Feb. 4, 2013

Alrighty everyone,

Well, I haven´t written a combined letter for quite some time, and I don´t have a ton of time to type to everyone individually, I will still try to get through emailing everyone, but I decided to write a collective email to celebrate my 6 Month Mark!!! Yeah, I´m 1/4th the way done with my mission already! That is rather exciting, but also super crazy! Time has flown by like crazy!

This week, Elder Evans and I have continued to work here in Reparto, Tegucigalpa, and we have been working hard. Especially with the Temple Open House opening today, and having invitations to pass out to references that have been given to us by the members of the ward.

We have been contacting some new references, and we have found some new people to teach, which is always good. We have been teaching an 18 year old kid that is trying to start his own business selling floor cleaning detergent, but he is a crazy smart kid, and he seems interested in learning about the gospel. He has some weird beliefs from his studying at other churches, but we are trying to explain to him some parts of the gospel, and teach the lessons. He reminds me of Ben a lot, he just looks like him, but a few shades darker skin.. But he seems positive.

Also, we met a kid on the street the other day, just randomly as we were talking with our recent convert (the one that we baptized at the end of November, who is doing super good, he is a priest, he blessed the Sacrament last week which was super cool, and he is working on getting the Melchezidek priesthood soon), and we were talking to him at this Pulpería (little store in someones house that has like chips and soda and candy), and we met this kid, and he said that he wanted to learn English, so we asked him if we could set an appointment with him to come to his house and teach him English and about our message. He agreed, so we went and met with him, and also his little sister was home, so we invited her to come listen too. (He is 14, she is 12) They both seemed kind of nervous at first to talk to us, so we decided to play a game with them, to kind of break the ice (This is something that our bishop told us to do, and he also taught us like 10 games that we can play with people to make things fun). We played a little game where one person writes down a word, and tells everyone the topic that the word relates to, and doesn´t show anybody. Then, he goes around the circle with a little glass with some water in it, and everyone guesses a word in the topic, and the person will fake them out by pretending to almost splash them with water, and everyone guesses until someone gets the right word, and then the person splashes them with water in their face. I don´t know why, but it was super fun for these kids, and we were having a lot of fun too. So after that, we could teach them easier, and they trusted us because we became friends before we tried to teach them anything. They were cool, and at the end of the lesson their mom came in, and we thought that she was going to get mad at us because we were there teaching her 2 kids without her being there, but she came in and started talking to us and told us that she was a member of our church, and that she has been inactive for like 10 years. So we invited them to church, and they said that they would. They didn´t come this Sunday, but I really hope that next Sunday they will all come.

Yesterday was testimony meeting at church, and Elder Evans and I were talking to a lot of members at church before the meeting started, and trying to encourage people to go up and bear their testimonies with us. I hadn´t ever gone up to bear my testimony in front of everyone yet in this ward, but we went up this time. I gave my testimony to the ward about the gospel and how it has changed my life, and how I have seen it help other people too. Then I talked about the temple, and told them about how cool it is, because a lot of the members haven´t ever been to a temple, and have only seen the one in the city from a distance. So I talked about how sacred it is, and how much you can feel the spirit when you go to it, and I encouraged people who weren´t worthy yet, to start making changes to be ready to get a recommend to go in. My testimony went a lot longer than I was planning, I just kind of kept talking in Spanish, and I didn´t feel nervous at all, like I normally do when I talk to a lot of people like that. We had a good asistance this week too, we had over 100 members again.

So the temple is what all of the members are talking about right now, and even a few other people out on the street too, sometimes people will stop us and ask about the temple, and we explain to them how it is different than regular church buildings.

We have been talking to a lot of people in the street this week. We set a goal of a certain number of people to talk to, just like approaching them and talking about the gospel, and so we talked to a lot of random people this week. We did hit our goal too, which was good.

Changes are coming up, they are this Wednesday, and I´m pretty sure that we´ll have something change. My companion has been in Reparto for 7 months, and I have been here for 4 now. Normally each missionary rotates out after 6 months, so I´m assuming that Elder Evans will be leaving this week. But I guess that I could leave too, we never really know. They tell us Tuesday night, which is hard, because then everyone has to pack until like 3 in the morning to get ready to leave the next morning.

So, that´s about everything that´s going on for the moment.

I hope that you all are doing great, I love you all!

Love,

Elder Ward

Mom,

I already sent a long email to the whole family, so this one will be short and answer any questions that weren´t already answered in the other one.

A lot of people in Honduras will let us in just because we are a little persistant, and because they refuse to reject the preaching of ¨The Word¨, meaning any message about Jesus Christ. So because of that, we get into almost the majority of the houses that we go to. The whole culture here believes that if you go to a church, you are saved, and it doesn´t matter which church you go to, or which doctrine that they are taught, because they believe that there is no true church because ¨Church is in your heart¨. I hear that quote at least once every other day. It is hard to teach here, and to find people who really do want the truth, because some people just want to say that they believe in Jesus Christ, and say that they are saved from that.

And that´s a nationwide belief. Everyone says and believes like that. And there are some benefits and some challenges with this widespread belief. I´m still trying to learn how to teach in a way that this type of people will understand why our church is the only true church.
Love,
Elder Ward