"Happiness is true food . . ."

Martes: We had a meeting of just the Hermanas and I missed the stop so we had to take a taxi and we ended up arriving 45 minutes late... and they waited for us so that they could start! It was so embarrassing hahah. But I did get to see my favorite Hna Haight. Also Hermana Klein made salad with real romaine lettuce and I ABOUT DIED. There are so few sister missionaries in the mission I feel like we have to really put in work so that we can be effective but also improve the image that a lot of people have of the missionaries here. 

Miercoles: traveling in bus for the third day in a row but only an hour this time. I forgot to write this on monday and I feel like it needs to be said that on the bus ride I haggled for the price of the bus fare (basically less than 50 cents) and, referring to why this kid probably wasn’t selling a lot of coconut water I sincerely said, ¨it's cuz it's just so expensive¨  -again, less than 50 cents. 
                                                                                                                                        Hondy is changing me.

We took a photo as a zone and did the routine introductions even though we're already halfway through the transfer. We ate lunch at a restaurant named ¨International¨ but the only countries represented in the menu are México (one dish, tacos) and Honduras. So it's technically international buuut.....

Talked to a lady that says she won't accept our religion because Joseph Smith doesn't show up in the Bible and I was just like okay look, the purpose of the Bible is to talk about Jesus Christ. I don't think there's any part in the old testament that talks about John the Revelator but we still accept his prophecies. 

This one lady that we teach makes being a mom look like the hardest thing in the world and she only has two kids! I cant even imagine how my angel mother handled 6 haha.

But she said that she has literally no time to read the scriptures. So I took out the phone and set the timer and asked her to read two verses, it took her 45 seconds because they were pretty long. And then I was like what did you learn from these verses? did you get something out of them? and she said yes and told us what she learned. 

So then I asked her if she could set aside 45 seconds of her day to read. And she asked us to pray for her so that she could feel like praying and reading.

Then her dad arrived with a ton of firewood and even though we really had to go I offered to help and my comp looked at me like I was crazy. But they were happy that we helped and we were happy that we helped.

Jueves: 

¨Happiness is true food, wholesome, nutritious and sweet; it builds up the body and generates energy for action, physical, mental and spiritual. Pleasure is but a deceiving stimulant which, like spirituous drink, makes one think he is strong when in reality enfeebled...happiness leaves no bad after-taste, it is followed by no depressing reaction; it calls for no repentance, brings no regret, entails no remorse...happiness...springs from the deeper fountains of the soul, and is not infrequently accompanied by tears. Have you ever been so happy that you have had to weep? I have.¨ James E. Talmage

Found a member of the church while contacting today! She was interested when we talked to her about the temple trip. But later when we invited them to church they were like ohhh no no no no we go to a different church now. 

Viernes: ¨yeah rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it.¨ AND KEEP IT. like i'm not shouting but really I think that their whole lives they've only acknowledged the first part of this verse.

Today one of the ladies that we teach told us about how it rains fish in Yoro around this time of year. But only one time a year. And not always the same time, and not every year. 

Sábado: Today it was decided by the elders that if I was a pokemon I would be jiggly puff because my singing puts people to sleep. ha.

The baby of fam Reyes, ¨Fichu¨ was sick in the hospital so we all came and visited her. She was so cute like “nooo I don't want you to take any photos”, while posing and smiling at the camera.

Domingo: Concerning the woman who touched Jesus´s robe and was healed, he made her come forward and confess that she had used her faith and the power of Jesus Christ to be healed. Sometimes I´m the same, I just want to be able to quietly sneak in and repent and use the atonement without any fuss. But really confession is a pivotal part to repentance. To acknoweldge that we can’t clean it up ourselves. 

 We had a conference and all the leaders from the stake came and told us why we still aren’t a branch. But we're close! 

As for the choir, we had to cut like half of the songs that we prepared because there wasn’t enough time. 

Afterwards, in the evening we played games with the elders and the kids that they just baptized, It was really cute. We played hot potato as well and I got caught with it so I had to tell a joke and I was like in Spanish are you kidding me so I told the talking muffin joke but instead it was with two tortillas on an hornija.

  

that's all I got time for love you muuuucho

It's the Little Things, or "Freckle On My Foot"

Lunes: Cleaned out the fridge and got rid of all the ice covering the freezer part. Felt like mom because it was always something that she had to do and a little like a maniac because it included chipping away the ice with a knife in a stabbing motion.

Had a family home evening with our abuelitos. Loved it.

