August 5, 2014

Dear Sister Ward,

I thought you might want a little heads up. Your son has Dengue Fever again! He will still be able to fly home on Wed. but, he needs to drink 3 quarts of water a day, rest (no outside activities for at least a week) and he should take Tylenol every 6 hours. He may need a blood test (CBC) to make sure his platelets and white blood cells have returned to normal. This occurrence has been less severe. We are so sorry we couldn't send him home in better health.

It has been an honor to know your son and work with him! He is an excellent missionary!

Sincerely,

Hna S

Later in the day, in answer to our questions...

Sister Ward,

Our Area Medical Doctor says his platelets are high enough there shouldn't be any complications. Your son knows what to do.

You only need a doctor so he can order a CBC blood test. The blood test will tell when the white blood cells and platelets are going up. The only treatment for Dengue Fever is water, water, water, rest and Tylenol (1 or 2 he knows). Also Welches grape juice helps to produce platelets. Hand him a liter of water when you see him and some grape juice when he gets home. Activity wise: if he doesn't have to go out… don't. Sitting and visiting is fine. Standing and walking around a lot is not advisable. He should be able to give his talk. 

He will know how he feels … don't push it too fast.

Enjoy your son. Resting and visiting. Look at it this way …You will have his undivided attention!

Email anytime,

Hna S

August 4, 2014

Mom and Dad,

Well, our baptism fell through, our investigator started back up full time at her job, so she wouldn´t have been able to be baptized the time we had planned saturday, and then she didn´t want to set another time to be baptized and started talking about how she doesn´t feel like shes ready to be baptized yet.. so that was a little frustrating, but hopefully sometime soon she´ll be baptized.

This week has been interesting.. I don´t know why God planned for me to end my mission like this, but I got Dengue Fever again, so since tuesday i´ve been in the house sick, all week I´ve been just chilling here, feeling like crap, and this time I´ve felt worse than the last time that I had dengue.. I´ve had a few blood tests and on saturday they said that I´m still getting worse, but hopefully the test that I´m going to do later today shows that I´m getting better again... I haven´t been allowed to go to the area to visit anybody to say goodbye to any converts and I couldn´t go to church yesterday either, which is sad that I won´t see any of these people before i leave.

So, hopefully I´m feeling better when I get home, I may be resting for a few days when i get back to fully get over the sickness.

Well, see you all soon.

I love you.

Love,

Elder Ward

July 28, 2014

Well, this is probably the last group email, next week I´ll probably be lazy and not write anyone...

This week has been a hardworking, busy week, just the way I like it. ;) Last monday, we had a baptism, and he was very excited, but didn´t want a lot of people to come to see his baptism, which was good, because it was at a somewhat inconvenient time for everyone, so there weren´t lots of people. Then, we talked to another investigator about baptism on Tuesday, and she decided that she needed to be baptized, and felt like she should saturday. So we prepared everything and planned her baptism the same time as a baptism of the elders who share the ward with us. The other girl who got baptized by the other elders is the granddaughter of a recent convert of mine from this area, so it was neat to see her whole family there and more and more of this family coming into the church. I´ve been to 4 baptisms in this ward of people from this family, so it´s always been cool to see the progression through this rock solid family who always comes to church and all the ward activities. Saturday was a good day, and both baptisms went smoothly. Then sunday after church, we were talking to an investigator that we´ve been teaching for a long time and has been to church plenty, but had always asked for more time whenever we mentioned baptism. We set a lesson with her for last night, and we went with a member to visit her. We talked and she said that she knew what we were teaching is right and that she knows that she needs to be baptized, but was hesitating about being baptized because of what her friends and family would say against the church. We all testified to her about the importance of doing what God asks us to do, and not listening to the other people who criticize the church. It was a really good lesson and at the end, she said that we were right and agreed to be baptized and said that it was important that I would be there for her baptism, so we planned the baptism for this saturday at 4:00pm. It was neat to see how the spirit touched her and she was able to see and commit to doing something that I know will be hard for her, because many people don´t understand why she is leaving her old church and joining the mormons, but I admire her faith and her desire to keep going doing what she knows is true. My last baptism I will see will be one of the last miracles I get to see as a missionary, the joy of a person changing their life to live the gospel and obey the commandments of God.

