Week 19 - (The last full week of my mission)

Written post-mission: This was the start of one of the hardest weeks of my life, it seems like. Hna. Ponce left to Mexico and I got a new companion, Hna R. (who is amazing). She was in the same group as Hna. P! I continued to feel sick all the time. My body just didn't have enough energy and couldn't keep up. It was super hard. This Monday that I didn't update. I had spent a full week avoiding the infermera and speaking about my health. I had a feeling I just wasn't going to be able to keep up with the work while also being sick. I'd fallen asleep in meetings with members, I felt exhausted even after sleeping in and going to bed early, and walking around all day left me without energy during lessons. What morning the infermera called us. She asked how I was doing and I told her the truth. She said I should speak to President B. Before my meeting with the mission president, we had an appt at the hospital for my companion, she was sick and needed tests. Afterward we made our way to the mission office for my meeting with the mission president. During that meeting it was decided that for the benefit of my health and the progress of the work in Miraflores, it was best for me to return home. It was very hard. Not knowing when I would be leaving, we spent the rest of the pday shopping for souvenirs and it was all very solemn and surreal. Even though I'd gone through going home before, it was so different and so very hard. I knew I wouldn't be coming back and that I'd be home within a few days. 

One last picture together 

Saturday lunch with my fav Hna!

New Companion Hna. R. Trying to look happy after finding out I'd be returning home later that week.

week 18

hello family

love you tons.
this week was kind of rough. i have been having a hard time here in
the mission healthwise. i am trying my hardest to rest enough and to
do all i can to get better. i just dont seem to ever have enough
energy haha.

because i have been struggling to get better the work in our area has
slowed down a lot. we still have investigators but we aren´t visiting
as many per day as we used to. the great thing, though, is that we
have two investigators who (hopefully) will be baptized this saturday!
we are working our hardest this week so that they will be ready by
saturday =)

today we have been preparing for my companion to leave for mexico.
they finally got everything worked out about her visa and she leaves
tomorrow morning. right now we are a companionship of three because i
will be with Hermana A until changes on wednesday. I am almost 100
percent sure that i will stay in miraflores. =)

love you guys a million.

the computer i am using isn´t accepting my camera memory so pictures
will have to wait until next week =( haha

<3

At night in Miraflores

Eating lunch at the house of the best family ever 

Took some youth out to teach with us

The best zone!

look who I ran into!

Sandy <3

After finishing our last day of Hna. P's training (I insisted we take a commemorative photo)

week 7 otra vez (CAMBIOS)

Hello!

This has been a very busy week. A lot has happened. We had changes on wednesday and Hna C. finished her mission and went home, and I got a new companion. I am now training. My companion is new to the mission and just got here from the Guatemala CCM. 

Training is so much more challenging that I every thought. It always looks so easy when other people are training. I have, now, so much respect for my old trainer Hna. S. Not only did she teach me how to be a missionary and how Honduras funcions, but she also taught me spanish in 12 weeks. My companion is from Honduras and I will be training her until she leaves from Mexico. She's staring her mission here until her Visa gets all sorted. She is very motivated and excited to work. I am trying to train her as best I can so that she can develop good skills right now. 

I am so grateful that I have recieved the opportunity to be a trainer because it means that the mission president, and the lord, trust me to be a leader and to be a good example. I know it will be a challege for me, but i also know that the lord will provide a way. (1 nephi 3:7)

I have officially completed 9 months in the mission field which means i have nine more. I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to serve the lord and to help spread the gospel. i am also greateful to have been able to return to finish serving and to have been able to return to the same mission where i started.

on saturday we had a missionary conference (all the honduras, tegucigalpa missionaries and all the honduras, comayaguala missionaries, and broadcasted for internet to all the central american missions) with elder russell m nelson of the quorum of the 12 apostles. i am so grateful to have had this opportunity. i learned so much about the expectations the lord has for me as a missionary and as a daughter of god. we learned so much about how important it is to testify of the plan of salvation and to take our investigators to see the temple in person. i really do think that his words will change the way we teach here in honduras. 

i love you all and hope that you have a great week. 

please email me and send me letters in the mail. if you dont know the address, ask my mom she should know.

love,

sam

the last picture with hna c. before changes

my former companion, also hna c. went home as well. she served her whole mission without being send to the south. que buena suerte.

my new companion! hna. p.

in our area of miraflores. i was thinking the other day about how i wanted to serve in a big city before i got my calling (thinking of tokyo, paris, new york) and here i am in a giant city. not quite what i had expected but its still the greatest.
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Week 31 (August 4th-10th): Changes!

