October 12, 2015

I'm really glad you all sent me new shoes

Hey everybody! I'll go ahead and respond to everything and then give you all my update.

Yup, magalei's the one with 12. I'll get yall a picture with him, he's one of my good buddies here.

haha, our whiteboard! Yup, that's just our area, my comp and I. Papeles is papers, as in, papers to get married...such a headache. I know the honduran municipal governments like the back of my hand.

And yeah, that's the great thing about latin america...we are always well recieved! No one wants to do anything but they all want to listen! I remember seeing the numbers of the missionaries in longwood, like...10 lessons in a week. That's the states for ya, poor guys. And my comp showed up in the pictures I sent you! The baptism pictures?

But yeah, comp still sucks. No need to complain about it but If I had to choose between spending the day with Obama and and Lopez I'd pick Obama. I'm in sore need of repentence but I can only be so christlike...I can only take so much, ya know? I'm winning the battle, but it's a battle. Not rising to the bait to fight, letting the abuse roll off my shoulders. But one day I might just snap. I've been incredibly christlike, I've really surprised myself, but at the end of the day I'm only human. When one of us have changes (which might be tomorrow-pray!!) I will be sorely tempted to tell him to kindly go to hell.

And yeah, Sister Klein is great. She's so gringo. And yes, I got the package and loved it! Shirts awesome, shoes are perfect, no complaints there! And the video...wooo, I opened that package after a leaders meeting in san pedro and all the boys gave me hell for that one. But, I already watched it, 20 minutes every night at a time, and loved it. Thanks!

And I think thats about the coolest thing ever what Rhys and Dallas are doing...That's my dream right there. I even wrote about it in my journal. Make it happen in north Florida. Land costs 1k the acre, super cheap, make a deseret style empire on the old logging company lands in NFL. Cattle, peaches, lease land, hunting operations...If there's any kind of possibility of that being a reality I'd do it. I've got my ranching buddies here on the mission in on it. Great picture of Kent's family too.

I always love hearing about everyone's activities. Kate's looking so grown up, she's a pretty girl. And I hope sterling does do pop warner, I think it'd be real good for him, he's got lots of potential. And curtis never answered my questions! Just let curtis be a hunting and fishing fool, my viewpoint is that you have to be really good at something but it doesn't really matter what that something is.

sorry to hear about skip. Hope he makes it. He's a good dog. But if he doesn't make it just don't bring him to the shelter to put him down, that would break my heart. Find a way to do it at home. But I hope he makes it!

Say hi to everyone in the ward for me. Especially old bishop spencer and sandee. They really are great, seeing how the church functions here really make me appreciate them. Also, tell Julie hi! Any updates from them? The boys still frequenting the river?

Also, could you all send me talks again? If you can find them I'd love to get some from Jack R. Christianson-he's not a GA or anything but I heard he's got some pretty good stuff.

 Update! We're killing it with the work. We had 9 investigators in church on sunday. And it was a testimony meeting...but, thankfully, almost all the testimonies were solid. For the first time in a while I was actually able to feel the spirit in a honduran sacrament meeting! They're honestly terrible but Its grown on me.

It's really interesting how much my capacity to love has grown. Loving members, and investigators. There's one family here in the ward that I've really grown to love-the matriarch, sister merlo, reminds me of you-real active, backbone of the ward, alway serving and helping, truly dedicated. But for some reason she's kinda rubbed people wrong in the ward-she's offended some people, and honestly its kinda her fault, but I just saw her the other night coming back from the third church activity that sunday and just sit down on the couch, just exhausted, and I felt such a great love for her, I just wanted to wrap my arms around her and tell her how great she is. She works so hard and is giving her life in the service of the lord and her family and is greatly underappreciated.

I've also seen alot of gossiping here-problems in zion-being a missionary is interesting because people want to tell you everything. I know everything about the ward here. It's made a big impression on me how everyone has weaknesses and make mistakes but everyone does what they do because it's what they believe is best or because they don't know any better. Just gotta love everybody, not get offended, and realize how damaging are little snippy differences and gossips and things like that. It kills wards here (the people are extra gossipy in honduras) but it pains me to see. Don't gossip, love everybody, and remember that everyone that is serving in the church is a volunteer just like we are!
But yeah, I'm definitely learning alot here. I may not learn a ton about the gospel, about deep doctrine or what have you, but I sure am learning alot about the practical side of religion. And I'm learning people. I remember that Kyle Johnson told me that his mission taught him more about the world and how people work than any college education ever could and I think he's right.

Cool story for the week, I was chatting with a sister in church the other day and all of a sudden her huband talks to me in English-turns out he's a new yorker that joined the marines and ended up in honduras and stayed. He's a vietnam vet and ended up finding the church because he had a buddy in his platoon from Alaska, a good old mormon boy. One day they got trapped and engaged in firefight and he told me that he was next to his buddy, an endowed RM, and he saw a bullet smack his buddy in the chest and then fall to the floor, as his buddy reached down to pick it up, juggling it in his hands for the heat, and put it into his pocket for a souvenir. He was impressed by the protection of the temple garment and then later found the missionaries in honduras, read the book of mormon in a day, and then got baptized. Cool guy. Real grumpy but interesting story.

Also, I'm becoming latin. I don't know how to make jokes or have fun in english anymore. But gosh dang it I'm funny in spanish. One, the people are real easy to please, they like to laugh, and second, somehow they like my sense of humor.

Also, enjoy FHE! After I get done writing we're gonna go have a NDH (noche de hogar) with a family of recent converts. We'll sit down on their porch on the dirt floor under a bare lightbulb with a dog laying at my feet and a caged parrot above my head. We'll sit on a cinderblock bench and hammocks, swatting mosquitos. It'll be us, Acner, who passed the sacrament for the first time this sunday, and his mom, Johanna, the woman who got baptized last saturday, and Emilio, her other son who's a teacher. She'll whip out doctrine and covenants and give us a lesson and expound on a verse or two and tell her sons how they need to be priesthood men and good boys, and then if we're lucky they'll give us a glass of coke. At least that's what happened last monday.

Anyway, that's my update. Pictures are coming!

Oh yeah, I also got surgery this week! Went to a honduran doctor. Half way through he stops and starts typing on his computer and I'm just thinking "freak, this guys looking up how to do it on youtube" but it actually turned out pretty well. Super painful though, I was limping around for a while. Ingrown toenail. They numbed my toe and then just cut the thing out with scissors and pulled the nail with medical pliers.

 

Love you all, sorry that time is short!