I know that this work is true, and I know that if we let it, the gospel of Jesus Christ will change our lives and our attitudes about everything. I will never be the same from this point of my life on, and I am grateful for every experience that I´ve been blessed to have on my mission..

Including some weird experiences like having a staring contest with a goat that just randomly roams through our area and fights with dogs sometimes... ;)

Love,

Elder Ward

July 21, 2014

Mom,

I got a package today from you all, thanks!

I´m glad it wasn´t big though, because I´m going to have to start thinking about how much room I´ll have in my suitcases..

The temple was good.

In this weeks anouncements: we have a baptism today and probably a baptism on Saturday.. We are busy as ever and have plenty of people to teach. Other than that, things are about the same.. There´s not a ton to say..

Sorry I´m so boring...

Love,

Elder Ward

July 14, 2014

Mom,

Thanks for bday wishes, it`s been a good day.. No, I didn`t see a package when I went to the office today, but it might get here late.

Yes, we talked more with the Mission president this week, because we had interviews with our zone. It was good to talk with him and I learned from the interview a lot. I also talked for quite a while with his wife, which was good, she`s cool, but it`s hard for her since she doesn`t speak spanish much yet.

During the interviews the office elder in charge of my flight plans told me that the date changed to a day earlier than expected, so that is exciting..

Well, this week, other than the interviews, we went to the temple with our investigators to talk about the temples, which was good. Tomorrow our zone is going to go through the temple, which will be good. We were going to have a baptism last weekend, but in the end we didn`t get permission for him to get baptized and couldn`t really talk to his aunt very well, but hes 17 so when hes 18 he can get baptized I guess. We should have a few more baptisms this month hopefully..

Other than that, I don`t have a ton of news.. Life`s the same. We`re working hard and staying busy..

Love,

Elder Ward

July 7, 2014

Mom,

This week we had the meeting with the new mission president, which was surprizingly pretty short, but he´s a good guy and he´ll help the mission a lot. His wife doesn´t speak much spanish though, which will be harder for her.. We have interviews with him later this week, so we´ll get to know him a little bit better then.

We didn´t do too much new or exciting this week. This morning we went to Picacho, which is a tourist place that´s in my first area, it was weird passing through my first area again after over a year of not seeing it. We played handball, which is like ultimate frisbee with a ball, and it was pretty fun.

Sorry I don´t have anything more exciting to put.

Love,

Elder Ward

Arissa,

We had 6 investigators in church.

The leader meeting was good, we met the new President, and he´s cool.

This week wasn´t all that exciting. Just more visits and appointments, just like always.

Today we went to picacho, a tourist attraction in my first area. It was weird to pass by my first area again in the bus, but it was good to be with the zone. We played handball, which is like ultimate frisbee, but with a ball that you throw through a soccer goal to score. It was fun. I also climbed some trees and some building things.

Other pdays, we normally play a sport or do something small as a zone for a few hours.

4th of July was a normal day, nothing too exciting...

Love,

Elder Ward

June 30, 2014

Mom,

That´s great that Elder Lewis has been getting better. A lot of people from the ward here keep asking about him and asking how he´s doing..

Yes, a lot of missionaries get mugged here, but most of the time there aren´t any serious problems. I´ll probably make it through the rest of my mission without getting robbed ;( no fun stories for me.. 

Yeah, I guess the runway in Honduras is pretty bad. Even Pres. Uchtdorf commented on it during his temple dedication talk last year. He was like ¨I´m glad that I wasn´t the one who had to make that landing¨. It does go right over a bunch of houses, but I didn´t notice it too much when we landed..

