The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Elder Lund's Birthday is this Sunday...sure hope he gets his packages in time!

(photo from the Js' Blog at Christmas time -- as seen in the mail room at the Mission Home)

¡Buenas! 

Hermana Deisy, a member who we have dinner and visit with often with the other Elders, is reading "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" for her job as a teacher. I got to talk with her about it. I told her probably the most important habit for missionaries and teachers like herself is "First seek to understand, then to be understood." Also, even if you´re completely worthy to have the spirit in compliance with commandments and mission rules, if you get upset/frustrated/mad at someone else´s actions (even though they may be planchero actions), you are not going to have the spirit with you in your lessons. Be flechero (keep all commandments and mission rules) but also be proactive. I´m going to work on that more.

Nevertheless, I think it´s going to be a better week. A (va a cumplir 14) is getting baptized this week. The rest of the family is probably ready for baptism (they all have desires and so-so testimonies and we had fechas for them), but they still haven´t come to church yet (they have to come at least 3 times in order to get baptized here). I think when they see A get baptized and see the positive changes in his life, I think they´ll have a stronger desire to finally come to church and continue to progress further.

One morning this week, we went out to give service. We started out helping a member with her english homework. I helped her translate "The Fox and the Hen"...it was really difficult since the sentence patterns are different. After that, we saw a 70ish year old man in a dried up - but still really moist - river bed. He was widening the river with a shovel and pick-axe. I offered to help while my companion talked with him. He pulled out a cigarette and my companion started teaching about the Word of Wisdom. He had serious doubts with the doctrine surrounding it. He used the classic "God made it so it´s okay for us" even with cocaine and other hard drugs. I attempted to machete him with an example as I took a short break from my physcial labor. About 10 feet away, there was a huge puddle of dirty, disgusting water. By the way, the rivers and streams are absolutely gross here because of littering and other pollution. I asked him if God made made all that (pointing to the water). He said yes, and then I said to him ¡Tómalo!...drink it! He then exclaimed "No, No" ...I then asked why... "It´s bad, it´s contaminated" I then told him there are things that are bad for our bodies and the Word of Wisdom outlines those things. He understood, but he still didn´t change his position with coffee and tea. We tried getting a cita with him but ... no cita. But, we offered service and we planted seeds for future missionaries.

Last night, around 8:00, we were heading to a member´s house for dinner when all of the sudden we were confronted by 5 drunk 18-25 year olds. They started talking to us about why Mormons, Testigos (Jehova´s Witnesses), and others are crazy. Some of them also tried speaking to me in English which was really funny. They would say, "Whhhaaat´s ____ up" or "My __ name is ___ J...whaaat is ____ yyyour name?" Their breath was pretty bad and their slow speech was a combination of the alcohol and poor english. We then taught them a quick lesson in the street where we balanced 9 nails on top of 1 nailed into the dirt. They couldn´t find the way to balance it, but we shared with them that our thoughts are not God´s thoughts. Then, we balanced the 9 on top of the 1. By the time we finished the example, an additional 10-15 people were circled around watching and listening to our lesson. We taught some more, bore testimony, and then gave the original 5 the Chastity and Word of Wisdom pamphlets. They were much calmer after that. Don´t worry, there was no threat originally.

Well, that´s all I have time for. 

Cheque...Nos Vemos

Elder Lund

Santa Rosa de Copan, Honduras 3/4/14 - 3/10/14