One of the Least of These

¡Buenas!

Good week here in Cofradía. As always, there are challenges, but the beat goes on...

On Tuesday for the Zone Meeting, we set a zone goal in order to find more hombres, and therefore, help the church truly go as we baptize them and help them receive the Aaronic and Melquisedec Priesthood. Out of the 10 new investigators, we put the meta to find 5 hombres. With the help of the Lord, we were able to find 5 hombres to set the example.

We had a lot of success setting baptismal dates this week. We put fechas with the familia P, familia M, familia N and almost the familia E but they weren´t ready to accept it yet because they have appointments with testigos de Jehová. Unfortunately, none of them came to church. Bummer.

Had some good experiences offering service. First with the familia Cin Gracias a Dios. They used to go to church every Sunday 6-8 months ago but got discouraged when the wife found out she has problems with her records in order to get the necessary papers for marriage. They are pretty poor as well. We got to the house around 6:30 PM. We decided to offer them service and cook them dinner. They were only going to have tortillas and beans so we decided to go to the pulpería and buy 6 eggs for the family of 6. We cooked dinner, they ate, and after we taught them about the Doctrine of Christ and eternal marriages. We challenged them to baptism as a family and they accepted. This Sunday, the whole family wasn´t able to go, but the father Angel (cabeza de la familia) did come to church. There is a lot of work to go, a lot of encouraging and teaching, and I probably won´t see them get baptized, but I can´t wait to here later down the line when they make the decisions to repent and make covenants with our Heavenly Father.

After a fallen cita, we had another experience. We walked past an old man with a sack and a machete resting in the shade. We said hello and then as we walked past he called for us and we started to talk with him. It was apparent when we began to talk that he was a littly tipsy (there are a LOT of old drunks on the streets). We were listening to him and it was apparent that he was not going to be a potential "nuevo investigador" and we were simply "wasting time" but as we looked into his depressed eyes, we decided to share a scripute.We shared 1 Nefi 21:15-16 and taught that the Lord always remembered him. We squated down and offered a prayer, well, actually he offered the prayer and started crying. After the prayer, we asked if there was anything else and you could just tell he was hungry and destitute so we went to the pulpería close buy and bought the following: cemitas (8 Lempiras), 2 bags of water o sea 1000 mL (4 Lempiras) and a heart sucker (1 Lempira). We put it in a bag and gave it to him. He was very grateful even though he was a little tipsy and out of it. 13 Lempiras is roughly 60 cents but he was filled. As we were buying from the pulpería, a scripture came to mind.

Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.Then shall the 

righteous answer him, saying, Lord,when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty,and 

gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee Or 

when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? And the King shall answer and say 

unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my 

brethren, ye have done it unto me.

I felt the spirit strongly. This man, at his age, is truly one of the "least" in the eyes of the world, but to our Heavenly Father he is a special child with divine potential. Even though we may not be able to find him and give him what matters most (the Gospel), we at least were able to feed a hungry stomach and encourage a troubled heart.

Before I forget again, our Bishop has the coolest last name ever: Largaespada! Or in other words, he is Bishop Longsword. Awesome. We helped out in the primary this week. I was asked to dress up as Jesus and we acted out the raising of Lazarus, Jairo´s daughter, and the widow´s son from the dead. It was funny.

Anyways, have a great week! I started reading DyC one section a day until the end of my mission...I read section 25 today...you can do the math.

-Elder Lund

Cofradía 1, Zona Cofradía 8/10/15 - 8/17/15

Good Progress

We saw some good progress with la familia E. They all read in the Book of Mormon and are praying. We taught Día de Reposo but they weren´t able to come to church. The mom is literally 400 pounds and can´t leave the couch...it might be a little difficult getting her to church and baptizing her, but the dad is actually the most interested of the family and really understands everything we teach.

We had an interesting contact while I was with Elder Paredes. It was his last day in Cofradía and as we were walking past a house a man who was sitting outside tried to shake hands with us and at first we almost ignored it but shortly (as in a step and a half) after we came back and talked with him and gave him a Book of Mormon. We taught him Thursday with Elder Paraso and again on Saturday night. His name is José Leonel and he´s roughly 60 years old. As we taught him the Restoration he said, "So Jesus was Joseph Smith´s boss?" We confirmed that it was something like that. I have never heard someone understand it that way. When we returned Saturday he was reading outside. He didn´t really understand anything. Actually, after the prayer he started reading out loud to us in a really funny way, but whatever. He may not understand what he was reading, but he told us he feels the power of the book and wanted to go to church (the missionaries had actually visited him 5 years ago or so so he knew where the church is). He told us "I´m going to get up a 5:00 AM get ready, leave at 9, and be there before 10. It was really strange. He didn´t end up coming to church. Chikungunya hit him. We are going to visit him with some members to hermanar him.

