Hola Mundo,
I'm just going to start with Tuesday because Monday was pretty uneventful. Well, Tuesday we found out that this member has a reference for us which was awesome, because usually they never do. We went with the member and his family to visit this other family. It was WAY far away, and we were just following them down this dirt road for eveeerrrr. Elder Zura and I have this thing that anytime we are following somebody somewhere, after its been like 5 minutes and the place is starting to look more sketchy and deserted, we look at each other and say ¨Uh oh. They are going to kill us¨ like they are taking us to some empty warehouse. I don’t know why, but it always cracks me up haha. Anyways, we FINALLY get there and its this quaint little family that is really nice. Apparently they had talked with missionaries before but never progressed, so we are going to see what we can do, but the mom is like a super hardcore Evangelical, so it will be tough. Evangelicals are veryyyy prominent here and veryyyy crazy haha. Sometimes they will try to argue with us about stuff, but they don’t really even know what THEY believe, let alone what we believe. There church services are crazy too. They have Pastors SCREAMING at them about God and stuff on a microphone, so you can hear it clear as day like anywhere you are in our area. Its ridiculously annoying, but somewhat funny. And then they have a ton of dance parties and listen to music SUPER loud. So its kind of hard to compete with their church services when the people don’t have a testimony of anything and only want to dance and be yelled at haha. But anyways, the family is pretty cool. Right as we were leaving and walking out the door, the member we were with like pushed us back and said “Elders. Get inside.” But he wouldn’t tell us what was happening, because he was too busy being all protective. It was freaky. My mind started racing wondering what it was. Was it a murderer? Was it a burglar? Was it the goose from last week back to finish what he had started? We had no idea. Finally, he let us leave and he explained that as he was walking out, this group of guys were like freaking out saying “We got to get out of here! He's looking for us!” and took off on bikes. But it was whatever. We really weren’t too worried, we just wanted to get out of there haha. Wednesday we went to another WAY far place. We had to take a bus there, but it was still in our area, if that tells you anything about how gigantic our area is. The bus ride cost seven limps, so I gave the guy a 10. He was counting out my change from his big stack of money and grabbed a 1 bill, another 1, and then acted like he grabbed a third but just faked it, and gave me 2 back, thinking I wouldn’t notice. I don’t know if that story made sense, but it happened, so I shared it. That kind of stuff happens allll the time to me. People try to rob me just because I’m a gringo and they don’t think I will notice. Most of the time I call them on it, but a guy stealing 1 limp from me isn’t anything. In American dollars, a limp is 5 cents. If the guy really wants to steal a nickel from me, he needs it more than I do haha. Anyways, we make it to this house, and the people that said they would be there WEREN'T there. But the grandpa was there, so we chatted with him for a while. He looked like he was 55, but he was 81. A lot of the people here are like that. He was watching his grandkids, one of which was 4 years old but couldn’t walk or talk. I have come to find out that a lot of kids have problems here, but i'm not really sure why. I'm not a doctor, I’m a missionary, so it makes sense that I don’t know why haha. But this girl just sat there, laughed, and drooled. She is way cute, but just cant walk or talk. She scoots herself around with her arms, so at least she’s resourceful. If anyone out there can diagnosis this child for me from what I have described, feel free to let me know haha. We shared a short message with the grandpa (who is an inactive member) and went on our way. So every Thursday, we have weekly planning sessions in the church in the Zone Leaders area. So we grab our area book and other stuff we need, hop on a bus, and go to that area. It’s the junior companion’s job (aka my job) to take care of the area book. It is too big to fit in my backpack, so I just have to hold it. We got on the bus and there were no seats so we just had to stand, which meant I had to put the area book on the rack about so I could brace myself while the crazy bus driver took us to our destination. More and more people kept getting on the bus, so I was getting pushed back farther and farther. We finally got to our destination, and when the bus is really full, if you are in the back half of the bus, you jump out of the emergency exit door in the back. So we get out and start walking towards the church, and Elder Zura turns to me and says “Where is the area book?” We both just stop in our tracks and realize I left it on the bus. Anyone who has gone a mission knows how ridiculously important the area book is, so losing it is a very, very bad thing. I couldn’t believe I left it. Actually, I could believe it because I have a horrible memory and once it was out of sight, I forgot about it. But still, I was freaking out. Zura was freaking out too, saying we were in big trouble. Here is a little background information. Buses pass like every 10 minutes. They go every which way. Some go just through the city, some go all the way to San Pedro, they go everywhere. Basically what I am saying is that there are a lot of busses. The only good thing is that the bus we took was like oddly unique in the sense that it was exactly like a big yellow school bus, but miniaturized. Anyways, we got to the church, told our ZL’s, they
