Small and Simple Things

A note from Elder Lund's Madre--"Elder Lund is without a camera for a little while, so I thought I would put up a few pics with particular meaning this week as Elder Lund's older sister graduated from BYU last Thursday.  Here is a picture of Victoria and Elder Lund grilling their Sunday dinner as they were students together last summer at BYU.  Elder Lund brought some grilling skills.  Oh, they had fun together!  Below is a picture of our family (minus our missionary) with President and Sister Samuelson.  Elder Lund really enjoyed him as President of BYU for freshman year!"

¡Buenas!

Another week down and another change down in the mission field. I officially completed 4 months in the mission on Sunday. I celebrated a little by having baleadas with a member family as we always do Sunday nights. Cambios are this Wednesday and I´ll find out tonight if 1) I´m leaving 2) I´m getting a new comp but staying or 3) keeping the status quo for another 6 weeks here in Santa Rosa. 

Anyways, more about this week. Remember the guy who gave us $100 during Semana Santa? Well, we saw him outside his house again, but this time 6 fully armed "policía" were talking to him. As we walked by on our way to F. V, he said to us "Oh hey guys, see you later" trying to make himself look like a good guy. Well, that´s judging. They could have been talking to him because he´s the dueño of the colonia, but we still think he´s a little sketchy.

By small and simple things are great things brought to pass. We were walking back from Las Sidras when we saw an old man and woman struggling to carry back a big jug of water (the big blue ones) to their house. We offered to help and they accepted. Along the way we talked about them and our purpose as missionaries. We got to their house in five minutes but it probably would have taken them at least 25 at the pace they were going. We talked some more in their house, got a return appointment, and taught them parts of L1 yesterday with F. V. We still have a long way to go with them (P and G) and we don´t know if they´ll keep commitments, but something as simple as carrying water has allowed us to plant gospel seeds in their hearts.

The best experience of the week was with J. He has been our investigator for quite some time but it´s been difficult to teach him because he´s rarely home. He hasn´t progressed, but he does come to church just about every week though (his "wife" and kids are members). Anyways, we saw him on the streets at 12:30 and it was obvious he had been drinking...a lot. At that moment I had lost nearly all hope for him because we were pretty sure he was doing other things too. We had planned earlier to visit his family. To our astonishment, he was at home at 4:30 that same day, even though we thought he was going to be out and about. We were all outside just talking. I talked with Jose one on one as my companion was friendshipping the rest of the family. I left him with a Palabra de Sabiduria folleto for his "wife" to read to him and he also asked me for a blessing. We decided it would be best to let him sober up for another 3 hours and I returned with the Elders Quorum President later that night (we went on divisions to visit less-active families). He didn´t have a white shirt and tie on so I gave a blessing of comfort. They are quite poor and only had light from candles and the kitchen fire. In that peaceful setting, I felt the influence of the Holy Ghost and I know Jose did as well. Afterwards as we were about to leave, he called me over and talked to me about his desires to change his life and be baptized. We taught him after church in the capilla (he also went to a bapitsmal service between church and the lesson of a member´s daughter) a great L1 and invited him to be baptized June 7th. He accepted and told us he knows the church is true because he feels it in his heart (aka, por medio del Espíritu). He still has a bunch of challenges to overcome, and some that will cost a lot of money, but we are going to do the best we can to help him get on the covenant path. I have only been an instrument and have done nothing of my own power to help him have this change of heart, but I´m grateful for the opportunity to see this mighty change of heart in such a short period of time.

After the lesson with him, a torrential downpour came upon us with lighting too. We waited about an hour and a half to leave the church, and it was still raining when we left. Walking home in the dusk, we saw a bunch of cool lightning strikes in the sky. I´ll never forget it.

Well, that´s all I have. Nos Vemos,

Elder Lund

Santa Rosa de Copan, Honduras 4/21/14 - 4/28/14

Semana Santa

¡Buenas!

