March 9, 2015

Hey everybody! Good week. Here's my little update. 

Feeling better, mostly. I am going to call the nurse though because I'm still coughing constantly and usually have really raspy breathing, and it's been going on for a long time. I've been taking over the counter stuff (actually everything is over the counter here) and it improved but I'm still not well. 

Interesting stuff this week. We started our English class up again, and one of the members just up and called the radio station on the island and announced a free english class at the iglesia mormona. Which was great, we should have thought of that, but then we had like 35 people show up for our enlgish class, and it was great. Hopefully we can convert it into finding new people to teach but I teach the class and it goes really well and everyone likes it. 

The other thing I've really noticed this week is that, all things said and done, I'm grateful for having such a useless companion.I've learned so much-I do everything and I've learned exactly how the mission works because I was forced to do everhyting for myself. I literally do everything-from get him out of bed in the morning to teaching the lessons. We've had lessons where he just says something short at the end and calls it good. Our investigators tell him to shape up. I could go on and on about that but long story short, I learned a ton from experience. 

The other thing, now that transfers are looming and I'm set to go, is looking at how much we've transformed the area here. When I got here, there hadn't been any baptisms in a long time, and my first 3 months we had little success. But now, thanks to working hard, and the good leadership of Elder Cluff, and a switch up in Branch leadership, this is now a baptizing area, we have activated lots of families, people are recieving the priesthood, and we leave with the youth all the time and they're gonna go to the MTC ready to go. 

Don't get me wrong though, there's lots of days where I can't stand this island, same people, same streets, people h iding from us, lying to us, rejecting us, and I'm tired of smelling human waste and marijuna and rum. But then we have experiences that make me want to stay, like yesterday. We got up into the hills, away from the population centers, and found receptive people in clean houses who aren't living in fornication and who don't think we are satan worshipers and who don't belong to the church of God and we just have good experiences with them. Teaching real, genuine lessons to people that really want to listen, under the shade of coconut trees with the mango trees and the almond trees in bloom all around us with a nice sea breeze. The island can be pretty nice sometimes. Also worked really hard this week-15 lessons in two days this weekend (we only had these two days to work, thanks to another meeting we had to go to this week in ceiba)

All the same, I'm excited to get transfered. I'm ready to actually serve in Honduras. I'm kind of tired of being so isolated from the rest of the mission, never knowing about anything, and overpaying for food. 

That's all the interesting stuff I got for yall for this week! Transfers are the 18th, and this friday we are going to go to san pedro sula for a multi-mission conference with Elder Anderson, and I'll get to see all the old buddies again. We have so many meetings though-just this week we had to go to ceiba, and the week before-we might baptize more if we didn't have so many meetings! 

Anyways, sounds busy! poor Kenny, that's kind of funny. 

Where was the campout? And I'm glad they both have their kayaks, thats sweet. Send em to Julies.Keep them busy. Is curtis gonna wrestle down the road? What's sterling gonna do next?

Spring break huh? Devils den looks really cool, i'd love to go there. kinda far isn't it? There's always rainbow river too. Any other spring break plans? 

Sarah's horse looks really good, not like I know, but it doesn't look naggy or anything. Is the brand cool looking? And yeah, I'm super glad she's going to BYU. The good thing about the Y is that no one knows anybody-everyone is new and there's a ton of mixing and mingling and endless opportunities to get to know people. she'll do just fine. Plus, just remember that only 30 percent of the kids there are from Utah...the rest are from other states. Ton of AZ kids, lots of Texans, lots of east coast kids.

Kate...she makes me laugh. So vain. Glad she's making friends with all the lds kids! An orchestra? Sounds prestigious. That would be really cool if she went to BYU too, to have all three of us there. 

How are the Smith's? that's a great picture. I talk to hyrum now and then. 

Is Jim that bad that they are looking for another place already? Like immediately? 

And the truck?? what's it gonna be? are you ruling fords out? too bad you're probably not gonna get a cummins, that'd be the best. 

how many hours is dad working a week? Sounds crazy. Boca, Jax, NC, plus all the normal orlando stuff...crazy. Sounds like some river time is needed. 

Loved hearing from everybody! Hope you all keep on keeping on, thanks for the updates, and have a great week! I'll write you again soon if I remember anything else. 

Oh, ps, next week could you email me some good photos of our everyone in our family tree? Pres Kline wants us to fill one out with pictures and everything to teach members how to do it. 

bye everybody, love you all!