BOLO, TE CREO, GUIPERS, RACIAL SLURS

Hello Again World!
I never know how to address these emails because I don't know who all reads them, but there you go haha. We do so much random stuff during the week that I never know what to write off the top of my head, so I sit with my planner open next to me to remember what to talk about haha. So Monday was P-Day and we really don't do much other than go to member's FHE's at night, so it wasn't too exciting. Now that I think about it, Tuesday really was just a normal day too. My horrible memory is making it really hard to write an email right now. This isn't looking good hahaha. I guess Monday and Tuesday were pretty normal as far as Honduran standards go, but Wednesday was new and fresh, so I'll talk about that. So Wednesday was an official change meeting, not an emergency one like the one I had at first because we were 2 weeks early, and the whole mission had to come to San Pedro Sula. Which means I saw Elder Stewart!! It was so fun seeing him. We both freaked out about all the crazy things that happen here and shared our stories. He has been attacked by dogs and stuff. He has been in the city so he was talking about how upset he was that he brought all this bug spray and their aren't even that many bugs, and how he is gaining a ton of weight because he gets fed ALL the time. When I told him about my area (eating once a day, bugs EVERYWHERE) he wanted to trade me so bad, mostly for the weight loss hahaha. But anyways, enough about that guy haha. We all had to go to the change meeting because they were changing some rules in the mission. Nothing really that is important to any of you civilians, but it was interesting haha. One major thing is that they are for sure splitting the mission in half like I said last week. It’s going to be San Pedro Sula East and West. You will find out if you are in East or West based off of where you are after the change in June. So if you get changed to an area that's in the West mission, you'll be in the SPS West mission for the rest of your time here. Pretty interesting! So after all the changes and everything, we went back to our area and had lessons for the rest of the night. The couple that is having all the trouble with their baptism/wedding (Marcos and Lidia) is still having more trouble. We have to go to a city where they only need to have a kid to get married, so we rented the bus and everything, and then they said they weren’t ready. So we had a bus all ready to go for Tuesday of this coming week (tomorrow) and they are backing out. So the zone leaders said they were going to come to their house with us and talk to them, and bring a member who had a similar situation when she was getting baptized so that she could testify to them that it’s all good. Our Zone Leader had a change so we have 1 new zone leader, but the old one wanted to come to this lesson, so he went on transfers so he could come with the new zone leaders. So picture me and Elder Zura sitting on these people's dirt porch waiting for them to show up, and then this SUV comes rolling down this hill to their house filled with 3 guys in suits and some lady they don't know. Marcos and Lidia FREAKED out like it was the police or something hahaha. Their faces were priceless. We talked to them and it turns out he doesn't want to get married on Tuesday because there is some Spanish song that talks about not getting married or leaving your house on Tuesdays. SO RANDOM. So we are shooting for Wednesday of this week, but we'll see what happens. So now on to Thursday. Thursday we had to go BACK to San Pedro Sula for the new missionary and trainer teaching clinic thing. It was just a couple hours of how to train new missionaries, so it was pretty boring haha. Elder Stewart got