October 5, 2015

Happy Pday and happy birthday!

The office party! Looks fun, loved seeing everybody. Can´t wait to shoot the bull with the latins. Tell them all hi for me, as always. Any new office gossip? How´s sunburst doing? Nikki´s family?

And yes, conference was great. More on that later. No package yet! Maybe tomorrow. But yes, I´d love some more contacts. not too many more but I am running low. I think -4.0 is what I´m wearing. And I´m good on garments, thanks for always watching out for me. 

But yeah, basically I´ll always be writing at this time. Hope you all don´t mind! 

I thought that was so funny that sarah got in begging. Right on. What are you all gonna do for thanksgiving? Go big! who are you gonna do it with? And how´s the family? And Dad´s side?

Hope dad enjoyed the movie, I think I´ve seen previews for that. 

What´s going on with the lot next door, are they gonna build or what? 

And that´s what I miss most about conference...before the mission the actual conference didn´t interest me too much, but spending the day with the family and the conference breakfast I definitely miss! 

That´s funny they were all calling for me, our family´s pretty dang funny. 

My little reply to dad: Enjoy the weather. we´re still in full summer here but I was just thinking...this is my last summer here! Well, my last september. I think september´s the hottest month and I won´t have another! How´s seminary? And yeah, I´m super open with the president Klein, he knows how it is. He kinda just laughs, shakes his head, and tells me good luck. And yeah, I am kinda plateuing with spanish. I just never have time to study. I´m really good at listening to how people speak but as far as book learning I´m not progressing at all!

Alright, time for my update.

my companion, our bishop, Johanna, Acner, and I. 

our desk and our board

house and the view from our front door

 

Comp issues; We´re a whole lot better now. Basically I quit trying to be friends with him and settled on being missionaries and it´s working out pretty well. We had a long discussion/fight til midnight one night and since then its been pretty good. I kinda just accepted that that´s how he is and we´re moving forward. We really did it for the zone more than anything, it´s hard to motivate missionaries when those that are supposed to be the leaders are engaged in a big pissing contest. 

They´re still feeding us like crazy! We´ve had dinners every night, and one night this week we had three. They´re filling us up, bless the relief society here. It makes life so much easier. And we actually have money and don´t have to eat semitas and juice made from tang for breakfast. 

 I wanna tell you all about our typical day. So ya know my schedule. At 6 we wake up and go to the gym and go hard for an hour and a half. At 8 we´re studying personally, and then at 9 o´clock in companionship (which almost never happens due to our constant stream of ZL duties). At 10 we´re visitng, on a good day we can get in 3 visits before lunchtime. At 12 we head over to hermana Mercede´s house to get filled up with rice, beans, bananas, chicken, and stuff like that, with juice made from tamarind seeds or jamaica flowers. At 1 we study language, theoretically, and at 2 we´re back making visits. If it´s a good day we´ll get in 5 more plus a dinner of beans, eggs, and cheese with tortillas and chili sauce on the side. We´re in the streets til 9;30 usually and then we get back and plan til 10, and just about every night we´ve gotta take care of some matter of business in the zone, and we´re in bed at 11 usually. 

Little funny story from this week, my buddy Elder Michael (my ccm comp, who´s in the zone about 10 minutes away) got robbed the other day-they took their phone and some money. And then the other night we got a phone call from their phone-freak, the thief is calling-so we answered it and its Michael...turns out the gangster had felt bad, realized that they were missionaries, repented, and brought the camera back. Cracks me up. That´s Honduras right there. 

This week we did divisions with my favorite companionship in the zone, Elder Magalei from Hawaii and Elder Jaurez from Guate. I went with Magalei in his area and we had a blast. He´s kind of a new missionary so it was fun teaching him some stuff and kinda showing him how to work. His other companions had been good kids but didn´t push him, and then we went out and found 6 new people and had 9 lessons in one day he was like ¨this is so cool!¨ lots of motivation, I felt pretty good and prideful about that division. Felt like I was doing my job. He´ll be a better missionary than I´ll ever be, lots of potential. Then in the night time on the divisions we invited my buddy, Elder Saunders, the DL over there, and his comp Villegas (an old comp of mine) over for a ¨p-noche¨. We had a good old time, had ourselves a little devotional, sang ye elders of israel, shared our favorite scriptures, and it actually turned out being a really powerful experience. Everybody was feeling the spirit. Then we watched Ephraim´s Rescue and got seriously motivated. Great experience all around. Looking back I´m actually pretty sure it was against the rules, but...I´m glad we did it. Raised a whole lot of motivation where it was needed. 

