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
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