I have five months in the mission today! At times I feel like I’ve been here for years and then it feels like time is going by fast, but it’s the best.
It was a great week! We taught 42 lessons can you believe it?! And I finally got to sit down and talk with one of our recent converts for the first time in a long time! His work schedule is crazy so we never get to have appointments with him and he started to not come to church and he and his wife fought. Everything was going downhill but one day everything worked out and we got to reteach him lesson one! It was great.
Now in the mission we have secretaries in each zone who take care of information about retention or basically keeping recent converts going to church and receiving the lessons after their baptism. So it’s super good cuz it keeps us motivated to visit them and it pressures us a bit. It makes a ton of sense though because our attendance in sacrament meeting has been horrible. The meeting time changed with the new year so it’s been awful but we're thinking it will go up as time goes on. But throughout the time that I’ve been here my testimony of Heavenly Father’s guidance and help and plan for each one of his children has really grown because when someone isn’t home or doesn’t have time to see us, we almost always get to talk with someone else, or someone’s neighbor is home, or we spend more time with someone and less time with someone else. It’s all about balance I’ve learned...some citas will go longer and others are good cut short, but we just have to learn a lot of patience.
During the elections here it was funny to see that one of the big billboards had been messed with....someone had blacked out the teeth of like 3 the guys who were running for president. Nice to see that these people have a sense of humor and that the delinquents are still out there ;)
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| http://lovetoeatlivetoeat.blogspot.com/2011/07/salsa-chimol-pico-de-gallo.html |
I forgot to tell you guys about how I cut my finger when we were with Hermana R. a while back making chimole! I totally freaked out in my mind but I pretended like it was nothing and ran and got a band-aid from my handy dandy first aid kit I always keep with me ;) But what was more interesting during this time was when we were talking about what we wanted our future husbands to be like, just me and my comp and Hermana R and I realized how sad it is that some people have made mistakes in their lives to where things are all planned for them and they don’t get to make that choice again. I just felt so free and happy and hopeful and it was a lot of fun :)
Last p-day we hit a piñata (is that what you say?) and of course it was a My Little Pony piñata. It was simple but it was a ton of fun :) I can’t remember which one it was cuz my fabulous family sent me some My Little Ponies and I could totally look at the guide to see which one it was, but I’ll have to double check. Our zone is still the best though :) I’ll be sad to leave it if I have to!
So this New Years Eve was a little different. We spent the night studying and talking. Everyone told us we should probably get back to the house pretty early so we did. We ate some food some people gave us too.. But it was pretty chill until they started throwing cohetes at whatever time of night. We sent a Happy New Year message to all our district and some elders had us call them at midnight to tell us all Happy New Year :) So we all chatted and talked and laughed and it was good to spend the night like a little party :) You do what you can in the mission. At midnight it was INSANE. You can imagine! I used my earplugs ;) The cohetes were crazy and the fireworks were nuts and they set off like 10 of those morderos, I thought we were going to die haha but we had a blast (funny:) and tried to sleep but it was practically impossible. The next day was horrible because we couldn’t run very far because there were a lot of drunk people out. No one was home and if they were they were "ocupado". Left and right things went wrong and we were super frustrated and dissappointed. It was pretty sad cuz it was just like "Happy New Year...yay for 2014, definitely off to a great start :/ ". But the next days were better :)
We were invited to eat
sopa marinera with a member this week. It was definitely an experience. The soup had huge crab legs sticking out of it and yuca and shirimp and who knows what but it was good! Normally anytime we have meat here, you just don’t ask what kind of meat it is. Mondongo? Yeah we haven’t eaten that yet and I’m pretty sure it’s a rule that we can’t but it’s like the worst of the possible worst that you could eat.