transferred to a new area (he got put in a trio for the emergency change until the next change happened, which was Wednesday, so that's why he got changed and I didn't). His area is WAYYY far from SPS, like 8 hours, so he had to leave early which was a bummer. But apparently this place is like super poor and the "Weight Loser" of the mission, so I'm stoked to see him at 120 lbs in 6 weeks hahaha. Anyways, moving on. Friday we had a baptism! The 9 year old nephew of a member in our ward got baptized, so that was pretty cool. He wasn't like an investigator or anything because everyone in his family are members, but it was still cool. The kids uncle couldn't make it because he had work obligations, so Elder Zura did the baptism. This kid probably weighs like 40 pounds, so when Zura dunked him and lifted him back up, he like FLEW out of the water. It was hilarious haha. That same day, we went back to the house of the Bolo (which just means the drunk guy) that I talked about last week. We told him we would come back if he was sober and teach him. We went all the way to his house and he wasn't there, but his wife was there chilling in a hammock. So we talked to her for a little bit and ended up teaching lesson 1. She was like super receptive to it which was awesome, but when we invited her to come to church, she said she couldn't because she had just had surgery. Elder Zura always talks about how people here ALWAYS make up excuses that are totally false, so he asks the lady to see her scar from the surgery. WHAT?! Who does that?? Anyways, he asks her thinking that he is going to catch her in a lie. All of the sudden, she rolls out of the hammock, starts whipping up her shirt like towards over past her bra (or lack their of) to show him the scar and he panics and says "oh freak oh freak TE CREO TE CREO" Which is like "I believe you I believe you!" I seriously lost it hahahaha. I didn't understand that he had asked her to see the scar, but one I saw the shirt come up, saw a giant scar, and heard him freak out, I realized what was going on. It was seriously so funny and weird. Probably the funniest thing that happened this week. Moving on. Saturday we woke up and Zura told me we were going to go find a reference that was wayyyy far away. By way far away, he meant an hour walk up this MOUNTAIN that is near us. I was stoked. We headed out and then I became less stoked. It was SO far away. But it was actually way cool. We were legit like in the jungle. We came across this river of like super cool water and this family was chilling there, so we taught them for a bit. Way random. But then we continued on our journey. We made it like all the way up the mountain to the verrrryyy last house and it was the people we were looking for. I don't know how Zura knew where to go. We talked with them for a while and kind of just got to know them. They had a parakeet looking bird that was sitting above us as we talked, and it pooped on Zura's leg, so I got a kick out of that. The whole time we were talking, the husband was busy chopping these giant pieces of wood because he needed to get them somewhere at a certain time for whatever reason. He put them in two giant bundles and said he had to go. Elder Zura, being the Christlike, gentleman that he is, offered to help him carry it. The guy didn't want to trouble us, but Zura insisted, so the guy obliged and said that he'll take the big one and we can take the smaller one. I was like "Wow Zura, what a guy". But then he told me that I had to carry it because he did service for the last person we helped (which was just carrying a bag of groceries for some lady to her house) and it was my turn. I had to carry this giant thing of wood ALL THE WAY DOWN THE MOUNTAIN. It was seriously so heavy!! 

