Guíame O Salvador

Talking with my family on Christmas was great. It always is! But it got me really scared about going home. I'm not gonna lie. We went to go buy baleadas because no one was home and people were busy or traveling. So while we waited for our baleadas for like 30 minutes (there was a line, since when?!) we found a sister from the cuartería we used to visit and we chatted with her. It was interesting...to be there waiting for baleadas, looking at the stars and moon, talking with the lady, on Christmas. Quite the Christmas night. It was interesting to ask everyone how their Christmas was...back home it was like "Great, I got this, I got this...I spent it with this person..." But here people normally responded, "Normal, con bien salud..." These people seriously live day by day and for them, Christmas is just another day. So hopefully we were able to shed some Christmas light on them and remind them the real meaning of Christmas. Really humbling thing though to hear them just be thankful for their health. In talking with the lady, we asked her why she was up in centro and she told us she was up there to be away from her husband who was just drinking and drinking in the house. Poor lady. So it was good to talk with her and maybe help her smile.

But later that night something just hit me and I got really sad and scared with the time. It was so hard to plan for the next day. To describe how I felt in those moments? Stuck. If y'all remember, I hadn’t felt like that since my first change here in Honduras. Like I'm between two "homes" again. I was holding back tears and went to the bathroom and heard my comp singing "Conmigo quédate Señor" and I just cried and cried. It was so weird. Just so many emotions. Like some things are certain, and others aren’t. But it's true, the Lord will always be there, no matter what.

We're seeing so many miracles pop up lately. As hard as the work still is...J_____ is a joven (young man) who’s 15 and he's been to the church in the past and is family of the branch president here and he wants to get baptized!!! He's already got asistencia (been attending Sunday meetings), we just need to teach him everything! We challenged him to be baptized yesterday and he accepted! He already read the introduction of the LDM (Book of Mormon) that we left him and even read the part in Moroni at the bottom! Super prepared este joven! So he'll get baptized this Saturday! We'll have to work so hard to teach him everything, but it felt like we were teaching a member, he's super smart and ready. All we needed was his mom's permission, but his sister talked with her and came up to us on Sunday. I was thinking, "Oh no, she's going to tell us that his mom wont let him". When she was like "Hablé con la mama y dijo que sí!" I started freaking out and high fiving my comp, it was so great. So we're working on keeping the mom's trust and showing her that her son really is prepared.

I got sick the day after Christmas. I had a super, super bad sore throat. It was awful but I gargled and tried not to stress out and talk too much, I'm better now.

K_____ came to church again this Sunday so it looks like we might be baptizing 3 weeks in a row! :) How great would that be?! The zone ended up with a retention porcentaje de 78. My ZL was pretty upset I think, but I know that the zone worked really hard. It will be ok and we'll reach 80 the next month! :)

D______ got baptized! Finally! It was a small service but everything went well and everyone helped out! She looked great and Sunday she came to church in a modest skirt and I know her family is feeling great, after so long of wanting her to get baptized! :)

But Sunday we had something unexpected happen. We showed up with K_____  about 8:40 and we said hi to some people, went to the bathroom, but then we went into the chapel to sit down. I saw the counselor of the President sitting up there waiting for the meeting to start. This man is so great, so sweet, and gentle. He stood out to me from the beginning. Everyone always talks about how nice he is. So I saw him sitting there and I was going to just wave and smile to him and sit down, but for some reason I felt I needed to go up and say hi to him...So we did. We chatted a bit and then he let us know that he had waited for us to come to the house since we said we wanted to go visit him. We hadn’t ever set a solid day or time, but since the last change I told my comp I wanted to go visit him, I didn’t know why, I just did. So we apologized and said we would set a day and time :)

That afternoon we got a call from our ward mission leader letting us know he wouldn’t be able to go to a cita with J______ with us...because he needed to take care of a kid at his house. Everything was fine until he asked if we had heard that someone had died. I couldn’t hear him very well and thought he was joking so I put it on speaker phone so my comp could help me. That’s when we realized he was talking about the counselor and how he had died. I knew he had had heart problems, but it sounds like he didn’t feel well at church, was given a blessing and left in a taxi for his house, but then died later. I was heartbroken. This man was always so nice. His wife wasn’t a member and his kids were all inactive, but there he was , a strong counselor in a little rama (branch) of T______. We went the 6 missionaries to the little viewing that night at his house. We showed up to see a big white tent put up with a bunch of guys playing dominoes and drinking and smoking. There were soo many people. We talked with the wife and held her hand for a bit while she talked. We didn’t stay too long since we had to cross the river. The viewing was always a little scary for me but it was good that we went.

We had crossed that river the last change with the President and his wife and their nieto. It was amazing to think that people cross that river all the time just to get to the church. People here make so many sacrifices it’s not even funny. Maybe they’re not all very good at sacrificing time, but the strong members sacrifice a lot. It was neat to cross that river with everyone helping the other.

Another time that sticks out in my mind with that hermano, is when we were all together for correlation and he was there. Sometimes he wasn’t able to be there because of his heart, but at the same time, his heart was there...ya know? That’s the effect some people can have on others, to where their heart is still there even though they aren’t physically there. Interesting :) But I remember that we finished the meeting by singing "Guíame O Salvador". The President directed it and he loves singing. The Spirit was so strong and now every time I sing or hear that song, I think of that night. Listening to all the strong leaders there sing their hearts out. They put up with so much and make so many sacrifices and give it their all. That hymn seriously makes me tear up every time. Some things come as a surprise and others don’t, but in the end, El Salvador will guide us and help us. He always has and He always will. It’s not about us, and He helps us see that. This isn’t my time, it’s His time. Even though life is hard and things can be confusing, Christ is perfect and God's love for us is perfect.

Happy New Year :)

Love,

Hermana Despain

¡Él es la dádiva!

Before 2014 ends I'm thinking we should have a "Preach My Gospel 10th Year Anniversary" fiesta. (Swear I'm going crazy). And we could put up a banner that says "PMG: Saving Missionaries One Page at a Time". We could like have little competitions and eat food and stuff. And chocolate. And wear party hats. Sounds good to me ;)

I gave my capacitación last week! It went well. Sort of forgot to use all the stuff I had written down on the board (oops). I just got so into it! It was great though and I could tell that some of the Elders really were taking it to heart because one of the districts here in the zone this week, reported that 26 out of their updated 29 recent converts have attended church in the month of December!!!! And that’s December, the month where everyone travels and leaves or decides not to go to church because they’re too busy making tamales. So, so, so proud of them! The zone's retention went up by 8 percent this week so we're getting there!

I guess we're just so on top of things here that we give out copies of the Book of Mormon by 5:15 in the morning. But really though, last Tuesday we were headed to T____ I think and we managed to drop off a Book of Mormon to an investigator before she left for O_______! She ended up not feeling so well and not traveling that day so we got to visit her later on that day!

Today in Wendy’s we met a member from the barrio M__________ in C_____! I asked about past missionaries there and he knew them! He also said that they ate at his house every Thursday :) Small world. Lots of stuff seems to happens in Wendy’s. My comp tried her first Frosty today! :)

Since we don’t have weights and we're running low on folletos, I've started using coconuts as my weights during the strength training parts of Jazzercise :) I guess that’s what you have to do in Honduras...use coconuts for weights.

