Ten Months

 Hello Rio Lindo!

 

  

 

  Farewell Photos from Ocotillo

 

 

 

Well, another week in the mission field. It was a decent work week with its ups and downs, but all in all pretty good. On Tuesday, I had to go to Choloma to take a picture for my resident´s card in Honduras. The line was super long for people trying to get visas for the States. The camera angle was really low and the lady told me just to tilt my head down a ton. It was really uncomfortable and I don´t know how well the picture turned out, but we will see. 

Wow, it´s a lot tougher to get people to church than in Ocotillo. I don´t really blame the investigators, it would be a little tough to attend church in a small cramped house, but in the end it shouldn´t matter and we´ll keep working on it. The two weeks before I got here there were no investigators, last week we had 1 investigator, and this week we had 3 come to church. Small improvements.

We didn´t get to really focus on Sacerdocio this week because we didn´t have the records or addresses. On Friday, we met with the Branch President and his counselor in order to print out some forms. We saw the branch´s statistics on LDS.org and it was interesting to see how organized everything was. Another little testimony builder of the Lord´s church and His work of salvation.

I´ve gotten a little tired of just studying grammar out of the textbook for language study so I started something new: translating from English to Spanish and Spanish to English. President Dester is really good at translating and I would like to be able to translate both here and when I get back. Anyways, during the translation, when I don´t know something, I write the word or sentence structure down. I started out translating "Our Search for Happiness" but realized that Elder Ballard´s language is a little too complex...not tough to understand or translate, but he uses english sentence structures that don´t translate well into Spanish. Because of this, sometimes "Nuestra Busqueda de la Verdad" isn´t a direct translation and it is open up to judgement of the translator to make the change/adjustment. So...I started translating "Our Heritage" instead and the translations are more precise and therefore a better tool for language study.

We have been teaching and helping investigators progress, but nothing really has stood out or is interesting to tell about. We are hoping for 3 or 4 baptisms this change (hope is not a plan, but we only have 3 Sundays left in the change before the last Saturday) and working on preparing more for the next change.

Well, today I complete 10 months in the mission. 14 to get a lot of work done and become who I need to become. Cheque.

-Elder Lund

Río Lindo, Zona Yojoa 10/21/14 - 10/27/14

It's Cooler in Rio Lindo

¡Adiós Ocotillo...El Señor me mandó a ____!

Well, yes, I had changes this past Wednesday. I was placed in Río Lindo (Zona Yojoa) as comp mayor with Elder C from El Salvador.

Entonces, my new area is...a little different. Río Lindo is about an hour and a half bus ride south of SPS and it´s a bout 20 minutes from Lago Yojoa. It´s a little bit cooler here. When the people here acostumbrado to this cool weather say "Que Calor!" From what I´ve heard, it will be raining just about every day for the next 2 - 4 changes. I never used an umbrella because people mistake us for Testigos de Jehová, but I got drenched the first two days here, so I am going to start using it. Río Lindo, and San Francisco de Yojoa (part of our area) are a lot wealthier. Still not even close to the Residenciales, Jardines del Valle, or the States, but the houses are a bit nicer. Our house is nice. It was really dirty when I got there but we cleaned it today. There are 4 missionaries in the house - Elder C, Elder T (Chapin from Zona El Carmen), Elder P (Chapin from Zona El Carmen as well), and me. I will be speaking very little English this change.

The church is relatively small here. We have an asistencia of about 60-90. The "chapel" is a house that has been retrofitted to be a church. The church has already bought land for an actual chapel, but they need around 25 worthy male priesthood holders in order to construct, and we´re at less than 6 from what I´ve heard. There are already 30 on record and 97 who haven´t received the priesthood yet, so we´ll be working a lot on reactivating those hombres so that we can have a chapel sometime next year. It is really jam packed in the small house and I suppose that´s why attendance from our investigators has been pretty low before I got here. In order to further missionary work in the long run (and the short run, I guess), we need a chapel. Simple as that. More space, more activities to hermanar the investigators and less actives, etc. Work hard for baptisms, but work hard for reactivating priesthood holders as well.

