Week #89 - Funeral (Santiago)

Hola familia y amigos!

Well this week things were pretty good. To start things off we went to a funeral because a ward member's mom passed away, so we went to go support her in that. There were a lot of people that went to the funeral and a lot of them were from a local church that has branches all over Honduras.

The service was really nice and a lot of the branch members went to support her as well.  So this week we dealt with that. 

Right now we are struggling a bit with finding new people that really want to go to church. Everyone always makes an excuse, much more than in any other area before. At least we do have a lady, Lorena, who is progressing very well. She told us that she was making her decision to be baptized because she wanted to, because she feels that it is right. She hasn’t gone to any church for more than 12 years and she was very satisfied with church on Sunday. She is very excited and loves church and everything, and we hope to get her kids involved as well. 

I am trying really hard to teach Elder Baldwin everything and surprisingly he has gotten better really fast with his Spanish, but of course he still has a lot to go. Other than that not a lot has happened this week. Time is really messing with me, sometimes it seems slow because it is hard finding new people and other times it is fast because the weeks go by fast…it’s really weird. On Saturday we went to a Stake/Zone activity in a park in La Lima to clean it and we put up a whole bunch of signs that had quotes from scriptures, or from general conference, which might be against church policy, but it was cool! We didn’t get any referrals for our area, but we did have a drunk guy bothering us, haha!

Today we went and played soccer as a zone. There are some Mayan ruins close by that are covered up, that we might go see soon. Sorry this letter is so short. Things are pretty much the same around here. We did have a meeting with our branch president which helped a bit, but he still doesn’t believe/trust me in some things, but whatever. I hope everyone has a great week back home!

Hasta pronto!
Elder Neher

Week #88 - The "Flu" Fighters (Santiago)

At a local banana plantation

Hola a todos!

Well this week we had changes  and all this week I have been fighting with a terrible flu. Last Sunday night it was bad and Monday was really bad as well, but at least the rest of the week I have been getting better. It’s just been really hard being sick with the crazy amount of heat that there is right now.

So my last comp Elder Perez was really good, he just enjoyed annoying me a lot and that bothered me a bit, but whatever. So my new companion is Elder Baldwin. He has 4 months on his mission. I am his 2nd comp and he is already in his 2nd area. He was only with his first comp for one change which is not normal. He didn’t really get along with his trainer (a Guatemalan) and he didn’t really get trained that well, so I have to help him with Spanish and basically everything else. He is really cool. He is a cop from Las Vegas and has showed me a couple cop moves that hurt! He is really funny and really wants to be a great missionary, he’s just struggling with Spanish, but he has actually been improving these past couple of days. So I am still getting pretty frustrated with my branch president. He just doesn’t seem to understand or accept that I could know more about the church than him, shock! He only has 2 years of being a member and he keeps telling me things that I know are wrong, but he won’t believe me when I try and talk about it. It’s really frustrating and sometimes I want to just let him have it, but I’m dealing with it. :)

We had an awesome moment this week. A member named Gustavo has a family friend named Lorena who wanted us to come over and teach her the gospel. So we went and we started teaching her. She said that she had been thinking about baptism on her own and she was willing to do it, we teach lesson one, and she understood everything and the Spirit was super strong. She accepted to be baptized, we left a copy of the Book of Mormon with her and when we went last night, she had read a lot of it already.  She said it helped answer a lot of doubts that she had had from the Bible. She is awesome! Last night she was crying when we showed her the Jospeh Smith movie, she enjoyed it a lot. We are still having some issues finding people who are ready and willing to listen to the gospel, but we have support from some members, so hopefully this week we can do a really good job of finding and getting more people to teach. 

Today we went to the banana plantations that are around our area and got to see how they are grown, and what they do with them. We saw an alligator and some other stuff, it was really cool. Well I hope that next week will be awesome for everyone. I am not really excited to finish, I want to stay longer! but whatevs, haha!

Hasta pronto!

Elder Neher

New companion Elder Baldwin

Cool grasshopper!

Week #87 - Changes Already! (Santiago)

Hola familia y amigos!

Well this week went by really quick, and it’s crazy to think it’s already time for changes! This change went by really fast, and it’s ridiculous to think how fast time goes, but the work moves on! This week we had some interesting stuff happen, first things first.  I am really having a hard time with my branch president. He doesn’t really seem to understand his responsibilities because he is trying to get us to do everything and he says that he sees most of it in the leadership manuals of the church, which I know is not true. For example he says that the zone leaders do the baptisms for 8 year old children who are kids of members and so he doesn’t want to do the interviews for them! We are trying to work with him and he says that we aren’t really doing a great job, but it’s kind of hard when he isn’t supporting us (spoiler! we had a baptism and he didn’t even show up)

We’ve also had some problems with people saying and doing things that offend others. Yesterday the branch president wanted us to give talks and basically 'machette' those who have been offending others. I feel like I was a bit abrupt, but during all of the talks the one who has caused the most problems wasn’t paying attention (when normally she does) and someone said it’s because she knew those messages were for her. It is so frustrating to have someone in the branch that won’t change and that runs other people away. I said in my talk that those who hold grudges and have 'enemies ' in the church and don’t want certain people to be there are being selfish in not wanting everyone to receive and enjoy all the blessings the gospel has, including eternal life. I was pretty frustrated, but whatever. 

