Back Again After a Year--Cofradia

Cofradia  May 2014

Cofradia May 2015

¡Buenas!

Another good week here in Cofradía. On Tuesday, I did divisions with Elder Perry in my old area Paraíso 2. We contacted some old menos activos and found some news to teach. We visited one house to give service and the family said "you look familiar" and I said, "yup, I was here a year ago in the branch...I was ´el callado´" and they were like "OH YA!!! I remember you...you were so humble."I took a picture outside the house similar to the one I took a year ago when I left on e-changes.

We had some pretty good progress with our investigators and others that aren´t progressing so much, but we´re doing all that we can. M - the mom of recent converts who holds a evangelical house group - started crying when we showed her the DVD of the Restoration. She is going to hand over the group to the church and prepare for her baptism the 13th of June. We received an awesome reference from our ward mission leader. He sells coconut water (3 litros bottles) and he started talking to one of his faithful clients about the gospel and set up a cita for us. I visited with Elder Guerrero from México (we were on divisions) and hermano E and she was very receptive and accepted the invitation to be baptized. She doesn´t seem to have any large problems like living in fornication so it should be promising. I don´t know why, but lately I´ve had the desire to baptize young men so that they can go on missions, marry in the temple, etc and avoid the life in the streets. We are teaching J and A(13 and 18...brothers). Axel is so-so but J came to church and seemed to enjoy it. We are teaching a family L that lives near the church...there are around 7 potential baptisms, but not everyone has the same interest levels and it is tough to set an appointment with all members present because of scheduling conflicts so we have decided to divide and conquer. We are focusing in on G and S and getting them to read the Book of Mormon and going to church. They couldn´t go to church because they were in San Jorge with their real dad, but G went to the Noche de Hermanamiento and really enjoyed the message and games. We had a good turnout at church...6 in the reunion.

Elder Paredes and I fasted this past weekend. As always, whenever someone fasts, their is always temptation. We went to an Elders Quorum activity on Saturday. This is one of the first activities the ward has had in a while so they served arroz chino, pollo asado, pepsi, and cake for those who have had birthdays from January to May. QUE TENTACIÓN!!! But, it wasn´t too hot out so we didn´t get dehydrated...count your many blessings.

Well, that´s about all I have for this week. I am going to work on writing in my journal this week so that I can remember everything. Gotta develop the habit.

CHEQUE

-Elder Lund

Cofradía 1, Zona Cofradía 5/18/15 - 5/25/15

Cambios

 ¡¡¡CAMBIOS!!!

Well, first things first, I had changes this past Wednesday. After just two changes, I left Los Almendros and to be honest it was a little tough. Thankfully, I was able to say goodbye to nearly everyone I wanted to visit. I´m not a crier...ya, I always feel a little bad because I don´t cry during despedidas even though it is tough. Nicole was crying pretty bad because she wanted me to baptize her this upcoming change and D and M  (from the family we baptized) also cried pretty good. You may or may not be able to tell in the pictures. I would say it is my favorite area (well, tied with Ocotillo, but ya, awesome area with great members).

Anyways, remember WAY WAY WAY back when I was in Paraíso, Cofradía with Elder Galarza. Well, I had left after two weeks in the change to Elder Merlos (he went home this change...puchiga I´m getting old) in Ocotillo. Well, I had left the 13th of May 2014 and returned to Cofradía as a Zone Leader on the 13th of May 2015. Cool, right? My new companion is Elder Paredes from Guatemala. We live in a very large home with another companionship. It is still pretty hot, but not nearly as hot as Choloma...a very dry heat and it´s not even too bad at night. I must be used to the heat because a year ago I was literraly sweating bullets.

In Cofradía, there is a branch and a ward. A year ago I was in the branch, and now I´m in the ward. We share the building and we had a lot of activities together this week for "Semana de la Familia." Interestingly enough, a lot of members from the branch remember me even though I was super callado and only present for a 12 days. I recognized a lot of faces but had forgotten most of the names. Maybe I´ll be able to work in the old area sometime on divisions.

We have some decent progressing investigators, but not nearly as much as Los Almendros. Not as many part-member families that we are teaching. We are working on some people and will hopefully put a lot of fechas this upcoming week. Nevertheless, we had a good turnout at sacrament meeting and it should´t be nearly as difficult to get people to church (well, we´ll see) because it´s not super far and the area is a little bit wealthier to pay for moto-taxis.

Good experiences this week. For "Semana de la Familia" we went to the stake center in CHAMELECON (normally sketch, but the building is located in a safer area) for a "Noche de Talentos" ... it was awesome and latins can be super fun. One bishop did magic tricks to the music from Rocky IV (ya, ´merica!!! the intense music when Silvester Stallone is training for the big fight against the best of the best from mother russia), there was a skit about the plan of salvation, singing, violin playing, and good clean dancing ("ustedes bailan?" question from all the evangelicos). Unfortunately, when we got back onto the chartered yellow school bus (only in Honduras) at 7:45 PM, we realized that the front lights did not work. We had to drive back to Cofradía practically in the dark. It was actually pretty crazy because the roads are windy and there are no lights. We drove very slow and about halfway through they turned to the E-lights (the triangle button?) which helped a little but we were basically driving blind. We could only see well when people passed us and lit the way. But, we prayed and we made it back okay.

Sunday, we and the Zone Leaders from Merendón did a capacitation for the ward mission leaders. We were in the stake room where I presume the stake president meets with sumo consejo and others to plan and have consejos. The painting in that room is of Christ washing the apostles feet. For the opening hymn we sang "Called to Serve" and for the closing "Love one another" and it was quality spiritual moment singing together and in the service of others, like the example Christ had given us.

Well, we played fútbol with half the zone in Quimistán. Lot of fun, and the bus ride was good. Beautiful country. It is very dry right now and it reminds me of a mixture between the American Southwest, but a little greener and a bunch of pulperías and people in humbler circumstances.

Anyways, that´s all I have. I´ll send pics!!!

-Elder Lund

Cofradía 1, Zona Cofradía 5/11/15 - 5/18/15