and their missions and their kids missions and all. Great time, and my companion and I throroughly enjoyed it. Elder Vasquez got to practice his enlgish too. Great time. And I never know how to respond when people praise me like sandee did in her little letter, but...thanks, its always nice to hear good things about yourself. 

And the packages! thank you so much, i love the shirt and i'm wearing it now. after the mission this is all im gonna wear, i don't care how ugly they are. And i did read all of sister cyrocki's stuff, I'm gonna write her a handwritten letter back. And I read grammies letter too, bless her heart. And no sign of my packages, but...I did get the first package you sent last week finally haha. Forced my retainer in there and suffered the pain for a few days. And you know full well I already opened my birthday package...I will, however, wait to plug it in!

 as for sarah, a fullride? thats really cool. I know its SUU but still...way to go. She made up her mind yet? Jenny goes up to Idaho everynow and then and thinks sarah would like provo better but who knows. And thanks for the christmas music, can' wait!

speaking of my ipod, and instagram-is there anyway you can preserve all the pictures I have? I have some cool pics on instagram I don't want to lose if they delete my account, and are my photos still on the phone? Kate should know all that. 

crossbow thing? I would reccomend no on that, they are useless. waste of money. can't hunt with them and it takes forever to load and shoot. still gonna get them kayaks? thats the best thing, they'll have years of fun with those. and dang, curtis looks like he walked out of a frat house at UF! looking good, and everyone else is too. you all need to go fishing over break.

transfers are next week, I may lose vasquez. and i'll be the senior companion here showing someone else around the island. woah. hope not though, its possible he'll stay. And shoot, theres an old ipod touch in my glovebox in the truck he can have if its still there. 

but yeah, we'll never get to go to the temple. its outside our mission and a long journey. But the branch is putting on a track and were helping prepare people to be endowed so thats exciting! And we had two missionarires return and are about to send 3 out. 

sounds like you all have had some good times. thanksgiving, campout...still jealous about the cold weather. glad to see the atv hayride tradition is still going strong. 

but, heres my update!

This has been by far the most interesting week I've had so far. 

We had a storm for 3 days, and at one point the street in front of our house was waist deep of gushing floodwaters. As such, we didn't have power for a while and did our nightime planning sessions by candlelight swattting mosquitos. We had water for a little while but it was nasty and brown and looked like coffee but it didn't smell so we still bathed and washed dishes. But, as of right now we haven't had any water for going on three days, so we collect rainwater to use for flushing toilets and washing dishes. Haven't bathed, getting a little grody, nor do we have clean clothes. It's been a real Roatan style week. 

Also, during the storm, a boat of cubans washed ashore in front of the house of one of our members(see the picture of their boat) and its truly an incredible story. They left cuba trying to get to miami, and the storm caught them and brought them all the way down here. 15 days crossing the open ocean battling a storm the whole way. a fifteen foot boat, with 15 people, and the last 4 days they had no food, and only rainwater to drink. And when the storm was about to bash them against the reefs that suround the island, a giant wave picked them up and set them gently in the lagoon. The man that was telling us the story said it looked like the hand of God had plucked them out of the water and dropped them into the lagoon. we were listening to that story on the dock next to their boat the night after they made it here and we were out on the dock and the storm was still whipping pretty good and I nearly started to cry thinking of all those people battling a storm for days on end and all through the nights in pitch black with no food, and of all the scriptures about how the lord remembers his people on the isles of the sea and how much of  a miracle it is that they made it here and how they must have felt once they hit dry land and were taken in by the islanders. Also, screw the liberal media telling us how good cuba is and how communism is working and all that garbage. If it was so good then why did they risk their lives like that to escape?

 

And Bucho is still doing good, and progressing well and his baptism date is on my birthday. He's a character all right. And we found a family the other night that called us in from the street and were golden as golden gets-everyone was either married or not in a relationship, wanting to get active in a church-they set their own baptismal dates and we actually had to reign them in a little bit and tell them to slow down and that we have to prepare them more haha. And then we had to other investigators have very strong spiritual experiences praying about joseph smith and the book of mormon so they're fixin to get wet too. Very successful week, we are really reaping the rewards of all our contacting and referrals from the last week. 

I'm also learning more about our purpose-for a little while we were stuck in this little routine (with our less actives) that we would share a nice little message and not much else. It was like "hey, they don't go to church, we'll bring the church to them" but that's not our purpose. Our purpose is to preach repentance and the restoration. And if they won't keep committments or change, then we need to move on. Still visit them, but there are other people that are priority that have a desire to keep committments. and its hard because my comp is pretty attached to them but we're working on it. 

Also, do you all have any ideas to switch up visits with members and less actives? For example, one thing we've been doing is to teach lehis dream and have all the kids draw it out. 

Also had a great spiritual experience this week-we were sitting down with two of our longtime investigators and we had a plan all set but then I got a prompting to change the plan. So I nudged my  comp and whispered "hey, we gotta switch this up" and as I said that I felt this super strong confirmation that that was the right call and I was all of a sudden full of power and light and joy...and then the power went out and we had to rush home for safety. But, I had my opportunity to listen to the spirit and follow it. 

Also, I've eaten iguana and guinea pig. Iguana is actually pretty good cooked in coconut milk if its cleaned good, but when I ate it I kept biting into its scales that had fallen into the meat. almost threw up. guinea pig is like stringy chicken and I couldn't taste a difference. 

 

Also, for my little nature experience of the wek, all the missionares were standing on a footbridge over an inlet on the beach. we were looking toward the island and in the little valley in front of us, we saw two big, beautiful scarlet macaws flying in tandem-flying in and out of these huge jungle trees, calling to eachother, in the misty valley, with the ocean below us-it was pretty cool to see those super rare birds in the wild-and they could have been a hundred years old too, they have crazy lifespans. But yeah.

 

Thats all I got for ya! I'm sure I'll think of more. But if not, or if the power cuts out again, love and miss you all!