Week #28 - These boots were made for tracting (Cerro Verde)

Saludos a todos desde mi nueva área, Cerro Verde!

Yup, I am now in Zona Fesitranh, area Cerro Verde (in the town of Choloma, just outside of SPS).  There are a bunch of hills here so I am almost positive I will lose more weight and gain more muscle…yes!!! Well, all day Tuesday I was saying goodbye to as many families as I could and Wednesday we left at 3am for SPS for the changes meeting (by the way, I think I over-packed, because not only are both of the red suitcases missing a wheel, but the big one ripped, big time). Well I went to the changes meeting, saw all the elders that I knew, and got my new comp, Elder Perez from Guatemala. He is really cool, he's pilas (ie., hard working, obedient) haha! Seriously he does everything amazingly well, way better than we have been doing lately.

Saturday we had a baptism already planned for a lady named Gabriela, and there was supposed to be two more, for a couple who is waiting to get married, but now the husband is having doubts because his mom is interfering. The mission secretaries were supposed to get the marriage partidas, but they didn’t and now that they have waited so long it has started problems, so hopefully everything will be fine this Saturday.  We should have one more baptism this Saturday as well. Her name is Yuri and she works for some members at a Jamba juice-ish place. Also, we have been working with recent converts too, helping them to stay strong.

This week was interesting. Friday it was incredibly hot. Something different here is that everything is paved, while in Bella Vista my area had little to no pavement, and the pavement only adds to the heat! So Friday I had a terrible migraine that carried over to Saturday, which I’m not sure if it was the heat or what I ate (which I will explain) but I have had terrible stomach problems. Friday night while at the juicer, they sell fried chicken and stuff there too, and baleadas, so I got to try and make one (which are terribly hard to do, but look so easy). Also they offered me for dinner... chicken feet! They were soggy, covered in some sort of sauce, and (as I’m writing this my stomach hurts, I still have problems with it) it was pure skin and fat.  The taste was ok, but it just felt nasty. I am never again eating chicken feet again! It has completely destroyed my desire to eat these past couple days!

Well the bishop here speaks perfect English and he has never studied it! He told me that as a kid he understood everything and that on his mission he was only able to teach in Spanish for 11 months (he was called to El Salvador, but left due to conflicts in the country) then came to this mission, (which at the time had Belize, where he was for 11 months) and now has perfect English, it is incredible! Well the members here are great, I’m still trying to memorize the area a bit, it’s a bit spread out here, but I’m not sure if it’s bigger than Bella Vista or not. I hope next week I can say more on the investigators, because as of right now I don’t really know much about them.

Oh and when the people here ask me where I’m from, my comp tells me to say Argentina and they believe me! I do end up telling them I’m from AZ, but I have heard many comments that my Spanish is very clear, especially for the short time I have in the mission. The last elder that was here has the same time I do but it was harder for him to talk. I still have a bit of grammar problems here and there, but for the most part it sounds like my Spanish is awesome! Today we went as a district to take pictures with some wild monkeys in my area, the little Capuchin monkeys like in Night at the Museum. Hopefully I can send some of those later. Hope all goes well back home with everyone!

Elder Neher

 p.s. Note from the editor (Dad). Here are some pictures taken from Google Earth of his new town of Choloma.

I'm sure he'll be happy about the Wendy's, Pizza Hut and Burger King!

Large Industrial Complex

Industrial Complex

Local area in Choloma

Neighborhood on a hill.

Local neighborhood

Week #27 - Among the Clouds (Bellavista Branch)

Hola familia y todos!

Well, to start off this letter, I'm gonna say that I have changes on Wednesday! Yup, I’m leaving Bella Vista, which is kind of sad, but I’m ready to get to know more of Honduras. Hopefully I’ll go somewhere where it’s cooler because everyone says that the week of Easter is terrible…the hottest part of the year!

Well this week was kind of slow. Some of our investigators weren’t home and others didn’t go to church, but overall the attendance at the branch has grown a lot. It's incredible! When I got here it was about 70 to 80 a week and now it’s up to 110 to 120! I have started saying goodbye to those that I can but its kind of tough because some members live super far away from us, about a half hour walking! Well we have been teaching Vanessa and Mari, but they still want more time, so hopefully they can get baptized in March. We also set a baptismal date for this weekend with Carlos, the step-son of our cook, who has been going to church and has stopped drinking! He just needs to keep working on smoking, but all he needs is to stop smoking and to receive the rest of the lessons and he's good to go! It just stinks that I won’t be here for it, but oh well, that’s the way it goes.

