Many Teaching Opportunities

Another week in the mission field, and another week filled with experiences. We had a baptism for an 11 year old this week. His name is V (I´m not sure of his other two names that he has) but it was really cool. His sister is getting baptized in June when she turns 8...it still counts as "our" baptism since they are reactivated and she wasn't presented to the church. We also had an invesetigator and her two kids come because she is best friends with V´s mom. We knew from that time that she was ready for baptism. Her son kept saying that he wanted to get baptized. The funniest part was when we were taking pictures in the baptismal clothing, this investigator wanted to get a picture with me and my companion too. More about her later.

We are continuing to find menos activas families and trying to reactivate them and baptize the kids who weren't baptized. We had two great citas with Familia A this week. She - C - was baptized around 9 years ago with her mom in SPS but for some reason she went inactive. The family now includes her grandma (Católica) her mom (member) and her two kids ages 9 and 6 (both not members). It's kind of sad because she literally doesn't remember anything. Prophets, word of wisdom ("wait, you guys don't drink tea?") and a lot more. We learned this on Wednesday and re-taught leccion 1 yesterday. It went really well. Even though they don't remember it, they really understood it...we believe it's still in their memory and the spirit is helping them "remember" what they don't know is there. We set a fecha bautismal for the Grandma (82 years old) and she said in the future after she investigates more. C responded "you don't have much time left...you should do it quick" and we all started laughing. We found another menos activa family yesterday with 6 kids...she is bien evangelica and we're not sure how it's going to turn out. We'll try to visit them and reactivate them. There are a lot of others that fit this category as well.

Ok, back to that investigator I was talking about. Her name is A and she has two kids ages 11 and 8. Honestly, I don't remember exactly how we contacted her, but she came to an activity last Sunday night and her best friend's son's baptism. She is probably a good 300 pounds. Talking to her more, it sounds like it came from stress and problems with drinking and smoking. We are helping her out right now because she doesn't have the money to dig a latrine hole for her. We are about a meter and a half down and we still lack another 2 or so. We taught her leccion 1 on Friday and it went really well. We were going to bring a youth in the ward who is going to serve his mission in June but it fell through. We felt we should bring someone so we brought the bishop's son, Josue. We had a good lesson. When we asked her to pray to know if it was true, she said she already knows its true. She told us of two dreams she had had. One was about 6 months ago about people who got killed. She had the same dream 3 nights in a row and a couple days after some neighbors got shot in SPS. She told us another dream she had recently where two men dressed in white (she considered them angels) came to her house with another person who accompanied them. They started teaching her the gospel in the dream. She said that my companion and I in our white shirts and the Bishop's son remined her of that recent dream and knew it meant something. I had the opportunity to invite her to be baptized directly after that. The spirit filled the room, she started crying, and she accepted. Her son also accepted. No surprise there, he kept saying he wanted to get baptized since V's baptism. The daughter, however, flat out said no. We're not sure why, but we'll work with her. People are truly prepared.

We had another finding experience on Saturday/Sunday. We went to N's house to teach. He is less active and we found out he has severe drinking problems, but more about that later. Anyways, he wasn't there, but the mom or aunt who isn't a member was there. She said she had severe pain beneath her breast and she couldn't breath very well. The two other ladies who were there told us to give a blessing with oil (we didn't know them or if they were less active members or not) so we went inside and gave her a blessing. My comp annointed and I sealed the anointing. During the two prayers, the other ladies kept saying stuff like "Mmmm, Amen" and "Mmmm, sí gloria a Dios" and other stuff. After the prayer the woman - Felipa - kept saying things like "I'm ready, Lord...I give my life and will to you...my life is in your hands...my life is yours...etc etc etc" It was kind of funny and I looked at my comp smiling because we didn't feel like anything major was wrong with her. A nurse came who lives up the hill. She took her blood pressure and said everything was fine. Felipa said she had pain under breast and the nurse just responded saying she had pain in her back and in her legs but she keeps working. Felipa then said she had a tingling sensation in her mouth and the nurse, being completely sarcastic for some reason, said she needs to go to the hospital immediately. She then smiled, said everything should be fine, told her to drink a smoothie with mango and some other fruit and rest. Long story short, we contacted the nurse the next day. She said she is evangelica and wasn't really interested with us even though we hadn't brought up anything church related. We talked chit chat for a little bit longer and found out that most of her family are members in La Ceiba. We also found out that she and my comp may be related from some family in El Salvador. After talking about this and family history work that the church does, she told us she will "study the bible" a bit more and talk with us. Cool.

Funny story with N. We went to his house Sunday afternoon. We were chit-chatting while he was sitting on the floor and we just knew he wasn't ready for a lesson. We asked him if he could leave with a prayer. He stood up and then fell on his knees, raised his arms, and said a really strange prayer. Strange, but sincere. We're going to try to help him get back to church and talk with the bishop. His "compañera" isn't a member and she started tearing up when she started seeing how bad of a shape N was in. We're hoping to help N and teach the girlfriend.

