No tengo cambio!!!! Y Hermana U. tampoco!!! So the fabulous Hermana U. y Hermana Despain van a quedar en La Ceiba!!!! We were screaming when we found out. This is how it all happened!
So after we went running and did our exercises, I was showering and soaking up the water right? And then as I was lathering my hair in lovely Honduran shampoo, Hermana U. starts yelling at me and obviously I couldn’t understand her to save my life. I can't even understand English when I'm in the shower, so she tries to tell me that an Elder from the office wants to talk to me and of course I started to freak out and was like "what did I do?!" So I washed the shampoo out of my hair and sat around waiting for them to call back in a towel for like 5 minutes. Then we got a call from President Klein and I answered it in Spanish and he thought I was Hermana A. :) He couldn’t believe it was me! He complimented my Spanish and that felt really good :) So then he told us that he had been trying to call us for a few days to wish me Happy Birthday and said that he would get us a phone for my birthday since we've been suffering without one for almost a month now and we've had to borrow the other hermanas cell phone. Then we told him we were mostly just wanting our phone to know if we had cambios or not so then he told us he would give me another gift and tell us if we had changes! AND WE DON’T! So we get to stay together for Christmas and call our families together and everything! AND! on top of that! Apparently our zone had the most baptisms out of the whole mission! So President Klein is letting us all go to cambios as a treat! Usually they don’t like everyone to go to keep it more reverent but we are all so excited to be able to go together! And he said that he will come to spend a day with the zone between Christmas and New Years! WOHOOO!!! As far as being with the same companion for another 6 weeks, I'm relieved and excited because we're excited to see the fruits of our labors finally.So my birthday was beyond fabulous :) I woke up and Hermana U. had made me a little Jell-O/fruit cocktail thing and then we went and ran and showered and got ready and went to the stake center for our zone meeting! So we got there and U. started like talking to the ZLs and I was all suspicious but then they asked if they could talk to me and I got all nervous but then I figured they were just trying to distract me when they started asking things like "how do you feel in your area? How is it to not have a phone? Do you feel left out?" and I just wanted to be like "dude, what’s going on?". But then we went back into the meeting and they started in and then all the sudden, Elder C. and like 5 other Elders come in singing and with a cake and everyone had their cameras out and it was the best thing ever!!! So then I was super surprised and super happy and I could have cried! But then they were all telling me to like bite a bit of the cake and I was thinking ok that’s weird, can I just lick it? And then as I started to lick it, one of the Elders shoved my face into the cake. THEY SHOVED MY FACE IN THE CAKE YOU GUYS. And guess what? I LOVED IT!!!!!
Even though I spent like 10 minutes on my makeup that morning, I loved it! I was super surprised and a little teary eyed but afterwards I was just like "dude what the heck, this is the best!". Apparently I had the Word "oiiii!" stuck on my forehead and a smile on it too. So after everyone took pics and videos, I went and washed it off and we ate cake and had the meeting and I learned a lot and took notes and everything :) Hermana U. had grabbed the Happy Birthday banner from the house and they decorated a white board with that and it was just so fun :) I wouldn’t have wanted to spend my bday in the mish any other way :) So after all that we went to go help Hermana R. clean her window panes but we ended up listening to her talk for 3 hours while we ate cake that she surprised me with :) It was so so so sweet. She's like my Honduran mom :) It meant so much to me. And don’t worry, I saved the candle ;) So we booked it to our next appointment and how ironic, they can’t afford food! Only problem was that a torrential down pour started and we couldn’t even hear ourselves talk during the lesson. THAT’S always a little frustrating. So that lesson took over an hour so we were late to our dinner appointment and they were leaving to go to the baptism and it turns out they had bought me a pizza!
I opened a few packages and loved it! I opened the Uno cards and the Rock Paper Lizard Spock game and I can’t wait to play it! I opened the Charlotte Russe bag too and of course I love anything pretty and sparkly!!!!! Love the jewelry and sock bun thing and jacket! It was so nice to be able to open fun presents on my birthday! I can't wait for Christmas! :)
What was sad though was to find out that the N. family had waited for us and made a bunch of food for us because we had a cita with them but we went to the baptism earlier than expected so we couldn’t visit them! She had made a cake and everything :( She wanted to spank me but I was like "Hey, I'm an hermana, you can't touch me!" So we ate some leftover cake and Parent Trap was on TV, that brought back some good memories :) But we turned it off and shared a little message. The families here really have become my Honduran family. I love it. And how many times can you say that you spent your birthday in a foreign country doing what the Lord would have you do? Pretty rare:)
Ward Correlation in 3 hashtags #loco #chaos #someonegotalittleheated
We sent around a meal calendar and we have dinner citas for like the next two weeks! it was the cutest thing to get the calendar back and just feel the love of the members :) We'll see if we lose some weight because we'll be eating earlier and at a better time...
I love just stopping and taking everything in sometimes. As a missionary sometimes it's hard to stop and smell the roses when all you smell is garbage or some cheap cologne or pee. Plus we're constantly thinking about the future or the past. But I love to stop and remember that I’m serving a mission. A few weeks ago we were teaching an investigator up in Lomas de Buenos Aires right where we took that picture with me and the mountains and I just stopped thinking and stopped stressing about what I didn’t understand what I wanted to say and I was just like "I’m teaching someone in Honduras, with mountains in the background, how many missionaries get to do that?!" So even though it was a little distracting, it just made it all the better and it made me smile more and made me want to testify more. The work is hard and sometimes I just want to cry and get mad and “machete” someone but other times it’s all worth it and you see the fruits and someone surprises you with a birthday cake and the mission president calls you to wish you a happy birthday and you get your Christmas wish to stay with your companion in Ceiba and you remember that people love you :)Love you all, thank you for your love and support, never give up. The gospel of Jesus Christ brings happiness. You just have to let it bring happiness into your life :)
Con todo mi amor y todo mi corazón,
Hermana Despain