My companion asked me one night as we were sprinting home, "Have you seen a movie called Pride and Prejudice?" I about died you guys, none of my companions have seen it! We freaked out for a solid like 8 minutes about how great of a movie it is and all about "Señor Darcy". So fun. She's also seen Hannah Montana. Definite bonding moment.

On Sunday I handed out the little "HLJ" (CTR) rings my mom sent and we handed out "El Es La Dádiva" cards to all the sisters in the Relief Society and then we took pictures! We invited them to share it with a friend!

I will never get tired of looking at the stars here with the mountains and the beach on the other side. They’re so gorgeous here.

I heard that N___ G____ got ordained to receive the Melchizedek Priesthood! So happy for him! J____ R____, our recent convert who got baptized in O_______ just got called as the ward mission leader! We can tell he's excited and really energetic. We're going to get him to read about his assignment in Preach My Gospel and we've been visiting him more often. He wants to see a picture of my house...don’t know why. He just does haha. One night we went to go visit him and his tía R_____. I ended up sharing a bunch of pictures with them that my family had sent me a few months back. Ok I think it was actually a year ago cuz there was snow everywhere...But we had been talking about enduring to the end and I was like "Alright, we got to spice up this lesson..." So I started out with the pretty pictures of the roses and pine trees and we talked about God's creations. But then I showed the picture of the sweet gum ball and talked about how sometimes there are some things that aren’t so great in the world and talked about how my mom sometimes falls on the sweet gum balls. Then I showed the picture of my dad's foot and explained how he fell when he was cutting down some trees. I made the connection to how we have to perseverar hasta al fin just like my dad did in his physical therapy. I can definitely testify of the incredible power and Spirit that personal examples and pictures and hymns bring to a lesson. I swear every, single, time that we start in on a story or show a picture or sing a hymn, the people look up, the kids come around, the people pay attention. It's amazing.

Got in a little "heated discussion" with an investigator this week. I've never had anyone accept a baptismal date and then reject us in the same lesson. Turns out he's the pastor of 10 churches here in C_____, maybe that’s why. We were explaining about modern day prophets, authority and the Book of Mormon. In order to understand about the Book of Mormon we start out asking people where the Bible was written. In all the people we've talked to in a year and a half, I've never met a single person who knows where in the world the Bible was written. So he obviously felt a little defensive about that and was trying to talk over us and change the subject. We taught more and I expressed to him how God doesn’t want His children to be confused and once again he got really defensive and started going on saying "You tell me I'm confused? Well señorita, you’re confused..." But didn’t even have any good reason for saying that. So that was a little disappointing, but we did what we could. I just ended with my testimony.

So even though we lost a day of work going to S__ P_____ to renew my residence, and we lost another day of work doing a super contact for our district leader's area, we worked to be able to teach 35 lessons this week! It was crazy! The super contact was really good, nice to get out of our area for a bit, but honestly there was such a different spirit not working in my own area. There just wasn’t so much motivation! It wasn’t so much "Well these are our houses, these are our people...". But it was great to help out and fortalecer the other missionaries work. The Zone leaders came to help out from T_____ and we all ended up going to a nice restaurant on the beach. But it was getting really late and we're poor missionaries so what did we order? Pollo con papas. It was fun and really pretty!

We found such a great couple this week. They’re African American...or let’s just say they have dark skin cuz they could be Garífonas, I don’t know, but they’re a young couple living in a one room apartment in a poor little area with their one year old boy. They both love their little boy so much and have so many great questions. But we really thought they would come to church and when we passed by Sunday morning they did the whole "We have lots of things to do" deal and it’s like "We've been talkin about this day every day this week that we've visited you all...But we'll visit them this week. They do need to get married still though, slight setback. But man that would be such a great baptism to have before I left. It was so cool Saturday morning though because the dad was home too so we got to teach them both. We were teaching Lesson One and teaching about albedrio when all the sudden the guy gets up and grabs a black marker they had and starts writing on their wall (no really, cuz they have cardboard all over their wall to give it more support). And I'm thinking, "What is he doing??" He was like "I don’t want to forget". That’s when I realized he was writing "albedrio" with the definition. It was so cool. It was like "Heck yes, that’s what it’s like teaching in Honduras, having people write words on their cardboard wall so they don’t forget". They’re really special.

Tomorrow morning on our way to the multizona in C_____, we'll do a Secret Santa gift exchange as a zone! Here's to hoping I don’t get like dirty socks or something. The gift I'm giving is pretty awesome I have to say.

I can’t wait to talk to my family on Thursday! It's been 8 months, talk about forever! I can’t wait to be a full time missionary serving on Christmas! We don’t have any citas fijas that day since everyone will be out of town or super busy, so we might just hand out "El Es La Dádiva" tarjetitas in Centro or something or go caroling. Make some more memories :) Pero sé con todo mi corazon que Cristo realmente es la dádiva. I love that the card says "He IS the gift", not "was". I hope everyone has a great Christmas this year and that we all remember "who" it’s about, not "what" it’s about. Being in a place where people are more concerned about having money for tamales instead of money for gifts is a humbling thing and it’s a little easier to remember Christ and His humble birth. Love being a missionary during this Christmas time. Es lo mejor :)

Con todo mi amor,
Hermanita Despain

There's just no time...

Just another day here in T______ :) We went fishing again for our p-day activity :) Lots of chill fun. The ocean was really pretty today too so that was nice!

But let's see...this week was crazy stressful, getting back from changes, getting settled again with a new companion, getting back into 12 semanas and training and all that, seeing where investigators are at, and keeping up with the retention. I LOVE being secretary. Even though it's super stressful and I lose some sleep, I love it! It's so neat to take dats and keep things recorded and figure out percentages and report that information. I think the Lord knew that was the sort of assignment I could handle :) BUT! I have to give a capacitación (training) mañana. I'm so excited! I planned all morning for it...okay like an hour and a half but of my p-day! I need to talk about having love for the assignment and how we need to love our converts and everyone that we are responsible for. It's going to be so good! (Wish me luck!) It felt so good to see that as a zone we improved in our retention by 26 percent, entonces alli vamos! My ZL called after I sent the percentages and he sounded so, so happy. When he thanked me for my work it felt so good! It was like "Ok, it's all worth it," the staying up late, my hair all over the place, my desk covered in papers and pens, and my cereal bowl...all worth it. To know that my leaders are pleased with my work? Best thing ever.

With all this work and business I feel like I just throw on whatever is clean. Like I still take care of myself, there’s just no time for anything anymore and I don’t know when that started. Still hitting it hard with Jazzercise! :) But in all the crazy chaos of so much work I'm really trying to write in my journal any chance I get, even if it’s a random time during the day.

Looks like D______ will be ready to be baptized the 27th of this month! K_____ finally came to church. We passed by for SO many people Sunday morning its not even funny. More like how many people lied to us about going isn’t even funny. Then we got to the capilla and the power was out. Gospel Principles class was a nightmare of reverence with the jóvenes. So that’s stressful when you bring investigators and you want them to have a good experience and you’re left 6 missionaries trying to keep kids reverent. Little complicated, but we try to do what we can.

