Thursday, March 14, 2013

Highlights from email sent to Arissa

Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2013

Arissa,
I have been good, doing missionary stuffs, like reading the scriptures, studying, going out and talking to people and sharing the gospel, all in spanish.
I do like it here. It´s a fun change from my life before, its a lot different here, but at the same time, it´s pretty much all the same.
The environment is a lot different, and the culture and the people are different than in the US, but what people want, and things that people do are almost always the same. Everyone has the same needs and wants everywhere in the world, but in different places people will do different things to get what they want and need. Like people here in Honduras will do things differently than people in the states, but everyone wants the same things in life.
So it´s definitely interesting to see how that works and to know that I can help people by teaching the gospel, and to see how going to church and reading the scriptures, and praying and all of those things will change how people see themselves and they will change their lives because of the gospel. So that´s cool. That´s been my favorite part of my mission.
Enjoy school while you have it!
Love,
Elder Ward

Date: Mon, 4 Feb 2013

Arissa,
I miss a lot of things about home, namely:
-Running water
-Soft carpet
-Couches that aren´t broken and falling apart
-Jumping on trampolines
-Running
-Watching movies
-Hanging out with friends
-Being able to go out and be alone
-Grass
-Family
-Friends
-Captain Crunch
-Dairy products like cheese and milk that actually taste normal
-Music
-Scuba diving (not really, that one´s a joke)
Yep, that´s my list for now. Hope that you enjoyed it.
I miss you too,
Love,
Elder Ward

Date: Mon, 4 Mar 2013

Arissa,
I do missionary stuff here. I talk to people in spanish and teach lessons, and try not to get hit by crazy car drivers :)
I have a lot of cool experiences. One simple one is that yesterday we were having a lesson with an investigator whose wife is a member, and were teaching him about the plan of salvation and that his family could be eternal if he follows our Heavenly Father´s plan for him in his life. Then, his wife bore her testimony about how she knew that this was what they needed to do, both of them. She talked about how she had a point in her life when she knew that they would be ready to go to the temple and be sealed together to be together forever, and the spirit was super strong and the spirit bore witness to me that I was changing people´s lives, and that the temple is the key to everything, all of the blessings that these people want and need in their lives. So that was a cool experience. I really think that this investigator is going to get baptized, so I´m excited about that.
I love you too,
Love,
Elder Ward

Date: Mon, 11 Mar 2013
Arissa,
I have not personally baptized anyone yet. My first companion baptized one of our investigators, but that´s the only baptism that we´ve had so far.
Hmm, what else have I done?? This week we made baleadas with another group of elders, that went well, and now I know how to make my own tortillas. We also have been talking to our ward mission leader about how to divide our ward boundaries and the areas that we´re working in. This next week, they are going to add more missionaries to where we are serving. The area where I am serving now will have 6 missionaries in a week, instead of just the 2 that we have now. Also our zone is going to get split up into 2 zones with all of the new missionaries coming in. The next changes we will have more sister missionaries coming into the mission than elders coming in, which is a little bit crazy.
That´s about all of my news.
Yes, I´m having a pretty good time. I am tired, we´ve been walking a lot recently.
Love,
Elder Ward

March 11, 2013

(this email is answers to a bunch of questions)
Mom,
The spanish word for Elder is anciano, but we always use the english word elder in spanish in the LDS church. That´s the word that the BofM uses and the ¨quorum de los elderes¨ in church.
I haven´t found my ranch yet, but I need to go to the other supermarket that would probably have it.
I make rice with salt and butter and a complete seasoning that i bought that has like onion, garlic, salt, and some other spices. I have a pretty good spice set now, and I started using the toaster that´s been buried in our kitchen for awhile to make garlic bread and toast with cinnamon sugar.
Also this week, we made baleadas with some of the other elders, and we made the tortillas from scratch, which turned out well. I learned how to fry platanos, and we made some good baleadas.
Also we learned how to make dough soup from a member this week, but I´m not sure if I could duplicate it all.
A lot of people from our mission too say that they´ve already been baptized. Then we have to explain about the priesthood and stuff, but most people don´t like the thought of having to be baptized again.
You can buy meats here, but they are a lot more expensive. I hardly eat meat here. We do get fresh foods though.
I hope everythings going well.
Love,
Elder Ward

Dad,
Yeah I know, I´m super excited for the dedication. It will be awesome.
Platanos, yeah you can probably fry them twice, they only fry them once here, after slicing them into thin little pieces, but I think that in other cultures they might mash them up and fry them again.
This week (yesterday) we had a soup with one of the members of the stake presidency, just my companion and I. We went up to the rich neighborhood in our area where he lives and had a seafood soup with a big old crab sitting there in the middle of my soup. I had no idea how to eat it, so I just ate everything else in the soup and left it. They didn´t seem to mind that my companion and I didn´t eat our crabs.
We also had to walk back to our house from that appointment yesterday, which is from the farthest part of our area, and we didn´t have money for a bus, because it was sunday, so we walked about an hour and a half to get back. That was a long walk.
Love,
Elder Ward