Well this week we had a baptism for Gustavo, he is a nine year old who has been coming to church for a while now. He was super excited for his baptism. He told his mom one night that he wanted her to read him the Book of Mormon and she did! The mom came to the baptism and was crying most of the time, which was really nice, and they invited a neighbor too who now wants to know more as well! We had to go to another church building for the baptism, but it turned out great and we hope to be able to baptize the rest of the family soon. 

My comp has a change this week so who knows what will happen, but I am happy to be here and to be serving the Lord. Hopefully we can have more success here in the coming weeks. I hope everyone has a great week!

Elder Neher

Week #86 - Semana Santa in Santiago (Santiago)

Hola familia y amigos!

Well this week was Semana Santa and it was pretty hot, thankfully not as hot as last year, but yes it was a doozy. The majority of the people here in Santiago went to a nearby river, Rio Ulua, and apparently there was a lot of crazy stuff going on there. One being a crazy drunk guy running around with a machette, so that was pretty fun for everyone.

Well this week we tried fixing things with our branch president, we made him a cake and he seemed to enjoy it, and he gave us some references, even though he hasn't really left with us yet to go visit people. Well yesterday he didn't seem to be doing really good and gave a talk in church and was crying a bit.  Apparently it seems that he might be released, and we have been talking about it with other members. The problem really isn't him, it's his family. Yesterday he asked one of his daughters to give the closing prayer in sacrament meeting and she made a face like she was disgusted. A lot of people are getting tired of the family, and its really sad to see that happening here, but there really isnt much we can do about it.

Right now we don't really have a lot of investigators progressing, and we are thinking about dropping most of them because they just haven't been progressing. We thought we could have gotten Ilsi baptized, she is a daughter of some members, she was living with someone who wasn't progressing at all, and they separated, but they got back together again and we just feel beat trying to get them married and what not. We have other families we are teaching but I feel like none of them understand why we are here. A lot just listen or talk, and after we explain why we are here, they still don't really understand it, and it kind of bothers me. We did find a lot of new people this week that are good prospects for the future, but not many really understand the importance of the gospel or the church, even after we explain, tell them the blessings and everything that we can receive from them, they just dont really understand.

We hope to have two baptisms this week with 2 kids, one who has gone to church for the past 6 months, and the other is the daughter of a family we are teaching, so hopefully we will have something ready for this saturday. Well I hope everyone is doing great back home and that all is well!

Elder Neher

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Week #85 - General Conference!

Interviews in the Mission Office

 

Hola familia y amigos!

Well for me this Conference weekend had its ups and downs. I can say that I most likely lost confidence in my branch president for stuff that he is doing, but first things first.  My condolences go out to the Hatch family. I loved talking to Hna. Hatch, she was a very special person and although it’s really sad, it’s good to know that she “graduated” from this life doing to Lord´s work. 

Well I loved Conference as always, it’s that just Saturday made me a bit upset because we missed the first 4 talks, but we ended up seeing the rest. I really loved Pres. Uchtdorf´s talks, he is becoming one of my favorites to listen to. I really liked Elder Hollands talk too and I can’t get over his final words “it’s getting late” wow! I loved the choirs too, and I guess David Archuletta was singing there?! haha that’s really awesome! Well we had some investigators go and I felt like Pres. Uchtdorf’s talk Sunday morning was perfect for them and the entire branch, to stop spreading rumors, just STOP IT! We have a terrible time with that here in this area and that is way we are having problems keeping people active. This leads me to what has been happening here and why the branch president here is driving me crazy! On Friday night he came to our cooks house while we were there to tell everyone that the bus would leave late because the first session from 10-12 was just for Relief Society, then it started up again at 4 to 6, then 6 to 8! I wanted to slap him silly! We told him countless times that at 10am was for everyone and then it started again at 2pm and then at 6pm priesthood, but he wouldn’t believe us. He said he called another bishop (who apparently is in on the craziness) and confirmed that in the morning was just for RS, but it started at 2pm for everyone else, so the bus was going to leave at 1pm to get there on time, because we live pretty far out here.  Alright I was fine with that but Saturday comes around and I didn’t notice but they didn’t show up at 2pm. It turns out that he changed his mind and wanted to leave our area at 3pm. They brought 5 investigator (3 of which had never been to church before) and we were super mad because he took them all the way out there for nothing! Apparently our ward mission leader called him at 2pm asking where he was and he said they were going to leave soon but the ward mission leader told him not to bother because they were going to miss it anyways. That was bad enough, but later when we get all the cooks home and while we were there, the branch president goes around telling the members that it was our fault that they were late because we told him it was at 4pm and not at 2pm, like he had been telling us!! I got super mad because he was spreading false rumors and making us look bad so we got home super angry and had to calm down. Then Sunday we had an attendance of 52 people, but counted 72 for the 20 people that wanted to go but couldn’t, and the other bishop I mentioned earlier told the Hermanas in our district a completely different number than what was the actual attendance, and there are just a number of problems its getting me really frustrated, but I just gotta breath and keep going!

Anyway, I did really love Conference, and it’s weird to think it’s my last one in the mission, but I really enjoyed it and had a great time! Hopefully this week we can have some baptisms, and I’m going to see what I do about this area and how I can help it. I’ve got to regain confidence in my BP, but whatever, I’m sure we’ll be ok. I hope that everyone back home is doing great and that you all have a great week!

Hasta pronto,

Elder Neher