Talked to a guy in English today while we were eating lunch. I heard someone struggling to order in English and I just swiveled around in my chair and felt bad for him so I helped him out. It was funny to be translating and helping him know what he should get and what he shouldn’t get. He was from Texas and helping out with the government. He asked what we were doing here, for how long and all that. It was weird to talk about it all in English but it was neat! He asked if we can go to bars (mhm...) and if I had been to R_______ or done any diving. "Well ya know we're not really here for that...and the water is dangerous..." "The water is dangerous?" "Yes..." But he was receptive and respectful and thanked me for the help. In the end he ordered baleadas en vez de sopa de mondongo. I probably saved him from a bad stomach ache.

Like all my shoes are falling apart, I swear it’s a sign.

A few weeks ago we were coming out of a cita when my comp shouted, "Hermana, it’s a monkey!" So what did we do? Took off running to go touch the monkey of course! Two seconds later that thing was climbing all over my head. It was a super chill monkey, it was so cute. The owner of it had it on a little leash and was talking to me in like half English, half Spanish. She said when the cruseros come all the Gringos give the monkey money. De verdad, aprovechan de los gringos aquí...hasta los monos...

I teach the English class here every week. It's been interesting. Some of the students are super smart and work hard and pay attention. I've learned a lot I think, on a mission, about how to be a good student...after trying so hard for so long to be a good teacher, I've learned what it means to be a good student. Sometimes its stressful though to teach the class and like switch  my mind from teaching English to Spanish. It's cute though having had like 4 companions tell me I should be a teacher. I always ask them why,  they say that and they never really have an answer, they’re always just like "Idk, you just should". The students seem to have fun though. We've learned how to answer the phone, use some helpful verbs, order something in a pulpería, animals...all that fun stuff.

So we've been giving out the "El es la Dadiva" (He is the Gift) cards. (Did you all ever notice that Dadiva spelled backwards with an n at the beginning is "Navidad"? Hmmmm...) That’s been a fun experience, I feel more like a missionary handing out little cards instead of handing out folletos. It's been neat to just be able to walk up to any random person and talk to them about Christ and it's easier with Christmas so close. I have to say it’s a little hard to feel the Christmas spirit when I'm sweating under the hot sun, but I just look at the pretty mountains and ocean and it's all ok :)

Things with my companion are good. There really are never enough hours in the day for everything we have to do! But that’s a good feeling. She walks pretty close to me and like holds onto my bag sometimes. We watch out for each other and she’s really intelligent. She's already gotten a degree, I mean she’s 24...We work well together. We've already had lots of disappointments just in these past few days so she's definitely seeing the reality of the mission field. She’s really positive though so that’s good. She’s still adjusting to walking so much and so quickly. I guess I could slow down, there’s just no time to walk slow...but I'll be patient.
Looks like we might need to  make the nightmare of a trip to San Pedro this week since me and my DL's residencia's (Visas) are going to expire! Should be fun! Lots of time to practice the 42 principios! (I'm such a fletch)...

Hope you all have a great week, stay safe and stay happy! Like an Elder here says, "Soy Mormón, y soy feliz!"

Con todo mi amor,
Hermana Despain

Answered Prayers

I'M TRAINING! Again!!! I'm so happy and so excited. Let me tell y’all it was an answer to my prayers in trying to be obedient and happy and finish strong. I knew I needed to have a fresh start. After being in the mission for a time people start to say stuff about other people, you hear rumors and it’s just not pretty, so to be able to start and finish with a brand new missionary is such a blessing. But really though, I was praying I would  be able to train again. This time I feel like I'm doing it right, like I know what I'm doing and I can actually help this missionary. Although she is like already fabulous. She is so sweet and humble and loving. Her name is Hermana M_____  and she’s from Nicaragua, so that makes 3 companions from Nicaragua. She's 24 and served a month in a mini mission in her country, but only visiting the less actives. Super interesting, but it’s PERFECT because she knows a lot about retention so she can help a ton with us being secretaries!

I feel so busy it’s not even funny, like there’s no time for anything! The day needs like 27 hours I swear. We had fun doing Jazzercise this morning and I made her breakfast. The only sad thing was that there’s no water again so we had to haul rain water (Hallelujah there was some collected!!) so we could shower. So it’s like "Welcome to T_____! We have a beach! But there’s no water..." She is such a good sport though, very mature and kind.

I ended up being able to go to the changes meeting since I wanted to be able to go and take her back, since there wouldn’t be another sister to bring her back. Honestly these past few days were INSANE. "Who are you with?, Where are you going? Does she have changes? Well you need to take this bus, but what time does it leave? Wow we have no money, but that’s too late to travel, you can’t take a taxi that late! Is she going to the changes meeting? Call the leaders then, so where do they leave?" Insane. Tuesday morning we went to T_____ for our Zone meeting, but it was so awkward cuz not everyone knew who had changes since the AP's were told to not call anyone until Tuesday night. The missionary department doesn’t want missionaries to lose time by knowing days in advance who has changes, but that causes a lot of problems at the same time as far as travel goes. But we had a great meeting anyways and we combined our district with T_____. Their district leader is great! He taught about goals and plans and visions. Super motivating. It’s so cool now though with time in the mission, to feel like maybe I actually know what I’m doing and I have suggestions and advice for others. It’s a great feeling, but I know I didn’t do any of it alone. After our meeting we all got together and wouldn’t you know it, I got my face shoved in cake.....AGAIN.

So after an hour bus ride Tuesday morning, 3 hour bus ride that afternoon, 3 hour bus ride Wednesday morning and 7 hours in the bus again that afternoon and night? I'm happy to be back in T______ :) Feeling really blessed, Heavenly Father sent us lots of angels and great leaders to help make sure we got where we needed to go! We traveled by ourselves from S__ P____ so that was scary. I had never done it before, but we did it! With lots of prayers and help!

I know Heavenly Father answers our prayers and reveals the needs of the missionaries to the mission President. I know changes are inspired. I know our challenges won’t last forever, Heavenly Father loves us too much for that :)

Love y’all!
Have a great week!

Hermana Despain

More than a dimes worth

So I got cake shoved in my face again this year. Or should I say, my face shoved in a cake. I have a feeling I won't be missing that little tradition...but it was a great birthday! Nothing too crazy or out of the ordinary. It was neat to be able to be teaching and preaching on my birthday though :) A family here got me a cake and we ate at Pollolandia. They gave us all the fries and the bigger pieces of chicken. I felt so bad eating the food because it was obvious that they had given us the most. So that made the frosting covered face not so bad :)

The First Presidency Christmas Devotional changed my life. I felt like it was another General Conference! I was almost tearing up when the choir sang "Still, Still, Still" since my family always sings it. Something really close to home :) But we got to watch it in English! That was a nice treat. I know I'll probably miss watching those in Spanish but it’s also just a nice little boost to hear it in your own language and give your brain a little rest. I took so many notes though. I loved how much love was talked about, and the power of a little baby. Talk about an interesting thought! Stories about poverty and giving of ourselves really hit home too because as a missionary I have never felt so poor and so rich at the same time, physically and spiritually. I feel the Spirit and I feel so blessed, but then I feel beaten down by Satan and I have no energy to work because I’ve just given it everything I have. Then Christ gives me a little boost and reminds me that it’s not about me. Like yesterday I felt super sick and I was just praying during a cita that I wouldn't faint and that I'd be okay. I had to forget about myself and focus on the person. So I challenged them to be baptized and we put a cita (set a date). Heavenly Father protects his missionaries because he loves all His children. But we see so much poverty here too that it is just so humbling. People going through trash is a regular, old men picking up bottles to add to a bag on their back 5 times their size, and women washing the same clothes for the third time that week until their hands are raw...then I realize that sometimes that’s been us too. That we save so much of the money we get because we travel so we pray someone has something to give us when we make a visit or we end up rationing out something...It's interesting. Quite the experience.