We were in a district meeting and one of the elders said "¡lúchame!" and I didn’t know what it meant.....yeah it totally means "fight me". So funny what we do here to turn english phrases into spanish haha :)
I've taught like 4 of the ladies here in the barrio how to do a sock bun and we made cake cookies with a member here. It was fun to have these ladies trust me to do their hair! In the end it took me and my comp to manage to have it all work out right and look pretty, but they all loved it and it was a fun bonding activity :) Sock buns and cake cookies are sweeping the nation of Honduras - or at least Las Colinas ;)
We had a ward baptism this week so we went to support since we had shared a bit with him and me and my companion ended up being asked to give talks! I was so nervous! But I just kept telling myself it was like a lesson! Only I normally ask a lot of questions and do a lot of listening so i just turned to the guia de las escrituras and talked about the role of the Holy Ghost and smiled a lot and bore my testimony and shared a scripture! It was great practice cuz we didn’t know beforehand that we were going to be giving talks! But I guess that’s just how things go sometimes :) I was also asked to give a talk this next Sunday about a conference talk from April 2011 called
"a covenant is forever" OOOOHHHH can you say “machete talk”? ;)
I read a story in an old Liahona this week about a member of the church who was talking to his family about temptations and had his little boy complete an object lesson to demonstrate how Satan tries to temp us. The little boy was supposed to try and get an object into a little castle and he kept trying to put it through the front gates and the dad kept trying to get him to get the object over the wall in a super descreet way or something. But he learned from his kid that oftentimes temptations come right in the front door! He talked about the Trojan Horse in Greece and how the people came right through the front door! I just loved the experience and I think it’s so true! Sometimes we think Satan is all deceiving and he is, but like he only tempts us in really roundabout ways, but sometimes it’s right in our face and we let him in! But it’s always our decision and we always have our agency. So don’t let the temptaitons of Satan come through your front door!
So something really sad happened this week. N. had a baptismal date set for the 18th of January. We saw him at about 5 oclock en la vascula on the 31st and he told us to come to his house and that his mom would have sandwiches and stuff for us, but we cant go to parties right? So we told him if we had time we might....but the calle that he lives on is pretty sketchy at night especially during this time of year when people are despereate for money. So we decided that we had better not go and that we would visit him the next day. The next day we went to go visit him and we came up behind him and saw that he was walking sort of weird.....you guys he was completely drunk! I couldn’t believe it. He was our one chance for a baptism this transfer. So we just sort of acknowledged the fact that he was there even though I didn’t want to talk to him cuz it scared me. But we talked to him a bit and I couldn’t understand him hardly at all - I can’t anyways - but drunk? It was so hard. But he started to come towards us more and I backed up and he was like "no, no, no tenga miedo" but he just told us how he had gotten drunk because we hadn’t come the night before.......so do we believe him? What do we do? So we don’t really know if that’s why but he said that his cousins came and offered him a drink. Apparently he hadn’t had a drink in 3 yeras and later he told us that he gets drunk because he's sad he doesn’t have his lady in his life anymore. And all this after we taught him the Word of Wisdom. We made goals and plans with him and I did a lot of obvserving and I asked him a lot of questions while we made the plans to make sure he felt like they were measurable, like he could cumplir with them and that it was possible. He said yes and we told him over and over again that we were there for him. He opened up a bit more and was like "yeah but what happens if you guys leave" and he was talking about transfers so we told him how it was and how as missionaries we're here temporarily. We have families and friends that miss us like he might miss us, but that it’s just part of what we do, but that we're there to help him. So we felt super good about making plans and everything and he said he would come to church the next day. We called the mom the next morning to see if he was ready for church cuz he lives with his like 80 year old grandma. He was drunk. Again. So we went to go check and he wasn’t there so after church we went to go visit him with two huge members to show him he has the support of the members and that he can make friends in the church. It was a super good lesson but he isn’t accepting the fact that he has a problem. We reminded him at the end that he shouldn’t go to places like the cantina on the corner and he was like "Yeah yeah, I won’t go don’t worry". We went to go drop off the members at their houses and as we were walking back to our apartment we passed the cantina, and sure enough he was sitting right there. and I could see him sort of back into the shadows. Broke my heart you guys! We are trying so hard but in the end, everyone has their agency. It’s just hard because we tell him we're there for him? We help him set reachable goals. We give him support, tell him we'll call him and that he can call us. We ask him if he really wants to change his life and he says yes, but in the end, we just don’t know. But it’s the life of a missionary and people come and go and it might be that we're just planting seeds, again....