The whole time I was going down, I kept thinking to myself how I never would have guessed that I would be carrying a giant bundle of wood down the side of a mountain, in a random village in Honduras, after teaching about the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ in the Spanish language. My life has become so random haha. It was a cool experience, but my shoulder seriously killed the next day haha. That guy is a man among men if he does that every day for a living. On to Sunday. Every Sunday we meet with the Bishop and a few other people and talk about our progress for the week. Its always funny because their goal for the year is 34 baptisms and they had no idea that we could get so many so fast, so they are like blown away. I told Zura we should do an English class at the church because a ton of people would show up and we could get more investigators. The bishop announced it in Sacrament meeting and the people freaked out. The chance to learn English from a real life gringo and a bilingual mexican? Too good to be true! The only English that people know here are bad words, but they don;t know they're bad. For example, the first councilor said "What is up n***a?" to me when he shook my hand on Sunday. Never in my wildest dreams did I think a priesthood leader would use a racial slur towards me hahaha. Sunday we had ANOTHER baptism! It’s a long story why it was on Sunday, but it’s all good. It was the husband of a lady who got baptized last week. He was the one who said he would have got baptized last week too, if only there were more clothes. He is the guy in the jeans in the picture I sent last week. He wanted to be in every picture we took for some reason haha. So that was cool! That's pretty much it for the week! It seriously FLEW by. This next coming week should be pretty interesting, so be stoked for that. Now on to the random things that don't fit in anywhere in particular! 1. All my MTC teachers told us that in Latin culture, it is normal to call people fat. It is like a descriptive term, and it really isn't offensive. It is like saying "Yeah, my friend is the blonde girl", but they just say "my friend is the fat girl". Anyways,I thought that was random and couldn't wait to see it happen. In one of our lessons, one of the members was testifying of how Elder Zura and his old companion helped them through their conversion, but she couldn’t remember Zura's name so she just said “Elder Jiminez and…el gordito” which is “the fat one”. I thought it was seriously so funny, and so did Zura. It’s not mean here though, so I’m not a bad person. Trust me. Haha. Afterwards, he said it doesn’t matter that he's fat because his body will be perfected after he dies, so why worry about it now? Yeah, great logic haha. 2. Let me tell you about guipers. Pronounced like “jeepers” but with a “guh” sound like the word “go”. Guipers. A guiper is a girl who flirts with or is attracted to a missionary. I get guipers ALL the time. All the gringos do. I don’t know what is more attractive, my looks or my American citizenship, but it’s hilarious. We were eating at a restaurant and this group of high school aged girls was like blatantly staring at me. One was trying to sneak a picture of me on her cell phone. They kept looking at me, then I’d look at them, then they would all put their heads down and giggle. Finally we left, and they all just started whistling at me as I walked away. I'm so sick of people objectifying me… hahaha I joke. It’s hilarious. After one lesson with a family, Zura told me that we shouldn’t go back. When I asked why, he said “The 20 year old daughter was…how you say..? Looking at you like she wanted your clothes off? Is that how you say it in English?” hahaha. I love when he doesn’t know how to express what he wants in English; it makes me feel ok about my Spanish haha. But yeah, it’s crazy. They are everywhere. No worries though, I don’t do anything back to them. 3. I saw a guy playing soccer. Normal right? Here’s the catch: He had no legs. Crazy! He literally had no legs, like he stopped at his hips, and he was moving around by lifting himself with his hands and landing on his hips. He used his hands like his feet and he was super good. It was so random but so cool. 4. We were in a lesson and we brought our ward mission leader. All was normal until I felt a grab at my calf. I look down and our ward mission leader is grabbing my calf and telling me how strong it looks. First of all, what the heck. Second of all, we are in the middle of a lesson. Third of all, I know, don’t praise me. Fourth, who does that? Hahaha. It was so random. A bit before, he touched my pants, and I thought he was just swatting a bug off or something. It turns out he was pushing them tight on my leg so he could marvel at my calf hahaha. This makes him sound like a creep, but I promise he isn’t. He’s normal and awesome, but this was definitely a weird moment for him haha. Ok, I think that’s about it for this week. This has been another instalment of Elder Shuga’s crazy super random life at the moment. Tune in next week to see what happens with Marcos and Lidia, more baptisms, guipers, teaching drunk people, and people objectifying me. I’m loving it here!