Martes: We had our interviews with president. I was so focused on memorizing the 10 scriptures that we should have memorized that I didnt really think about what I needed help with and what to ask him. I just knew that I wanted to talk to him as long as I could. He told me that his lovely wife has been reading this blog and that statement definitely caused some reflection on my part to see if I had written anything too crazy. 

The taco that I had for lunch and the jamaica juice was really good, in case you were wondering.

Miérocles: For me, one of the saddest verses in the Book of Mormon is Omni 1:2 ¨Mas he aquí, en cuanto a mí, yo soy inicuo, y no he guardado los estatutos y mandamientos del Señor como debía haberlo hecho.¨ 

"But behold, I of myself am a wicked man, and I have not kept the statutes and the commandments of the Lord as I ought to have done."

Some parts of the scriptures sum up entire lives in one or two verse. This made me think, 

'what would my verse say?" With no room for excuses, no space to explain circumstances or ratio of good to bad. Just "did you walk after the ways of the Lord or not?"

Ahhh it's really weird, but I love studying the scriptures. Sometimes I just want to stay home and study all day. But if I don't go out and share what I've learned and put those principles to work, I'd just be getting spiritually fat. If we eat a lot we need to exercise a lot as well.

In one of the lessons a baby pigeon was trying to eat the freckle on my foot. It kept pecking at it and I was just like "sorry lil guy, it's attached pretty good."

One of our investigators wasn't home and it was her younger sister Carla that told me she wasn't there. And we were about to leave but I was like "well, how about we teach you instead?"

She was super receptive, and that's why I thought she had received lessons from the missionaries before. But when I asked her she said no, not even once. And the missionaries have been teaching her family for over a year off and on.

I got kind of nerdy excited because she's so receptive and smart but she has a lot of social anxiety so we just need to push her a little, but not too much.

Jueves: Went to La Paz for the meeting for the training of my companion. I talked to Elder Magalei and it made me miss Hawaii so much- but including him, I've only met one other missionary that's going to BYU Hawaii after the mission. Literally everyone else from the states is going to BYU in Provo hah. 

Got to talk to my family in the evening, it was great!  MOTHERS DAY - phone call

Viernes: Made flour tortillas to practice for an activity on saturday. They turned out alright...

Oh and okay so we passed by this house and we heard this creeeeepy voice telling us to come over there and preach over there. But when I looked over I didn't see anything weird just this normal young lady and I'm pretty sure it wasn’t her...

Sábado: So apparently the name for the tablet with the 10 commandments is called the decalog.

Remember Carla? We took her to see some baptisms and she really liked it! And while we were waiting to leave for the baptisms we were at a members house and we started talking about temples and the hna there showed Carla a magazine just about temples and she thought they were all gorgeous (well duh) and she wants to go when the ward goes in June!

Later we made baleadas and my flour tortillas actually turned out pretty good! Even one Honduran girl was like "why can this gringa make tortillas and I can't?" hahah

Choir Practice!

Domingo: Church was normal. But afterwards we had choir practice and as you probably know I'm the choir director, so I took a selfie with my choir. Where they are seated is basically the chapel. That's where we meet for our meetings. 

Today: I played futbol for like the 5th time in my life and the latinos were suuuuuper patient with me, hahaha. I'm such a clutz. I only played like 30 minutes and then I watched for a long time and this little kid with no shoes was schooling everyone, it was awesome. After a while we went with two other Elders to buy everything and then we went to a members house and made carne asada. There was like 20 elders I think and they eat a lot! But it was fun and I was glad we went even though I suck at soccer and we were the only hermanas and I know the elders think the sister missionaries are a bit of a bore but whatever hahah. 

I love you and miss you and bake something with butter and think of me okay? 

#justintime

Martes 5 de mayo: ¡arrrriba ay ay ay! Birthday shoutout to my beautiful sister Melissa!
 I really wanted mexican food today but there aren’t any Mexican restaurants here so I had to settle for Chinese. 

I learned from this old pastor guy that when God talks to us telepathically it's called rema and the stuff that's written in the scriptures are called logos. So that was interesting...
I wanna know what Sidney Rigdon felt or learned in order to accept the gospel even though he was a minister himself. That takes a lot of humility.

We went and visited the husky puppies again and they're like twice the size and squirmy and chubby and fluffy and I had like three in my arms at the same time and I swear I've never been happier.

Miércoles: Divisions. We wandered around a lot looking for houses to contact. 
One of the people that I'm teaching basically called me a sinner because he saw me wearing pants on monday. So that was cool.
But I thought it was cool that his first question was like "hey I like your religion, but do you guys ever get together to idk sing, pray, teach, together?"
And I was like well duh. I can't believe we haven't invited him to church before! And also he came out of his room holding a Book of Mormon and I don't remember giving him one... It's really hard to remember what we've done with this investigator because he always flakes on our appointments so they are soooo few and far between. 

