Progress and You Never Know What You Will Find in Honduras--A Scout Shirt From the East Coast

¡Buenas!

Well, the last week of the change went better than previous weeks. We started out the week well with several fechas bautismales, and a handful of regular desafíos bautismales. There were still some days where a lot of citas were falling, but we made the best of it. We also had a good turnout at church. 101 asistencia and 4 investigators (plus two more references/nuevos that a member brought for the seminary "graduation")...not bad. Looking at the datos right now, we had investigators coming to church así starting with week 1 and ending with week 6 - 1, 3, 1, 6, 2, 6.

Well, we didn´t have any baptisms this change. A little frustrating. I thought we would get at least 2, but the two I was hoping for (O and L) need some more time. O is still reading in the Book of Mormon to be sure it´s true. He believes it is, or at least he says he believes, but he needs more time to study it more to be sure. L seems to be losing hope. She is the mother of a recent convert who has a restaurant and has difficulties attending church. Her employee recently quit and she doesn´t trust the new worker so she has to stay and work during church. She says she likes everything we teach but she lacks something to finally keep that commitment to attend church and eventually be baptized.

However, we do have several investigators who are progressing nicely and are potential baptisms for this upcoming change. Nand Y, daughter and granddaughter of O, are very interested and understand the message of the Restoration. They are waiting for an answer.

M and C are also progressing well. C came for the second time to church this past Sunday and really enjoyed it. M can´t go because he works on Sundays at least for right now. He may get a change in schedule sometime in the near future. They were really open to all the lessons we taught this week, are beginning to pray, and accepted to live the Word of Wisdom. They still need to get married, but they know and will be making plans in the near future.

We have many others. Well, that´s all I have this week. Enjoy your Thanksgiving! I don´t believe it is celebrated here because I haven´t heard anything about it. To be honest, I actually kind of forgot about it until I read your emails haha.

-Elder Lund

Río Lindo, Zona Yojoa 11/17/14 - 11/24/14

Fumigators

 

¡Buenas!

We had a lot of fallen citas and investigators with fecha who will not be getting baptized anytime soon. We have had hopes for P, a nine year old in a less-active family, who was progressing a lot. One day, however, the mom told us she wants nothing to do with the church. We asked her what was up and she told us again she wants nothing to do with the church. The family has been less active for a long time. Rumor has it that the family baptized only to receive financial help. When the food stopped, they stopped going to church. The family has also talked with the daughter and she will not be getting baptized until we can reactivate the family which will not likely be anytime soon. Other fechas fell as well. 

Another story to show how the week went. We were having a really great "Restauración" lesson and when we started teaching about the Book of Mormon, fumigators came to fumigate the house for mosquitos. Fumigators from the municipalidad have been coming around the colonias to do this, but somehow they happened to come at this time. We had to leave the house immediately and couldn´t finish the lesson with compromisos or even a prayer. Kind of frustrating.

Despite the week we had, I was somehow still happy. The refiner´s fire has helped me be more patient. The gratitude journal has also helped a lot. Even though I was a little bummed with the fumigation lesson, I was still grateful for the really good first part of the lesson that we had. Because the spirit was present in the principio, we should be able to finish the lesson and hopefully this family will be future members.

Although O has been struggling to progress, we finally got him a Libro de Mormón grande so that he can read. We started teaching his daughter and granddaughter as well. The granddaughter has already gone to church the past two weeks and is enjoying the lessons a lot. These will be 3 really good baptisms the next change if they can keep progressing.

We went to the tourist site Pulapansak today. There is a decent sized waterfall. We took pictures and had a good time together. I will send some photos in a bit.

We heard that the New York Times published an article on Joseph Smith this week. The local newspaper had published a little something as well and the branch president showed us the article. Maybe that´s why our investigators were a little less teachable this week, but things will cool off.

That´s all I have...cheque leque!

-Elder Lund

Río Lindo, Zona Yojoa 11/10/14 - 11/17/14

Chilly in Santa Cruz

Well, another week in the mission field. This week was a little bit better.
We were able to challenge more people to baptism since the citas weren´t
falling nearly as much. We also had 6 investigators in church, 3 kids and 3
adults. It was the primary program so a bunch of people went...I think it
was around 120 cramped into a small room, but still only 10 Melchizedek
Priesthood holders. We had 10 the previous week and probably 4-6 the weeks
before that.

I went on divisions with Elder H from Colombia on Friday in Santa
Cruz de Yojoa (no, sadly not the Santa Cruz with the beach boardwalk haha).
We had some really good lessons with their investigators. It´s always good
to have divisions because you always learn something new - how to
present the doctrine in the lessons a different way, study methods,
etc - from the other missionary. It was super cold in SC and by the
time we got back to the apartment, I was literally shivering. It was
drizzling a bit, but it was probably only 50-60 degrees haha. I don´t
know what I´m going to do to adjust to -20 Cel. when I get back to BYU
within a month being home from Honduras.

Today for P-day, we went to Santa Cruz to play fútbol and basketball
at the church as a district and with the Zone Leaders. It was a lot of
fun. Their church is really big and nice. It gives me a little
motivation to work harder so we can get a building like this in Río
Lindo. We ate pollo frito con tajadas. MMMM...

Well, that´s about it this week. I´m starting a gratitude journal
because I need to work on being grateful. Developing gratitude will
also help me develop other attributes like charity, humility, and
patience. Over and out.

-Elder Lund

Río Lindo, Zona Yojoa 11/4/14 - 11/10/14

Good Lessons

Another week in the mission field...Kind of a tough week, but I´m hoping to have a better one. The unity in the companionship isn´t really that great, but I´m going to try to work on that too. Nearly all of our fechas bautismales fell this week because no one came to church. It was raining and whenever there is rain hardly anyone comes. At 9:00, there were only us 4 missionaries, the Branch President, his wife, his daughter, and the Elder´s Quorum President. More people showed up later on but no investigators. People also were busy and left on vacations for Día de los muertos...it seemed to me like the holiday wasn´t that big here as compared to Mexico, but people still were not in their homes for citas.

Nevertheless, we still had some pretty good lessons with investigators and less-active Sacerdocio. There are a lot of future holders of the melchizedek priesthood. The most frequent problem right now is these members were baptized when they were 10-12, went inactive at 12-14 and are now living in chocoleyde (living with their girlfriends) at age 20-28. It´s going to be tough, but we´ll see what we can do to help them come back to the fold.

P-day was kind of boring today. We went to Villanueva and ate lunch at Wendy´s. Got my haircut. Writing you guys. Cheque.

I don´t really have anything else to say. CHEQUE LEQUE!

-Elder Lund

Río Lindo, Zona Yojoa 10/27/14 - 11/3/14