This week has been hot, then cold, and hot again with lots of rain, then after it rains, with the sun, it gets super hot, just like living in KC! We have been visiting with a lot members, helping them find referrals and helping inactives to get re-activated. It is really helping the branch to grow more. Well with changes this letter isn’t going to be too long. I don’t even know where to start with packing, haha!! Hope all is well back home!

Nos hablamos en mi nueva area!

Elder Neher

Week #26 - Happy Singles Awareness Day! (Bellavista Branch)

Hola familia y amigos,

Well I want to start out this week saying Happy Singles Awareness Day and to those of you who have a special someone, Happy Valentine's Day! haha Well this week has been good, a LOT of walking, I’ve been teaching my comp the area and in one day we walked I want to say the entire area. We didn’t mean to plan it that way, but one appointment would be over there and the next all the way on the other side of our area, so I got to show him how big the area is!

Elder Mendez is cool, he's a bit goofy but understands a lot of English, and he has only had 1 American comp other than me in 14 months. I’ve begun to notice things about the Guatemalan missionaries through him. He's been complaining a lot and comparing Guatemala to here, like Elder Contreras too, and it shows that they are super prideful of Guatemala, calling it the "second factory of missionaries". He´s cool and everything but it just bothers me that he isn’t really embracing the country and people like I am, but whatever. At least the members have shown an increase in their trust for us now that Elder Contreras is gone. We have received a whole bunch of references, some of which we still haven’t contacted, but it shows that the members are willing to work with us now.

Well on Tuesday after our district meeting, we went as a district and with our ZLs to Coyoles to help start preparations to build a house for a family of investigators. We have to help build a second house because the parents are brother and sister, and they have 7 or so kids. By the law down here they can’t get married, but they want to get baptized, so they are willing to separate to get baptized, so we have to make a separate house for the husband so there aren’t any problems there. So we started by making a huge batch of mud, to make bricks for the house, we had so much mud that it started drying up and so to keep it smooth and to work it in the middle, we had to get in the mud and mash it like a wine press! haha So after two of the sons went in, I jumped in, along with Elders Denning, Jackson, and Diego, so we got nice and dirty! haha  It was fun to go help out.

Well, with our investigators this week we didn’t have any baptisms like we hoped. Mari and Vanessa said it was a bit too soon for baptism. We taught the importance of setting a date asap, but they still said it was too soon so we haven’t pushed them that much since. We wanted to visit with them on Friday, but they weren’t home and I was worried that they might not come to church. For some background info, Mari has gained a testimony of the church. Vanessa we aren’t sure if she has or not, because she isn’t keeping her commitments as well as her mom, but yesterday Vanessa went to church without her mom, who was in Juticalpa for the weekend. This shows me that she has a desire to go to church without being pushed by her mom, so hopefully we can help them progress a little more, eventually to baptism. We have also been teaching another family, familia Rosales Nuñez, who seem to be progressing nicely. They have just about the same questions as Joseph Smith had, wanting to know why there are a whole bunch of churches and which one is true, so we watched the movie on the restoration and they seemed to enjoy it.  The movie answered some of their questions and yesterday Luis (the father) and his son, Alonso came to church and they seemed to really enjoy it. Hopefully they can keep progressing too.

Everything is going good here. I complete 6 months this week! Wow, the time went by so fast, so it should mean I’ll be home quicker than I think! Haha

Hasta pronto!

Elder Neher

Week #25 - An Interesting Week (Bellavista Branch)

Buenas a todos, familiares y amigos!

Well, like the title says, it was an interesting week. We had interviews on Tuesday with President Veirs, who is awesome! Hna Veirs is so sweet and I love talking with her. Well I was the last one to have interviews, after my comp. Mainly we talked about Elder Contreras and the problems that have been occurring out here. One problem was that the AP’s said we weren’t allowed to eat at our cook’s house anymore, but we started eating there again and Elder Contreras talked to me about it. He said he wanted to continue eating there but take the food to our house, which I agreed to, but we ended up staying anyways. Well my comp told President that we weren’t eating there, and I said we were, because I don’t feel good about lying to President (I don’t know if that’s just me, haha!) Well at the end of the interview President told me to wait 48 hours while they figured out where to send Elder Contreras. 

