43: Feliz Navidad

Feliz Navidad! It was a wonderful Christmas, my favorite yet, and even more exciting because we are training in a trio!

We still havent been able to have changes as a mission so we were assigned a new missionary to train for the time being, Hermana Garcia! She is a great missionary and were grateful to have her. 

I feel like its been so long since Ive written a group email to everyone, where do I start! Investigators are all always changing except the Tercero family. Last week we asked them the baptismal interview questions and they werent able to respond to all of them. It is killing me, they are so close! We are trying all sorts of things to help them on their way of receiving that testimony, but any time now they should be ready.

We had a really incredible experience on Saturday. We were contacting and knocked on the door of a man who has not gone to church in years and shared a lesson with him. After we asked him for references he told us "theres a man who lives down the hill that has wanted to go to church but he feels awkward going alone, and hes read the whole Book of Mormon and knows the church is true". So we went to his house and he is golden! He watched general conference all on his own and he wanted to get baptized but didnt know how to get started going to church. That was a testament to me that the Lord really is always guiding us if were doing what we should be doing and are obedient.

And Christmas! The big day for celebrating is Christmas Eve here, so we has church and were visiting all day, EATING all day. I had my first Nacatamales, Torejas, and Rosquillas en Miel, all delicious! Then that night we went caroling to houses of less actives and older people in our ward and after our dinner with the familia Elwin, I told my compaions I think that was the happiest I have ever been. The next day was a lot of visiting and singing and of course skyping :) A very merry Christmas.

I love this work! This really is the happiest Ive ever been in my life. I know this gospel is true and I love the light Christs gospel brings into my life. He lives and he redeems us!

1-3: We did secret santa as a zone and Hermana Gonzalez and I bought the same thing to gice to Elder Guerra and Elder Cates: shirts that say "I survived a mission trip in Honduras" and rancher hats. We thought it was funny so we tried them on first before gifting them :)

4: Divisions with Hermana Bissell, Hermana Gabriella, and Hermana Beltran

5: Hermanas :)

6-7: Some of the kids / cousins in the Famila Tercero

8-10: Ward Christmas party

11: I didnt see Santa but I got to see some nice views from the Santa Margarita

12-13: Tamales, Torejas

14-17: Families we visited on Christmas Eve. and Christmas day. Elwins, Pati, Victoria and Andrea, and the Inestroza family

Christmas Day Skype with Hermana Morgan

Hermanas

Hermana Garcia (Nicaragua), Hermana Morgan, Hermana Gonzalez (Las Vegas)

42: Lock Down

Sorry we only have 30 minutes to write today in a members house before going back inside, the result came out last night. Still safe, we just dont really know whats going on so we are just trusting in what people and our leaders are telling us. I hope you guys can get the voice recording, could you see how expensive those are in the US? It would be like 40 or 50 dollars here for a new one.

Changes were supposed to happen today (were both staying here in Girasoles) but everything for this week got cancelled. The new missionaries are juts staying in the MTC, all the missionaries going to their homes had to leave all of the sudden last week to miss this craziness, the mission chirstmas party is cancelled :( but Ill still be calling you guys dont worry! No idea what time or where because we dont even konw whats happening to us tomorrow, but Ill have Dennis or someone tell you.

Im excited to see you! Have a merry Christmas week :)

41: Ilumina El Mundo

Sorry its been a bit! Weve been on and off lockdown for elections this month. We are still waiting on the result, so we will see what happens in these next few weeks. But Im all safe, along with all the other missionaries.

We havent had much time to work, especially at night, so it has been hard to see a lot of our investigators. Many of our important investigators we can only see at night because they work. We spent a lot of time finding new investigators and visiting less actives during the day and praying each day that we get more time outisde at night to find our investigators.

The familia Tercero we hadnt seen in over two weeks just with everything that went on, but we got to see them last night. We spent a lot of time planning for them in our weekly planning, they needed something powerful. I offered to say a prayer to know what we should do to make them feel a powerful spirit. We delibertaed for a lot of time but we ended up reading a line from Preach My Gospel that said the most powerful thing we can share with people is our testimony, so that is what we decided to do. We left them a note during the week for them to read Alma 7, so we discussed that chapter and Hermana Gonzalez, Dennis, and I all bore our testimonies. I got pretty teary. They are so close! And we love them so much!