Adios!

Elder Shuga

BAPTISMS, MARRIAGES, MIGUEL SMITH, ARISTOCATS

Hello world!

Its me again. How is America? Good? Awesome. Yet another crazy week here. And by crazy, I mean normal for Honduras standards, but pretty crazy for me. So I'm going to try to make this letter somewhat structured and in order so its easier to follow, because I feel like last week's letter was me just vomitting words on to an email haha so here we go. So monday was my first P-Day here and it was way fun. We played soccer at the church in the zone leaders area to start the morning. All the churches here have basketball courts with soccer goals under the hoops, so thats what every one does because they are obsessed with it here. After that, we went to the city and ate Little Caesers. They have so many american fast food places here, its ridiculous. Its funny because the people working at the places dont even know how to say the name right, but its all good haha. After that, we wrote emails and went home. We had FHE (family home evening, its just where familys spend monday night together and have like a gospel lesson) at the house of Hermana Magda. I think I said this last week, but I seriously LOVE her. She is so hilarious. She reminds me of a spanish speaking Aunt Kathy haha. Anyways, she has a husband, 2 daughters and a son. The husband is less active and has been his whole life, the younger daughter does not want to be baptized, and the rest of them got baptized a couple months ago. So we just shared with them a little message pretty much directed at the dad and daughter, and it went pretty well. They have this sign on the door of one their rooms that says "Nuestra meta es ser una familia eterna" which is "our goal is to be an eternal family". Its just written in crayon on printer paper and hung on their door. So presh. We testified and then went on our way. Tuesday, we did divisions for the first time. We had 8 baptisms lined up for this week (I think I said 10 in my last email, so if I did, I meant 8), and this couple we were planning on baptizing was having some issues, but I'll talk about that later. Anyways, we did divisions so I went to the Zone Leader's area and one of the Zone Leaders went back to my area with Elder Zura to talk with that family with the problems. Their area is SO much nicer than ours. Their toilet flushes, they have running water in their shower, they have a HEATER on their shower, its nuts. Here I thought all of Honduras was living like me, but then I realized, nope, I just live in the jungle! Anyways, the division day was way fun. I got to visit all these people that I had never met, so that was way cool. We went to this one lady's house that was nice even for american standards, which is saying A LOT. I wish I could take a picture of the houses in my area so you could understand, but I don't want to just bust out a camera that costs more than their house and say "Say cheese! I want to show everyone back where I live how blessed they are!", so you're just going to have to imagine or try to google it haha. But I digress, the day was way fun. We were teaching a lesson to this family and the house across the street was BLASTING Backstreet Boys. I think American stuff is on a little bit of a delay here haha. But we all were loving it. That's about it for Tuesday, so on to Wednesday. We went to all the houses of the people we were baptizing this week and let them know the questions the Zone Leaders were going to come and ask them before they were going to be baptized. They are all really simple, just making sure you have a testimony and what not, but there are some ones about committing crimes. So our first one with Hermana Marta went great, shes golden. Then we went to the house of the couple that I talked about had problems. So let me explain that a little more. In order to be baptized, you have to be married. NOBODY IN HONDURAS IS MARRIED. These people find their mate when they're like 20 and basically say "Hey, I like you, lets stay together for 50 years, never be with other people, have 10 kids, but marriage is too big of a commitment". So we always have to marry people if they want to be baptized. So we had the marriage and baptism set for these people and then they tell us "Actually...we just want to be married. Not baptized." Ummmmm it doesn't work like that. I didn't come to Honduras to marry people haha. So we had to talk with them and explain everything, and they got back on track. Then we asked them the questions for baptism, and we'll just say they had some problems with that, so we had to put that on hold. Then we went to our last family that was getting ready for baptism (5 people! Parents and 3 kids) and all went well. They are golden as golden can be. At every appointment we went to that day, we asked them who they wanted to baptize them. Remember the story I told of the lady who wouldn't pray and I got her to? She picked me! Baptizing someone my first week, so crazy. Oh, and Wednesday was the 18 month anniversary of my baptism, so that's cool. Well, that was basically Wednesday, and Thursday was just more prep, so i'm going to skip to Friday, the day of the baptisms! So we told everyone to show up at the church at 4 because we were going to have the baptisms at 5. Let me tell you a little bit about this culture. No one is on time. Ever. Like no one, it doesn't matter who they are, they are late. So that's why we put it an hour early because we have to accomodate for this haha. So people show up at 4:30 and the bishop, the one with the keys to the church, isn't there because hes late. THE BISHOP. Come on man. So we got a hold of him, he came, and people started funneling in. Remember how I said people need to be married? We do that with a lawyer right before the baptisms. They lawyer said she would be there at 5, and then we got a call saying she'd be there at 6. Then another one that said 6:30. Then another one that said 7. So people were sitting around for