awww baby giraffe what are you doing to yourself?

Lunes 21 de diciembre:

I got to talk to my friend Elder Crosgrove on the phone tonight for a little bit and it was so funny to hear his response when I told him I fell again last week "awww baby giraffe what are you doing to yourself????" Oh and he said that he took the cookie crumbs that I brought him from home and put them in milk and just ate it with a spoon and it was the best thing he's eaten in 14 months hahah. 

Martes 22 de diciembre:

So today was a little ruff, we had 4 appointments lined up and every. single. one. fell. I feel like we walked a ton too. But at least I have my AMAZING companion to talk to. Oh and at our first district meeting I did the English class and the gringo babies loved it. Idk if it helped the latinos at all though. Also we caved and bought baleadas tonight. oops. And right now I'm eating a hass avocado sandwich because hass avocados WIN but also #chubbylumpkins I

We met this cool African Honduran lady today she was so funny and said that she went to our church on Sunday and sat outside on the bench in the foyer, without ever having talked to anyone from the church before. So our goal is for her to actually come inside next time hahah.

Miércoles 23 de diciembre:

So 3 of our appointments DIDN'T fall through today! And I had oatmeal and peanutbutter for breakfast so I guess that helped me get back in the mission mode a little. 

I keep telling myself that the holidays are a hard time to teach no matter where you are time-wise/experience-wise in the mission. 

Anywayyyysss we on the struggle bus here in Tela. Everyone, including the members, are saying that they're too busy to let us in or that they have visitors. And idk what to do. I keep praying and stress eating over it because honestly I have no idea what we're going to do tomorrow (christmas eve) and Friday. haha we're so unwanted.

I'm fine with spending Christmas away from family for the good of the missionary work here. But I'm afraid that for the next few days we won't even be doing that...

I really don't blame the members though, we've only been here two S
undays, they hardly know us. 

Okay well anyways pity party over today I had the most HEAVENLY turkey tomato avocado lettuce and REAL cheddar cheese sandwich. 

Saw two gringas today, they looked lost. And we were laughing about white people when they visit they walk around with messy buns but if a honduran did that everyone else would make fun of them like "what did you just roll out of bed??" 

we didn't end up having dinner so we went and got baleadas and I got one with avocado and I was like hass girl hasssss #avocadopun

Jueves 24 de diciembre:

Merry Christmas Eve! Happy 10 months to me officially double digits!

Most people here don't give each other presents, they just all get together as a family and chill and eat a ton of food. So much better right???? Imagine not having to stress about what to get someone or what to say when you get another pair of fuzzy gloves???

Oh and today I made an awesome salad, burnt my grilled cheese to high heaven. 

Viernes 25 de diciembre: 

"No habéis llegado hasta aquí sino por la palabra de Cristo, con fe inquebrantable en él, confiando íntegramente en los méritos de aquel que es poderoso para salvar. Por tanto, debéis seguir adelante con firmeza en Cristo, teniendo un fulgor perfecto de esperanza y amor por Dios y por TODOS LOS HOMBRES. Port tanto, si marcháis adelante, deleitándoos en la palabra de Cristo, y perseveráis hasta el fin, he aquí, así dice el Padre: Tendréis la vida eterna." 2 nefi 31:19-20

"19. . . . ye have not come thus far save it were by the word of Christ with unshaken faith in Him, relying wholly upon the merits of Him who is mighty to save.

20. wherefore ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, with a perfect brightness of hope and a love of God and of all men. Wherefore if ye press forward, feasting upon the words of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: ye shall have eternal life."  

So I started my morning with a mandarin orange that I bought at the supermarket. #tradition

Then we went around handing out ornaments we made the night before and sharing a scripture (D&C 88:33) with it when we could. 

We stopped by this one member's house and she gave us this HUGE plate of food it was a ton #projectporcioncontrolhonduras but yeah someone else gave us tres leches cake and my comp and I got sick afterwards.

Oh and I twisted my ankle today #babygiraffe haha so far I've tripped/fallen every week that I've been back. what is God trying to tell meeee????

hahaha anywaysss I love Christmas and the way it brings people together and turns their hearts to Christ. 

You know how in Spanish más = more so Christmas = more Christ! 

I promise that a life centered and steady in the teachings of Christ is SO much more fulfilling than any other way to live. He lives!  He loves me! He loves all of us! He is the best gift that has ever been given to the world. 

