Fe (Faith) -- A Short Word, But Brings Miracles

Well, another week here in the mission. We had set the goal to have 3 baptisms, but each one fell. However, we have a baptism this Saturday for A from San Francisco. His wife was going to be baptized as well, but told us last week that she doesn´t want to stop going to her evangelical church because she "met (came to know) Jesus" there...but after she told us that she is still going to go with her husband and learn more from us. I think she will follow her husband´s example when she recognizes the blessings and understands the doctrine of eternal marriage. Gotta have patience.

We had some ups and we had some downs with some investigators, but overall things are progressing. K is starting to open back up again. Her faith is building and she actually came to church yesterday! We also had R (11) and N come. R´s mom and sister didn´t come to church, but she is super animada and can help set the example for the family.

We had a lesson with J (N´s mom) this past Wednesday with one of the counselors of the Branch Presidency. We taught about the principle of Faith. Despite being such a short word (just "fe" in Spanish) it literally brings about miracles in our lives. Despite a good lesson, she still needs time to think about baptism. Thank you for being willing to donate for the operation, but we have been told not to give money (even for weddings) in order for the people to build their faith and remain active in the church after baptism.

I just found out from an email that investigators in Ocotillo - A y J and their son J - are making pizza with members so they can get married and baptized. Sweet!!!! The importance of planting seeds.

Well, yesterday we watched some videos from the Presidencia de Área about the Plan de Área 2015. It gave me a lot of ánimo to work harder in this part of the Lord´s vineyard. If you haven´t sent the birthday package, can you download these videos as well? Here´s the link:

http://www.sudca.org/videos-plan-de-area-2015-espanol

After church, we went to San Francisco and had a neat experience. SF is kind of far and costs us 60 Lempiras in mototaxi (in total for both of us). When we got there, all of our citas had fallen within 5 minutes. I was a little bummed. I was thinking about taking a break for 15-20 minutes to think about some things (problems with chismes and chambres that some investigators had received from members of the ward earlier that day) but then remembered the experience in Ocotillo when the exact same thing happened. I had sat down and then remembered from Elder Holland´s BYU talk about Thomas Edison and said how after a devestating fire, Edison said "we´re rebuilding". We later found a referal and she and her two kids (R) went on to get baptized. Entonces, in San Francisco, I remembered that when I was discouraged and decided to "rebuild" and start contacting. To make a long story short, we found 2 great families. One family, the son was in San Pedro for 1-2 months during vacation and went to church with her older sister is a recent convert. We didn´t meet the family (only the son was there) but there are 4 in total that can be baptized. With a little more ánimo, we went contacting and I felt prompted to contact a house. The man said "come in come in"...joking around, I asked him if we knew each other and he said no, but we can right now. We went on to teach the Restoration and his wife came back at the end of "the great apostasy"...we finished the lesson and asked us about baptism. The "wife" (unión libre) told us "I want to get baptized, but I know I need to get married. A lot of churches say ´get baptized first and then married´ but I know from the bible that no fornicator can enter into the kingdom of God"...We challenged them to baptism and they accepted. They also know A so we invited them to his baptism. A lot of work to go, but my testimony has increased dramatically. When everything seems to have fallen, just say "we´re rebuilding" and then get to work.

Well, still don´t know if I have changes yet. We´ll find out tonight. If not, let´s have a good 4th change here in Río Lindo and if so, well, on to the next one.

CHEQUE!!!

-Elder Lund

Río Lindo, Zona Yojoa 2/9/14 - 2/16/15

Tender Mercies

¡Buenas!

Another pretty good week here in Río Lindo, except for the lack of baptisms, but those will come.

We started out the week with divisions with the APs. Elder Amezcua from DF Mexico came with us and Elder Merlos, my old comp from Texas, went with Río Lindo 2. We had some good lessons and I learned a lot. It was good talking with Merlos again about our converts we have from Ocotillo. I found out that E and D are pregnant. He is prepping to receive the Melchizedek Priesthood, and their son turns 8 in March or April and will be baptized. They are both preparing to hopefully be sealed this year in the temple.

We had a lot of progress from a golden contact from December...Aníbal and his wife (already legally married) R. We visited them in San Francisco de Yojoa twice this past week...once with Hermano R (Elder´s Quorum President) and once with Hermana S (Soc Soc President). We were working with them to be baptized the 14th, but he works every other sunday so he wouldn´t be able to be confirmed on the 15th. We moved it to the 21st for this reason and also to give a little more time for R to stop drinking café. A is so pilas he already had stopped when he heard about it his first Sunday in church and he also asked us to visit his friend this upcoming week. Future QE President or Branch President.