Jueves: I remember the last time we made hamburgers as a fundraiser and I was so excited to have burgers and it turned out that they were catrachan hamburgers #myliiife so this time I had really low expectations and it was fine.

In the Spanish bible, Boaz is Booz. 
Put a baptismal date for Wendy, one of the lovely ladies that we teach, but I'm still not sure why she's wishy-washy about it.... I think she needs someone to go to church with.
Her brother goes religiously (hehe obvi) but they aren't very close. Her dad asked me if I've ever been scared that the plane that I'm on will blow up. And I said it's not very likely, but if I die, I feel like I'd be at peace with that. And he said "well God doesn't kill angels so don’t worry." I just smiled and laughed and ignored the fact that it didn't make any sense.

This day was the first time I've taught a lesson and found myself saying things and afterwards thinking hey that was kind of neat. My companion said she felt the spirit really strongly, so I hope that the couple that we were teaching felt it too...

We contacted a casa who's chicken was just hit by a motorcycle #justintime so we were able to offer consolation, haha. 

Viernes: We chopped vegetables for an eternity. I felt like I was back at school working in prep again. 
We went and helped the elders contact houses in their area and we talked to this girl for a long time, give her a pamphlet and when we passed by again with the elders we find out that she's a member. Like you could have mentioned that minor detail haha. 

I'm reading 'Jesus the Christ' and I could literally spend all day reading, it's so awesome. There was a part in there that I think David A Bednar based one of his talks on. 
When Jesus was tempted in the desert, the real temptation wasn't to make bread to satisfy hunger, it wasn't to make miracles for no reason by throwing himself from the top of the temple, and it wasn't for all the power of the world that Satan said that he had to offer.
¨There was...the temptation to put to proof the possible doubt implied in the tempters 'If' The Eternal Father had proclaimed Jesus as His son; the devil tried to make the Son doubt that divine relationship. (Matt 4:4)
The word that had proceeded from the mouth of God, upon which Satan would have cast mistrust, was that Jesus was the Beloved Son with whom the Father was well pleased.¨
The devil´s ¨If¨ ¨let him save himself if he be the Christ¨
¨If thou be the king of the Jews, save thyself.¨ 
The thing that the devil is most intent on with us is getting us to reject our divine nature. To think that we are less, that God has forsaken us so we're better off trying to just look out for ourselves. 

Also I really liked 2 Nephi 5:16 when Nephi talks about the temple that he made in his new land. It was after the model of Solomon's temple but he said that he didn't really have all the precious materials to make it just like Solomon's temple. He even sounds a little embarrassed because it's not as glorious as he would want the temple of God to be. But he said that it was still very beautiful to him. This made me think about how the church in Morazán is sumamente hermosa and it's not in a big pretty chapel, so bam.

Sábado: Made a bunch of cupcakes for Mother's Day. 
Talked to a preacher and he was being such a wolf in sheep's clothing I kept looking around for a big fluffy tail.
He basically gave us a lesson and we let him really because I was curious to see his manner of teaching.
For me the gospel is so plain and beautiful and he just twisted it all around trying to stir up contention behind a big smile and incessant words. 
I guess he felt like he was ¨winning¨ (against a 19 year old girl) if he just kept talking and changing the subject and not letting us talk. It was a blast.

Domingo: Happy mother's day to my beloved mommy and happy 5 months in Morazan to me haha. 
There were maggots all over the floor in the house this morning. 
Technology continues to be frustrating here and I hope that I will be able to video call with my family sometime in the coming week! 

¨Do you ever wonder if the Lord asks too much?¨

What do you see?

Highlights from my notes last week since I didn't write a blog post...............

We were mostly en casa because of the chinkongunya (try saying it out loud - it's really fun) So this meant a lot of scripture study, and I finished the new testament! First time all the way through in my life. Sad, I know. Inexcusable. 

2 Tim 1:9 ¨Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began!"

I really like Hebrews chapter 11, and all the great examples of faith. All these people ¨died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them a far off, and were persuaded of them¨ They had hope.

All the examples, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sara, Moses, the starring roles of the Old Testament, are all inspiring. But what does that mean for us normal people? Heb 12:1 ¨Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us¨ 

But tell me, of all the emotions we feel when we're running a race (literally) do we ever feel patient???? No, it's not natural! So why is it asked of us? if we have patience, there's no panic. And if we're not panicking there's room for hope.

