Baptism, Day of Service, and a President Varney Sighting

 

This is President Varney from our Monterey Stake Presidency

 

Well, another week in the mission field. Today I hit 16 months! PUCHA VOS!

Let´s start off with the best news first. La Familia M were baptized and confirmed!!! They are super animated right now. I had the priveledge of baptizing the dad O. It was super special and the service was reverent, edifying, and well attended. They were confirmed on Sunday (it didn´t take up the entire sacrament meeting, but maybe someday I´ll witness that) and O received the Aaronic Priesthood. I will send pictures.

On Saturday, we went to Puerto Cortés for the Día del Servicio. We had a contracted bus take us from Choloma and it picked everyone up along the way. Dania Moncada went with her 5 kids which really surprised me, but just goes to show that they are pretty animated. We went to el Hospital de Area in Puerto Cortés to give service. Before turning off, we saw a really nice hospital, (I think it was called Hospital Caribe) and I thought to myself, "we aren´t going to do much, it´s already nice" but it turns out that it is a private hospital. When we arrived at the public hospital, it was clear that there was a lot of work to do. Words alone will not be able to describe the disorder of that facility. We divided into groups and our group went to two storage containers containing old medicamentos, and files to burn. The smell was horrible and thousands and thousands of medicamentos were going to be thrown away because of the poor management. Ugh, I can´t describe it too well. We then went upstairs and threw away old medicamentos that were ruined, old documents, and broken parts of the air conditioning unit. Dim lights, dirty, unorganized, bad medicamentos, dirt everywhere, hot, muggy, etc etc etc. The funny thing is I heard the other day from someone we teach that it is actually a good hospital relative to others. I had talked to nurses in Ocotillo while I was serving there that said people just die in the hospital because people forget to serve them, there are no medicamentos, etc. Count your many blessings.

All of our baptismal candidates have fallen. There are some serious obstacles getting in the way from apostasized mothers, to another coming back to live with the family from the pulpería. Frustrating.

16 months!!! We didn´t do much today. I woke up and made a 100% desayuno catracho...huevos, firjoles, mantequilla, pan blanco (aka hot dog buns because i couldn´t make tortillas de trigo), water from the 5 gallon jug, and I ate it while sitting in a hammock with a honduras shirt and ventilador.  Later, we went to the tanque and took pictures and stuff.

Well, that´s all I have. I´ll send the pics...LOVE YOU GUYS!!!

-Elder Lund

Los Almendros, Zona Choloma 4/20/15 - 4/27/15

Great Work Going On...and Some Bananas and Frogs

Baptism of Elder Lund's Investigators from a previous area--So happy for them!

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BEACH DAY!!!

Well, another week in the mission field. We went to la playa sienaguita near Puerto Cortés today. We played volleyball with the zone, relaxed and then came back to eat lunch because they overprice everything at the beach.

Pretty good week in the mission field. I had week-long divisions with Elder Wood from Atascadero. Long story short, his companion was having difficulties. It was the most English I have spoken in a long time, but we still had a good work week. He talks with a lot of people and we were able to find a handful of families and 22 nuevos in total (with a couple contacts that can be processed this week to become nuevos). 8 at church, but a bunch of niños, but the people with fecha bautismal all came this week. We are planning on having 6 baptisms this Friday. We had originally set 10 as the goal, but we´re going to pass 4 of them for the end of the change to have more preparation.

Speaking of baptisms, N and J from Río Lindo got baptized this past week!!! Even though I wasn´t there, the Lord fulfills his promises and in the end it all worked out. I´ll attach the fotos.

We had a lot of good lessons, but nothing out of the ordinary. Good solid week.

Well, that´s all I have. I´ll send pics.

CHEQUE LEQUE!!!

