Chikungunya

¡Buenas!

I´ll start off the weekly letter with the good news.

On Tuesday we did divisions with San Marcos 1. I was with Elder Hernández from Mexico who also happened to be with my "son" Elder Gutierrez the change before. We taught some good lessons and had memorable experiences. The last lesson we taught was with a strong family in the church. P and G The entire family have been members for 19 years...everyone except the mother. We taught and testified of the Book of Mormon. It was a powerful lesson. Before the lesson started, the mother said that she had seen me before, but I had never seen her. At the end of the lesson she said it again and the daughter that came during the lesson said she had seen me. Again, I had not seen the mom, but the daughter for some reason did look familiar. Like the prison story from President Green, maybe the Lord had me there that day for some reason.

We were having trouble finding people to teach on Saturday. We were really tired from that morning when we gave service in Naco (I´ll explain later) and citas were falling. We said a prayer in order to find escogidos and we contacted a house in Colonia El Rancho. A brother and a sister (35-45 years of age) were there and it turns out that their mother is a member of the Church. However, before joining the church, she had left the father of her two kids and they were raised by their grandmother. They do not have a very strong relationship with their mother. Nevertheless, she got married, had kids, joined the church, and was sealed in the Guatemala Temple. Her oldest son (from the new father) got back from serving a mission in Costa Rica. We taught them about the Gospel, Temples (with the magazine that Grandma and Grandpa Lund sent), and Eternal Families. After teaching, the sister had a very good question: "If my mom knows about all this, eternal families, we can be together forever, etc...why hasn´t she told us this? Does she not want us to be part of her family in the eternities?" It was a very good question. Although they didn´t have the best relationship with their mother, we invited them to call their mother and say "Hey mom, the mormon missionaries came over and taught us about temples, eternal marriage, and eternal families...can we be part of your eternal family" We promised them that despite the past difficulties, the Lord softens hearts and the gospel will unite their family.

We have had other good stories, but now on to the bad news...

Well, our house got robbed while I was on divisions in Naco. Thankfully, I took my camera on divisions and they didn´t touch my SD cards with all my fotos. However, they did take around 4500 Lempiras (around 1500 from the mission and around 3000 personal). Thankfully, they left both debit cards, my drivers license, and my temple recommend! Dad, I also still haven´t taken out the money...I was about to take it out last Monday, but for some reason I didn´t. The missionaries in the house had cameras stolen, the portable DVD player, and chicle.

Even worse news. I have Chikungunya. Saturday morning, my comp came with us to Naco to give service to someone who´s going to get baptized next week. We macheted, cut tree branches, and dug holes to put up a fence...all on the banks of a river in blazing heat. Around 2:00 AM Sunday morning, I woke up with a super high fever and shivering/shaking uncontrollably for around an hour. I said a prayer and tried to breath normally. The shaking eventually stopped, but I didn´t sleep well. I thought I was just really really dehydrated, but as I was about to check my temperature in the morning, I took off my shirt and my comp saw the typical rash from the virus. Literally all over my body...chest, stomach, back, arms, and knees. I´ll send pics, but I don´t think my camera captured how bad the rash was. We went to church and gave a missionary work capacitation during the third hour. I wanted to go to a stake missionary work capacitation because we have been planning it with the High Councilor in charge of missionary work for 4 weeks, but my companions and a nurse where we eat lunch on Sundays, persuaded me to stay home and rest. It reminded me of my Senior year of football when I had a really bad high ankle sprain. Coach Anderson told me before the first game after the injury versus King City "Don´t try to be a hero" ... thankfully, I didn´t try to be a hero. I took it easy and did all I could during the practice weeks to recover fully... because of that, I healed miraculously fast and was able to play in the next 4 games (PG, Menlo, Monte Vista Christian, and Palma). The same thought came to my mind - "don´t try to be a hero Elder Lund...rest so that you can serve faithfully the last 4 months of your mission" I asked for a priesthood blessing, and then Elder Marte and I went home as Elder Paredes and Castillo went to the estaca to give the workshop on the Book of Mormon in missionary work. I rested (but didn´t sleep well), sweated a lot (my sheets were literally drenched in the morning), and I´m starting to recover. I don´t know if it was a milder case of chikungunya or I´m just recovering faster than normal, but once again I am being blessed by the Lord with strength and health.

Please put Familia Pineda Rivera on the temple prayer roll again. We had two great lessons with them this week, but when the member neighbors passed by to pick them up for church, they said that they didn´t want anything. I´m sure someone dropped by and told them something bad about the mormons. I believe and have faith that they are still escogidos.

Well, that´s all I have this week. Cheque! (Oh ya, 19 months in the mission today...yaaaa)

-Elder Lund

Cofradía 1, Zona Cofradía 7/20/15 - 7/27/15

Burn Day

¡Buenas!

Well, another week here as a missionary in Honduras.

We had interviews with President Dester on Tuesday. I always leave a little more edified.

On Wednesday, we offered service to a less active named N and her family who lives on the property. We gather trash, leaves, and cut leña with machetes of old tree branches. It was fun and we had a big "burn day!!!" See pics. Her son, A is 10 and hasn´t been baptized. We are working little by little reactivating N (she has gone the past 3 Sundays) for the next 2-3 months and then baptize the son when the time is right.