Well, we had Semana Santa this past week, and Santa Rosa was a ghost town at times since everyone was heading for the beach. Not a whole lot of work, but we did have some good moments. 

We had a noche de hogar with a less-active family and their neighbor friends. We watched The Testaments and it was a lot of fun. There was one man who worked with the father during the day (they work an ice cream truck called "chipsy") who was particularly touched by the film. We left him with a Libro de Mormón, and folletos de Lección 1 y la Proclamaciòn de la Familia. He has a family of 5 and we are going to try to start teaching him and his family this week. It´s a little difficult because they work until 8:00 at night, but we´ll make it work.

Our investigator Y finally came to church! It has been a great trying of patience, but at last she came. Most importantly, she made a lot of great friends in Relief Society (Sociedad Socorro or just Soc Soc). We have been teaching the rest of her family on and off from lesson to lesson, but since she came to church it will be a lot easier for them to grow in the gospel and come to church in the future.

On Wednesday, we tried visiting a members house but they weren`t home. They live in a "gated" community called Colonia El Pedregal. On the way back to the "gate" there were about 5 or 6 men drinking and smoking outside their house and one of them told us to come over in english. We went over and started talking. Pisto, Pisto, Pisto!!!!! Turns out that he developed the colonia and lives in the states for half the year. His house is literally 3 stories high with other attached guest houses if you want to call them that. He is a multi-millionaire (in dollars) and is just loaded - he owns a bunch of property in Santa Barbara (Honduras, not California), the Colonia, and he told us a bunch of stories about his adventures on Ocean Drive in Miami. He talked about how God had blessed him (even though he breaks quite a few important commandments on a regular basis) and said how great we were for "preaching the word" to people in Honduras. He said we can come by any time to talk about the things of God. By the way he was talking, however, we think he may be a Narco or got his money through sketchy means, but we´ll see.

That´s all I have for this week. 

Nos Vemos

Elder Lund

Santa Rosa de Copan, Honduras 4/14/14 - 4/21/14

Elder Lund's Spanish is Progressing and Temple Blessings are Being Witnessed in Santa Rosa

The Tegucigalpa, Honduras Temple--Where a recent convert will be able to attend this week.

¡Buenas!

First things first. My English has gotten worse as my Spanish has developed (inverse relationship guardino). There are many times throughout the week where I simply cannot remember the English word for something. It takes a lot of time to write a grammatically perfect/flowing email, so I´m rushing to get the most important things in. Forgive me. Also, Honduras´s power and water is weird/corrupt. Many times, the power goes completely out...at night we have to immediately go back to the apartment because it´s dangerous. Anyways, other times, the power sort of dims. I was heating something up in the microwave the other day when the power dimmed. It stopped cooking, but the timer kept going. Today while writing emails, the power has dimmed two separate times. The lights don´t go out, the radio doesn´t go out, but the computer turns off and I have to wait for the power to get stronger again. Third world problems.

We had a much better week. We got to go out of the house and work. We received a reference from Familia V and went to teach them (with the v). E and his wife and their 2 month old daughter. We taught a really great L1 with them. Unfortunately, they are going out for Semana Santa (along with pretty much everyone in Santa Rosa) but we have a lesson set up after vacaciones.

The best thing that happened this week was with F. A (our recent convert) is going to Teguc this week to attend the temple and do baptisms for the dead! His mom hasn´t progressed as much. (She´s still an investigator). However, a week before when we were stuck in the house, I got to teach a quick lesson with J. I used the example where you put sand and rocks in a jar. The sand represents the things of the world; the rocks represent the things of God. In order to get everything in the jar, you have to put the things of God first, and there will be room for the other things. We invited her to read the Book of Mormon EVERY day (even if just for 5 minutes) and pray about it. We promised her blessings that she would be able to accomplish everything she needed to do if she put God first. We followed up last week and she had been reading every day (8 days and counting). She recognized the blessings too. She said she felt peace. She also said that she had more energy throughout the day even though she gets up really early for her job. It was awesome to see her so happy and blessed just from reading the Book of Mormon. We are going to move forward and extend more commitments (poco a poco).

