Time sure flies...

Ola ola

Yup. another week here in Honduras. Work is going great like always. Im still here doing what I do, missionary stuff and all that. Its been crazy how fast time has gone. This week has been so fast, This past change has been so fast. Tommorrow is changes again, which is soo crazy. This past 6 weeks has flown by. I highly doubt ill have changes because I am in the middle of training, but thats fine with me because I love my area. 

 

Weve spent alot of time contacting this week and finding new investagators to teach, and weve been very sucessfull. We found all sorts of people, and we ended the week by bringing multiple investagators to church for the first time. Weve been working hard and have been putting in good work. My companion is starting to get the language little by little, which means hes starting to contribute and is starting to put in a good effort in lessons, and things are going excellent. Im really without a complaint in the world right now. Im not full of crazy expieriences this week, but I dont need crazy expieriences to have a good week. I am just going to keep trucking along, and ill keep doing what im doing. Ill do ill I can to keep moving foreward, and not back. What ive learned is the best way to move forward, is by looking up, and the best way to move back is to look down. Take it and interpretit as you will, but thats just one of the many things that ive learned so far. Im sure ill have another productive wonderfull week this week too.

 

Things like always are going great, this is my report.

 

Elder High

The Week of the Storm

Hey Fam!

 

So this week was the week of the Storm. This past week there was a little rain storm that destroyed the city. This city was not built to withstand a storm, of any magnitude. On wednesday, it was a little cloudy, and just a little breezy,(theres hardly ever wind here) and I was lovin it, for once it was a little cool. Then in the afternoon, the wind picked up, and it really started to blow. For about 30 seconds, I felt the strongest wind Ive ever felt before. We were knocking doors in one of the more popular streets at the moment. In these 30 seconds of wind, houses just got wrecked. All of the houses here have thin tin roofs, that often times arent nailed to the upper beams. Almost every house was deroofed. Me and my companion nearly got nailed by multiple flying tin roofs floating around in the sky. After the wind, came the rain, and it rained hard. It was absolutely pouring, and almost no one had roofs, it was a rough week for a lot of people. We spent the rest of the day helping people put their roofs back on during the pouring rain. It was really sad to see, because people dont have much here, and after this week, everything that people had just got soaked. Luckily our house was built decently, and we didnt lose one single sheet of tin. The aftermath of this storm is still affecting us and everyone else. This storm knocked down almost every power line in the city, so weve been without lights for the good part of the week. 

 

That was the effect of a natural, physical storm. This week, we have also been dealing with internal storms also. As i said, our house is great, but we are being kicked out... The owner of the house is having problems with her husband, and she decided it would be best if she moved into our house. This has really kinda thrown a wrench in the work. Weve spent a good portion of our time this week looking for a new house to move into. Also without lights, we have to enter our haouse at 6 pm before it gets dark. Our days have been shortened sigificantly. This has made this week very hard. We have essentially baptized everyone that weve been teaching, and we really have had no one to teach. Whenever weve had time to get some work in, weve been doing all that we can to bring investigators into our teaching pool. Weve met some great people, but with the lack of time, its been real difficult to plan for lessons further on. Its been storming in all sorts of different ways this week.

With every storm, there is a brighter future. After every storm comes the sun. After every storm comes beautiful rainbows. Storms test our patience, test our strength, and test our willpower. It is difficult to accept storms, and no one wants to live in storms, but those who live through the most storms are typically the strongest. From every storm, theres something to learn, to make our next experience with our next storm better. There will always be storms, but there will always be bright sunny days too. Im living through a storm right now, but I know in the future, we will find someone to teach, we will find a house to live in eventually, and the lights will come back on. When the storm settles down, we are going to have to do some rebuilding, put our roof back on the work, but then we will be stronger, and happier than ever before. I testify that God is watching down upon us, and upon the work. Hes thrown storms at us to test us and help us grow. You know, storms really aren't that bad of a thing.

 

Con Amor como siempre

Elder High

Oh happy day!

Muy buenos día familia!

Its a happy day indeed! There is no other way to describe this last week that I had in any other words than incredible. This has been one incredibly crazy, incredibly stressfull, flat out incredibly amazing week. So much has happened in this week in so little time. My and my companion had the great privildge of helping a Family Acosta get married, and get baptised. I have spent a good chunk of my time this week going from office to office in the city taking out papers, working with government, and the family to have a wedding in the church this week. Typically the proccess to marry someone in pretty simple, but this family wanted to be married in one week, which made things a little difficult. Difficult, but not impossible. I have used help from almost every member in the ward this week, the help from countless missionaries who have connections with the government, and alot of help from Family Garcia. Ive never married anyone before, and definatly not in this country. I felt at the beging of the week, that this was a task imposible to do in the time span that I had. Other missionaries said it was impossible to marry anyone in one week in this country, but we were all wrong. We had a beautifull wedding, and a beautifull baptism this past saturday. 