We had a little more success with N and her mom this week. We were able to get on good terms again with her, but still no permission. Basically what happened is at the end of the lesson, I invited her to be baptized and she accepted "when I´m ready". I then told her that her daughter was ready to go and invited her to give permission. She said no. I felt prompted to ask her again and then she finally told us why. Her brothers are against the church and have been against it from the beginning, but have never talked to us (miedo?) One lives in the states and sends money to her, specifically for an upcoming operation that she needs. N gets baptized = no money. She accepted to have a lesson in the church this Wednesday with a member.

A lot of other tender mercies and milagritos, but not enough time to write.

We worked in San Antonio de Cortés this Thursday. It is super far away from Río Lindo (30-45 minutes in moto taxi and about 90 Lempiras per person) but we have some references and investigators that already have 2 asistencia at church. M and her 2 daughters. We taught her on her patio and challenged her to baptism. Afterwards, we were about to leave but felt impressed to contact a house that seemed to "stand out"...the woman let us in...again on the front patio... and had a Como Comenzar Enseñar with her. Turns out, 9 people live in her house - her 2 parents, her "husband", and her 5 siblings ages 21, 20, 18, 16, and 13. They don´t attend a church. She is very interested in the message. She accepted an invitation to be baptized. She gave us a phone number to call the next time we are in San Antonio. Super awesome experience, but a lot of challenges since they live super far away and it will be very difficult to go to church...planting seeds for the future branch/ward in San Antonio 5-15 years from now. Neat experience and super beautiful the ride back to Río Lindo.

Well, I´ve got a little cold right now, but we played fútbol (just us 4 missionaries from Río Lindo) and prepped for the week today. This could be my last week in Río Lindo as I have 3 changes, but as always, a dónde me mandes iré (o si no me mandes, me quedaré).

--Elder Lund

Río Lindo, Zona Yojoa 2/2/14 - 2/9/15

"Just Another Day in Paradise!"

 Elder Lund Interviewing for a Baptism

 P-Day at the Zoo--Reminded him of Put Put Goes to the Zoo from his younger days.

Well, we had a really great week...until Saturday night...but I´ll get into that later.

I finished 13 months in the mission this Tuesday by fasting with and for our investigator N to receive permission from her mother, J, to get baptized. We spent most of that day in San Francisco putting in some good quality work. We have 4 really good investigators that we are working with that are preparing for baptism starting the 14th of February and into March. J, M, A and R. A and R are super pilas, but I worry that they may not feel prepared to be baptized on the 14th. They have 2 church assistance and should be coming this upcoming Sunday. We are planning to have two lessons with member this week - one with Sociedad Socorro (Soc Soc) and one with Qúorum de Élderes.

We had a neat little experience on Thursday. We were planning on having a lesson with R and her two daughters (old contacts) but the other Elders planned to watch "Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration" so we invited them. We stopped by for the invitation, but the mom didn´t want to leave the house alone so we walked with the 11 year old daughter with a neighbor (less active member) to the chapel at 2 in the afternoon. We watched the film with other investigators in the church and they both enjoyed it. About an hour after we had dropped them both off, they rode their bikes to find us and she asked us for a Book of Mormon to read. We were kind of surprised but gave it to her. She came to church with that neighbor on Sunday and brought a friend. We´ll see what we can do in these upcoming weeks to help their families get reactivated and baptized.

Interesting experience with M and C with a member...but not enough time to explain. Hopefully just mentioning this now will help me remember in the future.

I did divisions with an Elder W from Oregon in Santa Cruz on Friday primarily to give the baptismal interview. It was my first interview and I was a little nervous before, but I settled down when I got to SC. His name is O and he lived in the states for several years so he knows Spanish and English. We had the interview in both languages switching back and forth. Good experience...felt the spirit...he´s pilas...great day. One of our investigators from Río Lindo, J, had moved to SC recently to study with his grandma. While on divisions, Elder W and I contacted the house and found him. "Coincidence, I think not!" Hopefully he can now more readily accept the gospel and go to church since he doesn´t work on Sundays.

When I got back to Río Lindo after divisions, we stopped by N because she texted us the night before saying that she had big news. We stopped by after lunch and she told us she had received permission from her mom to get baptized. We talked with the mom and she told us there were conditions but that it was true. We told them we would drop by later in the evening. We all felt super happy because of the answered prayers and fast we had had earlier that week.