Alrighty, conference, before I run out of time. Brief thoughts. Loved Uchtdorf´s first talk. If our church experience is working for us. And the counsel to simplify. Not let ourselves get burried by programs and numbers. Exaltation is the goal and discipleship is the journey. And also the counsel for all the doubts/church history/anti-mormon type stuff. You can be happy or you can be right. If we pursue shadows, that´s exactly what we´ll get-lots of things of little substance that don´t lead us to happiness. Loved hearing sister Marriott´s talk, just for the accent. Couldn´t tell ya much of what she said besides ¨It will all work out¨but it was a delight listening to her talk. There´s another Elder here from Texas and we got a little fist bump out of the experience. I do love what she said though about everything all working out. I believe that I am always divinely guided-every trial, challenge, problem, asignment is given to me to prepare me for something else. And I believe that every one else is also divinely guided-God has a plan, in spite of sins and mistakes, and he´s sure not looking to send anybody to hell. Elder Hollands talk on mothers-Love you Mom! Also, I like that they mentioned our heavenly mother. And Foster´s talk on how society fights to change identity and mind of our families, and how children our the biggest group of investigators in the church. I was pretty impressed by the counsel he gave for fathers as well, the whole ¨I was 9 once too, here´s what you might come across¨. Stellar advice, I feel like you all did that one pretty well as parents. 

And how Neil A. Anderson said ¨The priesthood makes us different. We no longer stand on nuetral ground¨. Like Joseph Smith said, when we united with this church we made our choice-there is no longer nuetral ground for us. We chose to fight on the side of right and if we quit fighting, we are opposing. 

I loved Eyring´s talk, when he talked about the EQ president that activated all the guys in his quorom talking about trucks. That´s my future right there. I also loved his counsel on leadership too. Despite his inadequacies and doubts he said  ¨As it was the will of the Lord I accepted.¨

And how Elder Renlund said how the Lord calls us for what he needs to do through us, in spite of what we have done, not because of what we have done. And this only works if we do it his way. And, in Elder Schwitzer´s address, he said that as a leader, one should seek to inspire, not to impress. I think that´s one thing I´m good at because I´m really not all that impressive, but I do a pretty good job of inspiring and lifting. 

I enjoyed Christofferson´s doctrinally sound talk about why we need the church-and how it´s a hands on experience. And, most importantly, how the point of the church is so that a family can qualify for eternal life. We´re converted unto the lord and united to the church. 

And how elder Keetch and Sister Carole said, people are unwilling to keep the commandments/submit until they understand. That´s so hard to do with investigators. Get them to understand, really, why they are making these changes. Pretty much all of them do it to avoid hellfire, but theres so much more than that. There was a ton I liked but I´m short on time! I missed Elder Nelson´s talk, because the power went out, but...hope it was good! 

Also have been thinking about spiritual experiences in the past. Elder Uchtdorf´s talk really jived with me...like, how some mornings, I still wake up wondering if this is all really true or if I´m wasting my time and my life here-and then, after putting some thought into it, I remember how many spiritual experiences I´ve had-how many witnesses. I can´t deny it. I know its true. Early experiences, when I was 16 or 17, just seeing that preach my gospel manual on my nightsand. I´m pretty sure I never read the thing, but I could just feel that it was true. I could feel that the book had power. The same with my Book Of Mormon. Even from a young age, even just holding the book in my hands would give me a feeling of power. Even though my scripture reading habits were pretty so-so, I could still feel it. Family scripture study. Family prayer. Even though there were so many times it felt routine, it made a huge difference. Up backpacking in Montana with Hyrum when I had 17 years-we got scared of the dark and a deer we thought was a grizzly, so we started to read the little military edition of the BoM sister Smith had given me. Reading up in my treestand hunting in the swamp. Reading on the mountainop in the blue with Orrin after filling the tag last november. Feeling the power of Repentance for the first time up in BYU, and many times afterwards. Seeing and doing miracles through priesthood blessings in Morazan. Recieving revelation from reading the scriptures in my personal study on the mission-pure revelation like I´d never recieved before. Seeing families and lives change. If I we´re to deny all that now...

 

Anyways, that´s about all I got for ya. Time for some pictures. 

 

also I didn´t have time to reply to sarah but tell her I was cracking up reading her little note and that I miss her and I´m glad she´s doing so well! 

 

reply to curtis: Hey Curtis! What kinda .270 are ya looking at? What brand? I always wish I had bought a .270 instead of a .30-06. Fishing gear! braided line just about always unless you´re bottom fishing for grouper way offshore. I´d say 15 lbs braided line if you can find it. I like Power Pro or Suffix. And then always fish with a 15 or 20 pound flourocarbon leader of about 2 feet tied together. If you can´t tie the knot learn! But if not you´ll still catch fish without it but I think it helps. And you know how I like to fish the rivers-2/0 wide gap gamakatsu hook with a super fluke jr in color baby bass or arkansas shiner. Tears it up! Just cast to trees and stumps and twitch it back to the boat pretty fast. I expect some pictures! 

 

Sterling: Loved the football pictures. I miss football! send the videos! Sometimes I can´t watch them because of the internet connection, but I´d love to see you in action. And dude...Mrs. Voke is the best. She´s kinda hard, but I really do think she´s a great teacher. Out of all the teachers I had in middle school she´s probably the only one I´d like to visit. And she loves our family. Get to know her! Keep killing it with the football! One of my best friends here is from hawaii and has 12 brothers and all his older brothers are playing college football-in oregon, in utah, and hawaii, how cool is that?