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

Jan. 28, 2013

Mom,

Umm, to start answering some questions:

It isn´t cold anymore, but I never found a blanket, I didn´t go out to any stores looking for one though...

I can understand my mission president fine now. Spanish isn´t super hard for me to understand. Especially if we talk about gospel things. My mission president actually complimented me on my spanish, and told me that I talk Spanish really well for how much time I have.

He did not give me advice if I get mugged, but I´m really not too worried about that. I don´t carry anything valuable except for my scriptures, and have a little spare change to give to theives if I had to. I´m not worried about getting mugged in the area that I´m in right now, and I´m not even ever worried about it. 

I think that we probably have a ward budget here, but it would probably be lower here, and possibly based on how much people pay their tithing here. I don´t know for sure how that all works out.

I don´t know why this lady has gravel in her house. It´s just going to be stored there for a little while while they do some construction above her house.

And no, my back didn´t hurt afterwards, but I did get all dirty and sweaty.

Teaching the gospel is good. It is hard to tell if people let us in just because they feel obligated to, because they think that they´ll be cursed if they deny the preaching of the gospel in their homes, or if they actually want to learn and change their lives.

This week has been good. Nothing else super exciting.

I hope that everything has gone well there!

Love,

Elder Ward

Jan. 21, 2013

Dear Mom,

My life is too boring to write long letters, there´s nothing much to say...

Yes, your spanish was right (well, minus an accent, but it´s a lot harder if you don´t have a spanish keyboard). I wrote my last weeks email to mishelae all in spanish, and she must not have liked that, because she didn´t respond yet. :)

BTW, Happy birthday, since I forgot to wish you a happy birthday last week...

Umm, nothing too exciting has happened recently. Just normal missionary work stuffs.

This week its been really cold, colder than I´ve ever been in Honduras. We worked in our suits on Friday, and in long sleeves Saturday and yesterday. I have also had a little cold too, so that might add to it being even more cold to me. I need to buy a blanket soon, because all I have is a sheet to cover me when I sleep, which normally works, but this week, not so well, but I have been sleeping with both of my hoodies, sweatpants, and long socks.

This week has been good though. We had interviews with the mission president, and that went well, we did an activity at the church on saturday to have the members bring their non member friends to watch a video and have a lesson, but nobody brought anybody, and none of our investigators came either. But still a lot of members came, and so we switched the lesson plan up and decided to teach the members about missionary work and their responsibility to find people to share the gospel with and watched some videos and had a little lesson on that, so it turned out good. Also, after that activity, they brought pizza, which is weird for Honduras, normally they don´t have refreshments or anything that big to serve for ward activities.

Also, Saturday morning, Elder Evans and I went to do a service project for an elderly lady in our ward to help her move some things. About a week ago, we helped her move like 3 couches out of her house, and into a new house that her daughter who was living with her built right above here, and it was really tricky to get the couches out because we had to go up this beat up, moldy staircase, and we couldn´t fit the couch through the gate, so we had to pull the couch over their pila (the washing tub and washing board) and get the couches in the other house. But anyways, this saturday, she wanted us to take these big bags of gravel, that each weighed between 200 and 300 lbs down the stairs to put into her house. We couldn´t carry them down the stairs, so we lifted each bag up one by one, it took both of us to lift each bag, and then we would take it to the top of the stairs, and then we took a long board of wood to make a ramp to slide down each bag, so it ended up being easier than we thought that it would be.

Other than that, nothing much else...

We´ve dropped some investigators this week, a couple of families that weren´t progresing, so that was a little bit disappointing, but we´ve had a lot more people to teach too. We are working with a few people who look positive, and hopefully we will be having some baptisms soon.

That´s all that I can think of right now.

Love,

Elder Ward

Jan. 14, 2013

Mom,

We continue to live off rice and cup of noodles.

That´s good that everyone seems to be doing well.

That´s crazy that James got assigned to a companion that is from AF too. I met an Elder here on this mission that´s from PG the other day. I knew him a little bit, he was in my weight lifting class in high school. Also, I know a girl that my ZL is writing because she is from PGHS, so it´s kind of funny that I know her too, and have known her longer than he has.

I don´t have much time, so I guess that thats all for now.

Love you!

Elder Ward

Jan. 7, 2013

Mom,

This week has been good, we´ve been busy this week working with some new investigators. We have 3 families that we have challenged to be baptized and have accepted, but we will still have to work with them for awhile before they are ready, but things have been going good. We have people to teach now, and before we didn´t have a lot of people.

