Hellos and Goodbyes

I love the weekly sigh I make before each weekly letter I write...literally so much happens in so little time, its incredible. 

So I have my new companion Hermana R. now and she is really great, for the like 4 hrs we've been together. I met her in Ceiba, she was "born" there one transfer before me, so we practically have the same amount of time, so we'll see how that goes. We're both senior comps so that is a little strange, but we'll see. She's from Nicaragua and seems to be pretty happy, chill in some ways and really intense in other ways. Pretty sure I'm going to learn a lot of patience and humility and obedience this change. I trust the Lord and I trust President Klein. Turns out my hija, Hermana V. (did I mention she liked to put her toothbrush in the freezer? I totally thought it was a joke...) got transferred to go open an area for Hermanas in a zone of just Elders! It's in Trujillo which is like 9 hours away. So pretty much everyone I'm close with has been sent far away. It's hard, I feel deserted, but it's part of the mission. The other new Hermana in the house is a gringa from South Dakota, Hermana B. She is super sweet and has like 7 months. So it looks like things will go well because they were actually comps before and I get along really well with Hermana Vi., the other Latina in the house, so we all get along! But I'm excited to have someone I can learn a bit more from as far as the mission goes since I was always with someone with less time. I think this will be really good, but really hard. We'll see if I leave after this change, since I'll have 6 months in this area...who knows, I just know I'll give it my all, because I basically asked to stay in Santa Rita and I want to finish strong :) I never would have thought I would ask to stay here haha. It was really hard to say goodbye to people at changes, especially when I don't know when I'll see them again. But I'm realizing that sometimes "hello's" can be just as hard as goodbyes because youre accepting someone into your life just like your letting someone go for a time...

The song "Homeward Bound" went really well and I felt really good about how I played! I left a few notes out to simplify it in the moment but it was so good and President said it sounded like a lullaby. I loved having the opportunity to play it. 

I've loved realizing that I can actually make other people laugh in Spanish. It's the best feeling. I never thought I'd be able to do that, but one time I remember we were visiting a less active and she yelled to one of her kids, "Bring the black water!" and I was like "Just as long as it's not coffee" and apparently she thought it was funny. She was talking about Pepsi. It turns out, it's cuz they really do drink it here like it's water. But it's a great feeling to make people laugh in a language and with a humor that's not even your own. 

A few weeks ago the first night of divisions, we came back to the house to find a dead bird shoved upside down onto one of the pointy things on our gate around the house. So scary. We all got really nervous but nothing like that has happened since. Only that a hurt bird was found near the house of a member a while ago...we're being careful though.

Everyone is eating mangos here lately since they're starting to madurar (ripen). It's fun :) They like to eat them raw though when they're green. Can't bring myself to do it.

I've started to begin to feel more sadness for people when they don't accept what we have to offer them (the truth) when I feel like I used to just get frustrated. I feel like they give in to so much here, they trust random people that walk up into a bus and start asking for money saying some random kid has cancer, but they don't accept that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is the Church that Jesus Christ established here when he was on the earth. It's interesting that they won't accept something from two innocent young girls, but it's because salvation never was easy!

We were all asked to read "The Fourth Missionary" by Lawrence E. Corbridge for the multizone conference and I would recommend it to everyone, even if you aren't a missionary. It is so good and so impactful. It's true that none of us is perfect and the Lord calls us to be us but to improve. 

I really liked the verse from Matthew 10:22.  "And ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake: but he that endureth to the end shall be saved" I wouldn't say we're necessarily hated by a lot of people, who knows, but it just made me think of my issues I've had with the ward saying junk about me. People will talk and say things but those that endure to the end will be saved. And more and more I'm remembering what Christ did in all these situations, he was filled with charity and never yelled or hit anyone or thought bad about people, you just keep moving on and rely on Heavenly Father. 

