Progress and You Never Know What You Will Find in Honduras--A Scout Shirt From the East Coast

¡Buenas!

Well, the last week of the change went better than previous weeks. We started out the week well with several fechas bautismales, and a handful of regular desafíos bautismales. There were still some days where a lot of citas were falling, but we made the best of it. We also had a good turnout at church. 101 asistencia and 4 investigators (plus two more references/nuevos that a member brought for the seminary "graduation")...not bad. Looking at the datos right now, we had investigators coming to church así starting with week 1 and ending with week 6 - 1, 3, 1, 6, 2, 6.

Well, we didn´t have any baptisms this change. A little frustrating. I thought we would get at least 2, but the two I was hoping for (O and L) need some more time. O is still reading in the Book of Mormon to be sure it´s true. He believes it is, or at least he says he believes, but he needs more time to study it more to be sure. L seems to be losing hope. She is the mother of a recent convert who has a restaurant and has difficulties attending church. Her employee recently quit and she doesn´t trust the new worker so she has to stay and work during church. She says she likes everything we teach but she lacks something to finally keep that commitment to attend church and eventually be baptized.

However, we do have several investigators who are progressing nicely and are potential baptisms for this upcoming change. Nand Y, daughter and granddaughter of O, are very interested and understand the message of the Restoration. They are waiting for an answer.

M and C are also progressing well. C came for the second time to church this past Sunday and really enjoyed it. M can´t go because he works on Sundays at least for right now. He may get a change in schedule sometime in the near future. They were really open to all the lessons we taught this week, are beginning to pray, and accepted to live the Word of Wisdom. They still need to get married, but they know and will be making plans in the near future.

We have many others. Well, that´s all I have this week. Enjoy your Thanksgiving! I don´t believe it is celebrated here because I haven´t heard anything about it. To be honest, I actually kind of forgot about it until I read your emails haha.

-Elder Lund

Río Lindo, Zona Yojoa 11/17/14 - 11/24/14

Fumigators

 

¡Buenas!

We had a lot of fallen citas and investigators with fecha who will not be getting baptized anytime soon. We have had hopes for P, a nine year old in a less-active family, who was progressing a lot. One day, however, the mom told us she wants nothing to do with the church. We asked her what was up and she told us again she wants nothing to do with the church. The family has been less active for a long time. Rumor has it that the family baptized only to receive financial help. When the food stopped, they stopped going to church. The family has also talked with the daughter and she will not be getting baptized until we can reactivate the family which will not likely be anytime soon. Other fechas fell as well. 

Another story to show how the week went. We were having a really great "Restauración" lesson and when we started teaching about the Book of Mormon, fumigators came to fumigate the house for mosquitos. Fumigators from the municipalidad have been coming around the colonias to do this, but somehow they happened to come at this time. We had to leave the house immediately and couldn´t finish the lesson with compromisos or even a prayer. Kind of frustrating.

Despite the week we had, I was somehow still happy. The refiner´s fire has helped me be more patient. The gratitude journal has also helped a lot. Even though I was a little bummed with the fumigation lesson, I was still grateful for the really good first part of the lesson that we had. Because the spirit was present in the principio, we should be able to finish the lesson and hopefully this family will be future members.

Although O has been struggling to progress, we finally got him a Libro de Mormón grande so that he can read. We started teaching his daughter and granddaughter as well. The granddaughter has already gone to church the past two weeks and is enjoying the lessons a lot. These will be 3 really good baptisms the next change if they can keep progressing.

We went to the tourist site Pulapansak today. There is a decent sized waterfall. We took pictures and had a good time together. I will send some photos in a bit.

We heard that the New York Times published an article on Joseph Smith this week. The local newspaper had published a little something as well and the branch president showed us the article. Maybe that´s why our investigators were a little less teachable this week, but things will cool off.

That´s all I have...cheque leque!

-Elder Lund

Río Lindo, Zona Yojoa 11/10/14 - 11/17/14

Chilly in Santa Cruz

Well, another week in the mission field. This week was a little bit better.
We were able to challenge more people to baptism since the citas weren´t
falling nearly as much. We also had 6 investigators in church, 3 kids and 3
adults. It was the primary program so a bunch of people went...I think it
was around 120 cramped into a small room, but still only 10 Melchizedek
Priesthood holders. We had 10 the previous week and probably 4-6 the weeks
before that.

I went on divisions with Elder H from Colombia on Friday in Santa
Cruz de Yojoa (no, sadly not the Santa Cruz with the beach boardwalk haha).
We had some really good lessons with their investigators. It´s always good
to have divisions because you always learn something new - how to
present the doctrine in the lessons a different way, study methods,
etc - from the other missionary. It was super cold in SC and by the
time we got back to the apartment, I was literally shivering. It was
drizzling a bit, but it was probably only 50-60 degrees haha. I don´t
know what I´m going to do to adjust to -20 Cel. when I get back to BYU
within a month being home from Honduras.

Today for P-day, we went to Santa Cruz to play fútbol and basketball
at the church as a district and with the Zone Leaders. It was a lot of
fun. Their church is really big and nice. It gives me a little
motivation to work harder so we can get a building like this in Río
Lindo. We ate pollo frito con tajadas. MMMM...

Well, that´s about it this week. I´m starting a gratitude journal
because I need to work on being grateful. Developing gratitude will
also help me develop other attributes like charity, humility, and
patience. Over and out.

-Elder Lund

Río Lindo, Zona Yojoa 11/4/14 - 11/10/14

Good Lessons

Another week in the mission field...Kind of a tough week, but I´m hoping to have a better one. The unity in the companionship isn´t really that great, but I´m going to try to work on that too. Nearly all of our fechas bautismales fell this week because no one came to church. It was raining and whenever there is rain hardly anyone comes. At 9:00, there were only us 4 missionaries, the Branch President, his wife, his daughter, and the Elder´s Quorum President. More people showed up later on but no investigators. People also were busy and left on vacations for Día de los muertos...it seemed to me like the holiday wasn´t that big here as compared to Mexico, but people still were not in their homes for citas.

Nevertheless, we still had some pretty good lessons with investigators and less-active Sacerdocio. There are a lot of future holders of the melchizedek priesthood. The most frequent problem right now is these members were baptized when they were 10-12, went inactive at 12-14 and are now living in chocoleyde (living with their girlfriends) at age 20-28. It´s going to be tough, but we´ll see what we can do to help them come back to the fold.

P-day was kind of boring today. We went to Villanueva and ate lunch at Wendy´s. Got my haircut. Writing you guys. Cheque.

I don´t really have anything else to say. CHEQUE LEQUE!

-Elder Lund

Río Lindo, Zona Yojoa 10/27/14 - 11/3/14

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