It was good to see Ben´s pictures, his apartment is big! But I guess that he also has 4 Elders living there too. I´m jealous that he has a microwave...

I don´t really know why they burn wooden people. I actually didn´t see any of it, because we went to bed too early. We did see plenty of fireworks though. We were with a member family eating dinner New Years Eve when they lit off a huge firework bomb that I guarantee would be illegal anywhere in the states. It was loud and the explosion was big. Fireworks are big here. There have also been a lot of drunk guys for the holiday season. We´ve talked to a few of them this week.

I hope that you´re all doing well!

Love,

Elder Ward

Dec. 31, 2012

Mom,

It was good to talk to you all this Christmas for a little while!

My week has been good, a little bit different because of the holidays and a lot of people are out of town or have guests at their houses, but it has been good.

People have made us some food for the holidays, and tonight we are going to 2 different houses to eat food with these member families. The holiday favorite foods seem to be tamales, which they don´t normally make or eat at any other time during the year, and a french toast type of thing covered in milk which is pretty good.

Other than that, they don´t really celebrate much. They all build their own little wooden guy, and then tonight I think that they all will burn these wooden people that they build, kind of a weird tradition, but I guess it will be cool, we´ll see. Also there have been a ton of fireworks going off everywhere. There aren´t any firework rules in Honduras, so every day people are lighting off fireworks at night, mostly just firecrackers, but they all go crazy with them during the holidays. So tonight will probably be pretty crazy with all the fireworks, burning stick people and drunk people.

That´s all I can think of to say right now, but things are going good.

Love,

Elder Ward

Dec. 25, 2012

Here are some things we learned when we talked to Matt on Skype on Christmas Day! 

 

He said to get around they walk, ride buses or taxis.  It would probably be possible to walk the circumference of his area in a day.  None of the elders have bikes.  Matt thinks they would just be stolen anyway.

He has had two haircuts since he has been to Honduras, and he got his hair cut by a member.  

The stake center there (where they had their Christmas party) is the biggest in Central America and bigger than the ones in UT--it has 3 floors.  His ward there has about 75-100 people who come each week.  

His address isn't an address--it is directions.  That is is why it is so long.  It says something like: go this way, turn left at....

His mission president does not speak English.  His kids are all grown and gone from home.

In one of his pictures, there is a sister missionary with a cast on her foot.  When we asked him about it, Matt said, the zone was crossing the street as a group, and she was hit by a car, which ran over her foot!

They drink bottled water, which they haul in 5 gallon bottles up the hill to their apartment 2-3 times a week.

The weather there is like UT in August.

He said he knows a couple of missionaries who have been mugged.

To take his daily shower, he boils a gallon of water, which he adds to 4 gallons of cold water in a bucket, which he pours over himself.

Most things are available there, but quite expensive.

People sit outside the supermarket trying to sell things like toothpaste.

20 limpiras equals about $1.  A pizza costs 100 limpiras, which is about $5, but the pizza is a lot smaller than it is here.

The zone gets together on p-days.  They often play soccer.  On Thursdays they have district meetings and usually go out to eat at a place where they can make their own burritos.

40-50% of the mission are American Elders/Sisters.  His zone leader is from Mexico.  He doesn't get much of a reaction about being American since he is in the city, but he thought he might if he were in the more rural areas.

There are 11 zones in his mission.  Transfers are every 6 weeks.

A lady in their area washes their clothes for free.  They have brought her candy bars to say thank you. After she washes their clothes, they bring their damp clothes home and hang them up to dry.  They clean their own apartment.  I asked Matt to send me a picture of the bathroom, but he said he wouldn't, so I am assuming it is pretty bad.

Once when they went to a member's house, the lady was straightening the daughter's hair with a clothes iron.

He gets 1-2 hours/p-day to spend on the computer.

There is no bedding provided, but he has his own sheets and that is usually plenty.  If he ever gets cold he just puts on his hoodie and warm socks.  

I asked if they had problems with flying bugs, like mosquitos, and he said no.  They have a few flies, but that's about it.

He hasn't seen any snakes, but his companion did.

It gets dark about 5:30-6 p.m. and light about 6 a.m.

He understands quite a bit of Spanish, but still struggles to speak it.

He said he is happy and enjoying his mission.  

 

He looked and sounded really good.  It was great to talk with him!