Now for the bad news. That night, we went back with the Registro Bautismal to get her signature, but to be short, things had changed. She told us she would not sign until her daughter passed a test on Monday that she hadn´t been studying for this entire month. Basically, the mom was giving unrealistic expectations and not very forgiving with her "conditions for baptism"...we tried to reason with her and explain to her about Christ and how he gives us new conditions of repentance. N had promised to study more this school year, but to only give permission by passing a test with just 1 day preparation was illogical and unjust. After trying to express these concerns, she told us "thank you, but I don´t want you coming back to talk to me or my daughter ever again. Good night"...N left the room frustrated, angry, and crying. We tried to be humble about it and gave a handshake to leave. We walked back to the house (we didn´t have dinner) in silence.

We had been given a miracle but it had been taken away again. We feel stuck right now. We have literally done everything we could do - service, fasting, lessons with member in the church about the Joseph Smith movie, constant prayers day and night, etc etc. Our faith is a principle of action, but it has not become a principle of power. N came to church on her own yesterday without her mother´s permission. The grandpa, O, is a little more tranquilo and had called us that night saying "don´t listen to my daughter, she is sick in the head...o sea, loca"...we aren´t sure what we are going to do or if we´ll have the baptism this week or ever, but segun y sea la voluntad del Padre.

In other news, we went to the Zoo today as a zone. I´ll send pics. This zoo also had go-karts, paintball, swimming pools, and a rifle shooting range.  we just watched animals sleep and be lazy (and those things are against the manual misional of course)

Well, that´s all I´ve got this week. Cuídense...

--Elder Lund

Río Lindo, Zona Yojoa 1/27/14 - 2/2/15

Progress

¡Buenas!

Well, another week in the mission field.

I´ll start with the best news. We had a really really good Sunday. 9 investigators at church. With Yojoa and Río Lindo 2, we had 18 investigators in our branch yesterday. We also had a menos activo Melch. Priesthood holder come and other menos activo. Last week, as I had said, a new branch president was called and things are really starting to improve. I don´t believe I will see construction of the capilla built while I´m here, but if things keep improving, hopefully they will start construction by the end of my mission.

We had interviews with President Dester on Thursday in Potrerillos. I am always more encouraged after interviews or when he speaks at Zone Conferences. Thankfully we will have some Zone Conferences coming up in February which I am looking forward to.

As with investigators, nothing really that stands out. Many are progressing, many are still having challenges, but overall pretty good. We contact an antigua investigadora and she is pretty pilas. We usually have to teach her outside the house because no one is present so we can go in, but we´ve also had lessons with her mom, sister, and cousins. She has a baptismal date for the 21st of February, but still lacks church attendance. We haven´t taught Día de Reposo yet, but hopefully she can understand its importance and go to church these next three weeks.

Lately, well, throughout my entire mission, people have had problems with the way that they pray. Investigators, and even members, pray the way they hear their pastors pray and follow the pattern. They start by addressing Jesus Christ, instead of our Heavenly Father, say their own personal prayers while someone else is praying (whispering or out loud). Even when I feel like we teach the manner of prayer clearly, they still seem to always do the same things. I talked with my companion about it and we came to two conclusions - we aren´t teaching with the spirit or they just feel more comfortable in their habits. I think I got the answer this week. We finished the Restoration with an investigator and taught her how to pray correctly. She had difficulties, but finally started by addresing Heavenly Father, gave thanks, asked for blessings, and then during a long pause, I reminded her to ask if these things are true. After another long pause, she said rapidly "Señor Jesus, ayúdame a saber si José Smith fue un profeta" and asked for other things always addressing Señor Jesus... people feel more comfotable praying the way they´ve heard it their entire lives. 

Our golden investigators from San Francsico - A and R - are doing well. R doesn´t know how to read and started learning a few weeks before we contacted them. We promised her that reading the Book of Mormon, the Bible, and other church material will help her. She was asked to read in Principios del Evangelio yesterday and she did very well. Still a little slow, but she has improved a lot and she recognizes that what she is doing is helping. She tells us she reads a lot from the Ezra Taft Benson manual. We are planning on having a baptism on the 14th of February.

Well, tonight we are going to have a fast with our investigator N. Her mom still won´t give permission to get baptized. She is super pilas and is ready to get baptized, but without her permission she will just have to wait.

Well, that´s all I have this week. Take care!

--Elder Lund

Río Lindo, Zona Yojoa 1/19/14 - 1/26/15

Wonderful Baptism

 Fun P-Day

¡Buenas!

Well, another good week in the mission field. To get to the best news first, we had a baptism this Saturday!!! It almost wasn´t going to happen because he was working a lot, his phone seemed to always be turned off when we needed to contact him, and he had job interviews - that have gone well - in Villanueva. Despite all this, he was able to pass the interview the night before and be baptized the next day.

