September 7, 2015

I always told you all how I wanted to serve in La Ceiba right? I love this city. It´s beautiful, right on the carribean, not too hot, and the church is strong. It´s like being in the Longwood ward. We actually have a ward, a bishop, a ward mission leader, and ward missionaries...I´m in heaven. The work is on fire here. Here families get baptized and go to the temple. Our investigators don´t have baptism goals, they have temple sealing goals. It´s not quite as great as it sounds, its still Honduras, but it´s a huge improvement.

 

 

 I miss Morazan though. Saying goodbye was hard. got emotional. Few people cried, I´d been there for a long time and hope I was able to make a difference. 

Mario and Rosita. The first converts to get sealed here when the church opened the area two years ago. Love them to death. Never forget them, they got all emotional and thanked me for making them into a branch. 

 

I broke the rules and gave her a hug, one of my favorite people here. She´s the wife of the man that plays the guitar with me. She always welcomed me in with open arms and treated me like her own son. 

 

 

The best goodbye I got was with the familia Reyes Castro. I got there, said goodbye, and they´re like lets throw a party. We took some pictures, ate tamales, and had the time of my life singing mariachi with the hermano again, and the whole family. Love that family. Part member family, but I´m a big fan. 

Ceiba is a real interesting place. It´s a big city, split in two by a green mountain jutting up out of the valley floor. There´s always a good breeze off of the ocean, and the palm trees are always laden with coconuts. It reminds me of Roatan, but a whole lot better. There´s a little more money here than the rest of Honduras, and our area actually has a pretty big group of mansions built up on the hill, with big balconies looking out to the ocean. I´m real glad to be within seeing distance of the ocean again, I really did miss it. Our area is kind of far away, but at least 3 or 4 times a day we´ll crest a hill and be able to see it. The cultural makeup is pretty unique too, the vast majority are regular hondurenans, but there´s still quite a few blacks here, descendants of the slaves brought in by the spaniards to work the sugarcane and coffee plantations. The typical home of a wealthy family, that has a good job, is about 1500 sq ft, small yard, palm trees, mango trees, hammock out front, and an old jeep cherokee in the driveway. 

The members are excellent here, one of the best stakes in Honduras. Our ward is small but strong. The members like us, help us, and they work! I´m loving the area. We also have a cook, who is also the primary president, and she makes great food. I hope I can put on some more weight here cause I´m still wasting away. 

I´ve also really been seeing how the Lord is in control, and I´m in exactly the right place. I´ve found people from Roatan, lots of fishermen, and just lots of people that I have been able to reach with my certain set of abilities and personality. 

I´m also really developing my missionary personality too. I´m proud of who I´ve becoming and still developing it. I definitely have my faults in the mission, but I get along so dang well with everybody. I don´t know what happened but I feel so at home here, I finally just mastered the honduran personality I guess and people love it. I´m myself, loving people, and I´m really developing a knack for pulling people up, developing close relationships, and all that good stuff. 

Also doing the same thing with the other missionaries here. They up and made me a zone leader, and I´m taking my leadership inspiration from Spencer W Kimball´s talk about ¨Jesus, the Perfect Leader¨ and how we shouldn´t be afraid of close personal relationships. It drives my comp up the wall but I love calling all my missionaries and just talking. I´ve got some real good friends in the zone, and a couple new gringos I´m watching out for. My goal is working hard, putting the example, and get along with everybody. One on one leadership works real well. 

About my comp though, I´m getting real sick of guatemala. He´s a good guy, just kinda weird. Real robotic. I don´t feel the spirit with him at all. Still working on feeling the love for him. Feels lots of pressure to perform. Works really hard, and I respect him for that, but not real effectively. Running around like a chicken with his head cut off. We´ll see how that goes. But yeah, being ZL is cool. We don´t sleep but somehow I´m being blessed with energy to cope. To bed at 12 sometimes and up again at 6¨30. Not feeling too tired though, coping well. 

I´m gonna try and send some pictures. Still haven´t got your weekly email but loving the pictures! what happened with BYU? Real short on time but hoping to upload some pictures. 

soccer game, multi zone pday, and the view from our hill.