We had 7 investigators this week in church, but not all of my converts from here came, so we´ll have to go visit and see why some didn´t come.

We had changes in the zone, and we have some cool Elders that just came in, so it should be good. My companion and I stay the same though, obviously.

We´re in the middle of Tegus, we have running water, and a water heater on the shower, but there´s not always water here. There´s a member that´s really awesome that washes our clothes for us

BTW, one of our investigators says hi, we were showing them pics of our families and everyone always comments that you look very young, like you could be one of my sisters, I always have to explain who´s who and show that my good looking 18 year old self was me, but sometimes people don´t believe me, haha. We have members feed us a lot too, if not, lots of time we go out to eat to wendys or mcdonalds or the grocery store that sells like chinese rice or something.

Well, other than that info, I don´t have much more news about this week. Things are going good.

Love,

Elder Ward

May 23, 2014

Mom,

They asked me about setting up my flight plans today.

The weather right now is hot and sometimes rainy. We haven´t done a lot of service recently, idk.

We had 5 investigators in church yesterday, and all 9 of my converts from here, and a less active family that we started visiting and we´ve had a lot of success bringing them all to church. We should keep progressing with all the investigators that we have right now, we´ve got some cool people that we´re visiting. We have changes this week, and a lot of people from our zone should be changing, but I imagine that my companion and I will stay together.

Things are going well, we are working hard and teaching lots of good people.

THat´s about all the news that I can think of right now.

Love,

Elder Ward

June 16, 2014

Mom,

Our baptism went well, we just didn´t have members show up to support him, so that was too bad.. But it went well.

here´s a little of what happened this week that I was writing to dad:

This week we had a baptism of an 18 year old, and we´re working with his family too, but we have to get them married first. They would have to travel in taxi, bus, canoe, and walking to get back to their little village that´s like 10 hours away to get some papers from the village so that they can get married. If they do get married, it will be complicated to get all the paperwork all together and everything and get a lawyer to help us and to get the actual ceremony prepared.

We´ve been in a threesome this week, but the other elder should be leaving tomorrow, which is probably good because our house is very small for 3 people..

The zone conference was good, I thought that I would give my final testimony, but i think that they might have another zone conference next month when the next mission president comes. 

Things are pretty normal here. Not much more to talk about..

Love,

Elder Ward

June 9, 2014

Mom,

Umm, this week was pretty normal. We had a leadership meeting and after the meeting we went to the temple to do a session, but we missed the session that we wanted to go to, so we waited a couple of hours for the next one and by the time we got out it was dark, so we got to see the temple all lit up, which was something that I had wanted to see here. It was good.

We are working with some positive people right now, we have a baptism lined up for this weekend and a family to get baptized at the end of the month.

I don`t have a lot of other news right now...

I hope everyone is doing well there.
Love,
Elder Ward

heres some temple pics and my companion and I in our Honduras team soccer jerseys.

June 2, 2014

Mom,

We haven´t had much cool stuff happen this week... We had a meeting with the ward councel (counsil?), which was good, we got to talk about our recent converts and our investigators so that we can go out and work with our ward leaders..

That´s about it for this week, not much of an update... I´d send pictures, but all of the computers here don´t read my memory card...

Love,

Elder Ward

Dad,

We´ve found some people I guess, we´re mostly just working with the people that we have. I was over in a couple of other areas this week too on divisions. We went to the temple on saturday with our investigators and my companion and I brought like 5 investigators and 3 recent converts, so it was a good activity. Things are going good right now.

Well, I have to go,

Love,

Elder Ward

May 26, 2014

Mom,

yes, the missionaries that got in an accident were serving in Yuscaran. I didn´t know the Elder who passed away well, but the other Elder was in my ward 2 weeks ago (there are 2 sets of missionaries in the ward I´m in) and had just gotten transfered to Yuscarán recently. He did return home to recieve further medical treatment. It´s sad, and everyone has been talking about it for the last little while. I´m surprized that the news got all the way up to you guys.

