Week 19 (Campestre, Atiquizaya)

Well this week I did not get drunk so that is definitely an improvement from the last week. Also we had our investigators actually come to church. What a miracle! Right now we are having problems with the families of our investigators. One seemed super positive and was about to go to church with us, but then Saturday night her in-laws came to visit her. 

Well they just so happen to hate the church. So Wednesday when we went to visit her she told us she doesn’t want to meet with us anymore. We have another investigator who has 16 years. And he wants to join a church but right now he is in search of which is the correct, because he used to be catholic but now he hates them because they have all this money but don’t help the poor. And also he has read the bible and knows that the two don’t really match up. 

Well we had plans all made for him to assist last Sunday with a member, but his dad wouldn’t let him go. Same problem this week. Its super frustrating because we have more investigators who are having problems similar. But this week we had 4 come to church. 

One is the one who I mentioned last week. He is preparing to be baptized on the 7th of January. He wasn’t positive if he could come to church because sometimes he works Sundays. He sells drinks that they make in the morning so they need to wake up early to prepare the juices. So we offered to come to his house early in the morning to help him prepare so he could have time to come to church. He told us alright and that he was going to call us in the morning around 5:30 to tell us if he needed help. 

Well he only had our cellphone number (We have two phones, one cell and the other land line because we don’t have service in our house or anywhere else in our area  because we live by a jail) Well I told him that we were going to call him in the night from the landline so he could have our number because I don’t have our landline written down. 

Well when we got back to the house at night, I pulled out our cell to search for his number. Turns out we didn’t have his number like I thought. Well I didn’t know what to do because if he called us on our cell we wouldn’t know. So we woke up at 5:30 and left to go to his house to see if he needed our help. He was still sleeping when we got there so we assumed he didn’t need our help. We ended up just sitting outside his house for like an hour until like 7:10 which at this point we knocked on the door and woke him up haha.

These are the two logs we need to chop up into fire wood.I dont think it can be done haha. They are full length mango trees that are still a little green. My gringoness makes it harder to do it too. My comp did like 10x more than me. 

This week we had interchanges with the district leader. It was super weird being with him because he actually taught with me. In our first lesson I was super hesitant to stop talking because I am  accustomed to giving all of the lesson. It was super nice teaching with someone who actually teaches for a change haha.

In the lesson with the investigator preparing for baptism on Saturday I was teaching the restauration to him and was just starting the lesson, and I just finished teaching about how God is our loving heavenly father and wants to bless our families and one of the ways he does this is through calling prophets and revealing his gospel. And I asked his what a prophet was in his own words, and he gave his response.   

Well Elder Hernandez cleared his throat like he had something to share so I stopped and let him continue with the lesson. Well this is basically word for word what he said.. Yes exactly, when Heavenly Father was on the earth, verdad, he established his church, verdad, with 12 apostles and prophets, verdad, so that today we know about the restauration, verdad, hermano, for you, verdad, which is the true church?..  And I was like ah crap. 

Haha you could tell the difference immediately in our investigator, and Elder Hernandez was just as surprised as I was of what came out of his mouth haha he looked at me with horror in his eyes looking for me to save him haha. Cause he started talking about things that were super off topic.  Luckily we were able to bring it under control again, and continue to have a good lesson, but after the lesson with both laughed about it.

This week should be a good one with investigators progressing. We found a 18 year old and we went to  teach him and after the lesson of the restauracion I asked him, do you want to know if these things are true. and he replied , I already know. That was a huge shocker. He only doesn’t want to get baptized because he thinks it’s a wasted to be baptized and then three months later fall away. So he wants to be sure in his decision. 

Hopefully this week goes good and we can put more dates for baptism and have  more success.

Things are slowly improving, it just takes a lot of patience. 

Everything is going good, and I hope things are going well for Christmas time.