We were planning on starting the baptism around 4:30 but he didn´t get back from work until 5:20 or so. It was a good baptismal service and a lot of people showed up. We performed the ordinance in a nearby river at dusk. He was super nervous, but a member friend was able to help him out. We closed the meeting at the church by singing "Conmigo quédate, Señor"...classic. The next day, we had to call him to wake him up for the confirmation, but he still arrived on time. He is really smart, great (changed) guy, and has a lot of potential, but I still worry for him a little bit. We are going to do everything we can to help him continue on the covenant path and stay active.

I did divisions with Elder C from Dallas, Texas this Thursday. We had a really good day with some good lessons. During one of the lessons with member, I had challenged S at the end to baptism and she accepted. Today, however, we found out she will be working for our investigator L with fecha bautismal for the 14th of Febuary. For L to get baptized, she needs to go to church, and for that to happen, she wants someone (o sea, S) to be in her restaurant on Sundays. Awkward dilemma. Either S will get baptized or L unless something else happens.

We had a really good Sunday. The branch president got released and will be on the High Council. Our new branch president is super pilas and I know we will have a lot of success this year. The stake president and his counselor came and had a 2 hour combined sunday school to present parts of the 2015 Plan de Area for Central America. Each member will be getting a cardstock sheet that has a calendar for 2015 with boxes for FHE, prayer, scripture study, and a check mark for tithing, fast offerings, and temple names. Super cool and hopefully will help members do the little things so that a capilla can be built this year and that plans can be made for a temple here in SPS soon.

Well, my companion and I had some more setbacks this week and we didn´t start progressing until we hit "rock-bottom" but I´m doing the best I can. He literally is showing the exact same signs of what I had and did with my trainers Elder P and Elder S. I´m trying to be patient and humble enough to improve personally.

I´ll now talk about the p-day last week and today's p-day. Last week, we hiked a hill near Río Lindo. Cool pics. Today as a zone, we went to Pulhapanzak again. It was raining, but it was fun. I´ll send some pics.

Well, nothing else really. Right now we are preparing for some baptisms for the 7th and the 14th of febrero. I hope you guys have a great week!

--Elder Lund

Río Lindo, Zona Yojoa 1/12/14 - 1/19/15

Get to Work

¡Buenas!

Another pretty good week in the mission field.

However, it started out with a bit of a "hic-up" between my companion Elder G and me. We have an investigator who has had some problems and we were talking about it during our evening planning session Tuesday night. I didn´t think it was getting out of control, but he got up all of the sudden and left to his room. I kind of laughed thinking, what went wrong? I felt like the conversation was not too confrontational. Anyways, he didn´t talk to me the entire morning. De hecho, he had done the exact same thing that I had done to my trainer Elder P...I shunned him and studied on my bed. We talked it though eventually, I shared my experiences in the past, and went out to work. I knew he was upset, and I knew he had to learn to work despite these feelings. I had learned that in Ocotillo. When you don´t feel like working or you are mad or you feel inadequate, you have to work. Talk with the people, make some contacts, etc. When this happens, all the negative emotions and feelings that Satan throws at us disapate. I wanted him to learn that for himself so I gave him 3 folletos and told him to contact people and I would follow his lead. He was still upset, and said "no, you're the trainer, you're the DL, etc, I´m going to follow you." We ended up sitting for an hour on a street corner. Moto taxis drove by asking us for a ride, but we ended up staying there until lunch. Our first appointment was at 3 in San Francisco, so we were going to contact until that time. Again, from 2 until 3, we sat there waiting. We were able to contact some people who approached us and asked questions, but my companion was still pretty quiet. By the end of the day after a good day's work and investigators progressing, he came through and we are back on good terms.

We went on to have a really good week. We had an excellent lesson with I. We invited him to a members house and they did a great job. B and his wife F helped him out a lot with the problems he is facing and he will be baptized this upcoming Saturday on the 17th. 

We had a really good lesson with E and O. We taught the plan of salvation and talked about temple work and eternal marriage. O is kind of "duro de corazón" but was intrigued by the message we shared. We asked him if he would like to be with E forever and he responded "SÍ HOMBRE!!!" There is still a lot of work to do, they have to get married legally first, then go to church (well, him at least. She´s already been 3 times) but with the help of the Lord, we will hopefully see some fruits soon.

We went to San Antonio this past Friday. It is part of our area but super far away. We were there pretty much the whole day. It is its own municipio but there aren´t many members there. There are just 2 active families and a handful of less-activese but that´s it. We had a good day and 3 people from the area went to church this sunday. We will probably work there every week and a half or so. It will be interesting to see that area in 5 years because there will probably be 2 sets of missionaries and a branch if the work can progress. All in the Lord´s timing and His will.