We had another baptism this week, which we weren´t expecting at all. She came to church for the first time in awhile with her sister and mom (who are recent converts from last month), but she didn´t say anything to us. We went to her house Wednesday in the morning to teach her a little, because we hadn´t taught her for a long time, but she had already heard all the missionary lessons. She said that the only reason that she hadn´t been baptized was that she used to work on Sundays, but that she had just barely been able to change her schedule to not work on Sundays. We told her that that meant that she could get baptized as soon as she wanted, and then she said that she wanted to get baptized this saturday, so we got everything ready and she got baptized. It was a small miracle that we saw.

We also went yesterday to visit our recent converts with the Bishop. He´s given us a lot of support and it was good to see that he will help these people that we´ve baptized so that they stay active, because that´s often a problem here in Honduras is that missionaries baptize a lot, but the converts don´t stay active because there´s no support. Our Bishop is really helpful to us.

We´ve stayed busy, just like always here, and we´ve got plenty more to do, but we´re going to focus on finding new investigators because it´s hard with a lot of the people that we´re teaching right now for them to progress and get baptized.

Well, things are still going well here.

Love you all!

Love,

Elder Ward

May 19, 2014

Mom,

My week was pretty good. We did have changes, and my new companion is from Farmington and he has like 15 months in the mission. He is a really hard worker, so I won´t be slowing down too much before the end of my mission. It´s strange to think that he most likely will be my last companion of my mission. But it will be a great way to finish, working hard until the end. We´ve been looking for families more than anything right now, and we´ve found a couple of good ones, that are really humble, the hardest part about it will be getting all the wedding papers and sorting all of that stuff out. Honduras has way too many laws and rules about getting people married.

We had a baptism this weekend, for the daughter of a lady that we baptized last month. She is 9 years old.

Things are going well right now, and we have plenty of work to do here.

Here´s pics of the baptism and my new companion and I.

Love,

Elder Ward

Oh, another little piece of exciting news for me...

I was talking to an Elder who got sent to Yuscarán this last week, and I called him last night and asked about how people from the branch were doing and he told me that one of the ladies that I baptized there is now the Relief Society President for the branch there in Yuscarán. That was kind of cool to hear for me, so I thought I´d share before I forgot to say anything about it.

Arissa,

Yes, I have a new companion from Farmington Utah. He is a hard worker.

That is cool that you had a spiritual experience while praying and that you found the solution.

This week we planned to look for new families to teach, so we decided to talk to every couple that we saw walking around or any dads with their babies or kids, which there really aren´t a ton walking around on the streets here... But we talked to one couple as they were leaving their house, and we planned to go with them to teach another day, so that day we went and we talked to the wife for a little bit, but the husband wasn´t there, so we planned another appointment to go back the next day, and we went and we found both of them and we taught the first lesson, and the wife had already read the whole pamphlet that we left her and was helping us explain the lesson to her husband, because she understood it and believed it pretty well just after reading it. We taught them and afterwards they asked us to come back and explain more and they apologized for having us sit on the floor and told us that if we kept coming frequently enough, that they would have to buy chairs for us to sit in to be able to talk to them. (they are a very poor family that just moved from far away to study in the city, so they only had their bed in their 1 roomed house). They were just very humble and very accepting. The only hard part will be to get them married because they would have to go back to the village where they´re from, which would be a ton of money to just travel to get the papers... But we´re glad that they listened to us and were open to our message.

I´m always staying busy. Life is good, except for the cold that I have right now... but that´s okay.

Well, I don´t have a ton of time today, I hope that everything is going great and that you enjoy the end of school and the beginning of summer. YAY!