like 2.5 hours and getting MAD. Finally she shows up and when we talk about everyone that is getting married, we ran in to a problem. The family that we had allllll the trouble with explaining that this is what they needed, and then them FINALLY agreeing, had a problem. The wife is 18, so she needs a parent signature because you have to be 21. They have a kid, and we thought that if they had a kid they didn't need one, but that is only for a certain part of Honduras. So we had to tell them they couldn't get married, which in turn meant they couldn't be baptized. Talk. about. a. bummer. Not cool. But we are hoping it will happen this week, so pray for that. Anyways, we continued on with the baptisms and weddings. I was freaking out because I was going to be baptizing someone for the first time which was nerve-wracking enough, but I was going to be doing it in SPANISH. All day I was repeating in my head, "Habiendo sido comisionado por Jesucristo, yo te bautizo en el nombre del Padre, y del Hijo, y del Espiritu Santo. Amen." I've said that about a million times to myself at this point haha. Anyways, it went great! It was an awesome experience. Each person had a different person baptize them, so that's why there are so many in the picture. Twas a good day. Now for Sunday. Another thing about Honduras, which I think I mentioned last week, is that the people don't understand how church is supposed to be. It is SOOOOO loud and ridiculous, and it starts so late. You know how in the states, family wards are a bit louder than single's wards, but if a kid is being REALLY obnoxious, the parents take them out? Yeah, that isn't a thing here. There was this girl, probably 3 years old, throwing the biggest temper tantrum the world has ever seen. She had a lollipop, something happened that made her mad, she threw it on the tile floor which shattered it, fell to the floor and started rolling around screaming louder than anyone has ever screamed in the history of screaming. What did they do? Nothing. They just talked over it. Come on haha. That's just how it is though, and I cant do much to change it, so I'll deal with it for 22 months haha. That night, we went and visited some people who went on the temple trip Friday. We were with this family and just chatting it up when some drunk old guy stumbles up to us, interrupts the lesson, and asks to pray for him. So we stopped, said a prayer, and we thought that was it. Then he would not. stop. intetrupting. He kept talking about something about the word of god that he knows and all this other stuff. Elder Zura gave him a Palabra de Sabiduria pamphlet (word of wisdom) and said "Here. This is the word of God. Go read this and we'll talk later" and that was hilare haha. But still, he wouldn't leave. He said (all in spanish obviously, which made it even weirder to me haha) "You guyzzz are those mormonssss rightt? I know youuuuu. I know all abouttt you. I have one of those boooks that Miguel Smith wrote". Umm Miguel Smith? I think you have a different book. "Noooo no no, ill go get it and prove that you're wrong, its Miguel." Alright then sir haha. So he left and we thought he would not come back, but he did. He kept talking, and Zura was trying to shut him up, but nothing was working so he was just continuing on with the ranting. Finally, I asked Zura in english if I could just do my best to get him to leave (because I wasn't sure what he was all saying and didn't want to say something that would make him freak out) and he's like yeah good luck. So I basically was just like super blunt, told him we needed to finish up our lesson, he needed to stop talking, and he could join us for the closing prayer. He got all timid and was like "ohh....im sorry...." and let us finish. Zura was like "dude, that's the best spanish you've spoken. No gringo accent or anything!" Gracias Elder Zura, gracias. hahaha. It was hilare. We are going back with him this week, so stay tuned for that. For this last part of the email, i'm going to talk about the random things that don't really fit in anywhere. 1. The people here point with their mouths, not their arms. Like if they want to point, they pucker their lips and face the direction of whatever they are indicating. Weird. 2. When we meet people, we have to fill out a sheet with what we taught them, their names, their address, and all that jazz in case other missionaries want to go back and contact them in the future. In America, they probably just write the address, but here, people don't have those. We have to literally draw a map. I don't know if that's that funny, but I thought so haha. 3. Has anyone ever seen a rooster up close and personal? They are disgusting creatures. When they do their little cockledoodledoo thing, they look possessed. 4. We were told that we will probably be able to go to the Tegucigalpa temple after its dedicated! Sweet! 5. They are getting so many new missionaries coming here that they are probably going to divide the mission in two. Nuts! 6. We baptized a lady named Hermana Marta, but not her husband, they just got married, but he didn't get baptized. Our ZL (Zone Leader) had the thought that we needed to do our best to get baptized this week, so we went over to his house on Sunday to talk about it. We asked him about getting baptized and he said "I would have gotten baptized on Friday with everyone, but all the white clothes were taken." WHAT? Crazy! We had been teaching him the whole time along with his wife, but he didn't want anything to do with baptism. It just took him seeing his wife do it to join in. So hes getting baptized this week probably! 7. Last but not least, a funny story. Elder Zura and I are still getting to know each other, so we were talking about our favorite movie and he said Aristocats. That is by far the most random answer I have ever heard from a 20 year old male hahaha. Well, that's about all I got. Life is good here, and I assume it is there too. Stay classy world!

