La Misión de Elder Steven Neher: Week #12 - Olanchito (Bellavista Branch)

Hola familia y amigos!

Well I do apologize for last week, the zone activity was way out of the way and the buses here move so slow and when it´s on dirt roads it doesn’t help either! Well anyways, I better get started relaying what happened over the past two weeks! My comp left to SPS for a training meeting for 3 days so I went to Olanchito on splits with Elder Denning, which was fun. There is a bakery out here that is amazing! I only wish it was in my area. My area takes half of the main street and everything to the west, which is all residential.

Well that Saturday we had a baptism with Erlin, a 14 year old who lives with his inactive grandparents, but he didn’t come on Sunday to receive his confirmation so we had to remind him to come, and thankfully he came yesterday. It’s been kind of rough here; all the investigators we have already have dates for baptism, so now we are doing a lot of contacting and asking for referrals. Hopefully we can find some more people to start teaching. We have one investigator, Ingrid, who came to church yesterday and is planning on coming next week, which means she can get baptized on the 20^th. She also came to Erlin´s baptism and said, “So, I’m next?” haha yup! So things have been going good here, now to answer the list of questions.

I actually have one of the nicest houses in the mission apparently. It’s pretty nice and compared to the others I’ve seen, I can tell! We eat lunch and dinner at the cook's house, and for breakfast we usually go to a pulperia (small neighborhood grocery store) to buy something. We do not have hot running water, but we do have a stove we can heat the water if we want. It’s just me and Elder Elison in this house. We wake up at 6:30am and go to bed at 10:30pm and we leave the house around 12noon, depending on the day, and get back at nine, unless the power fails, in which case we go straight home. That reminds me, Erlin´s baptism was in the dark, no power all night long! We have district meetings Tuesdays at the chapel in Olanchito.

Elder Elison is great! He teaches great, his Spanish is great and his hobbies include running, running, and more running. He's also a big history nut, especially with military history. When he had to leave, it was for a training meeting and our area/zone is the farthest from the mission so he left for Tocoa on Monday, left there at 2am Tuesday morning to get to SPS by 7am and then had meetings there all day Tuesday and part of Wednesday. He went back to Tocoa Wed. night, then back to our area on Thursday, but I stayed on divisions in Olanchito that day.

The bus rides here are long! Depending on the type of bus it can take 6 to 8 hours to get to SPS. The buses are either a school bus, or a charter bus, and they aren’t as crammed as the ones in Argentina. These buses go long distances everyday and they are made to carry luggage and stuff, but my comp says they are bad in SPS, so I would assume there they are just like the colectivos in Buenos Aires. Yes it is ok to give out my email, I checked and doubled checked with my comp. (Steven.Neher@myldsmail.net).

Regarding computers, it depends on where you go, but an average is 20 limps (1 dollar) for the hour, connection depends as well, and I don’t think I can print out letters. After we got off the computers last time (2 weeks ago) we rested for a while, but today we plan on helping a family move some items, and maybe go look for some cheap soccer jerseys. I am 1 of 4 Barcelona fans in my district, the rest are for Real Madrid. The other day I saw a car with a Barça and Boca Jrs. stickers…blasphemy!!

Our area is absolutely huge! We don’t even go to one part because the elders got robbed twice down there. We haven’t really been outside of our area much except for the zone activity last week in Trujillo (oh btw, those pics you put up on my blog don’t really represent what it’s like here, the streets are much dirtier, especially in my area where there are no paved roads, chickens, dogs and trash everywhere). The food has definitely been the hardest adjustment so far, but I’m getting used to it. Guineo verde isnt the greatest thing, it’s a green banana that tastes like a flavorless potato. The people here are awesome, they are very open to letting people in their homes and the members are willing to help. The climate is interesting, it was pretty hot to start with but now it’s super chilly at night! I actually have a reason to use those sweaters, haha!

I have learned how to walk for hours on end, I have learned how to push myself even when it gets tough, and I’ve realized how humble the people are out here. I love it out here! It’s a new experience and I love it. Our cook says I’m already half Honduran cause I can speak Spanish! It is great down here and I can’t wait for Christmas and New Years when everyone is drunk and shooting off firecrackers, haha! Hopefully this next week I will have more stories to tell, until then, hope everyone is doing great back home!

Love,

Elder Neher

** All of the pictures were copied from his Mission President's blog. Still no pictures from Steven!