Love,

Elder Ward

May 5, 2014

Mom,

This week´s been good, but nothing much to tell about. We didn´t have baptisms this weekend, but next weekend we should have another 2. We´re trying to work with some families to get baptized, but the wedding papers are always a difficulty. We did a fast with a man that wants to get married and baptized, but his wife doesnt want to get married, which is pretty opposite of how it normally is here. Hopefully she changes her mind. We had our leadership meeting this week, and our zone got 1st place in the mission for baptisms, even though we have one of the smallest zones in the mission, so that was kind of cool.
Love,
Elder Ward

April 28, 2014

Mom,

First of all, I`m completely better now. This last week I`ve been fine since like Tuesday Ive been working again. I feel perfectly good now and I´m back to working and excercizing and everything. It was kind of crappy not to work out for like 2 weeks because I didn`t want to overstrain my body, but I`m glad that it was only like 5 days that we had to stay in the house and not work. Dengue could have been a lot worse, but we found out what I had early enough that they could treat it in time for it not to get serious and for it to go away quickly.

Yes, the baptisms for last week´s email were a mom and daughter. We also had 2 baptisms this weekend for another mom and daughter, and that went well. here´s a little bit of the update I sent to dad:
This week we went to the temple with our investigators (now recent converts since they got baptized saturday), and it was a good experience. We had another 2 baptisms this saturday for a mom and 10 year old daughter, and after the baptism the mom gave a good testimony about the gospel and thanking my companion and I for helping teach them. I baptized the daughter and I also did the confirmation of the mom in sacrament meeting the next day at church. It was cool. This is a family that´s been teaching me a lot of the new tribal language that I`ve been trying to learn. It´s fun talking with them and trying to learn some of the words. It´s a cool family, and maybe later next month we`ll have more baptisms from the extended family.

So, that´s been going good. That`s about all the news for this week. Everythings been going good, but nothing too exciting.

Love,
Elder Ward

April 23, 2014

Hurray!!   He is out of the woods!   His WBC 6.8 (norm 5.0-10.0), platelets 205 (norm 150-450).   I will advise him to start working again but, at a slow pace.

I am so thankful for a loving Heavenly Father who watches out for our missionaries!!

Hna S

April 22, 2014

Sister Ward,

Your son is amazing!   I told him if he did what I told him to do … he would get over Dengue in 7 days and not 10 to 14 days.  He has been so good about listening and doing.  I am so impressed with him!   He is over the worst and will probably start back to missionary work by Wed. or Thurs.   The cure for  Dengue Fever …  is rest, lots of water and Tylenol.  They do completely recover.  It is not like "West Niles Disease".  Last season we had 22 missionaries get Dengue (out of 230 missionaries).  It is carried by mosquitos.  We encourage the missionaries to spray with "off" (deet) every day.  Your son has a light case.  The disease effects the platelets in the blood.  The platelets drop…. if they drop too far … it causes bleeding.   the normal platelet count it (150-450).  If they drop below 60 then they put the missionary in the hospital.  Elder Ward's platelets went to 100 and they are now going up.  Today they were up to 140!  He is feeling a lot better!  We will do another blood draw on Wed. to see if he is back to normal.   I will email you and let you know.  Feel free to remind me of my promise … with 250 missionaries it can get crazy.   

I know that Heavenly Father truly watches over His missionaries.  Your prayers will and are helping.  I see miracles everyday.  He is going to be just fine!

Sincerely,

Hna S
(she is the mission nurse)