We had an awesome Sunday. 125 or so came to church and were kind of squished in the small house, but it was great. 7 investigators came to church including 3 from San Antonio, and 2 from San Francisco. A lot of Sacerdocio also were there. The meetings had its problems. Hermano A started talking about dancing and parties that the LDS youth go to during his lesson on agency. All the missionaries started looking at eachother because a lot of people believe dancing "bailando", even appropriately, is sin. (even though they also do dancing "danzando" supposedly there is a difference, during there church meetings). Anyways, it ended fine and they enjoyed the third hour much more.

A lot of work to do, a lot of tender blessings, and still a lot of problems, but that´s the way it goes. Cheque leque!

--Elder Lund

Río Lindo, Zona Yojoa 12/29/14 - 1/5/15

PS - Who won the 2008 Orange Bowl? I saw a shirt that said "Kansas Jayhawks Orange Bowl Champions 2008" but I don´t remember them winning any bowls recently. I may have finally found that shirt haha.

New Years

¡Buenas!

Well, another week in the mission field. We started out the week with a pretty good P-day getting some work in during the morning. We gave service (moved a whole bunch of dirt for a mini construction project on the house) for hermana E and her family and directly after started a fast with la Familia G. They are menos activos but their 10 year old daughter P hasn´t been baptized yet. We fasted so the father can quit smoking. We fasted from breakfast until dinner, but when we arrived they had already broken there fast around 4:00 in the afternoon. Not much, but it´s a little something to express their faith.

We did pretty much nothing for New Years. We were in the house early and were going to break the piñata but forgot. (We ended up breaking it last night and got a bunch of candy woohoo). I was super tired so I went to sleep around 8:45-9:00ish. My companion and the other two missionaries were woken up by the fireworks (more like bombs) at midnight because it was supposedly super loud and they couldn´t go back to sleep until around 1:00 because of the noise. On the other hand, I slept through the entire night. It reminds me of the time when I fell asleep to ESPN in Hawaii while Victoria and Dad were locked outside (because for some reason I bolted the door) and couldn´t wake me up. Haha...good times.

Anyways, we had a lot of good lessons this week. We found some potential families and our investigators are progressing. There still seems to always be problems that come up. N left for Villanueva for the month, but hopefully she can still go to church and read in El Libro de Mormon in order to stay animated. Our investigator with fecha for the 17th texted us this morning basically saying the trials and difficulties that we said would come started coming last night and this morning, whatever that means. Other probelms, but hopefully the Lord can help them out and they can stay strong.

My companion and I prepared a lesson for New Years that we shared with a lot of people. We used President Uchtdorf´s First Presidency Message from January 2014 about the best moment to plant a tree. We also took the principle from a Mormon Message "Flecks of Gold" and taught it with an example I had prepared. During a span of 3 months from Copán to Ocotillo, I gathered coins from the dusty streets and collected them in a small peanut butter jar. Although it doesn´t value a lot, (10-15 Lempiras) it weighs a lot. With these two resources, we taught the people the importance of "starting" to change and the importance of "doing the little things daily" so that they can have success with their goals. We shared this lesson with investigators, members, and menos activos in order to animate them to set goals and keep commitments this upcoming year.

We had a really good Sunday yesterday. We had 4 investigators at church. R, the 5 year old son of E, came to church in a white shirt and jeans. He said all he lacks to be a Mormon is a tie haha. He doesn´t know how to read but he likes walking around with my himnario and a Libro de Mormon. He´s more pilas than his parents and sister haha. After church, we had Consejo de Rama and set goals for the upcoming year. As part of the consejo, we held a capacitation for the leaders of our vision for missionary work the upcoming year. We showed the members the Work of Salvation Mormon Message "I´ll go where you want me to go", explained our vision of how the members and missionaries should work together, and did some practices. It went really well and hopefully this can improve the missionary effort in the branch so that we can build the capilla and become a ward.

I took out money and bought some clothes. Tan shorts...$3 (with an original tag that says $20)...Brown Shorts...$3 (again, originally $20 with original tags)...Lacoste Polo Shirt...$7.50...Grey Van Huessen Collard Shirt...$17.50...cheap hand-me-downs from up north...Priceless. Well, 620 lempiras for some new p-day clothing isn´t too bad. Thank you!

Well, that´s all I have this week! Cheque!

--Elder Lund

Río Lindo, Zona Yojoa 12/29/14 - 1/5/15