But really that Christmas Devotional. Man the Spirit was so strong I loved it. The music was incredible and I loved seeing the orchestra, just made me miss my violin so much. I liked how Bonnie Oscarson shared that story about the man giving more candy than the dime was really worth and it made me think, am I giving more in the work? More than a dimes worth? More than a lempiras worth? Or more than 500 lempiras? We should want to give everything we have, no matter what your companion says, no matter how comfy the pillow is, no matter what time it is, we should want to give everything to the Lord, because He's the one that gave us everything.

There’s a song called "One Prayer Away" that I have come to love, love, love. There’s a part where it says "though the road keeps getting longer and you're far away from  home...just remember someone loves you more than you can ever know". Now instead of the road getting longer I feel like its getting shorter, and yes it does bring tears to my eyes. I love Honduras. It’s incredible what a mission does to a person, what it CAN do to a person. You come to have this love for people, you're brought to tears with frustration because you want these people to change, you want them to be as happy as you are, you want them to be free of the pains of sin like you've experienced, but you can't do it for them. Then you realize little by little that that’s probably how Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ feel. They know the happiness we can experience, we just have to follow what they say and trust them and know they really will always be there and that they really do love us with a love we can't even comprehend. The Atonement is real and it’s a process. We really can be forgiven and it’s only through Christ. I'll never understand how he really did it, how He felt all those horrible emotions of guilt and pain all at once, but instead of wondering how He did it, I have to put my mind to living in a way that He would be proud.

So yes, I've become one of those "EFY music listening" gurus and I'll probably find myself in 2 short months, the night I get back, blasting this music in my room unpacking all my worn out clothes and holey shoes, speaking in Honduran Spanglish and crying my eyes out because I miss it so much. I love this gospel and I feel so privileged to be able to preach it. Satan will try to convince us that we're not worthy to do the work, that we're not good enough, that we're not good missionaries because we're not perfect, but Heavenly Father loves and just wants to wrap His arms around us and tell us we're doing a great job.

I'll be back hopefully later in the week. It’s changes week and honestly we don't know if the both of us can go with all the new rules and everything, but I’ll share more about all these crazy adventures. Thank you so much for all the fun pictures and surprise emails, you all are the best and I love you guys. Have a great week everyone!!!

Love,
Hermana Despain

Challenges and Chinese Food

Satan can be really frustrating sometimes. Well, not sometimes, all the time. Here I'm trying to be like the most obedient and hardworking in the time I've been here, and everything seems to be coming at us this week. I feel like I've had some of the most challenging weeks in this change out of my whole mission...but I made a list of all the challenges and dumb stuff that happened, but then I made a list of all the great things that happened too.

Like on an hourly basis the power was going out, it was pouring rain, our investigator that was going to get baptized moved back to T_____, we ran out of money so fast after needing to travel and use so many taxis, we got locked out of our house, our investigators put so many excuses to not come to church yesterday it wasn’t even funny, and other individuals aren’t good examples and haven’t helped us, they just make things worse and make fun of other people, we ran out of saldo (credit) on the phone, and there’s no way to get to C____ because a bridge broke and it's super dangerous and the sister training leaders want to come and do divisions...not to mention the house flooded...twice.

We went to bed at like 9:40 Friday night after planning and everything. An hour later the phone rings and my companion answers it, then she turns on the light to the room and is like "Hermana, wake up". But I woke up to the sound of water exploding from a pipe...talk about a nightmare! We still don’t really know what happened with the toilet tubing, but we think that there was too much pressure from the heavy rains and all that. I don’t know honestly, I just know we were sweeping the water with brooms until 12:30. We woke up the next morning and finished sweeping the water until about 9. First there’s no water, then there’s too much...

But the next morning we went and had pancakes with a lady in our rama, Hermana G____. She's a widow with a good heart.  I've learned so much lately about how no one should ever make fun of anyone or talk bad about anyone. She lives alone and sells souvenirs to the tourists on the cruise ships. We made pancakes and eggs and salami for everyone while she packed up a few things in her house since she's in the process of moving. The presidente de la rama has been helping her move little by little with a truck. It was fun to be able to be with her even though she tried to give me the burnt pancakes since I apparently didn’t learn how to make pancakes well enough on a comal...haha! She’s a good lady! She likes to put raisins in her pancakes. She about killed me when I tried making a paco (a doughy pancake in the shape of a taco - an old Despain family secret).

I'm in the process of learning more about how to be the secretary for the retention in the Zone. It's exciting, I like it. Little bit stressful but it's cool.

In my personal study I read in Alma 33 and liked how it talked about how we have to have a softened heart when it comes to obedience. It was cool to read about how Moses putting the snake on the staff was a representation, in John, and then turn to the Book of Mormon and be reading about it again! We can't have hard hearts when it comes to obedience or think that we're better than other people or else we become prideful, and they’re always talking about that in the Book of Mormon. We need to "look and live". It is amazing that we have the truth and that we're members of the true church, but as soon as we start to get prideful, things go downhill.
e ate Chinese rice with her on Thursday for Thanksgiving. She just needs some time to talk to people, people who will listen. So maybe it wasn’t a turkey dinner with pie for Thanksgiving, but it was a dinner of Chinese rice with a lonely lady who needed some attention. So that felt good :)  I hope you all had great Thanksgivings though :) The power went out that night so we went and bought ice cream. That was fun, maybe it wasn’t pie, but it was fun to talk and laugh with my companion. But if we need to be in Thanksgiving daily, does that mean we can eat like it's Thanksgiving everyday??? ;)

A few weeks ago we ended up listening to a member ragging on people that go to church in pants or short skirts and how it's not right. I understood where she was coming from but we calmly tried to explain to her that we go to church to take the Sacrament and we focus on ourselves and where we're at, and we serve other people. Because then how are we any better if we're just talking bad about others or looking down on people. After fighting and fighting to invite people to church, I've learned how important it really is and why we go. I'm really trying to take the Sacrament with more meaning and make it something I look forward to every week. I taught the Gospel Principles class on Sunday! We only had four investigators and they were all under the age of 13, so you can imagine how many little comments were being made, but I hope they learned a lot and felt the Spirit.