After interviews we went out and worked. We've been teaching Pedro, the husband of a member. We passed by his house when Elder Elison was here, but he didn’t show any interest back then. Recently his wife has been having Hno. Vega (1st counselor in the District) pass by and visit with him and then a couple days later we contacted the house. It looked different before, but I was surprised to see that Pedro was receptive to everything and apparently Hno. Vega set a baptismal date with him for the 26th, but we taught him everything and put the date for the 5th, and he accepted it! So we had his baptism this past Saturday! He asked Hno. Vega to baptize him, but Hno Vega was a little apprehensive because Pedro is pretty big, haha! But it all worked out and Sandra, the wife, was extremely happy. Yesterday she bore her testimony saying how grateful she was and how she was looking forward to going to the temple to be sealed, so that was really cool!

Well we also have Mari and her daughter Vanessa, who were not able to go to the baptism, but went to church yesterday, and they loved it. They love Sunday School and Mari was participating like crazy, haha! It was awesome! Mari had to go home to cook lunch for her mom, but Vanessa and her daughter Alison stayed for Relief Society and Primary. Alison loved primary, which was great because the last time they came she was crying (she's 4). Vanessa loved Relief society too. We went to their house at 5pm after church and watched the movie on the Restoration, which they loved as well. They have accepted everything, BoM, Word of Wisdom, everything, and Vanessa told us that she had to been to other churches before, but she never felt like she did when she came yesterday, which was awesome to hear! We tried putting a baptismal date with them, they were a little apprehensive. They said it’s a little too soon, but we are going to work with them and hopefully get them baptized this week!

Well, Thursday night we went a little late back to the house, and got a call from the ZL’s, saying that Elder Contreras had an emergency change. He was pretty upset about it so we went and he said goodbye to the cook and family (the only people he knew in the area) and Friday I spent 12 hours in a bus… 6 to SPS (our bus left at 3 in the morning) and 6 getting back. I went to go pick up my new comp and they lowered Elder Contreras back to junior comp. My new comp is Elder Mendez, he is from Guatemala and he knows a lot more English than I thought. He's a little goofy, but he’s funny. I guess I’m supposed to teach him the area in 15 days now, which I think means I’m leaving here this change.

Something that made me happy was that we were sitting in branch council yesterday and I apologized for what had happened these last couple of months, but no one blamed me for anything. Our branch president (congregational leader) had actually called President Veirs and told him that none of the members saw us and that everyone was basically worried about how I was doing with the given circumstances. (President Veirs even told me he didn’t feel a good spirit coming from Elder Contreras, which I could agree with.) Anyway, we got 2 references and everyone actually seemed excited that Elder Contreras left, so this week we’re going to visit with a lot of members to get more references and so that my comp knows where the leaders live.

Yesterday we had 120 people at church, and at least 10 investigators, some of which I have never seen before, so it looks really promising here! President Veirs also said we need to work with recent converts, because we are the highest baptizing mission in Central America, but we have the lowest retention.  This was something I’ve been wanting to do, so now I plan on passing with a lot of people these next few weeks.

Well grandma asked what I normally get for food. Every day I have rice, but the main course usually changes because my cook told us that she thinks variety is important because we can get bored by eating the same thing every day. So some days we have baleadas, fried chicken and tajadas (fried guineo verde, a bland relative of the banana) and various other stuff. But I have lost a lot of weight which makes me super happy! Now I just need to add on the muscle! :P Well I hope everything is great back home. All of the mission calls are super exciting! I can’t believe some of them haha!

Que tengan una semana maciza!

Elder Neher

(p.s. Enjoy the pictures!)

Baptism of Ingrid

Elder Elison and Elder Staples

Pork...it's what's for dinner!

Yummy!

Chicken of the Trees...it's what's for dinner!

Cook

Cook's daughter.

Cook's grand daughter. Isn't she cute!