As I said, I felt like this was an impossible task to take on. I felt at many times in the week that we were stuck at a standstill with the government, and we were going to have to wait 4 or 5 weeks like every other family waiting to be married. I spent countless houres in prayer this week, calling upon the support of the lord to help push things through. I have never felt so stressed in my life, but somehow, someway, things worked out great. I have never felt so happy in my life before. I learned countless lessons this week from this expierience. I learnt, the importance of using those who know more than me, have more connections than me, and who can help more than me. I really learned the importance of patience, and relying upon the lord. Among other things, I really felt love for this family, and more than anything, I am extremly greatefull for the opportuninty I had to help them become worthy for baptism. Not alot other that that has really happened this week, but yes, things have been happining this week!! The church is true, yall already know that, but just dont forget it!

 

Su Hijo 

Elder High

 

 

Pictures from the baptism!

 

 

This is from the wedding, they are signing the papers to verify that they are married!

Aloha Hawaii

Aloha Hawaii...Thats a thing that Latinos like to say down here hahaha...

Alright, so this week was one hectic week. Almost every day this week we had meetings. Zone meetings, district meetings, and Multizone meetings, Stake Conference, and yes, a meeting with Elder Nelson. It was a pretty good week, and we are setting up to have my best week yet. This week we didnt have a baptism, but we are set to have 4 baptisms this week, and a marriage. This week is going to be even more hectic than before, but im so ready for it. Everything in the work is going perfectly smooth. My companion is slowly starting to learn spanish, Investagators are all coming around and coming to church, and the members have been starting to give us food every day. I am without a compaint in the world. Theres alot of work to be done, but really, I am in the best circumstances imaginable right now. The future is as bright as ever right now. 

 So as I said, we had a conference with Elder Nelson this week. Mission Comayaguela and Mission Tegucigalpa were present in the meeting, and every mission in central America was watching via satalite, Technology is cool. It was an incredible expierience for manu reasons. Reason 1 the meeting was in the Cañada, Monterrey, my first church house. It was good to walk down the streets of monterry again. I ran into a few members, and some old investagators, and after the meeting, our zone even ate in Burger Chicken! hahaha. Reason 2, Elder Nelson is the president of the quorom of the 12, and all the missionarys present got to shake his hand. Reason 3, I was just sitting in the congregation with all the other missionaries, and the president of the Tegucigalpa mission stands up to start the conference and says "we will start with a hymn, and then a prayer offered by Brandon Troy High of the Comayaguela Mission." They never say my name right, but yeah, I offered the opening prayer in the conference with president Nelson, it was pretty cool. Also President Nelson cut pretty deep and is changing the work. He straight up said, There are more less acitive members in central america, than active members, and God Is Not Happy Right Now... Freak........ Esentially, we are to stop knocking doors, and we are to start looking for the less actives, and focus on reactivation. This is hard, because the work is almost always centered on baptisms, but now, baptisms are not the focus. There are things to be done, but President Nelson Trust in us as missionaries to save those soles that have gone astray. I have learned a ton this week, and I am ready for the future of this work. Stay safe and have a good week at the Fair, and have a good week back in school!!

 

Con animo, y con un montón de Amor

 

Elder High

Am I really in 6 months?? Holy cow...

Wow, so another week down. Im not going to lie, this week has been stresfull, but has been really really good. We have incredible investagators who are progressing faster than we were expecting. We have investagators who have been doing all that we ask them to do plus more. Weve been baptizing and confirming. I have never felt so busy in my life, but the work has never been so rewarding before. 

We had one investagator named Gladys. We started teaching gladys about six weeks ago when I was with Elder Huanca. She was an old investagator that we got referenced to from the other Elders in our area. The other Elders felt like she was impossible to work with and that she had too many problems. Me and Elder Huanca were ambitios and we took her on. The first day we found out that she had problems with drinking, and with smoking. That was the problem with her. She is really positive, and really accepting, but she felt like she couldnt stop her problems. For about a week we tried all sorts of different things to hlp her quit, but she had addictions, and nothing was working. This was tough, and we thought about dropping her. For some reason, we didnt drop her, and we just kept going with her. She would come to church, but she still had her addictions. We felt hopeless. Then one day, we just started to testify firmly. We testified of blessings that she will recieve, we testified unwaivering. I do not know, and I can not explain what happened, but she just said, alright, Ill stop, and she did... She hasnt smoked in 4 weeks, and she hasnt drank in 4 weeks. Best of all, I had the privledge to baptize her on saturday night. 

