Climbing Mountains and Beach BBQ's - It's 2015 in Honduras!

Monday Jan 5, 2015

Hola mi querida familia y amigos!!

I hope that this brand new year had found you all happy and well! It's definitely un año nuevo (a new year) here in Honduras. We had a good time in an area called T, that is a garifina community. You have to be garifina (i hope i'm spelling that right) in order to live there. But it has the most beautiful beach I've ever seen! (and that's saying a lot here in Honduras) The sand was sooooo soft.

There are some members that live there that invited us to come to their little house by the beach to celebrate with some bbq'd meat and good company :) It's a community with lots of culture! 

At one point a man came running into our little area all painted in black with a mask and loincloth and whistle and was getting all in our faces and dancing around. He was right in front of us with his hand outstretched, i think he was asking 
for money but i gave him a peace of my meat instead and he took it and ran off.... haha It was so cool to be there. We spent the majority of the day visiting less active members and part member families. The firecrackers and fireworks weren't as loud as Christmas, but they were the more pretty kind... haha it still was nuts because throughout December lots of families make life-size dolls and leave them out front for people to pass by and give them money (and people actually give them money) and then on new year's they explode them at midnight! That was what brought the most ruckus... haha but it's an interesting tradition. 

This week was awesome because we went to visit an investigator, and it turns out that he moved houses. He met us at he bottom of the hill with a sister from the branch and told us that he now lived in a house up the hill another 15 minute walk and that there was a family there that wanted us to visit them. We were like, Let's go!!! It was a steep hill... haha but the vista is super bonita! You can see the ocean off in the distance on the way up the hill. There was a super awesome family at the top of the hill and they are so receptive and humble! The dad came down to an activity that the quorum had and loved it. There is a 19 year old daughter who is reading the Book of Mormon with F and is super interested. It makes climbing the mountain all the worth while! haha The other day we were trying to find a man that we had talked to on the street a couple of weeks ago and when we found his house only his mom was home. But she invited us in and we started to share with her. We asked her if she had ever visited the church and she said that she had been several times. We asked if she had been baptized and she said, "no... but oh how much I would love to be baptized!" we were caught a little off guard but told her that we would help her prepare for a certain date and she said absolutely, there is nothing holding me back.... haha the only reason she had stopped visiting the church is because she got sick, but was now better and ready to go to church again. It was a tender mercy that we found her :) I love moments like that!!!

In my personal study I have been reviewing the talks from this past conference and this week I learned just how important the law of the fast is!!! (from Bishop Dean M. Davies) He mentioned a scripture in Isaiah 58 that I had never read before that talked about the blessing of fasting and giving our fast offerings. Holy cow! My favorite part is when it is saying that we will pray to God and He will say "here I am." I have a huge testimony of fasting, but now I have a bigger testimony of fast offerings as well. I recommend that talk! 

I also learned something new in my companion's English book... haha CTR not only stands for choose the right, but also for our baptismal covenants:

C - Commandments, keep them all!

T - Take upon the name of Christ

R - Remember Christ always

Cool, huh? I don't know why I never caught on to that.... 

They rearranged the branch presidency this week and we're excited for what this year has in store for this branch!!! There are over 900 members of the church here in tela and only 70-80 active members.... sad huh? It's super common to be contacting and find members by accident! But with Elder and Hermana W here there are lots of people coming back to church. The Lord is DEFINITELY hastening His work, and here in T we get to see that first hand. Everyone here can feel it, I can wait to see how this branch will be this time next year :)

Sure love you all! I hope you have a great first week of the year :)

Until Next Week,

Hermana Bennett 

Multizone p-day on the beach in Tela!