We also saw some great progress with E. He is reading the Book of Mormon and wants to get baptized. He is struggling with "deseos de la carne". He has a molino (he grinds corn) and he checks out all the women as they walk by. He also said that a women called him saying she was in a hotel waiting for him. He was going to go and than he saw the Book of Mormon, put his hand on it, and then prayed for strength. He´s 80 years old but I guess the temptations are always there. His wife got really sick Saturday so he cared for her and didn´t go to church. He felt really bad and asked us to pray for her. He expressed a lot of faith and we gave her a blessing. She wasn´t listening to us before but maybe this is a way that the Lord has given us to soften her heart.

I´ve got a lot of other stories, but not enough room or time. We had a good leadership council with the ZLs, APs, and President and Sister Dester. I hope you guys have a good week!

CHEQUE!!! 

-Elder Lund

Cofradía 1, Zona Cofradía 8/3/15 - 8/10/15

The Savior Wants to Forgive

¡Buenas!

Well, another week here in the mission. We spent Tuesday in the house resting and I went back out to work Wednesday through the end of the week. Not the best idea. I probably should have rested more because I was simply exhausted and sore until Sunday. My hands were super swollen (#swolepatrol) and hurt a lot. 

I believe I had one of the most powerful spiritual moments of my mission yesterday. We found out who robbed us - a young man in the ward named Junior. He is 18 and was preparing to serve a mission when I first came to Cofradía, but things have dramatically changed beginning a month ago. I do not know all the details, but he is going through a lot right now. He moved in with his 24 year old girlfriend (who already has a 1 year old daughter) about a month ago and has gotten involved in drugs and alcohol because of her. She is extremely manipulative (chocoleyde aka fornication is governing his decisions) and she is also involved in the mara. He robbed us and then a week later he robbed the missionaries in Naco as well. 

The other elders found out when they visited the mother of Junior. He had come back drunk and had inflicted harm on her and his sister. The mom said he had been involved in a robbery and the missionaries asked to see some of the items and they were ours. We were able to get back the cameras, dvd player, but my cash was spent...clothes for his girlfriend, lunch in SPS with his girlfriend, drugs and alcohol. Our items were in the house of another member who was involved, but things were a little more complicated for Naco as they were in the house of the girlfriend. In order to try to get the items back for Naco, we went Sunday after church with the Elders Quorum President, Carlos Rodriguez.

We walked 20 minutes from the central park in order to get to Junior´s house. We met with his mom who had her wrist taped up from a knife cut from the night before. Junior had once again returned drunk. His phone was off so we had to go to the house of the girlfriend and call for him. We went and called for him but he did not respond. To avoid us, he put on reggaeton music on his stereo. It looked like we had come in vain. After talking with the mom again in her house for 10 minutes or so, we returned one more time. Nothing. An impression came to mind that we should sing hymns, so we did. 194-199 in the spanish hymn book...Cuando hay amor, Las Familias pueden ser eternas, soy un hijo de dios, siempre obedece los mandamientos, hazme andar en la luz, and Dios vive. It worked. When we reached "Soy un hijo de Dios" he had changed the reggaeton music to EFY music (SOY) and had opened up the windows twice to look at us. I looked at him in the eye (everything else was dark except for "the whites of his eyes") and smiled and nodded my head. By the end of our singing, he came out. We went back to his mom´s house to have the lesson.

Before beginning, we decided it would be good to give him a blessing of consuelo y consejo. When we asked him who he wanted to give the blessing, he said the one who had the idea to sing the hymns. I had the privelege to give him the blessing. We then sat down on the couch, shared our testimonies, scriptures, and more than anything encouraged him to come back to the fold. Very spiritual experience. I´m not much of a crier, but during the blessing and the lesson I teered up a couple times and truly felt the pure love of Christ for him. We all felt extremely close to the Savior and felt the power of His atoning sacrifice. I don´t believe I have explained very well, and I probably will never be able to put it into words, but it was one of the most memorable experiences of my life. It also reminded me of Jean Valjean from Les Miserables. He had stolen from the Catholic Bishop (or whoever it was) and the Bishop forgave him and gave him new life with the candle sticks (which he ended up not using as I recall). I attached a mormon message that is very good as well. I don´t know if Junior is going to repent or not, but if there are no "fruits" and he continues to dive deeper in sin, the experience itself has at least had a huge impact on me.

E, an investigator that we have been teaching, came to church. He was the only one, but he really enjoyed it. At the end of Sacrament Meeting, he said "I want to talk with the Sacerdote" to which I corrected him (again) and led him to the Bishop. He is interested in getting baptized and becoming a member. I will give more details on him in the future as he progresses more.

The Savior wants to Forgive:

https://www.mormonchannel.org/watch/series/mormon-messages/the-savior-wants-to-forgive

-Elder Lund

Cofradía 1, Zona Cofradía 7/27/15 - 8/3/15

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