We were walking to go eat Mexican tacos after changes, us sisters and the zl's here in Santa Rita when the dueño de la casa is driving along in the busy streets of Progresso and he ended up taking our luggage all the way back for us to the house so we didn't have to lug them around and on the bus again. Miracles happen all the time, I just need to recognize them more often as miracles and less as "little blessings" because they really are miracles. I love the mission. I love it to death. I'm grateful for everyday here. It really is a privilege to serve.

Love,

Hermanita Despain

Welcome to Changes Week....Dónde Siempre Hay Sorpresas....

So everything has pretty much changed thanks to a little noticia we got this morning that my companion has changes. My companion has changes?! Who guessed that?! So I'll be saying goodbye to my hija Hermana V. I feel bad about what I didn’t teach her, what I didn’t help her with, I just hope I did something for her...I hope she learned more from the parts of my good example, from my smile, the sort of "enjoy the time we have" sort of attitude I feel like I have here in the mission, and that she learns obedience from a better missionary. So I feel like I've failed in a lot of ways, but I know Heavenly Father loves us and that He has a plan for each one of us. But if I look at the big picture and see that she is still here in the mission, I guess I want that horrible of a trainer? Ojala...President came to our sacrament meeting yesterday which was a great success and we got to have lunch with him and his wife afterwards. Of course we all wanted to know who had changes and who didn’t, so he was sort of giving us little hints and messing with us, but it was fun! So turns out our ZLs are both staying even though one goes home in three weeks, and there will be three hermanas leaving from the zone, so 2 new hermanas here in Santa Rita. Things are about to get really interesting...but it's ok cuz the 4 Hnas de Santa Rita are making t-shirts with all our inside jokes :) I'll send pictures! I'm really going to miss all the fun times we had together, the times we cried together and yelled and screamed and were crazy and all the times we felt the Spirit together and learned together. President talked a lot about how he does the cambios and how it is a real pleasure, how he does it all with prayer and fasting and a lot of guidance and thought. He mentioned how he thinks not only about our lives in the missions here, but about our futures also when he does it all...very interesting.

Ronny is back!!! I haven't ever wanted to actually hug someone here in Honduras so bad haha, but we called him the other night to see if he had come back from Tocoa and he said he would be returning Sunday and that he probably wouldn’t be able to make it to church but at that point I was like "don’t even worry about it Ronny, you’re great, just get back here so you can get baptized!" Of course I didn’t say that ;) But we sort of walked up to the back area of the house and we were like "buenas??" and he came running out of the shadows with some of his friends and it was like seeing an old family member! I havened smiled so much in a long time. We asked him how he's been doing and he said it was just great, his time in Tocoa. We asked him how things have been going with him reading the Book of Mormon but it sounds like he is really doing well and that he has been sort of off and on with reading. So we have a cita with him today, we'll see how he's really doing :) I felt like Alma in that part of the Book of Mormon where he talks about the sons of Mosiah and how he mentions that he was so happy to see that they were still his brothers in the gospel (Alma 17:2-4) so I think there is some real hope with Ronny!

This week was a little rough again as far as the work went because the fair is still here and then there was Carnavál last night...so our numbers took a hit and they just weren’t too pretty. But we ended the week with a few really special visits.

We got the chance to teach a dad and a son last night. And I'm not talking about like a dad of 20 and his 5 year old kid, but like a 50 year old man with his son of 30. It was really special, the feeling that we felt with them because you just know that there have been good times and bad times between them...fights, arguments, hurtful words, but also really good memories, birthdays, graduations...but despite whatever that happened in the past that we don’t even know about, it didn’t matter, and there we were talking with a dad and a son, both grown and living their lives. So we decided to focus on faith, and enduring to the end and not just the end of the week, but the end of our lives and then for eternity. What I love most though is when we established the fact that this less active member, the son, hadn’t been visited by missionaries for about 16 years. That was really special and I felt really good about the fact that we had made the effort to visit him even though for the past 16 years and counting he hasn’t come to church. We left it that he would work to improve his relationship with Heavenly Father by increasing the frequency and sincerity of his prayers. So we're taking baby steps, then he might take that jump and come back to church. I love that there both named Rolando :) As a companionship sometimes we walk away from lessons feeling differently but both of us loved that lesson, just sharing our feelings about gospel principles and helping a father and his son to improve and change their hearts.