We're thinking that D______  needs a little more time before she gets baptized. She's serious about it for like a full week, and then Sunday comes and she decides she can't go to church because it was raining and she didn’t have an umbrella..............The wife of the branch president gave a great talk about sacrifice. She mentioned how we all know that it’s the rainy season and that we need to be prepared with umbrellas. If we're prepared, we'll be ready for what comes our way. And if something comes up that we weren’t planning on, we have enough faith that Heavenly Father will help us out.

My travel itinerary came today so that’s pretty exciting. My birthday is on Saturday and I got packages :) Love my family to death. Those packages always come right when I'm at my lowest points. Today we'll be doing a little p-day activity with like 50 poor kids. We initially planned to do the activity with the orphans but the orphanage found out we were Mormons and it got canceled...so we found other kids to make their day :) Me and my companion are going to help kids decorate cookies, should be fun :)

So with all of those setbacks and challenges, I made a list of the good things that happened. We had more lessons after splitting up and doing divisions, we ate pancakes, worked together to get rid of the water in the house, I'm still exercising, we ate lunch at a members house on Sunday, we got gifted a bottle of something that should help our hair to not fall out, I fixed my Christmas tree, we had Chinese rice for Thanksgiving, we'll decorate cookies with kids today, eat pizza tonight with a member here in T_____  who also lives with just her daughter, and I got my packages! And I'm still alive! 2 more months in my mission, I think I can do it. It's still a challenge everyday but there are still blessings everyday. Can't believe I'm turning 21 this Saturday, talk about old! But yeah, its been a challenging few weeks but we've been working so hard and we're so tired and so worn out. But we know we're doing what the Lord wants us to do. I feel like there’s never time to do everything, but it will all work out.

Have a great week everyone :)

Love,
Hermana Despain

Milagros

Déjame decirles que esta semana fue pero, loca. (Let me tell you! This week was... crazy!)

It started out horribly. Like I was at such a low point...but then at the end, everything was amazing! But guess why?! WE HAD A BAPTISM! That we didn’t even plan on! IT WAS A PURE MIRACLE! That’s every missionary's new challenge...put together a baptism in less than an hour.

But first...Wednesday, I woke up that morning, went to turn on the faucet in the kitchen, we didn’t have water. We didn’t have water for 3 days this week. I hope I never live that again. We resorted to collecting rain water, and let me tell you that is the worst feeling to wake up in the morning, go look in the bucket carefully placed outside under the dripping roof, to find less water than you saw the night before. Darn dueña stole our precious rain water. But right, the faucet...so as I'm standing there all frustrated that there was no water, I look out the window and I SEE A HUGE CRUISE SHIP! I ran up on the roof and started taking pictures. It was so cool! But I swear that ship looked GORGEOUS at night. Never been on a cruise... one day. There were actually two since one hadn’t come the week before. It was fun to see all the gringos in centro, there were a lot of Asians too. So what does that mean? Que esta gringa no se siente tan sola (That this gringa doesn't feel so alone!)  It’s great. People still stare at me as usual but it’s not so bad with thousands of gringos in ponchos walking around in the rain like scared chickens.

The ships ended up leaving pretty soon that night though because there was a huge storm. We were in a lesson with a recent convert/less active when we got a call from our DL. We took it afterwards as we were walking. We were like 30 minutes from our house since we don’t live in our area. He let us know that we had to go home because there was a hurricane coming. Sooo that killed a ton of citas, it was really frustrating but ya know, safety first :) Just keep us in your prayers, apparently there’s only one road in and out of T______ and it’s definitely the rainy season.

That day was cool though because we decided to go back to visit the wife of that guy that started saying a bunch of junk about her. She can’t read right? So it felt really good the last time to at least read the Book of Mormon with her. Love those times, when I know I'm helping, I don’t just think I'm helping. She was outside under her little shack/lean-to thing made of sticks and those metal sheets, making corn tortillas with her daughter. Her daughter had brought these HUGE fish from R_____. Their eyes were huge it was hilarious. I wanted a picture so bad. But literally they were making the corn tortillas from scratch. They let us try some shrimp in the tortillas, it was so good! Probably because they cooked the shrimp in pure margarine. But it was such a miracle what happened next. Turns out a recent convert from September, D____, (10 years old), was at the house! The sisters before hadn’t been able to find him after he moved. So we got to visit him and teach him the Restoration again. He didn’t remember a thing and hasn’t been to church in months. But even if it just seems like a visit to a less active, you might just end up finding a long lost little sheep :)

Thursday I decided to look at the carpeta (area records book) for the first time. Big mistake. I wanted to cry, it was like a bad 6th grade notebook check...They've kept everything since forever. I found a registro since 2010 and none of the pages were punched with a hole puncher so it’s all falling apart, and the registros are all like half completed with scribbly hand writing. I wanted to scream. So we'll get that taken care of...idk how but we will.

Still going strong with exercising...I only got through like the warm up of an insanity DVD our dueña lent us. But it was fun! Super hard but fun.

The Elders had a baptism two weeks ago and in the middle of the bienvenida, one of the Elders turns around and is like whispering to us, "pueden discursar?" (Can you give a talk?) We were like..."you're kidding right?" I understand as missionaries we're supposed to be prepared, but that doesn’t mean that we need to encourage missionaries to not plan a baptism beforehand or ask people to give talks in the middle of the service. The DL called us that night and tried to machetearnos (scold us) and tell us that we need to be humble and always be prepared. Kind of an oxymoron if you ask me...

This week I was reading in Lucas and read about how Moses had put the snake on the staff, but then how Christ was like that representation...because the people only needed to look and believe, and it’s the same with Christ. We've been asked to read the first four books of the New Testament to get ready for the multi-zona in December. That and memorize all the 42 principles of Preach My Gospel and memorize the chapter titles and a bunch of other stuff. The multi-zonas used to really give us a lot of ánimo and they used to be really fun. Now we really have to work to be prepared. But they’re still really good.

Our dueña has these three birds outside her house in three separate cages and they each talk...it's hilarious. Sometimes it really irritates us when we're trying to study or just talk to each other and all we hear is "1buenas!" or "¡buscan!" or "¡pasen!" It's super funny how they’ve caught onto what people say here...smart little birds.

Lately we have been getting a ton of pressure to baptize, baptize, baptize and it's driving us crazy. I thought that's why my hair has been falling out, but apparently it’s the water. We think it's because it has so much salt in it probably. So I'm back to paying a ton for my shampoo and I'll start rinsing my hair out with purified water I guess.