Week 25 in Honduras

Hola, this past week was another good week in Honduras. 

We had changes on wednesday and... I am in a new area with a new companion!

companion: Hna Castellanos (from Guatemala)

area: Guaymuras (a neighborhood in Tegucigalpa)

So the day before changes was a big day. We went and met with all our investigators (as many as we could, anyway. Taught a few lessons, and packed up all our stuff. Both my companion and I had changes (they're putting Elders in Yusguare). After all that we went to a baptism for the other hermanas and then we came back to get our stuff and move it to their house, where we spent the night because it would be easier to get to the bus for changes in the morning. Leaving all our investigators and all the members was a bit sad because I've been in Yusguare for a long time, ever since I arrived in Honduras. But I know that the new Elders who are there will do great. At changes I got to see Hna. Saldate and Hermana Bleak! it was great. 

My new companion came to Honduras at the same time as me but I have four more weeks than her in the mission because I was in the CCM for six weeks and she was there for only two. But we are pretty much equal and it's been really fun because we are both learning together.

This new area is very different from my first area. the people are different and the lifestyle is different too. but the work is the same. The missionaries before us in this area were Elders, so my companion and I are both new to this area and are opening it to Hermanas. It has been a week of getting lost and talking to everyone. one person we talked to on our first day, Roger, lives right in front of the church and we started teaching him and invited him to be baptized and he said YES, but only if he feels comfortable and ready by the date we challenged him for. He said that he wants to make sure he has quit smoking for good before he gives us a definite yes. We can really see his desire to learn and understand the Gospel. He wants to know for himself and that is the best.

Tegucigalpa is very fast paced and everyone is always busy and is almost never home, which is the opposite of Yusguare. but it is nice because everyone so far has been willing to make an appointment for another day. Our area is full of college students because there is a University really close. So it is hard to coordinate times to meet with a lot of people because they are at school, at work, or studying with their time. But we have been handing out a lot of folletos to people and inviting them to church. haha. it's better than nothing, I guess. But this new area is super fun. I am really enjoying it.

Everyone says Tegucigalpa is hot, but coming from the south, it has been really nice. and its actually cold at night!

it has been a good first week here in the city and my companion and i have been getting along really well. We have a lot of similarities and we are always talking about video games haha. 

love you!

(prep yourself for a lot of pictures)

clockwise: with Ana and Waleska on my last day in Yusguare, all packed, on our way to Teguc

My first and second companions (they are now companions with each other)

HERMANA BLEAK!

My new companion and me

in our new area of Guyamuras

we found mcdonalds

happy to be writing home (DO YOU SEE THE HARRY POTTER POSTER?!)

clockwise: first morning in Guyamuras, a present my companion made me on my 7th month anniversary, our study room, writing home, a cool poster, and us with ronald mcdonald

Week 25 (June 23-29, 2014)- Cambios!

Week 19 in Honduras

so i recounted all the weeks this morning and this is my 19th week here in honduras which means its my 25th week in the mission. i think. haha. but yeah i will have 6 months on the 8th of july. eeeeep. what. yeah it feels like a long time. time has gone slow, im not gonna lie.

but yeah this past week was good. we had transfers and so hna saldate and i took te long trip to teguc to changes. and i got a new comp. her name is Hna. Osorio and she is from el Salvador and does not speak very much english. fun times are had by all in our companionship. by that i mean that there are a lot of language and cultural barriers. but its okay. its been good. but i feel like i've learned so much in just these few days with her already. 

work in our area has been hard. we don't have many investigators even  though we are walking around talking to people all day long. its okay though. it will happen soon enough.

i taught the lesson in sunday school on sunday and it was crazy. kind of a disaster in my mind but other people said  i did great and that my spanish was good. there were a trillion people in class because it was ward conference so more people that usual came. i think i did okay. the lesson was on sacrifice. 

hope everyone is doing well. love you!

love, sam

Info de cambios:
Area: Yusguare (still)
Companion: Hna. Osorio =]

Hna. S's last day in Yusguare

Crush chillin like a villain 

bus ride to cambios

I saw Hna. Young at cambios

Week 19 (May 19, 2014)

Week 13 in Honduras

This week was very busy. We got one new investigator each day, along with our other investigators we have been trying to teach everyone frequently. It has been nice though because it means we are always busy and always doing something, instead of wandering around trying to find someone to listen.