After a lesson this week with a guy that honestly was not interest in learning and was more interested in telling us how we were wrong, Hermana U. told me that she loves how I ask direct questions. I guess I’m just super direct and it’s not like I’m harsh, but I’m just very straightforward. I told her that I don’t even notice it but I guess my Spanish comes across more direct because I’ve noticed I do a lot of observing during the lessons and I really say what I think. For lots of reasons but mostly because I don’t want to mess around! If we're wasting our time, I want to know and be with someone that will take our message to heart and do something about it! I’ve realized that I LOVE to challenge people to be baptized. It’s the best! It’s so great because we see if they really will progress. It’s interesting to see people get a little taken aback or get a little uncomfortable and they’ll be like "como dijo?" we have to give a new dato every week about desafios and our goal is to challenge at least 10 people to be baptized every week. it doesn’t sound like a lot, but every week adds up. Love it!!!
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| Semita: http://www.pacificfrenchbakery.com/retail |
We got robbed this week. We were coming down from Lomas at 5:30 p.m. and it was still pretty light outside but there were some clouds. We were alone but we felt good with the amount of light. as we were still up in Lomas a little bit, we saw N, one of our investigators on his motorcycle so we talked for a few minutes and then kept walking. We almost got to a corner where members always leave us if they go down with us and we saw a guy on a motorcycle sort of swerving I didn’t recognize the moto cuz we know almost all the motos of all the members, so I just kept walking but he drove in between us a little bit and was like "your backpack your backpack, give me your backpack or I’lll kill you, I have a gun!" So my comp starts freaking out like a lunatic right and I’m all chill. She starts talking up a storm and in my mind I was like "Hombre, hermana you're gonna get us killed, who’s is the gringa in this situation?!". So she's talking and talking and is like "Why, why my bag? I just have books, we're missionaries, why?" and she’s like backing up and moving around a ton and I just stood still and swung my bag around and was like "¿Quiere dinero?" cuz I didn’t understand everything he said because of his helmet and cuz I couldn’t see his mouth to see the words he was pronouncing, but I heard the verb "matar" and realized we were being assaulted. So I was like "Do you want money??" and he was like "Yeah, yeah" and he asked us for phones but we told him we didn’t have them. But he asked how much money we had and I told him “Mucho, es como doscientos" just very matter-of-fact and super calm. Meanwhile my comp is still going nuts and after I gave it to him he was like "Disculpeme, es que no hay dinero" and he drove off...CRAZY RIGHT! Then my comp started crying and crying and I was just like "Shoot hermana did that just happen?" So she cried and cried and we went and visited the R.
family cuz they were super close and Hermana R. gave us some tortilla coffee She said it wasn’t coffee but that it’s just made with tortillas... (roasted tortillas ground up in hot water) and a semita to eat. So we talked and my comp cried more and she helped her calm down and I did what I could. I honestly couldn’t believe how calm I was. I’ve been more stressed out and my adrenaline has run more during like countless citas. So it was crazy but afterwards I felt really calm and naturally a little struck at what had just happened, but I was thinking, "Whoa, we're getting robbed! This will be a cool story to tell the fam ;)" So we're safe and sound and I’m just $10 poorer but honestly it’s all good! I never walk around with that much money but I wanted to buy a bag from a thrift store that day (which obviously didn’t happen), so I had that much money "conveniently". And remember how there are no such things as coincidences in the mission? :) Heavenly Father loves his missionaries. We're safe and alive and just watching our backs a little bit more carefully :)
I love you guys and think the world of you :) Stay strong and cuídense! :)
Con mucho amor,
Hermana Despain
Health Issues: So I've been sitting on a couch with my leg up for the last two days. My left foot swelled up. We think some bug bites on my foot got infected from the water or something and then hiking up a mountain here to just visit two families probably didn’t help. The sisters here in the ward tried some home remedies with hot water and lemon leaves which was really nice, but it didn't seem to help. Sis. Klein had me get some sort of antibiotic so I'm taking those.