We had a really good Sunday. It started out, however, a little tough. We went to 2 young families to bring them to church but had no luck. P and D were fighting (P was brought to tears, but decided not to go) and the other couple was also having problems. F was washing clothes and F was getting ready to go visit the other women he has children with. It was really sad. As we were walking up to church with, I saw a "La Prensa" headline (newspaper) that said "30% of mothers in Honduras are under 18"...what a sad statistic. It´s possibly even higher when you count all the 20-21 year olds who have children who are 4 or 5 years old. I was pretty sad for the iniquity this world has. But, the Lord always has His hand in His work. We had 8 investigators at church (well, technically 9 but we didn´t count one because of specific circumstances) and a lot of menos activos. 121 asistencia. They had to do a second sacrament prayer for the water.    

We have a family (F. P) who is really progressing well. We have good fellowshipping, the mother and daughters came to church (the dad works every other day so next week) and we have a noche de hogar tonight with them. A lot of work to go, but we are trusting in the Lord.

Well, that´s all I have this week. CHEQUE.

-Elder Lund

Cofradía 1, Zona Cofradía 7/13/15 - 7/20/15

MRI Flashback

Buenas!

Just going to get it out of the way...hit the "5 months to go" mark...ya

To start off the week, we did divisions in San Jorge. Elder Duarte has chikungunya and was still recovering so I stayed in the house with him and my comp went to work so that the area didn´t lose as much progress. I finished reading 3 Nefi until Éter. I have 2 chapters to go and I actually plan on finishing tonight. I was able to talk a lot with Elder Duarte. He is from Paraguay and he knows 2 languages...Spanish and _____. I forgot the name but everyone knows it there. Look it up on Wikipedia.

We saw a lot more spiritual progress with the investigators this week. For example, Pablo and Dania are really starting to feel the spirit during the lessons even though they still have problems with fulfilling commitments. We put a fecha bautismal for the 29th of August as they have to get married as well.

We also saw a lot of progress with G and W. G basically said he received an answer that these things are true and he wants to progress towards baptism. He also wants to marry his girlfriend W (they don´t live together...that´s a first) and we finished teaching the Plan of Salvation with temples and eternal marriage. They really enjoyed it. W leaves for Yoro for a month but we are inviting her to go to church there and we will continue teaching G here.

On Saturday we went to San Pedro Sula in the morning. My comp went to get an MRI on his knee. I was in the room with him and had "blast from the past" moments as I had received one a little under 5 years ago...4 years and 8ish months!!!! Time flies. We got back and had some good lessons with F who wanted to give us back the Libro de Mormon but we convinced him to keep reading it with no other commitments. We had the good lesson with G and W and then a great lesson with the familia M.

We had a good turnout at church. 111 asistencia and 5 investigators and many menos activos. No one with fechas bautismales went, but we are working on that problem. After, we went to the stake center in Chamelecon to plan some capacitations with the high counsilor in charge of missionary work. We got back and had a really good lesson with a new family that we found the day before...familia Pineda Rivera. There are 7 future baptisms! We taught the first half of plan of salvation...pre-earth life through the atonement. A lot of work to go, but we will do all we can and then depend on the Lord to work the miracles.

Well, that´s all I have today. I´ll talk to you guys next week!

-Elder Lund

Cofradía 1, Zona Cofradía 7/6/15 - 7/13/15

Santa Barbara

In Santa Barbara, Honduras

Well, another week here in the field.

Despite finding nuevos, we saw little progress in them and the others we´ve been teaching.

Milagrito of the week: about 4-5 weeks ago, I had the impression to give a Book of Mormon to a women who sells jugos naturales in the morning down the street. Not sure why, but I had never followed it and told my companion that in the future I would give her a Book of Mormon. After the consejo de liderazgo with President Dester and the ZLs of the mission, we were walking to an appointment and my comp asked me if I was going to give her the LDM. I was a little timid because three zipotes (young men 18-22) were talking with her. I told him no because I was afraid, and then when we were about 10 yards away, the three all of the sudden got up and left in different directions. It was literally like the parting of the Red Sea and we walked up, bought some freshly squeezed orange juice and gave her a Book of Mormon with the compromiso to read and pray. We passed by today and she had read the introduction and asked us some questions. Milagrito..."do you see the hand of the Lord?" (Neil L. Andersen).

4th of July!!! Well, it was my comp´s birthday but we didn´t do much. We fasted and worked. We gave a blessing to a menos activo´s son who is 2 or 3 but looks like a baby from a famine. Really sad, but precious experience. He is getting better. Gave my comp a blessing later for his hiccups and knee problems.

I´m kind of tired right now. We still are way low on our baptism goals for the mission and it doesn´t help that our area and zone aren´t producing much. We tried having a zone activity to bring unity but no one wanted to go to San Marcos. We have a capacitation for tomorrow on elevating the spirituality of the zone and seeking miracles.

Anyways, I´ll send some pics. Cheque

-Elder Lund

Cofradía 1, Zona Cofradía 6/29/15 - 7/6/15