When I as in Ocotillo, I spent Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday saying goodbye to all the people there - members, investigators, converts, pandilleros (the mototaxi guy jaja), and a lot of people we had contacted. I have a bunch of pictures...maybe I´ll send them next week because I don´t have my cable. It was a little tough saying goodbye, but hopefully we can keep in touch through Facebook when I get back or even return sometime after my mission.

Still getting to know the new area a little bit. Not a whole lot of quality investigators but we do have plans for a baptism on November 1st. 

Some goals I have for my time here in Río Lindo - Reactivate priesthood holders so we can start construction on a chapel, work hard, baptisms, develop Christlike attributes especially patience, charity, and humility, "luchar por dominar" my Spanish (not just the "missionary vocabulary" as Holland says in PMG), inspire all those around me ("light people up" as said in a previous email...I think from the former mission president in San Jose), and become the missionary and person the Lord wants me to become.

That´s all I have this week. Cheque! By the way, cheque is a slang word for saying "ok all good" or other phrases like that.

-Elder Lund

Río Lindo, Zona Yojoa 10/15/14 - 10/20/14

Truly Enjoying the Mission

 Pictures From the Weddings and Baptisms

  

  And the Grave Digging as well

 Elder Lund found his Great-Great-Great Grandpa Lund

¡Buenas!

Well, first things first, I have changes this Wednesday. I have been serving here in Ocotillo for four changes, and it has been, by far, my favorite area. It´s going to be a little tough to leave. I have already said goodbye to some families and left them my photos with name and emails on them so that we can keep in touch.

We had a great start and end of my final week here in Ocotillo. We played fútbol at the synthetic turf canchitas with Zona San Pedro. It was a lot of fun but we were all super sore the next day. Later that night, we visited Hermana R, a super pilas contact that we´ve had, but nearly everytime we pass by she has not been there or was sleeping at only 6:00 PM. We have taught the Restoration and the Book of Mormon to her, but she has had problems with commitments during this time. We found out this past Monday that her husband left the house with his other woman that was living in the house. With the husband gone, R had no income coming in to support her or her two kids. We decided to read 1 Nefi 16 where Nefi breaks his bow...we taught her to rely on the Lord, but to take action. We promised her if she read the Book of Mormon everyday, and sincerely prayed, she would be able to provide for her family. Later that lesson she told us she knew the church was true because of a dream she had. In her dream, she said she entered the chapel in Ocotillo (she has never entered before) where she saw a lot of people in white including my companion and me. She said that I told her in the dream, "Hermana, didn´t I tell you this is the true church of Jesus Christ?" and she responded "Yes, I know" ... After hearing her account, we told her to continue reading and praying so these initial seeds of her testimony would grow. A lot of people seem to have dreams here in Honduras, BUT UNFORTUNATELY, usually it doesn´t lead to change. Similar to Laman and Lemuel not changing after seeing an angel, when we went back to her house later in the week. We asked her if she had been reading in the Book of Mormon. She said she had been "busy" as she was watching Caso Cerrado en la tele. It´s really tough when people don´t keep commitments, especially when they say they will.

M (9), on the other hand, was able to get baptized this Saturday. In August, I thought the family wouldn´t be coming back to church while I was here, but the Lord has his timetable to touch hearts. They have come back to church, been very open to us, and have had sincere desires to learn and fulfill commitments. I had the priveledge to baptize him. The baptismal service itself helped strengthen the family spiritually. His brother J (11) is preparing to receive the Aaronic Priesthood in March and G (7) is preparing to be baptized in April. There is still a lot of work for the future missionaries and especially the members, but I know if they get the necessary support, they will be able to continue faithfully in el camino.

