Week #76 - Teach Them the Truth (Puerto Cortes)

Buenas! ¿como le va? jaja

Well some bad news as I start out this letter, I´m not training :/ I guess one didn’t come so they made some last minute changes. I don’t know, I went to the new trainer meeting and everything but now I’m not training. My new companion is Elder Xol (pronounced Shol) from Guatemala he has 6 months in the mission and it’s been quite interesting with him so far.  Like the majority of Guatemalan elders he is very proud of his country, to the point where he compares everything here to there, which is a big no-no. It’s also been hard getting used to how he teaches, which made me come to a very important conclusion. One thing that my new comp does is when we contact and someone says something that isn’t necessarily true (like our bodies are the church) he goes on macheting them and basically we lose the contact. He talks way too much, during lessons or contacting, and he assumes he knows exactly what the person is going to say by trying to finishing their sentences. It’s kind of obnoxious because a lot of the time he is wrong, and I have come to a conclusion that I wish I had realized when I had 6 months (not saying that I have done this a lot but I have been guilty of it).  We aren’t here to convince the people that they are wrong, but we are here to teach them the truth and help them understand the gospel how it really is. My companion tries to show people how we are right by convincing them with the Bible, but I honestly find that gaining a testimony from the Spirit is much stronger than that. 

Anyways some crazy stuff did go down on Monday other than not training. One was during the changes meeting where there was this lady in the room who everyone thought she was a member in that area. She sat near the front and when the new elders got up to present themselves, she starts blowing them kisses and waving at them. She also did that to another elder who was leaving. They tried taking her out a couple times and one of the times I heard her say “wow there’s only beautiful people here” haha Pres. had to take her out twice but she came back so they took her out and locked the gate behind her. It was pretty bizarre. When we were coming home we saw a huge accident on the freeway, got some good pics too haha 

Well something really interesting and awesome happened yesterday, in the mission we have weekly challenges that we need to do, and one of them was to contact 10 men using a BoM scripture. All of our appointments fell through yesterday and we were walking to visit a less active family when a car pulled up next to us (I didn’t get nervous but apparently my comp did, its one way they jump people here) and this guy asks if we knew any scriptures that could help him. My comp didn’t understand what he said, so he turned off the car, got out, and sat on the hood and told us a bit about his situation. He was into drugs with a friend, he got out of it but his friend didn’t. They are/were best friends and the one (Damian) would try to help his friend, but sometimes his friend would tell him off. It came down to that right now he tried doing a favor for his friend and now his friend doesn’t want to pay for what was done (fixing a phone) and Damian was going to go talk to his parents about it, and at that point he randomly asked why we were called Mormons, so I explained a little about the Book of Mormon and he seemed interested. Then my comp took a completely different route, trying to give him advice instead of giving him scriptural advice, so with my BoM in my hand I was thinking of a good scripture to share when I thought about Alma 37: 36-37 which says consult the Lord in all thy doings and He will direct thy paths (badly translated in English haha) When I shared that he sat there thinking, then said he wanted a copy to read. We had just given out our last one to a member family for them to give to a friend, but he seemed very interested so we left him with a prayer, and we will go back with him on Wed. It was a very cool experience and you could see the Spirit working in him. It’s interesting to really see the people that the Lord has ready to hear the gospel. We have people ready for baptism but we just have to wait for the papers to come in to get them married, but that’s what going on here in the Hondo! haha Hope everyone has a great week!

Con mucho cariño

Elder Neher

Week #75 - Truckin' Along (Puerto Cortes)

Buenas! que tal? jaja



Well this week was a pretty good week. It was another muh week, we haven’t really been having much success here but we continue to contact like crazy. We don’t really find people that are super receptive and if we find them we go back and they aren’t there or they hide from us, but we are trucking along. Regarding the companionship, we get along great, we are always messing around and having a good time, and we found out on Thurs that my comp is leaving because now Pres. is doing something different. He lets everyone that is going to train know on Thurs so that on Friday we can go to a meeting about training, so I’m training again! haha Everyone figured I would train again because there a lot of new people coming in and not really enough people ready enough to train, so another kid for me! It’s a huge responsibility and now I know what to do better or what to fix this time around that I wasn’t so diligent in with Elder Ward. This change went by super fast and I enjoyed it a lot, even though we didn’t have much success, we still had a great time.
Familia Alvarez is still up for their wedding and baptism in February and they are super excited, and we got planned a baptism for Karl, he is an interesting guy who over-thinks a lot of things, but we have a baptism planned for him too, so hopefully everything can come around for him. Actually he went to church this week and took one of his friends, and they liked the talks (my comp and I talked, as well as the high counselor) and the investigator class went over really well too. The members here are good, we are starting to pick things up now and the Relief Society has an activity planned for a super contact for the next month or two. Every Saturday the sisters will leave for 4 hours to contact, teach, and find new investigators and inactives, so it should be really successful.
Well this week we have also seen some interesting things in the streets too, a dead opossum, two dead turtles, (they were huge!) and a doll in a creek that looked like a dead baby! I’m excited for this new change and everything that it brings. Sometimes its tough being a district leader, but at the same time rewarding and great to see the progress in others, but saddening at the same time when some don’t do what’s expected of them, but you just gotta keep trucking along! I hope everyone has a great week and that even when things don’t look great, just keep trucking along!


