Thursday, May 29, 2014

Transfer number 7

Wednesday May 28,2014
Hola to my family and friends! 

Saying goodbye to another transfer and on to the next. I have been here in the mission for more transfers than I have left... That´s kind of a weird thought. Me and Hermana Olivas are staying together again so not much change!! This week was a great one. 


My birthday was on Tuesday and my district suprised me with a lunch at a members house! They said that we had district meeting on Tuesday and we were there waiting for all the other sisters to arrive (they´re always late.... haha) so it wasn´t abnormal for us to be waiting. Then Hermano G showed up and said that there was an emergency in his house and that he needed us to come help. He sent us in a mototaxi and took the elders in his truck to get another "hermano" for help. That´s when I got a little suspicious! When we got to the house there was a super loud birthday song playing in Spanish and they were all hiding behind the door to surprise me! They had made a special "american" lunch of meat, mashed potatoes and veggies :) It made me feel like I was with family :)



Here they like to pull pranks of the birthday person, and I was no different.  They gave me a box that had a tarantula in it, shoved my face in the cake after blowing out the candles, and cracked two eggs and poured flour over my head....haha it wouldn't be a Hondurean birthday without it!

















I was super grateful for my district and the Bautista family for remembering my birthday. Apparently they´d been planning it for weeks! It´s a hard day to be away from family, but I felt right at home with them.






This week we had multizone conferences which meant that me and my companion got to travel a lot to the other parts of the mission to do a presentation on health. That´s one thing I like about my calling is that I get to meet all the missionaries in the mission!


This time the presentation was great because I had my companion do a part of it. She has been helping me a lot with the nursing responsibilities and it has really helped the unity in our companionship. Instead of having her sit off to the side she jumps right in to help and even takes some calls for me! I really do love being the nurse. It´s an extra responsibility, but I feel good getting to help the other missionaries serve the Lord the best that they can.



Wednesday was our own Zone Conference and then on Friday we traveled to La Ceiba (2 1/2 hours in a bus). I feel like I´m becoming pro at this whole public transport thing! Maybe I´ll just use the bus system when I get home.... haha It was funny, at the bus terminal on the way back there were a bunch of gringos there that had been backpacking in the mountains by the ocean. I started talking to one of them and found out that she was from Conneticut. It was SO HARD talking to her in English... Everyother word I said was in Spanish and I kept having to correct myself.... haha I prefer to speak in Spanish now, even with the other American missionaries. It´s just hard to switch back and forth. 

Traveling meant not being able to work full time in the area, but we were still able to find some great people to teach! One day we were walking to contact a reference when we saw a man on his front porch. We started talking to him and he immediately let us in and was super friendly. We found out that he had just moved here a week ago to live with his daughter, but that a year ago he had visited a couple of time with missionaries and liked what they had to say, though had never been able to go to church because of his work. We gave him a book of mormon and invited him to church on Sunday. On Saturday we were walking down another street and here he comes on a bike saying, "hermanas, I´m headed to church right now!!" He thought that it was a day early... haha but it is always a struggle to get people to come to church and to see him so excited to go filled us with so much joy! The next visit we as we were walking towards his house we saw him sitting on his porch with his reading glasses reading the book of mormon :) We´ve been praying to find someone that has been prepared and that would be excited and interested in our message! It´s a testimony that the Lord really prepares his children, we just so happen to be the missionaries here when he was ready to accept it. He has a baptismal date for 28th of June so lots of prayers his way would be great!! 


Mom had some questions about how people react to our message here. In Mezapa a lot of people are super religous, the main religion being Evangelical (with lots of different sects). As I was watching the Restoration the other day with all the pastors and all the different churches meeting outside and all the religious talk and excitement it reminded me so much of how it is here in Mezapa! Everyone saying "here is the truth" "no, here is the truth!!" I don´t think I could count how many different churches their are here, practically one on every corner! On Monday nights there are a lot of "cultos" or church meetings that they hold outside their houses in their yards. Everyone is willing to listen and talk about Christ, but to accept a doctrine that isn´t there own is difficult, especially when they have already been baptized in their churches. They say that there is only one baptism (like ephesians 4) and that it is playing with God to be baptized in another church. To answer this doubt a lot of times we show them Acts 18, where Paul found a group of people that had been baptized but never recieved the Holy Ghost, then were baptized again and he placed his hands on their heads to give them the spirit. A lot of times as well they feel that they need to ask permission from their Pastors to come to church, even when they feel the spirit or feel like it is true. It also helps to explain the Apostasy and the Authority, which is a completely new concept for the majority of people. Many feel that the authority never left the earth, and that the authority is given by God to those who have faith and have accepted him as their Savior. This helps, but really in the end, what they need to do is read the Book of Mormon and pray to ask God and recieve and answer and confirmation by the spirit for themselves. We could answer their questions and doubts all day long but if they never ask, they will never be able to come to know for themselves. I have a huge testimony in the power of the Spirit and the Book of Mormon!! Without it, our message seems like just another really great message about Christ.

Sorry for the Novel.... haha I hope that you all have a really great week! I´ll talk to you all again on Monday!

Hermana Bennett

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