Semana Santa is this week. From what I´ve heard, I guess you could compare it to spring break, but almost everyone leaves for the playa. A lot of our investigators are going to be gone. Some will still be here to teach, but we may just do a lot of contacting (for those that are here). It´s going to be hot...30+ degrees here in Santa Rosa...apparently it hit 42 degrees plus humidity in San Pedro last Monday (yikes). Speaking of the weather, Santa Rosa is typically a colder area of Honduras. But, it hit 22 degrees on Thursday (I think 70s F) and I was cold. It felt like a chilly 50 or below in California. It´s going to be a big adjustment in 21 meses when I go back to BYU for winter semester.

Anyways, there´s a lot more stories, but I have recorded them elsewhere. If ye desire, search this other record after I return from preaching unto the Lamanites (See 2 Nefi 5:33).

Love you all,

Elder Lund

Santa Rosa de Copan, Honduras 4/7/14 - 4/14/14

General Conference Blessings

¡Buenas!

Well, my companion broke his toe last p-day so we were stuck in the house the entire week. I tried my best to make plans so I could at least keep working. It was tough enough to make plans with people in the branch because our phone didn`t have saldo (basically no minutes in our balance) and we couldn`t make any calls, just receive them. I went on quick divisions to member´s houses in the mornings to use their phones to get a hold of the branch mission leader, but all of them had Tigo. Unfortunately, our branch mission leader has Claro and the member`s plans didn`t include calls to Claro phones. I did get a hold of the branch president for Friday`s plans and other members for the other days. Anyways, I did everything I could and had plans ready to work all day Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday - I would go out with Jason (going on a mission to Brazil in June) and someone would be my companion`s companion back at the house. Long story short, all the plans fell and I was stuck in the house pretty much the entire week. Thankfully, I got two lessons in with Jason Tuesday night, but it was still a really tough week. Our house felt like a prison and the power went out a couple times too. Elder Uchtdorf`s talk on gratitude has really helped me out, and I`ve tried to apply it more. My only wish is that I had heard that talk at the beginning of the week, but at least I have that knowledge for the future. My companion`s toe has gotten a little better and we should be able to work more this week.

Thursday night was just one of those nights. Every frustrating thing that has built up the past couple weeks kind of just came together. The power went out so I went outside onto the balcony. I just looked up at the stars and had a prayer in my heart asking for guidance and comfort. That comfort and guidance did not come immediately or all at once...little by little. When the power came back on, I read an MTC devotional from Elder Holland and my patriarchal blessing. These things, along with the awesome talks from General Conference, have really given me a refined focus and renewed energy for the mission. (Gotta always make sure your "phone" is charged)

I loved conference, but I don`t think I can pick out a single favorite talk. Jeffrey R. Holland was awesome as always. I enjoyed both of President Uchtdorf`s talks on gratitude and sleeping through the restoration. We didn`t get to understand any of President Monson`s talks. Every time he would speak, the signal would go in and out throughout all his talks. Oh Honduras. Well, at least we got to hear all of the others. Spiritual Whirlwinds, 4x4 pickups, Priesthood Keys, the internet, Priesthood Heroes, etc etc. They were all awesome. The night before, I prepared 5 specific questions for conference and every one of them was answered - whether the answer was apparent or if I had to dig a little deeper. Those questions brought great focus for my viewing and I recommend everyone - if they haven`t already done so - to start coming up with specific questions a week or so before the conference in the fall.

That`s really all I have. Helaman 5:12...whirlwinds - both spiritual and temporal - will come. Be prepared and you`ll be able to wait out the storm.

Nos Vemos

Elder Lund

Santa Rosa de Copan, Honduras 4/1/14 - 4/7/14