April 21, 2014

Mom,

I have been sick this whole last week with Dengue fever. I´m not sure how that translates in English, but basically, since last monday I had been having a head ache. I´ve continued with more frequent headaches and then tuesday I had a bad fever. I rested in the mornings, but worked all I could in the afternoons for the first bit of the week, but then on Thursday, I was feeling pretty bad while we were working, so we came back and I called the mission nurse, and she told me to go to the hospital the next day to have an examination for dengue. So, the next day, friday, I went to the hospital, and everyone was on vacations for Semana Santa this week, so I had to go to emergency room and ask for the exam, and they did a urine and a blood exam and like an hour later, they came in and confirmed that I had dengue. So, once we found that out, I was told to stay in my house resting for the next 3 days straight and to take lots of liquids and gatorade and stuff, and we got some helpful medicine. So, the last few days, I´ve been trying to rest and chill so that I can get better, although saturday we had to go back to the hospital for a followup blood test, and we also had our baptism in the afternoon, so we had to go to that, and everything went well there, we had 2 baptisms this weekend, and they are super positive. Other than that, we´ve been hanging out at the house for most of the week. My companion has left me with a priesthood holder and left with another to go work a few times too, so that we keep getting our work done in our area, but it hasn´t been too fun to just stay home a lot right now. I don´t feel too sick or hurting or anything right now though, it´s only if I go out and work that I start feeling sick, and I also have to be careful because my body isn´t very strong to fight off infections and stuff right now. But hopefully I get better this week. But don´t worry, I´m doing fine.

Yes, today, actually, I got your easter package. Thank you, my companion and I will enjoy eating easter candy and making water balloons from the package of balloons to have a water fight on pday.

There´s not much to report other than that. Here´s pics of my new companion and I, and our baptisms this last saturday.

Love,

Elder Ward

April 14, 2014

Dad,

to respond to the questions really quick, things are great in the new area, there is more work to do here than in any of my other areas, and we are always busy with appointments, so we hardly ever contact. We had 2 baptisms this last saturday (I don´t have a memory to USB converter right now, or I would send pics) and we had 9 investigators from our side of the ward come to church this week, plus all their young kids. This should be the most fruitful area in my mission. No, I don´t think that I´ll leave before the end of my mission, which is fine with me. I think that my companion will be leaving next change, and then I´ll get a new companion for the last 2 changes. It´s weird being in my last area and thinking that the end is kind of close, but I´m happy that we will stay busy working hard here. There are 2 types of people here, super rich people that live in gated communities (we also live in a gated community) and the poorer class, which is a lot of people who´ve moved from the deep deep jungle parts of honduras called the Mesquitia, and they have their own tribal language that my companion and I are trying to learn. It would be hard, but we just need to find a dictionary or a bible in mesquita so that I can learn new vocab words. We´ll see if I can learn it at all.

That´s it for now. If you could share this email with mom, I don´t have a ton of time to write to everyone today..

Love,

Elder ward

April 7. 2014

This week, we had changes, and I left Porvenir, Choluteca, and came to Guaymuras, Tegucigalpa, so I´m back in the city again. I´m happy to be in the city again, it was getting way too hot in Choluteca anyways. It is a good area here. The ward seems to be really good, and we´ve already had a lot of help from the members in teaching some great lessons. Even though a lot of people are really rich here, a lot of them are still willing to listen to the gospel when they have time. I´m still here as ZL, and my new zone is a lot smaller than my other zone, we have 12 missionaries, all Elders. We are all really close to each other, so it´s easier in some things. We have a good hardworking Ward Mission Leader too, so we do weekly coorelation meetings and everything, which is something I haven´t really done since I was in the city last like a year ago. This area seems really nice, we always get food from members, including sometimes double lunches or dinners. We also get rides from members too sometimes, which is weird to have rich members who help us too. I think that this area will be nice and we should have a lot of success here. I want to focus on baptizing a family before the end of my mission, because I´ve never had a whole family baptized.

My new companion has been with me since the beginning. He was in my MTC district, but we hadn´t really seen each other for a while on the mission, but now we´re companions, which is awesome because we´re good friends and he is a very hard worker and stays motivated. It´s weird to think that this will proabably be my last area and my second to last companion on my mission, but there´s still plenty of work to do here, so I´m happy that I´ll be able to stay occupied.

Thank you all for all of your support and testimonies. All of you have been great examples to me and have supported me to be here helping others.

Love,

Elder Ward