contacted the office in San Pedro and asked them to try to get a hold of the terminal up there and find it, but after that there wasn’t much we could do. We had to go on with our planning without it, but first we did personal study since we were early. I said a prayer before I started that we would find it, and then just started to study. I was just reading in the Book of Mormon in Enos and came across verse 15. It says “Wherefore, I knowing that the Lord God was able to preserve our records, I cried unto him continually, for he had said unto me: Whatsoever thing ye shall ask in faith, believing that ye shall receive it in the name of Christ, ye shall receive it.” HELLOOOO. The area book is just a giant book of RECORDS. Obviously its talking about a different type of records, but still. I was like NO WAY. It was crazy. After that, I just knew we were going to find it. Like there wasn’t even a question in my mind. So we went home at like 3 and called the office to see if they had found it. This senior missionary, Elder John answered, and when I explained the situation, he had said he hadn’t heard anything about it, but he just said its gone. He just started like chastising me for losing it. Hes like “Elder. Do you know how many buses are in the terminal? Every bus is privately owned. There are probably 40 bus companies. They all go every which was throughout the entire country. You think you are going to be able to find a little blue binder somewhere in this country? I think you just have to accept that you lost it Elder.” I was just like “Yeah, you're probably right. Thanks anyway!” But in my head I was like “Oh ye of little faith, Elder John.” That book will return to me. Mark my words. I told Zura that we should go out to the bus stop and wait for 1 hour to see if the bus will pass again (This was like right at 3). So we went out there and waited. And waited. And waited. We saw a few buses that looked similar, so we hopped on and described our bus, but no one had any clue what we were talking about. It was 3:56 and we were heading home from where the bus we had gotten on dropped us off, and all of the sudden this bus started honking at us to see if we wanted a ride, like they all do. We turn around, and it was our bus!!! We got on, I ran to where I put the area book and it was right where I left it. Elder Zura and I started freaking out, and everyone just kept staring at us. It was so awesome haha. Twas a miracle, for real. So awesome. Anyways, that night we had English class which was fun as always. The people like love me haha. They laugh at everything I say and we all have so much fun. We did all these role playing things where I set up 2 chairs and they had to sit and act like it was a real life situation. I was like “Ok. Here's the situation. We are in California. Christopher is waiting at the bus stop. Jose Armando is going to come up and greet him. Its 8:00 A.M. ACTION!” So then Jose Armando walked up to the chair next to Christopher, sat down, and said “Good mawrneeng. Hauw are you?” to which Christopher replied “I am goooood. Tank you.” It was seriously so fun hahaha. After that, we went home, and found ANOTHER scorpion. That makes 3. But we are pros at killing them now. For this demon, we put it in a bowl, poured alchohol in it, and lit it on fire. I don’t know if its very humane, but oh well. There is no other way. I think haha. We forgot that the bowl was plastic, so we ruined a bowl, but it was for a good cause. That night, we had lessons with some people from English class, and set a baptismal date for them! I don’t know if they will all go through with it, but I'm pretty sure at least one of them will, which means English class was a success! Huzzah! That’s about it for Friday. On to Saturday. We had the opportunity to go to the cultural celebration for the temple! Not go to the actual one, but they were broadcasting it at the stake center. Our ward rented a bus and said they were leaving at 5 because it started at 6. Remember how I talk about people always showing up late? Yeah. The bus didn’t leave till 5:40. Seriously so ridiculous. It makes us so mad haha. Anyways, we got there and watched it. I think you can find it online if you want. It was pretty sweet. The funniest thing happened though. So we had a Zone Leader leave last Monday because he finished his mission. He is from Tegucigalpa, so we were all jealous that he was probably at the actual event. So we are watching all the performances, and then this one starts where the youth are all dressed up as missionaries and singing that “Army of Helaman” song (I don’t know if that’s the actual title, I’m a convert). Near the end, this guy dressed as Helaman rides up on a horse and its our old ZL! We all started CRACKING up because it was just so random hahaha. He went home a WEEK ago and we see him on a horse performing in front of thousands at the cultural celebration. So funny haha. But it was way cool. Watch it if you can. Now on to Sunday. We got to go to the stake center to watch a broadcast of the temple dedication. It was way cool! President Uchtdorf and Elder Holland were there. It was awesome. When they did the sealing of the corner stone thing, it was sooo funny because President Uchtdorf was like GIDDY with excitement. He kept doing that little german laugh he does and was smiling from ear to ear. He had everyone and their dog help with the sealing the cement thing haha. Overall, it was pretty awesome and I’m super grateful we got to see it. Now hopefully we get to go sometime soon. Anyways, that’s about it for the week! On to random stuff. 1. The weird picture of me is kind of hard to explain. All my pants are like way big because I’m losing a ton of weight in this area (Turns out if you only eat once a day and walk through the jungle for 6 hours everyday, you lose weight. Shocker haha). So I was showing Zura how high my pants came up. Then that turned into me adjusting my tie to fit my high pants. And now we have that picture haha. 2. It rained a TON this week (Hence why im wearing boots, like every other gringo this week). I took a pretty majestic picture, if I do say so myself. I call it “Sad Bird on a Wire in the Rain”. Feel free to sell copies of it. 3. I put in a picture of my breakfast. The little bag is milk. So weird. It tastes weird too. I don’t think it’s the milk of a cow, if you catch my drift. Anyways, that’s about it. Hope all is well! Oh, and March 15 was day 100. Crazy. I'm almost done. Start preparing for my homecoming, you only have like 630 days left people haha. Adios!
Elder Shuga
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