Sábado 26 de diciembre:

"confiad en Dios con mentes firmes, y orad a él con suma fe, y él os consolará en vuestras aflicciones"

-jacob 3:1

I got to see my family today! of course there were many technical difficulties.

But I felt lame because my companion talked before I did and she was super inspirational and bore her testimony and even brought the Liahona to read a part of it to them. And I just shared the story of how I hugged a Colombian in the airport...

Domingo 27 de Diciembre: 

Okay so this lady walks up to us in the street and is like omg hnas nice to meet you I'm hna Rodriguez and we're like okay are you a member or wut and she goes on to tell us that the missionaries have visited them before for a long time and she introduced us to her son so I was like 

wow the missionaries visited and taught you for a long time?

yep

and so have you been baptized? 

no

and why not?

the missionaries stopped coming

have you been going to church at least while they've been gone?

no

and why not?

because the missionaries stopped coming to bring me with them

and I was like son, you a grown a man you can walk two blocks down the street to go to church that's all I got to say about that. 

Lunes 28 de diciembre:

Hermana Haight came to visit us today!

We went and got food at Mister Tacos and Haight and I shared an order of enchiladas and nachos soooooooooo good. There was no horchata tho #sadgringa

but there were salsas, chimol, "guacamole guac guacamole" and salsa verde picante, the nachos were with carne de pasto and the enchiladas were actually really thick corn tortillas(4) folded, with this creamy sauce and a ton of cheese like melty gooey cheese, I legit want the recipe..

And I´m going to train again! #butthistimenotasateenmom

Whaaaaa

okay that was the week, really long sorry! But Love you mommy!

- We got to Skype with Hermana Nelson the day after Christmas. What a treat!

Week 2 of Resurrection

Martes 15 de diciembre:

So I believe we can help a lot here in Tela, but it will take us a while to reach the mission goal of one baptism a week. 

We went to Progreso (two hours away) for a meeting and the biggest struggle of the day was walking like 10 blocks back to the bus stop in the heat of the day carrying the heaviest box of Books of Mormon ever #lapalabraespesada seriously afterwards my arms did not work. 

Like when we finally got home I had a hard time holding up my "janky" cup made out of a cut up waterbottle (we have no dishes)

We went on a couple of lessons and then we each bought one baleada sencilla each, and later one to go and we split it. 

Seriously the best baleada OF MY LIFE.

or maybe the most appreciated

Alvarez said that the fruit on the tree in Lehi´s vision must have been baleadas, and I said it makes sense bc they're white and most desirable.

Then with our very last 4 lempiras we bought some chips.

And now, we have nothing...

Miércoles: My knee gave out 4 1/2 times this morning. This may or may not have something to do with the fact that my exercises this morning included 100 squats #gottamakesurethatbootydontquit

Also this day everyone thought we were jehovas witnesses and some were a little disappointed when we weren't...

So later we go "help" with family history but we just sat there and elder Gozart and Queme helped two people that didn't have their membership numbers or an email address. Omg and baby Gozart is the cutest thing ever like the no guile thing really exists he's just genuinely super excited and sincere about everything like he was raving about family history and also fetty wap's Trap Queen. Such a strange idaho child. 

We had dinner with the elders afterwards and then Alvarez and I got baleadas. I know. I know. 

Jueves: John got home from China yesterday! 

Today the sister training leaders came to visit. Hna Andujar was sad we didn't have a mirror in the apartment #abnegation 

But yeahhh it was actually perf bc she spent 6 months in this area and she knows where everyone lives and people liked me more when they recognized her first. 

Dude my spanish is sucking right now. like bad. Also I want to go to bed but we don't know where everyone's sleeping, oh and I fell today and scraped myself up #babygiraffe 

Viernes: Soooooooooooooooooo I slept on the floor last night which would have been fine except I have a huuuge ol bruise on my thigh from baby giraffing it yesterday so I couldn't lay on that side when my bum got tired of the tile floor and if I layed on my other side, it was hard to find a position where my scraped up arm felt okay...

The good thing is that I've been sore since Tuesday so who knows if I'm sore from last night at all! Wooooo. 

We had the branch Christmas party #turnt we tried to play a game of "never have I ever" but they did not get it. "nunca he comido fruta" yeah.....