-Elder Lund

Los Almendros, Zona Choloma 4/14/15 - 4/20/15

Baptism

 Elder Lund tried to explain "planking"

Pretty good week. We had a baptism!!! A (who had fears of drowing) was able to finally enter the convenant path. We weren´t really planning on having her baptism this week, but we were able to help her make the decision. She got back from her vacation during semana santa on Monday. On Tuesday, we stopped by to talk to her about a "super baptism" that the stake was planning, we challenged her (well, not so much a "challenge" but an invitation), and she accepted. On Wednesday, before going over the baptismal interview questions, we played a game called "patito muerto" to break the ice and afterwards she really opened up and wasn´t so penosa. We had the interview Friday and the baptism on Saturday. The "super baptism" was cancelled because we were the only missionaries with a baptism, but we still had a nice service. She turns 12 soon and will be on her way. Her grandma and aunts (16 and 24 years old) who she lives with are giving her a lot of support and will continue to give the necessary support to stay active.

Well, on a tougher note, the familia M had their baptismal date changed again. They are going through a lot of problems right now. They are still a "familia de oro" because they need the blessings of the gospel even more.

We had some good progress with the Plan Misional Familiar. We were presented to 2 families and one of them came to church. We went to the part member familia Brito (we´re already teaching her brother´s family who are also part-members). We arrived and the mom was super sick and laying on the floor. We gave her a blessing and we had to kneel to put our hands on her head. She came to church on Sunday with her two daughters (13 and 11) and are really excited about possibly getting baptized this upcoming month. The other family has 6 children from 11 to 20something and the mom is soltera so she there is no marriage dilema. We are going to a noche de hogar tonight with the family who presented us to them. A lot of work to go, but pretty SWEET!

Good quality fast this past weekend. It was probably the second most difficult fast for me in the mission (temptations wise) because it was super hot and I got dehydrated from the beginning. But, I made it through and was able to rehydrate after.

Well, can´t think of anything else. Cheque!!!

-Elder Lund

Los Almendros, Zona Choloma 4/6/15 - 4/13/15

Enjoying General Conference and the Honduran people

 The District

 The itsy bitsy spider????

 Hot!

 The start of Saturday morning session of General Conference--Elder Lund said the attendance improved for the later meetings.

 Pizza for lunch

 

Well, another week in the mission field.

First things first, we had changes. My new companion is Elder Pérez from the Dominican Republic. He has just 4 1/2 months and is really cool. He uses a lot of different words and it´s tough to understand sometimes. For example, at a pulpería, he asked for change saying "menudo" instead of "vuelto, suelto, o cambio" Here, menudo means the organs (like heart, liver, kidneys) of chicken. We all kind of laughed.

We had a good General Conference. The internet connection was a lot better and we only had a few pauses. Unfortunately, the kids of Family M were bothering me during Elder Holland´s talk and the entire Sunday morning session, but that´s the way it goes sometimes. With all the talks on marriage and families, I kind of thought of what it´s like to go to church with rowdy kids (we picked them up at their house and it was rowdy there). But, still got a while to go...

Well, I really enjoyed the talk from Elder Andersen about recognizing the Lord´s hand in His work. Just before that, we had an interesting experience with hermana Leti and her family. Well, to start, L has 2 children and the father left a while ago. She owns a pulpería and in order to be protected, she started living with J. Basically, J doesn´t do anything. The missionaries have talked about chastity, and L is receptive, but J hasn´t wanted anything and she was always afraid to kick him out because he would have demanded money and he might have talked with others to put in jeapardy her protection. Even if he wanted to get married, he would have had to get divorced with someone who lives in El Salvador. Major problem and obstacle for baptism. Well, we went to go pick them up because they promised to go to the Sunday afternoon session of conference. When we got there, we were told that L gave J 10,000 Lempiras to buy stuff to stock the pulpería and in her words, "Se lo llevó"...basically he took the money and left and never came back. She said it was tough but also an answer to a prayer. Still a lot of work to go, but the Lord has cleared a path for her to get baptized with her two kids (11 and 9 years).

Semana Santa was weird. It was hot, but it also rained. A lot of people went to the beach.

Well, that´s all I have. I´ll send photos.

-Elder Lund

Los Almendros, Zona Choloma 3/31/15 - 4/6/15