Elder Shuga

LITTERER BY FORCE, CROSS BREEDING ANIMALS, NURSING MOTHERS

Buenas!!

I made it alive! I am here! But this place is NUTS. So apparently, the group that I came with are all 2 weeks early. There was some miscommunication between Salt Lake and here, but I was supposed to enter the MTC 2 weeks after December 5th, but they got it all worked out. They had to do some emergency changes to compensate for us, but it all worked out! I guess I'll just start from the beginning. So we flew all day monday which was annoying because we didnt get any sleep, but we landed around 8 something and the president, his wife, and the AP's were waiting for us. Apparently there was some soccer superstar on our flight, so there were all these papparazzi people waiting when we got off, so that was interesting haha. But right away we could tell we werent in america anymore. There were people with huge guns allll over "guarding" the airport, a few dogs running around, and a ton of kids just begging for money and messing around. There were 4 in our travel group coming from the Provo MTC and then like 10 Latin elders coming from the Guatemala MTC 30 minutes after us. So we ate wendys (really random) and waited for them. Once they got there, we all loaded into a few different cars and headed for the AP's house to stay for the night. Thats where it got really interesting. There are absolutely NO laws for driving here. We were probably going close to 100 miles an hour, if not over, weaving in and out of traffic. All of us new missionaries thought we were going to die. Here, people honk ALL the time, but it doesnt mean they are mad. It just means "Hey im coming up behind you at 150 MPH, so dont make any sudden movements." So crazy haha. We got to the house where the AP's (area presidents who are like in charge kind of) and the rest of the office missionaries stay. It was like WAYYY nice, like shockingly, so that was cool. We pretty much just went straight to bed and started in the morning. It was all orientation stuff and what not, and then we went to a nearby park to do our first contact. They put all the missionaries with a missionary who has been here a while and sent us on our way. I was with Elder Partridge, one of the AP's, so that was fun. The spanish here is HORRRRIIBBBLLEEE. Like you know how rednecks from the deep south speak english, but its still hard to understand them? These people speak like redneck spanish. They drop the letter s whenever they feel like it, so words that I know dont sound anything like they should, so its way hard. But anyways, it went pretty well. Everyone is SUPER nice and always willing to listen. It was a cool experience even though I really didnt say much, but its all good haha. So we finished up with that and headed to the president's house for dinner with all the new missionaries. We were all just hanging out eating when all of the sudden the AP's were like "Elder Shuga and Elder _____(some latin elder from the Guatemala MTC that I dont remember), youre coming with us." We were like ummm ok, why just us? And they wouldnt tell us. It was really weird. Everybody stayed and hung out and we just left without them explaining why haha. They just took us with them to go do some teaching for that night, so thats cool, but I still dont know why us haha. It was a crazy. People here all have gated porches and leave their front doors open, so if you want to contact them you stand outside and go "Buenas!" which just means like "hello". They usually come out and will talk to you. We did that a few times and people said they were busy or whatever, but we got in to two houses. The first one was a lady with a little family and the second was just some guy. Both were really interesting. The first one because I actually did quite a bit of talking and did a little object lesson I learned at the MTC about prophets and she seemed to understand what we were teaching after that. So that was cool! Also, while we were teaching, she just whipped her shirt up and started breast feeding her kid without covering herself or anything. Thats normal here and I have seen it roughly 150 times in the past week. More on that later haha. The next contact we did was some guy who was sitting on his couch inside, shirtless, with some plastic bag sitting on the ground. We did the whole "Buenas!" thing and eventually got in the door. It turns out he has a catheter and its his little pee bag, so that was interesting. I didnt really understand the spanish during that lesson, and next thing I knew, we were giving the guy a blessing. I didnt say anytihg but I was just like "Oh, ok. We're doing this I guess." haha. Weird. Look how much I've written and Im still on day 2. Crazy! Anyways, changes were the next day and I got my new companion, which means I said bye to Elder Stewart :(. Sad day. But my new companion is Elder Zura from Mexico. He speaks english really well, but not perfectly, and its a HUGE blessing to me. Originally I wanted a companion who didnt know english, but now I am glad I have him haha. He's cool and has been out for a year. He is really good and everyone loves him, so thats cool.  