OK! So Saturday morning we were super frustrated with where everything was at as far as our investigators, those with fecha (set baptismal dates), the baptisms... everything. Not to mention, as comps we just weren't getting along. We just stopped in the middle of the street after a cita with someone who is planning on getting baptized soon and we just didn’t feel right. Things just weren’t going well. We almost cried in the middle of the street. None of the investigators we had wanted to go to the conference in O________, no matter what we did, no matter how much we prayed. So we just went and got ready to leave. We were super excited to finally get to know O________ after hearing so much about it. It's actually really pretty! Everyone says it's super feo but honestly it's cool with the mountains so close. And the ride there is pretty. So we were waiting outside with all the sisters as the guys were all in their meeting. Suddenly we heard that President Klein wanted us to meet with him. We were so nervous, we had no idea what was going on. We found ourselves in the tiny office with our district, President and some other leaders to only have him ask us about a member who wanted to go on a mission. We established the fact that he was in our area. Turns out after even blessing and passing the sacrament, the jóven had never been baptized. Or they at least lost his registro. So President just looked at us and was like "Get him baptized, if not today, tomorrow...but please, get him baptized". And I'm just like "OK!" and he's like "Thank you!" So the next two hours were just insanity. We were running around like chickens with our heads cut off trying to llenar the registro, find baptismal clothing, find people to speak, finding the keys to fill the pila, making phone calls...CRAZY. But we got it all done and he got baptized. We couldn’t have done it without the ZL's of O_________ and some of the leaders of our ward here. The jóven getting baptized felt bad and was embarrassed that he needed to get baptized again, but in the end he was great. It was a quick servicio but it was exactly what it needed to be. Me and my comp had huge headaches by the end but it was perfect. So it was a great finish to a super challenging week. After he was baptized, he received the Holy Ghost, and the sacerdocio (priesthood)! Then they had him share his testimony, which was kind of funny, being a "member" and all for so many years. After the servicio, we all had the meeting where President spoke and at the pulpit he was like "Alguien va a bautizarse entonces tenemos que terminar esta reunión"... (Someone is going to be baptized so we need to end this meeting...) And all of us start making motions to let him know it had already happened and he was like "¿Yo no estaba por su bautismo?" (I wasn't here for his baptism?) We felt horrible! But in the end he dedicated his talk to the jóven Jason and it was so perfect. He talked about how to prepare yourself for a mission and how even on our missions and after, we should do those things. We talked with him afterwards and he let us know he was so proud of us and happy that we could have a baptism. So as we were leaving O________  me and my companion were like going crazy, it was like "¡Hermana....we just had a baptism?!" We went to O________ all innocently, to only leave having a baptism. It was a great miracle having a baptism in a place we had only known for about an hour. So, so cool.

I went out with a sister in the ward here on Sunday for divisions. She was pretty quiet even when I tried to help her out by asking her questions she could answer to participate more in the lessons...but I realized after the 3 lessons we had, that she was able to connect with each one of the people. Whether it was "Yeah I had to stop drinking coffee too, it was really hard" or "I was Catholic too" or "Yeah I went to that Evangelical church too". She was able to help out a lot.

We visited a lady we're trying to help get to her baptism Sunday night after we got back from O________. During the week she gave us a bunch of excuses for why she couldn’t go to church the past two weeks. But we let her know how her baptism has to be moved when she doesn't go to church, and how church attendance is so important. She was really sad, but that’s the reality of it, if we don’t comply with the requisitos (requirements), we don’t get those blessings. But we're trying to get her baptized the 8th so my companion can still be here for the baptism before she has changes. On Sunday we taught her about tithing and fasting and we combined it with obedience. It was great, we had 3 members there with us since we had just got finished doing divisions. So definitely lots of support there. I asked her what questions she had and she was like "bueno...¿cuándo voy a diezmar? y ¿cómo? ¿cómo lo hago?" (When am I going to pay tithing and how?  How do I do it?) It was great, it was like "Hey, thanks investigator for reminding me that that would be a good thing to teach". We were planning on teaching it the next lesson but it's what she needed at the time, so it worked perfectly!

We couldn’t remember if Thanksgiving was last week or this week...I miss holidays. I hope you all have a fabulous Thanksgiving. Pray for the missionaries. I'm so grateful to be able to spend two Thanksgivings in Honduras, even if last year only consisted of a baleada in Ceiba, that I paid for. Making memories :) I'm so grateful for the family and friends I have. I love you all for the support and prayers, I'll  never be able to thank you enough. I'm grateful for the chances I've had to grow, for the cuts to the tree I've had to experience that have helped me learn. I'm grateful to be able to serve in this amazing mission. It's the best in the world of course.

Here's to hoping that everyone is staying safe in the cold, wintery weather! While I'm still here baking in this hot Honduras sun ;) Always praying for you guys.

Love,
Hermana Despain

Around Honduras in 80 Days

I have 80 days left in my mission. Things just got really serious. We're talking less than 100 days here people...

Going through quite the cleansing process...We quit our cocinera this week and I put my frustration with life into working out again...yeah that’s right, I'm back doing Jazzercize. Don’t laugh it's all I've got! It's like Elder VanPelt in The Best Two Years. We watched that this Friday at the noche de cine for the ward, everyone loved it! So I'm feeling better eating in the house in a calm, non-contentious place, eating healthy food and being in control of at least that in my life. We hacked all the ice out of our refri, cleaned it and stuffed it full of real food.

We went to a Sociedad de Socorro (Relief Society) activity on Saturday. There were only like 7 of us but it was so much fun! We were celebrating all the birthdays in the past few months so we had pastel and played a few games. I won musical chairs... :)

A lot of the streets here have been like destroyed by the rain and the city had just fixed a lot of the tubing and all that underneath, but it wasn’t well protected, so all the streets are a muddy mess. But I'd choose mud over dirt...

We were teaching a family of Garifonas with some Testigo de Jehovah background this week. A mom and her two daughters, when we asked at the end if they had any questions. One of the little girls looked like she did so I was like "cualquier cosa..." to see if that would help her feel more comfortable. She ended up saying "quiero bautizarme" (I want to be baptized.) But they didn’t come to church on Sunday, so we'll keep at it.

We visited another less active who we found out still drinks coffee...I got really serious with her and my comp said she was worried I would like say something really mean to her by the face I had. Still gotta work on that...but as she was raving on and on about her coffee and just going on about things in her own little world, she reminded me of the mad hatter in Alice and Wonderland. And I just wanted to be like "woman, you’re crazy, this is why you gotta drop the coffee!" Entonces? Coffee makes you crazy.

¡En el taxi!

Sometimes its really easy to be selfish on a mission. We get so focused on dats (#’s) and how we come off to leaders, while they give us a ton of pressure about dats that are purely up to the agency of other people, after all we do to help them...we get focused on trying to teach a principle to people when really all they need is someone to listen to. We visited with the mom of a recent convert and it was so interesting to just listen to her give excuses of why she doesn’t visit the church...but as we listen to people its like we need to figure out what’s really going on, what are they really saying...She has a pulpería and she tried to make it seem like she had so many customers and that she really just cant afford to abandon them to go to church. A lot of people will say they have a compromiso and we remind them that they have a bigger compromiso con Dios. In the 40 minutes we visited with her, she had 2 customers who most likely only bought stuff worth a total of 20 lmps each at the most. We walked away realizing she doesn’t get a lot of attention from her family, and that she finds this attention from her work. Its sad seeing people trying to convince themselves that they are happy. She would be like "I am so happy, I love my job". When really the gospel offers more happiness. Why does she watch tv before going to bed? To get away from it all...But its just like the iceberg example in Preach My Gospel. Usually people are just talking but they have something more going on inside, and its our job to figure out what that is with the help of the Spirit. It's their choice if they accept our message. I was talking with my companion and we were like "There are times when we feel SO lost and so helpless in our lives, and we have the gospel! How do the people that don’t have the gospel survive?!" I want to be really happy in my life, I don’t want to have to try and convince myself that I'm happy.