Elder Neher

Week #74 - Gringos on the loose! (Puerto Cortes)

Hola familia y todos!

Well another week has gone by incredibly fast! It’s ridiculous how fast time goes! This was another meh week, we have been working hard and trying to get things moving, but it’s just been hard. We contact people and put an appointment and we come back and they either aren’t there or they are "busy" and we try to put a return date and then they say "but I’m Catholic or whatever" it’s been kind of tough dealing with a lot of the appointments falling through. It gets frustrating sometimes that we just can’t find anything right now, even though we do have some people, but not enough that truly want to learn. It can get hard some days especially when we walk aimlessly through the city going from fallen cita to fallen cita., but we are keeping our heads high.


One appointment was interesting this week. We are trying to reactivate a family and baptize the mom and I went there with a member on divisions and the mom was going off on how she can’t get baptized because she thinks she was a bad person after things that happened in the past. After hurricane Mitch in ‘98 she was with 3 kids, one newborn, and her husband was in jail for some reason and she was alone and lost everything. She went from church to church asking for help and she was rejected in every church and she has felt bitter about that ever since. We went back a couple days later to talk with her and her husband about going back to church. The daughters were not present but I can tell they have been affected by all the family troubles. The husband works on a cargo ship for up to 6 months of the year and is rarely home, but we shared a message about families, and they mentioned that they needed to be examples to their kids, and I used something I have learned about parenting from the Book of Mormon, studying some different parents and what happens to their children. For example, after King Benjamin gave his speech he took the names of all those that would make a covenant with the Lord, and only the little children didn’t make that covenant, and about 20 years later those kids rebelled against their parents and the church. Maybe not because the parents were bad, but because they maybe didn’t do enough to teach their kids what they had learned from King Benjamin, resulting in them leaving the church. Then I talked about another group of parents who had made a covenant with the Lord as well, and their children didn’t make that covenant either. This was the people of Ammon who decided not to take up arms to defend themselves or kill anyone. At one point they were about to break their covenant and defend their country, when Helaman realized that the youth hadn’t made this covenant, and 2000 of them went to battle instead. It says they were taught in the ways of the Lord and to put their trust in him continually, and later on these youth show their trust in the Lord by repeating what their mothers had taught them to Helaman, their captain. Because of their faith and the way their parents taught them, they were saved and not one of them perished. I shared this with them that both sets of parents had received the gospel, but the outcomes were very different. The dad was about to cry and we committed them to go to church and support and strengthen their family. It was a really great lesson, but they didn’t come to church because the kids were out of town, but it helped them change a little bit.


We have another family that are ready and willing and to get married and baptized as well, they just have to wait for the wife to get off work. She works a weird schedule they have here…work 4 days and rest 4 days and some months she doesn’t have weekends. But anyway, they are super awesome and ready. Well as for the title this week, it’s weird but we have been seeing a lot of gringos here. The first time was at Burger King where this guy asked us in terrible Spanish if we spoke English. Then he asked us where the bus stop was and told us the Mitt Romney is doing well haha! Another time we were walking and I said good night in Spanish to a lady with a huge Canon camera. She said a timid “hi” and I laughed so hard cause she was taking pics of a food stand. Then one day I saw two gringos walking down the street speaking English, going who knows where, and we have seen quite a few backpackers, including some that could’ve been Korean, pretty crazy! Well hope everyone has a great week and enjoys it! I know I will!


Elder Neher

Week #73 - Rain or Shine (Puerto Cortes)

Hola familia y amigos!

Well I want to start off by sending my condolences to the Nguyen family. Kayln was in a seminary class of mine and she was a great girl. We sat together in class and were partners for some of the activities and she was a really neat girl. I never knew she had brain cancer, but I know that she is in a better place now.

