Date
October 29, 2018
Area
Dos Caminos, Honduras
Companion
Elder Dale
Shoveling dirt in our ties, self sufficient kids, learning more Spanish, and so much more!!!
Hola a todos! I sure hope everyone had a great week this week. Our week absolutely flew by!! This was the last week of our change, so that means I have officially been in Honduras for six weeks! (So it turns out that we are going to have a trio for 3 weeks. So I now have Elder Pila from Ecuador as a part of my companionship. ) That´s so crazy to me because I feel like it was just yesterday that I was getting shoved onto a bus with two suitcases, two backpacks, and a giant pillow. If the mission continues to go by this fast, I´ll see you all very soon haha. But anyways here was our week…
Tomás-So we`ve been continuing to work with Tomás´ family and prepare them for their baptism which should hopefully be the 10th of November. Everything has been going pretty well with them except that their 11 year old daughter isn´t thrilled with the idea of getting baptized haha. We´re not quite sure what her concern is but she simply said, ´´I don´t think the 10th of November is right for me…´´Alllrighty then....
The Artica Family-So I forgot to mention that a few weeks ago we met a family that was working out in their yard. We asked if we could help and they said it was all good because they were worried we would ruin our white shirts. We assured them that that wasn´t an issue but they were adamant about it so we simply asked if we could meet with them some other day. The father turned out to have already been baptized in Mexico so he said that would be great. A few days later we went back to the same house but a different lady was there. As it turns out, the family that was working out in the yard didn´t actually live there, but rather was just helping out their friends. We noticed that this lady was working by herself shoveling dirt out of her front lawn. We asked if we could help and this time we didn´t take no for an answer. So we´re out there shoveling dirt in our white shirts and all and we get to talking to this Hermana. She too was baptized beforehand in the capital city, Tegucigalpa. Later on her two sons showed up and we ended up getting to know the whole family. Ever since then we´ve been visiting them and they are just awesome. The oldest son is named Ostin and he´s fifteen and the younger one is named Edgardo and he´s about twelve. They are both really super cool kids and definitely deserve the Gospel in their lives. They actually really help me with my Spanish because they talk pretty quick and I have to try to keep up hahaha. Anyways I hope all goes well with them.
Zone Conference-This Wednesday I had my first zone conference. It was pretty cool because I got to catch up with a few guys from the MTC and also get to meet a ton of new elders. But anyways we basically had a fireside from the President and his wife which was really good. Hermana Bush talked about the First Vision in a really new and interesting way and said that this mission was like our personal First Vision where we can find out for ourselves 100% if the Gospel is true. Later on we had a few seminars by the AP´s. One of the AP´s named Elder Stonehocker, is really cool and man can he speak some Spanish. My goal is to get as good as him because to me he sounds like a native speaker. Anyways my first zone conference was a success.
Funny or Interesting Stuff-
-So kids are pretty mature here. Every little kid here knows how to handle money, hail a mototaxi, and work a job. A ton of kids here actually have jobs like going around selling tortillas or dragon-fruit. Also I see kids all the time walking down the street with groceries in hand so apparently they know how to shop too hahaha.
-So in the Spanish language you can say ¨qué¨ whatever to express emotion about something. For instance ¨qué calor¨ means basically ¨what heat!¨ or ¨qué dolor¨ means ¨what pain!¨. But people here have something they say that really makes no sense to me. Often times when people greet each other they say ¨qué pedo¨ or in English ¨what fart.¨ I really want to know where that all got started hahahahaha.
-So a funny thing that happened to us the other day was that we went to visit our recent convert, José. So where he lives, we can see inside his house from the road, and as we were walking down the street we see someone sitting Indian style in the middle of his floor. We only assume it´s José because nobody else lives there but it looks nothing like him. As we get closer we realize that José is shaving his head. When we walk inside we realize that he has shaved only half his head…and his eyebrows. Apparently his razor had broken halfway through the job. We were like ¨Jose, what the heck are ya doing dude?¨ I know you aren´t supposed to laugh, but he looked so goofy hahaha. Luckily Elder Rivas knows how to cut hair so he somehow turned it around so we´re all good now. We still don´t know what possessed him to do that.
Spiritual Thought-So I have been continuing to read the Book of Mormon every day and I came across Helaman 5 12 which is one of my favorite scriptures. It´s true that Jesus Christ is the rock of our redemption. Like the primary song, the wise man builds his house upon the rock. When the storms come, and unfortunately they always do, we will not fall. Even though the storm may be rough, exhausting, and scary, we know that the Lord is on OUR side, not the storm´s.
I hope everyone has a great week and may the Lord bless you!!!
Elder Taylor