Neither my companion nor I got transferred! We are still companions and still in our same area! We were both happy about it.

Oh, in our town, yusguare...they started paving a road! In the center of town. It’s so exciting and it’s going pretty fast too. It’s funny because there is dog foot prints all over it already haha. They keep fixing it but before it dries another dog walks on the wet part haha.

Frequent questions I get about my time in Honduras:

What kind of food do you eat? Honduranian food. The most common foods eaten here are: beans, rice, and corn tortillas. That is what we usually get from members, also baleadas but not as frequently. I prefer balaedas because they are made with a flour tortilla...yum. Everyone here asks what the common food in America is and I have a really hard time telling them that we don’t eat just the same foods over and over. Then I usually give up and say we all eat spaghetti every day. Haha.

How is your Spanish? It’s good. I learn a little bit more each day. I can understand almost everything people say to me, but talking back is a lot harder. Tenses are easier, Past tense is a struggle. Overall it is good. Sometimes I get really frustrated but then I remember that five months ago I didn’t know a single word of Spanish. I don’t think I could even count to ten in Spanish back then. The bad thing...I think I have almost completely forgot how to speak French.

How is the weather? Very hot! My area is in the south of Honduras and it is hot every day and every night, in fact I think it is just as hot at night as it is in the day. There is usually no clouds haha. And it’s hot when it rains too.

Do you have running water? Nope, not really. We have a pila (big tub like thing in the bathroom) and once every few days we get running water that goes through a pipe and into the pila. And then we use that water until the water comes again. So no showers. Just bucket showers.

How about electricity? Yes yes yes we have that. But it goes out a lot. haha.

What do you do on Pdays? We usually do laundry...by hand which takes forever, clean our house, do an activity with our zone we usually play sports or go hiking, E-MAIL, and buy food. The fun part...feeling the air conditioning at the grocery story. ME GUSTA!

This week was nice; we didn’t have changes, we taught a lot of people, some members fed us at least once a day, and yeah. Good.
I miss you guys a lot and I hope you are doing well. Love you!

Mission Info:
Mission area: yusguare
Mission zone: ciudad Nueva
closest big town: Choluteca
sent 5/19/2014

A Pila full of water

The craziest full moon i've ever seen. Francisco insisted I took like 10 pictures.

My bed with NEW SHEETS. thanks mom. <3

My cat, Crush. He's the cat of the Maldonado family. They said I can adopt him. xD

Week 12 (March 31, 2014)

Week 6 in Honduras

Transfers are this week, but my companion and I did not get a call or were not told about changes, looks like we are together again for another six weeks! I expected it since I am still in training.

This week was good and full. We had citas every day which was crazy. the funny thing is that some people are very particular and wait for us to get there and some people don’t remember at all, and some people make up a time different than what we said ha-ha. It’s all good.

Fun things that happened:
-we taught a lesson on the steps of the catholic church in our town
-we ate a giant lizard. It tasted like a mix between chicken and fish; it was slimy and was cooked, of course.
-I think I reached my breaking point and don’t know if I can eat anymore bananas. Especially fried bananas, they are eaten at every meal here. Ha-ha.

On Saturday Christian, the son of a less active member of the ward, was baptized. We have been teaching him the gospel for a few weeks and he is so adorable. He is 11 and is always enthusiastic about learning and always has his own input during our lessons. The spirit was so strong during his baptism and it was really great. Afterward, he bore his testimony. It was so sincere and so special and you can really tell he got baptized for his own reasons and not his parents. He has a strong testimony of heavenly father, Jesus Christ, and the importance of living the gospel. It was really great.

There are so many stories and stuff that happens every week but it is so hard to remember when I am here writing. Ha-ha, trust me, fun stuff happened, hard stuff happened, and there were a lot of serious moments.

I am so grateful that I grew up in the U.S. and for my family. I am so grateful for the experiences and privileges I have had. I am Grateful that I can experience the lifestyle and culture here in Honduras. It is a great experience to be able to teach others about the gospel of Jesus Christ and to just be there for them when they need us is something so special and so unique. I am learning to love it more and more each day.

Have a good week!
Sam

Christian and his uncle Ronny

Christian's sister and their cousin