Well this week was pretty crazy. We went on divisions with the ward missionaries the majority of the week, but Tuesday was probably the craziest day. A giant cold front came into the country and of course through here and it was raining super hard with a whole bunch of wind. We weren’t able to do much of anything but still we tried contacting but no one came or could hear us over the rain. My comps umbrella snapped and wacked him in the face, it was super funny.

We have been trying really hard to find new people this week and we have had some success, but a lot of the people that we set to go back are never there. We do have a family that is ready and willing to get baptized, but they won’t get until Feb. because of her work schedule this month.  She won’t have weekends this off month and we were kind of upset that her husband wasn’t going to go to church without her, but he showed up! They seem really ready we just have to have patience until Feb.! We also had another guy named Karl. I might have mentioned him before but he showed up to church as well! We were surprised but happy that he is progressing. He has told us that he has noticed a change in his life, but he says that he hasn’t received an answer yet, but he is showing a lot of faith in wanting to know that it’s true. We had one other person show up to church as well. A couple of weeks ago we went to an appointment and this guy was there and started to talk to my comp while I tried talking to the lady with whom we had the cita.  Anyway, my comp invited him to church and found out he had recently been deported from the states, so we left him a pamphlet and we went back a week later and he apologized for not going to church that week but said he would go this last week. Well he showed up in suit and tie! It was awesome and it looked like he enjoyed it. We have to go back with him and see what he says, but he seems very positive. He actually said that he had talked to the elders in the states and ran them off saying "when God gets rid of my head and puts it on right I’ll go!" then he gets deported a week later and finds us. Coincidence? a saber, haha

These last couple days have been super hot. Today has been bad, we played some volleyball and I was dying it was so hot. It is still pretty hot, but rain or shine we must work! Pres. is trying to do a lot of things to change the mission around and I hope it works. The culture of the mission has been the same for years and there are some things Pres. doesn’t like, so hopefully we can change things around.

This next week should be good, we have found a lot of new people and let’s hope it makes for a lot of success! Thanks for everything and hope everyone has a great week!

Elder Neher

Week #72 - Explosive New Years (Puerto Cortes)

Fesitranh Zone Interviews

 

Hola familia y amigos!

Well this week was once again another tough one for us. Especially Saturday and Sunday, but we are hanging in there. Now that I think about it, it was a really slow week, we didn’t really have a lot of success, and Puerto is huge and we spend a lot of time walking everywhere trying to find people to teach. We have been doing a lot of walking and it has been really hard to find new people to teach, and a lot of people are just not home, we have been trying to get people to church and to get people to progress, but it’s just been really hard. We have some investigators that can get baptized, but there are things missing, we have Karl, who is this guy from Belize who speaks English and Spanish, and he loves the church and everything, but still has his catholic roots, but he said for New Years he wants to start by reading the BoM! Hopefully we can get him baptized by the end of the month. Yorleni is willing and everything, but we don’t feel like she has a strong testimony of the church yet.  There is also a family we are teaching that want to get married and baptized, and they wanted to this month on the 20th, but the wife works 4x4 and this entire month she will be working weekends, so we had to move them to February. 

Well this week we had drunk guys hug us and start speaking in English and Spanish, and I overheard one say "don’t trust the Germans" haha! We contacted a lot this week, including some old guys that let us in and we tried to teach them, but they talked the entire time.  Oh, we also taught a Jehovah´s Witness, and she "won".  I can tell that she was very sure of herself and how right she was and how wrong we were. I have encountered many of them here in Hondo and they are very stubborn, so with them you have to just bear testimony and leave, because they are so stubborn and won’t allow anyone to change them. I bore testimony talking about prophets and she said we shouldn’t put our trust in the arm of flesh and only the bible, then I bore my testimony saying that I had prayed to know if these things are true and that they are, and she said "that’s great that you prayed, BUT you should probably study the Bible a little more if you really want to understand the truth" I was a little taken off guard, but whatever. I tried really hard not to Bible bash them because it is so easy to do. So yeah that’s basically what’s going on.

I couldn’t sleep the 31st because everyone was exploding firecrackers all night long, and it gave me a huge headache, and church attendance was 59, when it is normally 120, and we only had church for an hour cause the bishop decided to. So it’s been pretty interesting haha. Puerto was dead yesterday, there was no one anywhere, and everyone was sleeping, so yesterday was really slow, but we´re keeping in there. Hopefully this week will be better, and we should have some success if everything goes well. This year went by super fast, and it’s incredible to think of everything that happened this year. A great year and all of it in Honduras! Thanks for everything and hope everyone has a great week!

Elder Neher