I got put in the zone Progresso Sur in the area La Sarrosa. Let me tell you a bit about this place. We are in the jungle. That's about it haha. Its just like a bunch of villages. Some people have houses (including us) but most of them are just one room "houses" made out of various materials. Metal sheeting, bricks, mud, you name it. Whatever they can find. We live in a legit house, but there is only water at night time, so we have to fill a bucket up to collect water, then shower by taking like a dog bowl and filling it with the water from the bucket and pouring it on ourselves. Its always cold. And the toilets dont flush, so you have to pour water in to them until they go down. This is my life for the next 22 months. I'm starting to miss my 1st world country haha. This place is nuts. There are wild animals EVERYWHERE. I have seen chickens, roosters, dogs, cats, horses, dogs, pigs, and I've been looking for monkeys but have yet to see one. They are all like WAY skinny, specifically the dogs. Kim would have a blast with her dog obsession, because you see a different one every five seconds. But they are all mutts. I swear all the animals here partake in crossbreedings. I saw a chicken who had like duck qualities and a duck who was colored EXACTLY like a cow. I know that sounds crazy, but trust me, things change south of the border haha. We pretty much just got right in to working and went to visit our investigators. We have 10 baptisms set up for this week. Crazy right?? We think we are going to be the Zona Celestial, which is the zone that gets the most baptisms and gets dinner at the presidents house. But anyways, we like walk through jungles to get to peoples houses. Its ridiculous. You walk through mud and trees and everything, then all the sudden their is this little shack with these people sitting outside waiting for us. One of our investigators is like diabetic or something and swollen up like a balloon. Its really sad, but shes super nice. The ward mission leader here is Hermano Gallego and he is SUPER maciso, which means he is like way cool and helpful. He gives us references like allllll the time. We went over one time and he gave us 20. We dont know how he does it haha. When we go from appointment to appointment, we stop by little stores called Pulperias and  by Bulas de Agua. Bags of water. They are little like 4 by 4 inch, 1/2 liter bags of purifed water and they cost like 2 Limpiras, which is like 5 cents. You just rip a corner off with your teeth and suck out of a bag. Its way fun haha. When we have to go to a reallllyyyy far appointment, we take a Mototaxi or a bus, both which are nuts. Mototaxis are just like 3 wheeled motorcycles with a backseat. Google it. They just zip us around where we need to go. Its pretty funny. And then they have busses that just go back and forth down the only road in our area. Those are even crazier because they way they work is that you just hop on as fast as you can, because they will drive off if you move to slow, and then get off as fast as you can because they won't let you take their time. They are just school busses. And everyone stares at me when I get on because I am a gringo. They have like never seen one before, so Im fascinating haha.  Its weird because the busses are really ghetto and bad, but they have these super nice flat screens and sound systems playing spanish music videos all the time. People dont understand how to spend money here. They all live in huts, but they all have tv's and cell phones. Really weird. And the busses and taxis are all covered in stickers that say religious stuff like "Jesus is my Savior" and what not, but then they have marijuana and playboy stickers. They have a ton of american logos and stuff here, but I dont think they know what they mean or what they say haha. One of our investigators was wearing a Marbalo Ciggarrete shirt and I asked Elder Zura "What?! She smokes??" and He's like "Dude, she has no idea what it says". Pretty funny. The members here are really nice. Hermana Magda is my favorite. She is this lady who is just SO happy and hilarious. Its so funny. She loves hearing me speak spanish and trying to help me. One random thing about here is that SO many people have American names, but they use a spanish accent. Wilmur (wheel-moo-r), David (dah-veed), etc. There was this little girl of