We went to go visit the couple that has been having some serious issues since she cheated on her husband...the good news is that they are still living together. But that’s about all the good news there is...because as we started in on the lesson, he started to complain again about how his wife had hurt him and how he's only living there for his kids and everything. We felt so helpless, like what were we supposed to do? Ask him to stop talking? In a way we could have but I just tried my hardest to listen to the Spirit. When we got to the house everyone seemed happier than normal so that was great but as soon as he started to talk it just plummeted and the mom left to make food and ended up crying in the back doorway and I left to go console her and apologize and let her know that it want our intention to have him say those things or bring things up again. When we were trying to share with him and his kids. I felt like we needed to talk about forgiveness and charity, but I couldn’t remember where the scripture was about charity that my companion had shared only like two days before. Without even mentioning anything to my companion she opened up to the scripture. That has happened a few times in my mission, that I feel like we need to share something specific or we need to challenge someone to be baptized or that we need to bring up a new topic and a lot of times, without even saying anything my companion will do it! I'm thinking that's the Spirit maybe...

So yeah we have the transfer meeting this Wednesday! I'm super excited to play "Homeward Bound"! I practiced with the Elder last week after the multi-zone Conference and it sounds AMAZING. Hahaha I'm super excited and I feel really good about it! I'll record a video of it when we practice it before so you all can watch it and listen to it! Have an amazing few days, I'll be back to write this Wednesday in the afternoon!

Con todo mi amor,
Hermana Despain

Not as Good as God

This week's email will be a little different. I won't go into details, but I've learned a lot about putting God first in our lives. It's something we preach all the time. People start to put their work first, their studies first, their family first....and they're all good things, but they're not as good as God. When we start to put other things before God, we're trying to do things out of order, not in His timing, and things just don't go as well. I think it has to do with pride too. When we're prideful, we think we've got things handled, that we can take care of things. But we will always need His help, no matter how confident we are. We will always need His guidance. There is a difference between independence and being independent, but humble and dependent to the whisperings of the Spirit. I've learned I'm not perfect but that it's a good thing to desire to be perfect, or we're not working for anything worth working for. I've learned how words of love and support penetrate more than harsh words.

I'm grateful for the friendships I have here and for all the things I've experienced here in Santa Rita...It's only my second area but I feel like it will be my hardest. But because of that I have learned so much. But it happened, I love Santa Rita, maybe not as much as I love Ceiba, but it has a special place in my heart. If I'm called to leave here I'll be heartbroken, but I'll go where the Lord needs me. The girls in the house are incredible and we'll be best friends forever because of everything we've gone through. The mission is incredible because it has such a power to change your life if you let it.

My mission president shared this quote by President Benson with me and I really, really love it...

"Men and women who turn their lives over to God will discover that He can make a lot more out of their lives than they can. He will deepen their joys, expand their vision, quicken their minds, strengthen their muscles, lift their spirits, multiply their blessings, increase their opportunities, comfort their souls, raise up friends, and pour out peace."

These next few weeks will be really interesting, exciting and really challenging. I'm making lots of improvements and trying to be patient with myself and trying to love myself. We have a multi-zone conference in Progresso this Wednesday so that will be exciting! We'll also have President here this coming Sunday for our Sacrament Meeting so we'll be working hard this week to invite everyone to church and make some changes with our investigators. I'm happy to be with my companion. She's teaching me love and patience. I'm grateful for her. I'm grateful for the chance to train. I've learned more from her than I have from myself. The Lord trusts us and others trust us and that's probably the worst feeling in the world, to lose someone's trust or disappoint someone. But if we stay down after we fall, we haven't learned anything about falling. So we have to get back up and learn, try something different and improve and be patient with ourselves. I'm grateful for the challenges I have in the mission and I'm just plain grateful to be here on the mission. It really is a privilege. There are good things in the world and people to love, but nothing is as good as God and His love he has for us.

Love, 

Hermana Despain