I went on divisions in La Aldea with Elder C. We had some really good lessons in his area. Later we had interviews with President Dester. My interview was really short, but good. We talked about the area, the importance of writing in journals, etc. I always learn something new or am more inspired after talking or hearing from him.

Quick question: who won Super Bowl XLV? I saw a "Green Bay Packers: Super Bowl Champs" today on the bus back to Ocotillo from SPS. It would be funny if they lost that year.

Well, you guys will find out next week where my new area is. I have loved Ocotillo. The members are great, we´ve had a lot of success, and I have learned how to truly enjoy the mission.

Cheque!

-Elder Lund

Ocotillo, El Carmen, SPS 10/6/14 - 10/13/14

Ocotillo and General Conference

(Looking at a new big-screeen TV)..."Hey, imagine Monday Night Football!!!"..."No, imagine General Conference...ya!!!" A quote from The Singles Ward for those of you who are not aware. I tried explaining the scene to my companion from El Salvador, but it just "doesn´t translate" culturally and he didn´t truly understand the joke. Oh well. The beat goes on.

Decent week here in Ocotillo. No one else has died, yet, thankfully. Kind of a so-so work week because a lot of our citas were falling and contacting wasn´t very productive. Despite this, however, one of our investigators from a part member family came to church on Sunday and a couple sessions to General Conference  which makes his second and third asistencia, or in other words, he has an opportunity to be baptized this upcoming Saturday. His name is M, he is 9 and his mother has been so-so in the church the past 3 months but has started to come back. His brother J is 11 (already baptized) and his sister G is 7 (plan is to get baptized in April) and they are super animado and pilas. They came to conference on Sunday by themsleves because their mom was sick and couldn´t make the 15 minute walk to the church. We´ll see how it goes.

Our recent converts from the wedding, E and D, are super pilas. E is getting ready to get the priesthood this upcoming Sunday. It´s kind of tricky because we still don´t have a new bishop (probably will be called this Sunday) but we´ll see what we can do. E asked about Family History work because he´s been having a lot of dreams lately where he sees written "historia familiar" on whiteboards. We gave him a "Mi Familia" foletto and he is excited to start the temple work for his ancestors.

A week ago, we visited the Familia V (part-member...we baptized G, 21, in July) where we saw the mother, not a member, really really upset. Her chancho, aka pig, had somehow gotten loose and wandered off.  We taught a lesson about prayer and finished with a prayer that the pig would come back. And it did! She was really happy...we´ll see if it increases her faith unto repentance and baptism in the only true church of Jesus Christ. 

 

Conference was pretty good. I really wanted to go to the Stake Center to watch it in English, but we ultimately stayed here in Ocotillo and watched it in Spanish. Richard G. Scott did his own translation in Spanish and we of course watched the talks in native Spanish. Interesting the new language change. The internet was really slow so it would stop and buffer sometimes, but it was good except for Sunday afternoon. We didn´t get to listen to the talks from Ballard and Bednar...but we´ve got the Liahona. I liked how they mentioned "Gifted Hands"...what a great film. I thought it was really interesting how many talks were about receiving or strengthening a personal testimony of the Restoration and how we need to follow the prophet. Something we all need to do, whether it´s receiving or strengthening. My favorite part of conference was when the choir sang "How Firm a Foundation" the 3rd verse: 

1. 3. Fear not, I am with thee; oh, be not dismayed,
   For I am thy God and will still give thee aid.
   I'll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand,
   Upheld by my righteous, upheld by my righteous,
   Upheld by my righteous, omnipotent hand.

I don´t know why, but I felt the spirit super strongly. It´s always good to know the the Lord is with us and that we should not fear.

Well, this will probably be my last week here in Ocotillo. Changes are the 15th of October. But until then, I´m here working with investigators and strengthening our recent converts.

Cheque!

-Elder Lund

Ocotillo, El Carmen, SPS 9/30/14 - 10/6/14