November 30, 2015

 

You guys are killing it with the pictures, as usual. I loved the pictures! The wood pictures, thanksgiving pictures, everything. Everyone´s looking so grown up. Curtis looks like me now, Marcor looks huge, Sterling looks like a miniature Ty Detmer, and the girls are too pretty for their own good. And Mom and Dad are looking young! Dad´s growing the facial hair out again huh? Me too, we´ve got three days without water and I´ve got a meeting with President Klein tomorrow. How´s Mike´s family? Loved seeing everybody, and I´m glad Jessica made it down, what´s she doing here?  And the picture with Russel made my day, as did seeing Kendall swing an axe. Still got it. And the slow mo video of sterling splitting wood, and of curtis driving were both quality. Forget Florida, Arizona´s looking pretty good right now! (just kidding...kind of) And the boy´s coyote hunt, did sterling have a good time too? Tell me about it when you get the chance. That´s a really pretty coyote, gonna do anything with the skin? Orrin was real impressed with how the boys carried themselves-he said they listened well to instructions, did what he told them to do, and were just competent all around. Wish I coulda been there hauling wood, and made me laugh to see the pepsi bottles making an appearance in the picture. I can outdrink all of you now in pepsi. Like its water. Looks like a great vacation though. Funny how the best vacations are just chopping wood and walking in the mountains. I´d rather do what you all are doing than go to a foreign country or do something exotic. Next year! 

And yeah, it´s getting pretty christmasy actually. Lights, trees, everything. On a way smaller scale because alot of people just can´t afford, nor care about, christmas decorations but it´s still getting everybody in the spirit. And a honduran ornament...that´s gonna be kinda hard, hondurans just want stuff from the states and I´d have to go somewhere touristy to find something like that. But I´ll try! And the weather has been great too...not chilly, but I don´t have to use a fan at night now and last night I actually got a little bit cold and put on socks (I don´t sleep with a sheet so its not chilly, but its sure a nice break from being hot). Nice breeze and cool in the shade. 

And yup, still with Navas! It´s possible I´ll be here til februrary but the next change is in january. At least I´ll be here for christmas. And I´m excited for that because this is my first area that the people truly love us-everyone invites us over, everyone gives us references-navas and I get along so well we just have a good ol time with the members. 

And about what Mom told me, about the offended family-I´ll look for that talk. That´s good advice. At the end of the day they are the ones that have to choose what they want. Also, on that same vein the other day we were talking with a less active sister that was criticizing the bishop up and down, just tearing him up, and we finally got it out of her what happened, and what happened was that the bishop came to her house, knowing that she was a single mom, and asks her if there´s anything she needs-how they´re doing financially, things like that-and she told him no, everything is good! And then she went inactive because she got mad at the bishop because ¨the bishop should have known¨ that they were out of food and money and should have helped them, even though she said no and refused help. There´s more to the story but still, holy cow! Another problem here is that the people live too dang close together. There´s one street where everyone is a member and the houses all touch-you would not imagine the gossip and busybodying that goes on in that street. I know it happens in the states too but at least in the states you go a good week without seeing the other members and when you see them you´re actually glad to see them. 

But yeah, really the only thing to report this week is the role of the spirit. I´ve been realizing more and more how subtely the spirit works but how vital it is. For example, yesterday I was just walking and I thought ¨we ought to call Carlos and Iris, see how they´re doing¨ so we called them and they´re like ¨come and visit us, we´ll be home in 5 minutes!¨ and it turns out that they had been talking about how they felt a little abandoned by the church and that the missionaries don´t visit them anymore and as soon as they had said those words they got a phone call from us. Small and simple things. Just acting on the impressions that pop into my head has done a world of good for me and our work, and I´m just now starting to realize and recognize the frequency of them. Just my little thought for the day. 

This week has been filled with work and projects. We´ve got alot on our plate right now-monthly meeting tomorrow, service project in the hospital on friday, we have to arrange our multi-zone christmas conference with catering for 80 people, training meetings for new missionaries, ward counsel, stake conference, wedding papers, meeting with lawyers, fundraising projects, doing divisions with the missionaries in the zone, and that on top of our regular meetings and missionary work. I´m juggling! 

Also, they opened up a wal-mart in ceiba...I´ve never been so happy to go to walmart. It ended up being pretty crappy, walmart honduras style, but I took out some money and bought stuff I´d been in need of-toiletries, some food, things like that-so I´m in pretty good shape now. 

And the robbery-no, nothing. I wouldn´t even know where to go to talk to the police. And they wouldn´t care-when there´s killings and gang wars every day they kind of have their hands full. According to the word on the street the people that live up above in the hills are getting together to form a vigilante group to get rid of one of the gangs up there, so that could be interesting. But, the good thing about the gangs-the organized gangs-is that they protect the missionaries. The problems are the little street thugs that couldn´t get into the gangs but want to make a quick buck. But this is still a really calm area, no worries. 

Hope you all enjoyed the pictures, I´ll be on for a while yet. 

 

Nuñez con Navas. Navas is on the far right

My buddy Nuñez from El Salvador, I was pretty bummed when he got transferred out of the zone last change. Great kid, convert of two years and the only member in his family. Sometimes I get worried when missionaries baptize teenagers without family support but...a solid 20% of the latino missionaries here are teenagers without a single member in their family. 

 

the mountain part of our area. Half is in the city and the other half is up on the mountain. We´ve got three little valleys to our name and one of them is pure mormons. 

Here´s Yohanna and her boys, Emilio and Acner, our recent converts. Their dog is the coolest thing. At first she always growled at us and went and sulked when we arrived, but we made friends and now everytime we pass by their house (which is like 200 yards from the road) this little dog is running down to greet us, jumping on us and peeing herself from excitement.

Today we rented out the stadium here in la ceiba to play against the other zone and we went and made jerseys for the zone (in la ceiba there are two zones, we´re zona miramar) My comp -  I love him to death

Love you all and enjoy your last day in AZ and the flight home! And go back to FL and go fishing for me, december is the absolute best time to be on the river