Sábado: La Humildad "La condición de ser manso y moldeable, o hacer que alguien lo sea. La humildad lleva implícito el reconocimiento de que dependemos de Dios"

Hermana Mesa just sent her daughter to bring us dinner in our apartment #s'sweet 

Domingo: "Pero he aquí, el Señor ha redimido a mi alma del infierno; he visto su gloria, y estoy para siempre envuelto entre los brazos de su amor" 2 nefi 1:15

sooooooooooo apparently church starting 15 min late is a normal thing here. Macizo. When we went and sat down in the front there was hardly anybody there, but by the time I went up to lead the music, like 25 min after the hour, therer were twice as many people there. Alvarez and I (mostly Alvarez) gave the "gospel principles" class and E Queme was freaking out because we ended like a half hour early.

So we keep accidentally finding less active members when we're contacting like in one meeting with the branch president we asked for a list of members and his counselor just laughed and said "todo de lo que es la ciudad de Tela"

sweet.

Lunes: Today I have 300 days in the mission! #notbaggyatall

We went grocery shopping and I got real cheddar cheese and deli sliced turkey. I swear this super market is so fancy. 

And here the fruits of the season for christmas are apples and grapes and theyre like super expensive and special because they're all imported and whatnot #funfact

We went to the Bungalow for lunch. I highly recommend it for anyone passing through Tela. I would totally take my parents there after my mission if they weren't scared gringos ;) . They make their own hot sauce too. 

this was your week update with hna Nelson, adioooooooooooooooooos

Back to Hondy!

Set Apart Missionary - Take 2

Martes:

8th of December & off to Honduras

Back to Hondy. Fun fact, a year ago to the date I was doing basically the exact same thing. Except I was arriving from Mexico and I had my squad with me.

So today I´m chilling in Houston all by my lonesome and it's nowhere near a normal transfer day so I'm the only missionary out here. There's a bird waiting inside at the gate, how did that happen. 

I just had some nasty 12 dollar nachos and a soda to get myself back in Hondy mode. 

(while I was in the airport I wrote a whole different blog post about having an "intermission" but it's long so I'll have to type it out a different day.)

Miércoles: I want to sleep I want to take a shower I want my phone I want to just chill and watch netflix (like the normal way, you know what I mean sheesh)

I want to TAKE A SHOWER. Oh and Adele's "Hello" is playing outside in a funky Honduran version. 

Yesterday, when Hermana and Presidente Klein were there to pick me up, it kinda felt like I'd never left. Like they're such totally different worlds that it's easier than you'd think to just flip a switch like okay I've been in this mode before and the only thing I've ever done in these surroundings is be a missionary. 

I think that's why it's s hard to keep your good habits when you go home though. 

So I get to La Paz and they had no idea I was coming and I looked for the box with some important things in it that I left there and they couldn't find it and had no idea what I was talking about....

So today Wednesday my companion and I are finally in our area and we are opening it so we have almost nothing to go off of but I fr fr love Hna Alvarez she is the cutest little Nicaraguan and soooo funny and hardworking. 

Anyway so we get to the house and there's basically nothing. No water in the tap or in the pila. 

No stove. No mirror #sadparakeet

Jueves: It's slightly difficult to do weekly planning when you don't have investigators... 

Viernes: MULTI ZONE CONFERENCE yaaaaaa.

I got to see my absolute favorite hermana Haight and I missed her so much. She had my baggy (like a yearbook but for the mission) and in the back she wrote me every single day that I missed in the mission. #presh 

The conference was like 8 hours long but it was awesome and now im super pumped to get to work. 

Sábado: We're sitting at home like what do we do its 6:45 but it's really dark outside...opening an area is weird but dude the supermarket by our apartment is sickkkkk it's better than all the ones I've been to in Honduras. It's not too crowded and it has everything like even spinach!!!!! I was wayyy too excited when I saw that there was real spinach and lettuce. Imma go to town. Oh and like every kind of cheese. 

Also my catrachan apetite is back and I'm scared of getting chubby again. 

But here I am going to town on an entire papaya. 

Also have I mentioned I looooooooooove my companion. I'm so confused how anyone could be so perf.

Domingo: So we just got home from church: aka suffered through soc soc and we have a little bit of time to eat and do language study before we have to back for consejo de rama. 

I'm the new branch chorister #betterthanpianist 

Lunes: Pdayyyyyyy "y se regocijaron en extremo cuando llegaron a las playas del mar" im pretty sure thats in 1 Nefi somewhere. 

So we went to the beach! It was really hot! But we went to the beach! We arent allowed to get in the water. But we went to the beach! 

That's all I got this week. I'm happy to be back. It's sweet. Also cant wait to be done. hahah i kid i kid