1Peter 3:15 ¨But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason for the hope that is in you.¨

But yeah you guys already saw the location of one of the baptisms last week, isn't it gorgeous??? it's called Las Piratas. I guess there's pirates there but I didnt see any. 

It's how I image the waters of Mormon would look. Afterwards almost everyone got in the water like fully clothed and stuff and it was kind of ratchet but hey, in their culture, it's normal! 

While we were sick I also watched a lot of the church videos, and I really liked some of the ones focusing on Emma Smith. When she says ¨Do you ever wonder if the Lord asks too much?¨ and her husband just says ¨I do not let myself.

Sometimes we're like "okay God I have faith in Jesus and everything but I don't think that (insert whatever difficulty) is going to work out." That's not faith at all! So little is asked of us and we don't even do it all.

Okay, back on schedule -

Martes 28 de Abril: So I found out that I don't have transfers. Nobody in my whole district has transfers. We thought it was a little weird but we found out later talking to Hno G (basically the acting bishop here) that he called our mission president and said that we were doing SUCH a good job that he didn't want any of us to leave so I'm going to end up spending 1/3 of my mission in my first area haha. woohooo. 

Miércoles 29 de Abril: happy 6 months in the mission to me.....

Jueves 30 de Abril: Feliz Cumpleaños Nikolai Nielsen 22 holla.....

¨Y me dijo; Comprendes la condescendencia de Dios? Y le respondí:

Sé que ama a sus hijos"

We had the tastiest lunch btw! a little bit of carne asada, the tastiest rice, these refried beans that were perfectly seasoned, freshly made corn tortilla, and salsa verde: leche, avocado, cilantro, onion. Super rico. 

Viernes 1 de Mayo: I really don't love cooking without recipies. I really don't. Like even just making pizza crust like just no. no no no no.

But I made them anyway, with the help of hna I of course because if not I would've just pouted about not having a recipe the whole time. The plan was to make calzones (I also learned that in Bolivia calzones means underwear el oh el) but I changed my mind and decided to make pizza. The elders were super supportive though and said that it smelled good even though hna I made me put cilantro in it. LIke I even explained to her how that doesn't really go with italian flavors and she's like but I've seen it on TV! But they turned out tastier than I thought they would with green olives instead of black and canned mushrooms instead of fresh. 

I washed the pila but I think I put too much clorox in there.

Sábado 2 de Mayo: Concerning the sealing power that we have in this church ¨It may seem to some to be a very bold doctrine that we talk of --- a power which records or binds on earth and binds in heaven. Nevertheless, in all ages of the world, whenever the Lord has given a dispensation of the priesthood to any man by actual revelation, or any set of men, this power has always been given. Hence, whatsoever those men did in authority, in the name of the Lord, and did it truly and faithfully, and kept a proper and faithful record of the same, it became a law on earth and in heaven, and could not be annulled, according to the decrees of the great Jehovah. This is a faithful saying. Who can hear it?¨

This probably seems boring to some people but it's awesome to me! We're not just here on this earth dunking people in water and clapping our hands on peoples heads willy nilly. What we do on this earth counts in the heavens! And I have a firm conviction that no other church on the face of the earth has the power to say that. What we do on this eath counts in the heavens! It sounds crazy because it's true and because it's a miracle. it really is. 

Domingo: So we only contacted one house but hey it's something. I taught the gospel principles class and I was kind of nervous that they would be bored or wouldn't understand my lame spanish but it went okay. My first hour long class in spanish all by myself ahhhhh! We had choir practice and I'm just having a blast being choir director. No, but it's really not that bad hahah, we're singing primary songs but we're going to have to cut some because I've been informed that they're too hard hahah. 

Oh and S and L recieved the Aaronic priesthood and they're priests now and i'm so proud of them! 

Lunes (hoy): I made gnocchi and it was a little daunting with 10 hungry people waiting for me prepare it. I got to watch bits and pieces of the Saratov Approach while I was cooking (thinking of you mom! ¨yeah, uh huh, I'm watching! *clanging of pots and pans*) 

but yeah that was a terrible idea because now I'm not going to recieve references from anybody because then I'll get kidnapped!!! no but really, great movie, I hope to be able to watch the whole thing some time. 

So there's the update. Love you mom, love you dad! And I love life in the mission, even with rocky parts.

BTW:  Chinkongunya! It's really not as bad as it sounds! But the rashes are pretty ugly and the muscular and joint pain just made me miss my swim and volleyball days. But I'm all better now!

Just a little bit of pain in my feet in the mornings, but other than that, full recovery :-)