Love Elder Blanchard

Week 18 (Campestre, Atiquizaya)

Well, I may or may not have gotten drunk this week.  But to begin this story, let’s go back to last Monday, after I finished writing you guys. Well we went to go do our shopping for the week, and everyone thought we were going to get money in our accounts, but we didn’t. So everyone was super stressed with their money for the week. I was pretty well set with 10 dollars, which is way more than enough for the week, while other elders had 15 cents. 

Well to make things even better we went to see if we had money left over in the bank account, and I had 10 more dollars. So with this feeling of being the richest elder in the mission we went to the store. We bought some cookies and other treats. 

Then while walking in the cereal and boxed milk isle I spotted something that slightly resembled eggnog. I stopped and looked again. Rompopo. My comp saw what I was looking at and got excited too. He tried to explain what it was, how the members in Honduras always drink this stuff during Christmas time and that sometimes non members liked to ferment it into alcohol. I knew that a lot of people liked to turn eggnog into alcohol so now I knew it had to be eggnog, then I flipped the box over and it had in English the word Eggnog. That was the only thing I needed to see and I was convinced we needed to buy it. My comp was like yeah alright.

Well we went home played soccer at the church with the other elders and some members, then went home showered, slept a little, then it was time to leave the house. Well I wanted to drink my eggnog before we left, so I get a cup out and pour me a glass, and I down it in one second. It wasn’t that good. But it sort of resembled eggnog so I drank another half cup. This cup was pretty big. Then my comp comes in and tried a tiny sip. He was like, ah elder, this has alcohol in it. And we look at the box, and in a red box that is pretty hard to miss it says. CONTAINS ALCOHOL. 

At this point I’m thinking oh crap. We had a family home evening planned with the family of S...... our convert and the family of the bishop, so we went to their house first. That’s when I started feeling super weird. It started with me sweating a lot. We were in the living room of the bishop asking them about the lesson we were going to teach because when we had discussed it prior they said they were going to plan a lesson and they were going  to talk with the family to make sure it was alright if we came. 

Well they didn’t do either. So we had to go to S..... house to ask if we could have the family home evening. At this point I felt super weird. Like everything was moving around me but I was still super conscious. Then we returned to bishops house to tell them the lesson was still on. At this point I am sweating profusely and I am starting to feel like crap. 

We go back to our house because I knew a Mormon message that is really good for what we were going to talk about. Because I knew there was no way I was going to be able to teach a family home evening by myself in the state I was in. Well I was searching for 20 minutes for the video and when I finally found it wouldn’t play. So I was like crap. I have to prepare to teach a lesson on the atonement of Jesus Christ in 20 minutes and then teach it by myself drunk. At this point I feel extremely sick and light headed and just super out of it, but we went and picked up the family of the bishop and went to Sandra’s house. 

Well, I gave the whole lesson and it was one of the best lessons I have ever give, (my comp couldn’t help teach because first he still doesn’t really talk in the lessons, and 2nd he didn’t know what the atonement was) My comp after the lesson was like, holy cow, the spirit was super strong in the lesson haha. After that we went home and slept. The next day I woke up with the worst headache I have ever had. And we had interviews that day haha. I told president about it and he just said, what did you learn elder_ That I shouldn’t be stupid. He just laughed and said, yeah I think that’s right. It was indeed an interesting experience.

This week had its highs and lows like always. We have one investigator who is really starting to progress towards baptism and we went to the Christmas devotional with us last night, he did start to fall asleep though. At first I was kind of disappointed, but then I thought about the story of Ammon and they all collapsed when they felt the spirit of conversion so I figured that must have been happening with him. But He is really a great guy and he wants to have some changes in his life. 

We have two sets of investigators who want to get baptized but can’t because they need divorces so they can get married to the person they are living with. And it’s a super complicated long process and its super frustrating. Another problem we have is everyone works on Sundays. You’d think in a country where literally everyone is a devout member of their faith, they would have everything closed on the Sabbath day. 

But yeah this week I think we are going to leave a couple of our investigators so we can find a lot more to teach and that can progress. I was talking to president about how we have a problem with them coming to church and he said kind of the same thing as you, he said no I think the problem you have is that they aren’t reading the book of Mormon. He said I am kind of convinced that if they are reading every night and praying then they will come to church.