It's looking like the baptisms we were planning for the end of this month will be moved to December 6th! My birthday!!! How cool of a memory would that be?! Baptism on the beach, on my birthday! One of the girls that is planning on getting baptized has already let us know that she knows the church is true, without us even asking...she is incredible. And the other girl has such a desire to go to church, she is the best.

Yesterday we visited a less active couple. Things were really positive and the hermano had me laughing when he pulled out his little clear chunk of rock he uses as a magnifying glass, while using his glasses so he can see. Everything was fine! Then he started talking bad about his wife and pointing fingers and he wasn’t letting us talk...in all of their arguing we were trying to talk about how we aren’t therapists but we do have the gospel and its to help. And how a marriage is where two help each other, not just one. We were like adults between two kids! Too bad he was like 72 years old. Just goes to show that the gospel is for everyone, at every age!

We're headed to O_______  this weekend for a district conference since we're not part of a stake. We're super excited to finally conocer O_________ after hearing so much about it.

Had another one of those cool "slow motion, write it down in your journal" moments Sunday night. We were spontaneously teaching a less active in a farther, poorer part of our area under this like lean too. He was really listening to us. Like you can just tell when people are really taking in what you’re saying, when they’re listening with their heart, not just their ears...As we were talking with him, suddenly I looked at what was going on. The sun was setting, we were on plastic chairs under old palm tree leaves, on a dirt floor, under a mountain, and suddenly behind the guy, two horses go galloping past with their little baby pony. It was one of those "This is so cool! I love my mission!". I'm usually really critical of how I teach...but I sort of took a step back and realized that we had the Spirit with us. I was super comfortable. We were actually helping him identify his challenges. I felt like I knew what to say. I felt like a real missionary.

Love the Mormon Message, "The Will of God" by D. Todd Christofferson. Especially when he says "Let us pray for his love inspired correction". It's an interesting thing, to pray for correction, to be grateful for challenging times, but that’s how we grow. And there’s no growth in the comfort zone.

Love,
Hermana Despain

Whirlwinds

It's cloudy and raining outside. Pretty much a metaphor for how I feel.

Today we went and fished on the pier. It started to rain and the waves were really high, but it was fun and really pretty. There are some sand fleas that bite here, pretty painful. 

My companion thanked me for helping her reach our goals this week, that felt good. It's been a challenge to have ánimo (to be excited) but hearing that was really nice.

Ate a baleada with beans that had been played around in by rats. I had no idea why comp wasn't eating, but afterwards of course I figured out why, but... I didn't get sick!!

We went to C____ on Wednesday for like a 30 minute meeting about being secretaries. Really, that bus was like a bad amusement park ride. The stake center even smelled the way I remember it. It was weird being back in C____, it's changed so much, not really the C____ I knew, but it's still like my home.

My birthday is in less than a month? That should be fun.

We have a great investigator who is just perfect. She has a ton of family that are members and she just feels that its time. She has a fecha to be baptized the 29th of this month and she was talking about her own fecha in her prayer she offered. Normally it's like pulling teeth to even get them to pray in the first place even when offered help. So she is a real blessing for us. The best part though, she could get baptized in the ocean :)

Normally as we pass guys in the street, we hear stuff like "hey...la gringita..." and other junk. But this week I heard "welcome to be my life". So who knows what that means, but it was funny. (Jen:  I bet they were saying "Welcome to be my wife.")

Friday night we had a noche de cine en la iglesia and they showed "The Other Side of Heaven". The projector was cracked so through whole movie, it looked like star wars with a bunch of white dots but we got through it. It was really interesting to see how so many of the experiences in that movie are similar to things I've experienced. As a kid I didn't like that movie so much (cuz of the rats) but watching it in the mission really made me think about how much I'll miss the mission and the people.

Sunday we had an asistencia (attendance) of 141. It's still a branch. There isn't enough sacerdocio (priesthood) apparently, but it's a really great branch of lots of strong Garífonas.

We taught a lesson on the beach last night around 5. That was neat. I asked how long the family had lived there for and we started talking about the weather and hurricanes that have passed through. I asked how the family did during hurricane Mitch that everyone always talks about...What happened next didn't seem to really mean anything at the time but I think now it does. We were talking about preparedeness and how we should keep a supply of food and water and all that, but the lady started talking about how the day that the hurricane hit, everything seemed fine...it was a normal day and the sky was normal. Then suddenly everything went wrong and the storm came out of nowhere. I guess that's like life sometimes. No matter how much we prepare ourselves, no matter how much we think we can take, sometimes we really aren't prepared for what life gives us. And we feel like everything is going how it's supposed to be, and then even when we do things the right way, it's still hard and you just don't really know what to think and you're left just sort of putting your hands in the air and saying "I've got nothing. I don't know where to go from here..." But Heavenly Father is always there and I'm learning to trust Him a lot more than I ever have. I'm learning to give up what I want and accept that my timing and my plans probably aren't the same as His.

I'm grateful to be here. I'm grateful to be serving a mission. I couldn't be happier and I know I'm where I'm supposed to be right now. It's crazy to think how much I've learned and how much I still have to learn, but I'm getting there. Hope you all have a great week.

Con amor,

Hermana Despain

Nací en la playa and I'll die in la playa

So I had a little bit of hope that I wouldn't have changes, that I would be able to stay with my best friend and keep working in Centro...but as usual, when everything is perfect, something has to shake it all up...So here I am 8 hrs away now, writing in T______! But I got transferred to T_______! It's in the departamento de C_____, so its pretty exciting! I wasn't expecting to come this far honestly! We were in the changes meeting and the AP goes "Well we'll start with the Hermanas as usual...Hermana Despain, de Centro 3...va como compañera mayor a T_______ 3 con la Herman T________". Yep, her last name is same as the place we're serving! So I was first up and super surprised. But as we were on the way to T_______, I was thinking, "I'm not happy, I'm not nervous, I'm at peace and I'm grateful to be going to T_________". Don't get me wrong I'm heartbroken to be separated from Hermana S. She is the best and I wish I could just bring her with me wherever I go! But I'm excited to be able to get to know a completely different part of Honduras. My companion was born in California, grew up in Utah but her parents are from Mexico, so she speaks English. That's nice to be able to speak in English sometimes. She's 23. This is her 5th change here so she'll leave this change. It was a ton of fun to go to the changes meeting as usual :) To see everyone and say "See you in a few weeks, or months". But it's always hard still.

