Week 21 Area Split & Elder Quispe

Area Spilt and More About Elder Quispe

Super weird and difficult week this week. They gave a part of our area that's called Santa Rosa to the other Elders because they weren't having any success. It really rubbed me the wrong way and thus made for a hard week. Almost all of our new investigators were in Santa Rosa. So all of our last weeks work kind of went to waste. Well it went to the other Elders. Elder Quispe and I were forced to work super close to our house which is a pretty small area and its had missionaries since like 1990 or something nuts. We spent almost all week contacting and trying to find new people again. 

Elder Quispe is a dancer lol its freaking awesome. Ya so he was like on a dance team and traveled all over the place Brazil, Argentina and ya all over South America. He knows all these weird dances and its soo dang funny I make him show me them in the morning and just try not to laugh. He gets suuuuper suuper homesick sometimes and I'm just like homes stop reading your letter from your girlfriend and he doesn't like that too much. I really love training though. The way he teaches or rather his ability to teach clearly and powerfully is really coming a long. We read the book of Mormon in english every morning which is awesome. Going to put some photos of us in here. He doesn't have a blanket because ya he is just new. So he freezes at night so the other night he like got all wrapped up in his towel and gloves. I don't have a blanket or I would give it to him. I get so dang hot at night with just my sheet. 

Please  take a moment and laugh at Elder Quispe's face in this photo. Oh painted the other Elders house this week too. Legit painted their house and then they were like oh and p.s. we are taking half your area..

Elder Thorn

Week 20 Temple and 30 Nuevos

Temple and 30 nuevos

Went through the temple for my first time here in the mission, and only my second time in my life. Can't believe I didn't utilize the temple when I was at home. I think living in Utah we see temples so much and we forget how important they really are. We went through he temple with he whole zone, close to 40 kids all serving the Lord in a foreign country. As I sat in the temple looking at all the young men and young women around me every thing was so clear. When we are in temple it's so easy to see that this, the Scriptures, praying, church, prophets, all that is so real and its not just for this life. When we aren't regularly attending the temple it's so hard to have a true grasp on what eternity means. But when we are in the Lord´s House it becomes as clear as it possibly can in this life. 

All this being said I was extremely motivated after the temple. I felt that it truly didn't matter in the slightest what I said or what i did as long as i was trying my hardest to peach this gospel. A direct result of this was that we found a ridiculous amount of new people and new families. Our zone set the record of new investigators for the mission at 245 new people in one week. Elder Quispe and I had 30 new people with 7 new families. That's 30 people that have never had the chance to hear the gospel like you all have. I wanted to write a little about why we don't share the gospel with those around us, and there are a lot of reasons. We are scared, we don't have time and this can go on and on. But really all of these reasons "become as stubble" when we are doing the things we need to be doing. Im referring to daily prayer, daily studying of our scriptures, having our family home evening, and regularly attending the temple. When we are doing all these things we feel the need of sharing this beautiful gospel

"Regarding ones testimony, remember, that which one willingly shares he keeps. while that which he selfishly keeps he loses.. Teach and testify. There is no better combination"

- Thomas S. Monson 

Elder Quispe

Week 19 Bucket Showers and Weddings

Bucket Showers and Weddings

Spent way to much time writing family and friends today so this is going to be short.

Had the wedding and the baptism of Familia Gutierrez esta semana (this week). Really was a long time in the making and it finally paid off. A few crazy things happened this week that made it so I was pretty much in charge of it all and I almost peed my pants. Our Bishop randomly decided to visit his family in Nicaragua this week and didn't answer his phone all week. Our ward mission leader has a little baby and has been in the hospital because he is super sick ( the baby). I hadn't been able to talk to either one all week and was like uhhh well I hope the lawyer shows up and all the papers I have are right. Went over Saturday and picked David and Julia (familia gutierrez) literally walked across a river with them while she was in her big white wedding dress it was freaking awesome! The wedding went all good even thought the lawyer was 30 minutes late. Then we had to do the interviews after the wedding and the whoooolllee family just left. The buses only run so late so they had to go. I thought David and Julia would be super sad but they didn't care in the slightest. Then the baptism robe didn't have this zipper and haha its was great. All in all it was awesome and I got to be part of it. Affect a family for eternity. Days in the mission are really hard sometimes, when no one wants to talk to you or investigators don't come to church. But when you find someone that is ready to hear the gospel those days seem way more important then the others. 

My new comp is from Bolivia and is the most humble kid alive. Taught him how to use a microwave his first day. He cooks weird food it's awesome. I'm learning a ton of spanish from him. He is kinda shy and his knowledge about the gospel is interesting. We have had a lot of success already though and I was so hyped to have a baptism of a family for him his first week. 

Elder Thorn

P.S. We didn't get water for like two weeks it suckkkkeeeddd. We couldn't wash clothes or take showers. So we were taking water from this other pila and showering with a bowl out of a big five gallon bucket. lol sucked suuucked. and it was my comps first week and ya just super funny.

The birthday cake Elder Holt bought for me.

Week 18 Hospitals and I'm 19 Killas

Honduras Hospitals

Probably one of the weirdest weeks I'm going to have in the mission. Elder Vail started to have some super bad knee pain and couldn't walk that well. Being the person i am i was like homes look it hurts but we have got to go talk to this family and he would struggle along. Then on Thursday he is just like ya no i can't dude. So we called the presidentes wife (she is the med person for right now) and she told us to go by this pain medication and to ice it. LOLOLOL ice here in on Honduras please hermana Fortuna. Honestly when she said ice on the phone me and Elder Vail started laughing. We ended up going to the hospital in Tegucigalpa. Super nice, i kid you not it was so dang nice. There are other hospitals here that all the locals use that are super ghetto but the church has the hook up at Honduras medical Center so that's where we went. Long story short he has a torn meniscus and he might have to get surgery. If he does he has to go home. Which would suck. but i can tell he kinda is hoping for that which makes me sad. 

Tomorrow i get my son(: really excited to watch this new missionary grow. I think about the changes i can see in myself that have happened in these last 3 months. How much i have learned. And not just Spanish or the mission but about myself and how the Lord sees me. We will be having a baptism of a family his first week here(if all goes good with the papers) I'm going into town tomorrow to the registro de national de personas or something like that to take out some papers for that. Every time i talk to someone in the bank in Spanish i feel so dang kool. OH i turned 19 this week. so weird. seems like yesterday i was in California surfing and watching the fireworks. This year I'm marrying families. Life is so amazing in that aspect. How much we can progress if we have worthy goals and work hard. Hope everyone had a good new years.

Elder Chainz

Sister Fortuna's Facebook post: Elders and Sisters who will be training the new missionaries that we will receive this week.