Things are slightly improving with my companion. He is feeling more comfortable in the lessons and talking more.. kind of. We have been doing a lot of service this week because of the new church video Ilumina el mundo and that’s been fun. 

Although these past few days have been awful with the heat so that makes it a little tough. I don’t know if you guys have seen the Christmas video yet but it’s really good. It makes me miss snow a lot though. I hate the hot weather.

With my comp and singing I ended up recording him sing on my camera and showed him. He was shocked haha.

This week is going to be a good week though, right now I think it’s about to rain so that’s going to be good getting away from the sun. These past few days have been the hottest so far in the mission.

Love Elder Blanchard

Week 17 (Campestre, Atiquizaya)

Well one week down of being a trainer. Definitely one of the longest-hardest weeks of my life. But it is slowly getting better. This week was also a little frustrating with our investigators. We had five who had baptismal dates for the 17 de deciembre but none of them had any attendances to church. This meant that it was necessary for them to go to church this week. Well 2 have work every Sunday which means they can never go. One had his birthday this Sunday so he was with his family and couldn’t come. Two have a comprimiso with god where they can’t leave their house until 12 on Sundays. Which they are praying to see if it’s ok, but still haven’t received an answer. It was super frustrating having that happen. 

But one the bright side, we already have a bunch of people who say they are going to come next week. And this week we have a lot of lessons with people we contacted this week. So we have a lot of fresh meat.

This week for thanksgiving we had a party with a couple of the zones. We made ornaments that had ties and our name tag for the Christmas tree in the office. After that we all had to get flu shots. Then we ate. The food was so good. We had turkey mashed potatoes, potato salad, and some broccoli salad which was really good too. It was so nice not eating rice and chicken for once. Then they had pumpkin pie and vanilla ice cream which was amazing. It was the most food I had eaten for a while.

Something cool that happened this week was a small tender mercy. We had to go to Santa Ana twice this week which is an hour and a half bus ride. On Wednesday we had to go for his papers so he could be legal here which we had to be in the office at 7 am, we left our house at 5:30 and had to stand the whole time is a bus that is the most crowded I have ever seen, and the only windows open on the bus were the ones in front of me and my comp, which made it really cold haha. My comp had to go to San Salvador which is another hour an a half. All the news went there together and the trainers stayed to have interchanges for a few hours. I went with elder price my old ZL from Arizona who is really cool, to his area in chalchuapa which is a super dangerous part of the mission. Well after a few hours of being there we had to take a bus back to the office which should have only taken 20 minutes but took more like 45.

Then from the office we went back to our area. The point is we did a lot of traveling that day and were exhausted. Well we had appointments in a part of our area called Nuevo Amanacer which we usually need to take a bus through a jungle for about 15 minutes to get there. Well we had appointments for 2, 3 and 4 o´clock and we need to leave there by about 5 because the buses stop going there pretty early and to walk back in the dark from there is really dangerous. Well we returned to our area at like 4:30 and we decided to still go there because we have an investigator with fecha who we needed to visit because he needed to go to church to maintain his date. 

And the next couple of days we couldn’t visit because we had appointments. Well we decided to go and to not wait for a bus because sometimes you can wait for more than an hour for them and we didn’t want to waste time and the bus would pass us on the road but in case it didn’t we wanted to already be walking there. Well the buss never passed. It took us 40 minutes to walk there, and it is always inclining gradually. I love to walk fast. My companion struggles to walk fast but that’s another story haha. But He was dying on the way there. 

Well we end up getting there and we have a quick lesson with him and we find out it’s his birthday and he can’t come to church. So basically we went there for nothing. Well the lesson ends and by this time it is like 6 and basically completely dark well we asked a member there if there would be another bus coming and she said maybe, but also that she would not recommend walking back cause its really dangerous. 