Let me tell you a little bit about my new area...it is sooo gorgeous. So green. I love it because it reminds me of Ceiba, the mountains on one side, the ocean on the other, that's right, we can see the ocean from our house :) I feel a little bit like I'm going back to the changes of January, from Ceiba to Santa Rita though, because I'm going far away and it's pretty pueblito here I feel like sometimes. But guess what?! Sometimes I feel like I'm in Africa! There are a ton of Garífonas! It's super cool actually. The ward is like puras Garífonas and they belt out the hymns. It's great! There's like no sacerdocio though, o sea que there aren't a lot of men in the ward. There are a ton of palmeras here that they get all the aceite from. And there are cruise ships that come every Wednesday (I KNOW RIGHT?!) Apparently one of the ships is like 17 floors or something. So it's definitely a touristy spot...President said it's his favorite area :) To him it looks very European and I can see it! With the cobblestoney streets and little touristy town. It really is special :)

But Wednesday after changes we had to travel to Ceiba because they said the secretaries of the zones would have a meeting. Then they decided to cancel the meeting but we found out too late to be able to keep going clear to our area. So we had to stay with the Sister Training Leaders and share a twin bed. Hated my life. But I got to visit N_______ (convert from my first area), that was such a great thing. And to see Ceiba again? :) Like going home :) But so many things have changed...People have moved, new businesses were put up, it just wasn't really the Ceiba I knew. But it will always be my home :) We actually need to go there on Wednesday for that meeting, so that will be fun. But it's really a huge disadvantage, all the traveling...we spend so much in travel and waste a ton of time when we could be working. (If the preachers can yell on the bus, we can do it too ;)

There are some down sides though to being this far away. To start out, you just feel far away from everything haha, but we also have to come here to T_______ every Tuesday for our meetings, so we basically spend 120 lmps every week. One challenge here will be getting the nutrients I need. I've made a lot of progress and have been able to lose weight by balancing my diet and cutting out the sodas. The cocinera here has been cooking for the missionaries for a long time so it would like breaking up with a boyfriend if we decided to quit eating there.

But in the end I'm super, super grateful to be here :) I'm excited to "die" (finish) here in T______, to get to know a really different part of Honduras, be in a different zone (did I mention we're the only sisters in the zone? What up?!) and to get the chance to start over a little bit and put everything into the work. I'm super motivated to work and to finish strong and do it well. We had our interviews with President Klein on Saturday and it was exactly what I needed :) That man is incredible and so is his wife :) The ability he has to make you feel special and important is so unique. I'm super ready to hechar fuego aqui en T________ ;) Wishing you all a great week!

Love,

Hermana Despain

How can you have no water when it's pouring rain?

We had to go on divisions (split up and go with a different missionary), much to our dismay...We were so sad to be separated, me and my companion! It was awful! I hate divisions, it's like a temporary divorce. But we survived and celebrated our being together again with lunch at Burger King :)

But we've still been having a ton of rain lately so the río has risen and fallen and risen and fallen. But when we were on divisions towards the beginning of the week, the river had risen a ton and the Centroamericana was flooded. So there were a bunch of people in the streets and there were trucks from the municipalidad (town) handing out "provisiones" and people yelling to "bring the kids". Then we passed by a house where there was a guy chucking huge buckets of water out from his solar that had flooded. It was literally like a pool. It was crazy, it was like a disaster movie. It smelled awful and I felt so weird walking through everything in my clean clothes and once again it's like "Hi I'm a missionary, I don't have food but I have the kind of food that will make it so you never go spiritually hungry!" You feel sort of helpless in those situations. But just made me more grateful for what I have. 

One night all of our citas (appointments) were falling through and we were getting pretty discouraged. I looked around and felt like I caught a glimpse of the infierno (hell). Darkness, a trash filled river that smells like who knows what, people shouting, smoke, creepy men walking past, drunks on the other side of the road, random lights coming from different workshops, and as always, the garbage fires...it was pretty interesting. 

Decided this week that N___ just needs to be translated. That man is perfect! Anytime we get discouraged, we look forward to visiting him. He's always making us laugh and he's always so happy! He's been having some health problems lately so we've been praying for him, but he's plugging right along and doing his best :) He's making me a Honduran flag :)

We did a lot more contacting this week and we ended up finding the soccer players of Progreso :) They come from all over Honduras to represent Progreso and they play in the stadium in the area of the elders on the other side of Centro. It was really cool to talk with them and then hear the shouts from the stadium that night and to know that they were playing. 

We taught the gospel principles class yesterday and we taught about work and personal responsibility. We focused a lot on finding a balance between work and family and giving appropriate time to family. We used a few Mormon Messages and they split into groups and we put little questions on backs of chairs like in primary and everything :) It was a really great class!

The stake here had a great Relief Society activity on Saturday and we went for like an hour or so before a baptism of the elders. It was a great success! Each ward brought the crafts or manualidades that they had done throughout the year. They also shared food. So that of course made it more of like a downtown market place to be honest. I don't know why, but they decided to have a guy come talk in a microphone the whole time saying a bunch of tonterías (silly things). It was honestly just more useless noise but everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. I swear women go nuts when there's food and music and a ton of people. It's like some inner thing that comes out and they get into this weird like "girls catching a bouquet" thing. So there were lines and lines for the food and we were having to like squeeze ourselves through the crowds to get to other places. It was fun though and the crafts were really neat! Some of the foods were "arroz con leche", "pan de pan" and some little pastelito thing. 

I've been helping my companion with her English lately. We had to learn the hard lesson this week that in order to understand and learn another language, you have to understand your own...So it's like teaching the gospel, you can't teach about something that you don't know for yourself. We established what an adverb really is. I think from that point my comp got a little frustrated and suddenly was correcting my Spanish the rest of the day. Little frustrating but you just roll with it and take the corrections. Learning a different language is humbling and I think that's the hard lesson that Latinos learn because they hate to be wrong and don't like to be laughed at. No one does, but especially them. So that's usually the biggest challenge I feel like, is helping them get over that fear. Then they realize that us Nortes deal with feeling inadequate with the language 24/7, not just 1 hour a day, and that it always requires practice, and that yeah, maybe people are going to laugh at you...but it's part of learning, and it's hard and it's humbling.

You know you're a missionary serving in a third world country when you ask a member to come with you to a cita (appointment), but they cant because they have to go kill a gallo (chicken). That was pretty nasty. To see the member leave with the poor animal and come back with a huge bowl of who knows what...but we were able to have a lesson with a member! :) She ended up making a soup later.

During my personal study this morning I was reading in Alma but then I got distracted by the Bible Dictionary and got so interested in it! It was so cool! Seeing that "mammon" basically means "riches". So in the scripture we read that we can't serve God and mammon o sea que we can't serve God and have part of our heart in riches, or things that won't last. But the definition for locusts made me laugh..."having the taste of shrimp". But really though, the Bible Dictionary is really neat and helps uno a entender todo mejor.  (one understand everything better)

But Saturday afternoon we realized there was no water to fill the pila (font) for the baptisms of the elders! With all the rain and flooding, there was no water! So we said a prayer and thought of what we could do. We decided it would be better to wait the next day instead of hauling water from a place close by...but that night the other elders had their baptism and they decided to try and haul water so we did! We went to a neighbor across the street from the church and hauled water from their pila using the huge jugs they distribute the water in. After about 20 minutes of hauling water, the water came back and they were able to fill the pila and have the baptism! I was soaked and my back hurt, but it was cool to be a part of that miracle :) 

Hope everyone has a great week! We find out today who has changes! I'll be sure to take a ton of pictures :) Even N___ is praying that I don't have changes! I wish you guys could see how me and my comp are. We have a lot of fun together and we get along and work so well together. We treat each other really well and are always helping each other out. It's really great. But who knows if we'll be split up :( I'll do what the Lord needs me to do...Love you guys!

Love,

Hermana Despain