We had our zone conference two weeks ago and those always get me even more excited about missionary work. Our zone leaders gave a workshop where we analized Doctrine and Covernants 4. We started everying on our feet reciting the section. 18 missionaries citing that all together is something powerful. We ended up talking a lot about faith and knowledge, developing as much as we possibly can, and using the power of prawer to ask for the rest. Our zone is incredible, we have some really special missionaries in our mission.

And ILUMINA EL MUNDO!!!!! O sea LIGHT THE WORLD. The best thing that has ever happened to missionary work in central america. The church has set up different programs for the campaign in different parts of the world, and here we are supposed to have Family Home Evenings in houses of members with their nonmember friends the whole month of December leading up to Christmas. With us having to stay in our house we havent been able to have any, but we will have one every night starting tomorrow leading up to Christmas. And of course talking about the campaign and Christmas is an easy way to get a conversation started and teach people. We are loving it. Que sea este mundo lleno de luz!

And I am now 20 and 9 months old! All in one week! That is crazy to me, I still feel like one of the newbie missionaries, the time goes by so fast. Thanks to everyone that wrote me, love you all :)

1: What I bought myself for my birthday

2-5: Our Thanksgiving dinner we made the Sunday after Thanksgiving. Pierogies, arroz con leche, and frijoles

6-8: Birthday presents, pancakes from Hna Gonzalez and from my family. Lost of love

9: Zone conference Hermanas - from Zonas Tegucigalpa, Uyuca and Guaymuras

10: Hna Balden :)

11: Hermana Elwin was selling pastelitos on my birthday and gave us some as we walked by :) a wonderful woman

12: Hermana Chase had us over to do medical insurance, and to eat their thanksgiving leftovers!!!! Not too far from home

13-15: Some of our creations while we were in the house this week, no bake cookies, the beginnings of a honduran recipe book, and a christmas tree

39: Lock Down

Woo where do I start! I just feel so great, free!!!!!! For the next two hours until were to be locked in houses again.

We have been in our houses since Thursday at about 4:30, so I have read, written letters, made a honduran cookbook, cooked a bunch of random things with whatever we had in our house, and am running out of things to do! Cant even sleep during the day because my body is so accumstomed to 10-6 every night! We decided we have to get up every hour and do some sort of exersize because were going to drive ourselves crazy just laying down.

Yesterday the Chavez family that lives in the part of our house right above us had us over to partake of the sacrament and watch the christmas devotional. They are awesome, he is a seventy by the way and after the sacrament he said "Im gonna take advantage of this opportunity I have to have you in my house and were going to have some instruction". Yes please! Haha that family is the best. After we literally just sat in our beds talking for 6 hours until we broke our fast. Man we are pretty bored! President has even been sending out homework assignments for us to do while we are waiting. He is the best.

But dont even worry about me, there are already a lot of people here worried about us. Our leaders and bishops and ward mission leaders and RS presidents are calling on us and checking up on us and bringing us food and whatever we need. And obviously the Chases are on top of it. Its actually pretty funny, we have a conversation with our district leader every couple hours and it goes like this "okay how are you guys? okay great were good too. so what have you guys been up to? what else have you cooked in the last few hours?" All these poor elders are enjoying this time and learning how to cook!

But I am good. Im sure you guys know more or less whats going on or can figure it out from the news. Just hearing from our leaders all that has been going on makes me a little sick. This country really needs the gospel! Really bad!

Apart from all of that, everything is super as far as missionary woork. Lots of investigators. The Ilumina el Mundo campaign in central america is incredible, we had planned an FHE in members houses (them inviting their nonmember friends) for every day leading up until Christmas. And our ward in general is incredible. I need to have a big catch up email next week, if we can leave! Also as a warning we might be changing our Pday back to monday because the Baldens are taking on most of the work.

Love you guys a lot! It was a great birthday and a great 9 MONTHS!!!!! Wow I am old. Thanks for the birthday presents, christmas, praying for me, everything. Just let everyone know Im okay but to pray a lot for this country.