Elder Vasquez r-u-n-n-u-f-f-t

Wednesday, December 10, 2014

(We got to hear from Scott again this week because it was tranfers)

Elder vasquez r-u-n-n-o-f-f-t. Got transfered, so now I´m flying solo and have the responsibility to teach the area and the people to my new companion (who will still be my senior companion but he wont know anything about the island or our people, obviously).

 

 I was real sad to see vasquez go, but, its for the best. It was time for a change. He taught me alot, and he´s an excellent missionary, but I did feel like he was holding us back sometimes. He was very patient and thoughtful but indecisive sometimes-and because of this we weren´t working as much as I wanted to. Still, I´ll miss him. By the time he left we got real close and were teaching with a lot of unity. 

Anyway, time for my update. Had an excellent last couple days working with Elder Cluff, the other gringo here. It was nice working with him because he´s a gringo and always go go go-and that´s the style I like. I can´t stand waiting around-the only way I can find satisfaction and happiness in this work is to really go hard. If we don´t work hard and are waiting around I start thinking of home and other things and I can´t focus on the work at hand. Anyways. 

We had some gringos visit church on sunday-from monticello and st george Utah. Randalls. Figured we were related. 

Also, just a little sidenote, its interesting that hear when people get up to bear their testimonies, they always bring their spouse with them-there will be two people up at the podium and they take turns bearing testimony. Not sure if its sweet or odd but its sure different. 

We still have our people with baptism dates-the velasquez family struggles to understand everything and Bucho has cigarrette problems. Still pressing forward and we should be able to set two more dates tonight. Also been doing alot of reactivation-one family has returned to full activity in the church-sunday meetings, christmas activity, and christmas devotional-without us prodding them to go, so that´s cool. And we´re reactivating other families but they still need help from time to time. And then last night we found a totally inactive family but all the kids are baptized and they kinda just faded so we´ll have the chance to bring them back too. 

Also, I´m just about fed up with how rude the native islanders are. We´ll say hi to them and they´ll say nothing, or say ¨mhmm¨ or just look at you like we should know better than to speak spanish to them. Sometimes when we contact their houses they will come out to see who´s there, and then they´ll see its us and they won´t say a word and just turn their backs to us and keep talking to whoever else is there-they don´t hide, they just sit there with their backs to us. The other night there was this islander who was fixing his bike, which was blocking the path. We come up and he doesn´t move his bike so we can pass, just keeps on messing with it. So we help him fix his bike and in a minute its good to go-and he just gets up and rides off-doesn´t say a word the entire time. I sure like the hondurans a whole lot more. 

Also, all those stories about latina girls and missionaries? true. Holy cow. I don´t know if I was just looking real good this week or what but I got offered marriage a couple times, was offered a naked massage by an investigator, and had another investigator tell me that she had a dream the other night that she would get married to a christian gringo who came to the island. 

But besides all that, had a real good couple of days. Teaching with the spirit and I´m really learning to be bold and not worry about mistakes. I have absolutely no fear anymore. I love talking to receptive people and I love talking to people that absolutely don´t want us to be there because I enjoy it. And I´m really learning how inspired preach my gospel is and I am becoming a preach my gospel missionary-´by the book is the way to go. 

Although, speaking of preach my gospel, the district videos are a joke for this mission. It just doesn´t compare. I would be very unfit for a stateside mission and I am becoming very well suited for this mission. The district missionaries seem like robots and I can´t stand to watch the (excpet the one elder, elder christiansen, he´s great)  And they have cars and houses and their investigators haven´t killed people. But yeah, getting more and more used to Honduras every day. 

That´s my update! Miss you all.

how was curtis´s birthday? Out of school yet? Tell Chenel hi for me. And for skype, I´ll have however long you want really but shouldn´t be more than an hour. Christmas day or new years day, you choose. 

winter break plans?

And I´m sorry to hear that curtis is getting all heathrow-y. the more he goes fishing the less he´ll be like that, right? allthough I´m glad he´s concerned about how he smells, I feel like that ones pretty important. 

That´s just about all I have to share for now, tell everybody hi and that they are loved and missed. And pray for the other missionaries as well, some of my friends from the MTC are in some very dangerous areas. But, I´m safe and sound in our little tropical island here.