Oh, I also had to talk in church and give the sunday school lesson today without preparing. Life of a missionary.

We ate at McDonalds today. I bought a John Deere camo hat and a Polo hat today in Centro. Good P-day.

Well, that's all I have. I love you guys and I'll talk to you next week. Cheque...

-Elder Lund

Ocotillo, El Carmen, SPS 5/19/14 - 5/26/14

Hola Ocotillo--Elder Lund's New Area in El Carmen

EMERGENCY CHANGES!!!

Well, I got changed to a new area. We got a phone call around 6:30 Monday night from the APs saying that I had an emergency change as well as another Elder in the house. I had to pack my bags and be at the mission office by 8:00 AM the next morning. Well, see you later Cofradía...I´m sure I will return to the zone before I´m through with the mission. (Pic is of the Cofradía house that morning)

I learned Tuesday morning that my new companion is Elder M. He is from Arlington, Texas and has around 11 months in the mission. His family is from El Salvador but he was born and raised in the states. He grew up knowning Spanish and English. His son who he was training went home. He had a hernia in his esophagus and is going back to recover. He will go home and then get recalled to a stateside mission.

Elder M opened the area and has only been here 2 weeks. He and his comp didn´t get the chance to work much (for obvious reasons) as they were in the mission office, hospital, and at the AP´s house for a majority of the time. So basically, we are both working together in a new area for both of us. We have a few investigators from the old area before they split it but we spent most of this week establishing a good foundation of investigators and menos activo to work off of. We are sowing a lot this change in hope for a big harvest of baptisms during the next change.

Oh, and my new area is Ocotillo. It is in El Carmen just outside of San Pedro Sula. Google it, it is pretty close to SPS. It´s a little bit hotter and a little bit more dangerous. The proselyting area we are in isn´t as dangerous as the others in Ocotillo, but we still have to be careful. We see the gang members driving around on their motorcycles at night patroling. They ride with 2 guys to a bike - one to drive and one to shoot. It´s actually completely illegal in Honduras because of this reason but they don´t care. We had dinner in a "hot zone" one night. It was pretty dark and a little sketch but nothing went down. Don´t worry mom...I have been told it´s not as bad as other areas like Chamelecon or Satélite. You can stay updated on the SPS news if you want.

Back to missionary work...a lot of potential baptisms we have are coming from less active members with children who weren´t presented to the church so they are technically under the mission´s stewardship if you want to call it that. We already have one of these getting baptized this upcoming week. I guess you could say this is the "low bearing fruit" or "high cotton" for us missionaries because it is simple. Reactivate the family, baptize the children.

We also contacted a lot this week and had some good success. We found a family of (potentially) 88. We gave service to the Grandma and brought back stove wood to her house. We asked about her family and she told us she had 13 kids (hopefully with spouses) and 60 grandchildren (with more on the way). They all live spread out in Ocotillo and about 10 of her grandchildren were running around the house at the time with the Grandpa and a few of the children. We talked about eternal families and left a L2 folleto and will stop by sometime this week. We also found a lot of other families but this one stood out.

We went to Wendy´s for P-day today. It was good to have American food again, but it still wasn`t quite the same quality but oh well. I am finally in a ward. It is nice, but the asistencia is a little low. Their building is very new and really nice inside and out.

Anyways, that´s it. ) love you all.

Elder Lund

Ocotillo, El Carmen, SPS 5/13/14 - 5/19/14

Adios Santa Rosa De Copan

 Elder Lund saying farewell to his first area in Honduras--he will miss it!

He had a nice little cocina...

 Elder Lund's Patio

 His Santa Rosa District

 Elder Lund with the dear families he loves.

The Elders in Santa Rosa live above a pharmacy

Well, I got transferred to a new area. I left my beloved primer area of Santa Rosa de Copán. It was really tough because I was not expecting cambios. I found out Monday night, we had Zone Meeting in La Entrada, and then I had 3:00 until the end of the evening to say goodbye to members, menos activo, and investigators. I will miss everyone that I met greatly. Hopefully we can keep in touch through email and Facebook. Nevertheless, it was a lot of fun. I had to unfortunately leave a lot of progressing investigators but I know they will continue to progress with the missionaries there.

My new area is called El Paraíso in the city of Cofradía. It is just outside of San Pedro Sula. It is a lot hotter and rains a lot more. We got drenched three straight days. We don´t bring our umbrellas around. I don´t know why, but I guess Jehova´s Witnesses always walk with umbrellas. It is also a little bit more dangerous, but there shouldn´t be any trouble...it´s still not San Pedro. My new companion is Elder G. He is from Ecuador. Right now, we do not have a lot of investigators, but we will work on that this change.

Don´t really have much else. Can´t wait to talk to you all in a week! Stay close to your phones/computers because I don´t know what we´re doing yet for Mother´s Day.

Elder Lund

El Paraíso, Cofradía 4/28/14 - 5/5/14