a member who was practicing her english to me and it was way funny because she was horrible and im horrible at spanish. Then I asked her what her name was and she goes "Keembearly". I was like "KIMBERLY? no way! I know a kimberly..." hahaha. The LDS churches here are like the nicest buildings in the whole country. They are all gated off, the lawns are all mowed, and they look just like american churches. All the other churches here are just rooms with plastic chairs that have pastors SCREAMING their heads off about Jesus. Its quite entertaining. Our church sticks out like a sore thumb. Its the only place without trash everywhere. Thats another thing. There is trash EVERYWHEREEEEE. Elder Zura and I had just gotten some bulsas de agua, finished the, and he just threw his on the ground. I was like woah pick that up and throw it away when we find a trash can and just said "garbage trucks dont come to this town. This is the only place to put it." So I have become a forced literer. Dont think differently of me. Im still the same. Im not a scumbag, I have to do it haha. Apparently the area I am in is the hottest in the mission. Yayyyyy! They say April is DEATH, and I thought now was death, so that should be interesting. I'll tell a weird lesson story and then a cool lesson story. So we were teaching this family of a girl and her toddler and her two older brothers, when all the sudden this olddd lady comes stumbling up, drunk out of her mind, and it turned out to be the grandma of the family we were teaching. She went inside, came back out, and had xrays of her horribly broken wrist and kept trying to show it to us while we were teaching. She kept disrupting the lesson, so we asked if we could just come back another day and they agreed. So we asked to end with a prayer, said it, and when I opened my eyes, I saw that the mom had whipped her shirt up, leaned over,  and let the little toddler breast feed standing up. It was so weird haha. On to the cool story. We were teaching this family that is getting baptized this week and we asked the wife to say the prayer after she had just finished. Elder Zura kept asking and asking and she was just like "noooo im too nervous" so he was about to move on and just say it himself. I stopped him and explained to her how I understood EXACTLY how she is feeling because thats how I felt when the missionaries were asking me to pray (michelle can testify to that haha). Then I told her how she didnt need to feel nervous, we werent going to judge her, and she was going to be able to feel the spirit 100 times more if she offered it. I asked her to pray one last time after that , and she did! I was like OH YEAH BABY and she offered a suuuuper good, sincere prayer. It felt awesome.  Another werid thing is the handshakes. The people give dead fish handshakes everytime. When I first got here, I went for the firm "make a good impression" shake and the guy just like rested his hand in mind. It felt so uncomfortable haha. And women dont shave their legs. Its weird. Yesterday (Sunday) was quite an interesting church experience. They like dont know how church is supposed to be. You know how family wards are always loud with kids and what not, but the parents to their best to stifle them? The parents dont care here. The kids were running everywhere (even up on the stand where the bishopric was) and they just let them do it. They have these really nice vases of flowers on either side of  the stand, and they are like SUPER taped down with duct tape because they dont have AC in the chapel, just 8 super high speed fans, so they always wobble like they are about to fall haha. Me and Elder Zura teach gospel principles every sunday, but all I did was bear my testimony and testify a little bit about the structure of our church and how it fits with the bible. But it was good from what I've been told haha. The ward is getting ready for a huge trip they are taking to the temple in Tegucigalpa. They are stoked out of their minds. These people dont have water, but they saved up 56,000 Limps (280 bucks which is a TON for them) to get 7 busses to take them there. Its really cool. Well, I think thats it. This letter is super sporadic, but thats just how I feel like its been here, so forgive me haha. Just be glad I'm talking about more than just 4 square now haha. Oh, and if anyone wants to send packages, do it just through USPS. No fedex, ups, dhls or anything like that.  Im not sure why, but thats what they told us. 

Vaya bien!

Elder Shuga

(PS sorry if there are spelling or grammar errors, the computer Im at in this little internet cafe says every word is spelled wrong because it isnt in spanish, so I cant do spell check haha. #firstworldproblems)

WELCOM TO HONDURAS ELDER SHUGA!