Again, I can not explain the ways of the lord. I can not explain the power that he has. People can change. When people feel the spirit, people change. There is no other way to explain this experience in any other words. People can change. Really thats all I have time for today, but the work is incredible. Love yall with all of my heart. 

Elder High

 

 

Illnesses- So, yeah, my second week here in Honduras I had Chickengunya, which wasnt too fun, but I made it through it. Im still going so dont worry .

 

Books-  All right, so about the books. Whatever church books you can find would be awesome. I do not know if it if possible to load up the big history of the church books, Articles of Faith, The Joseph Smith Papers. Really an book is better than anything, but alot of the more real indepth stuff, orthe bigger more profund books would be really be great. Like I said before, I love Jesus the Christ because its a little more profund, and a little bit bigger. For the languege, English is awesome. I can speak Spanish fluently and smothly, but I have a verry small vocabulary right now, so for any type of reading formore in depth stuff, english is a lot better. 

So this picture is from the baptism of Gladys

 

This is my zone leader from a service project that we had

Training a gringo!

Y entonces Familia! 

 

Tal bueno, so yeah, transfers were this past tuesday, and as I said, I am a trainer. I am the trainer of an awesome Elder named Elder Espinoza. The name is latino, but he is from Provo Utah. Yup, I am training a gringo!!!!  Its a real interesting expierience for me. Hes really good, but right now he doesnt speak a whole lot of spanish. Im not going to lie, I was expecting to train a latino, but I have no problem at all training a gringo. Hes pretty funny. He reminds me of me, especially during the first week. Im pretty used to everything here, but hes not quite there haha. Everything that i picked out my first week hes picking out. "The toilet doesnt flush!?" "yeah, youll get used to it..." "We dont have a shower!?", "yeah, we have a bucket, youll get used to it..." haha. 

 

Other than my new companion, things havent changed. I did not change areas which was a huge blessing. Last week we had two baptisms, and we have alot more planed for the coming weeks. This area is incredible! Last week we also had one wedding which was pretty interesting. Really Im kinda stripped for time today, but things here are going great. Theres so much i want to say, and no time to say it. Just dont worry, Im doing great!!

 

Con muchísimo amor

Elder High

Positivity is awesome!

Hey, Que Onda familia!

 

So, yeah, I am having a son... President Ferman called last tuesday and straight up said, ¨Elder High, So you are going to be a trainer in the next change, how do you feel.¨ ¨Uh, good president..¨ Really, Im scared to death. I do not feel ready to be a Senior Companion, and definitly not a trainer, but I guess this is what i need to be doing. I have less than 6 months, and i hardly know this area, and the members, and i feel like I hardly know this language. On top of that, I got a call from my district leader in the morning, saying that president is thiking of sending me to open a new area thats been closed for over a year. I do not know how I could posibly train in an area that literally has nothing and that i know nothing of. Im not going to lie, I dont want to leave this area. Again like my other area, weve revived this area. This friday we  have a wedding and 2 baptisms. The next week, another baptism, and the next week 2 weedings and 4 baptisms. Ive gone almost 6 months of building up areas and then to leave without witneseing the fruits of my labor. Im really praying to stay. 

 

Other than that, this past week has been pretty normal. Weve been helping multiple investagators with the last step before baptism and finalizing plans for weddings and for baptisms. Also ive had a few confrences with the other trainers this week. All in all, ive just been preparing the area and myself for a new missiorary. 

 

Ive been trying to change my mindset this week. Ive been focusing on all the good things about everything. Ive been looking for the good in my investagators, the members, the area, and my companion. This week has gone alot smother and has really been a realitivly easy week. There is so much good in this world, but yet it is so easy to focus in on all the negative. There is so much to be thankfull for, but yet often times we are ungratefull. There is so much to be happy about, but yet often we are very unhappy. Really, this is a personal decision. If we want to be happy, there is enough happiness in the world to make us happy. If we want to be gratefull, there is an abundance of things to be gratefull for. If we want to be positive, there is alot more to be positive about than neative. Really the choice is ours. Part of the plan of God is to give us the decision. But really, being positive and gratefull, and happy is always the better decision. The choice is ours. Family I love you all with all the strength of my heart. Thank you for the pictures. Reiken sure is GUAPO!! 

 

Love ya all

Elder High