Well we decided to start walking back because there was still a tiny bit of light. Well while we are walking a bus passes us and we get super excited and wave it down, but it doesn’t stop. We figured it just wanted to go drop the people off and then come back for us. But then we talked to a lady passing us by and said that bus was going to stay in Nuevo Amanacer. So we didn’t know what to do. So I start praying in my heart because first of all I’m exhausted and don’t want to walk twenty miles, and also cause I don’t really want to get shot. I wanted to know what we should do. Well I felt like we should keep walking a little further, but then we came to a point where I felt like we shouldn’t go further and that we should say a prayed out loud. 

After the prayer I felt that it was ok to continue walking so we walked a little more down the pathway where I felt the impression to stop and wait. So I did. Then two people passed and I felt like we should follow them. So we started to follow them, and then from a little further down the road where another road joins it we see a light and hear a car coming, so all four of us start running because we think it might be a bus. It wasn’t, but it started a conversation with the other two people. The bus hadn’t stopped for them either but they showed us s spot where we could wait for a bus from either Amanacer or a different area so we wouldn’t miss it. 

A bus ended up passing and we made it home safely so that was cool. It just helped me learn that first of all, sometimes we just need to stop and pray so that we can be in tune with the spirit, and that we need to follow the promptings without hesitation even if you doubt they are promptings. Because I honestly didn’t think  they were promptings at first but the more I started listening to them the stronger they got. I bet we would have made it safely without this experience because the bus would have passed us in the street walking back, but this experience helped us feel confident and comfort in our decisions so that we were never worried.

But yeah this week has been super long. A lot of our lessons our investigators are on complete different Sides of our area, so all this week we have been walking a ton. My comp is dying because I try to walk super-fast because I don’t want to be late, but he has super short legs. And is kind of fat (It’s not bad to call people fat here). So there’s always a huge gap between us and I always have to stop and wait for him. He will get used to it soon though, and probably lose a lot of weight.

Also to add to our walking we have the no water problem. All this week we didn’t have water in our Souse. Only two 5 gallon jugs of pure water for drinking. So all this week when we needed to use the bathroom we had to walk 10 minutes to the chapel. Also to bathe in the morning we had to walk 25 minutes to the house of the elders of another area in our district. Which they had hot water which was super nice, but it still sucked. We still don’t have water. Everyone says we are supposed to see falling water today but this morning we had none. Hopefully when we get back there’s water.

Yeah but with all this walking, teaching all of the lessons and trying to plan everything and be on time to everything is physically and mentally exhausting. Luckily it’s getting better though and my comp is starting to get a little bit more comfortable in the lessons and is starting to say a little more. I feel bad because he feels bad that he doesn’t know stuff and is getting frustrated with himself. I keep trying to get him to stay positive and we do a lot of practices. 

When we are walking I try to get him to give me the lessons. I think he’s getting sick of that haha cause I always correct him when he says false doctrine, and he says a lot. Like his first couple of days he was teaching that 2 angels appeared to joseph smith in the first vision, and that Joseph wrote the book of Mormon. That prophets are the authority of god(not people). It’s funny though because like the first day we were here went contacting and had some weird lessons and were rejected a lot by people who already go to another church. 

So I was explaining to my comp the situation we have in this mission, how it is different than other the other missions because there is a ton of religion here and everyone actually goes to their church and are active there. I also described the place as being full of apostasy, and I guess my comp really liked that description because every day since he has talked to someone from the mission or a member about how much apostasy there is. But yeah he really is overwhelmed and I am trying to help him as best as possible. Luckily I am really patient. 

Everything is going good here though. Yeah the thing you sent me was the right thing. I should be in the pictures. I am in the bottom left Connor sitting down in the picture outside. I see the people in my district quite a bit. We haven’t done anything for pday for thanksgiving, just the zone party. Haha I don’t have too much hope for the singing. He thinks he is a really good singer haha. I think I am just gonna stop singing hymns before the lessons.

Everything is going good though, Hope everything is going good back home too. Take pictures when it snows. I miss cold weather.

Love Elder Blanchard