Semana Santa

Well I am doing great!
 Last night was the night we knew if we had changes or not, and it turns out Im staying!!! woohoo! 
I love this area! And my new companion! We are working very well together and he is just a great guy, we´re helping each other out alot and ive already learned so much!
 The ward is pretty awesome too! We share the ward with two other missionaries, Elder Lujo and Alukubeze (an Elder coming in tomorrow, he is from my group in the CCM and hes from London!) Since we all know English we give free English classes every Saturday at 3! We have a great time doing that. 
Well this week has been pretty hard, due to the fact that its been Semana Santa! Ok so get this, this is Honduran Logic. Everyday of the 365 days in the year everyone complains about how extremely HOT it is in the South and how it always so horrible being there. But during Semana Santa, everybody goes to the south to burn and theyre super happy about it!! 
This area was completely DEAD! I have never seen a more abondoned colony than here during this week. It was dead, hot, and miserable. But we kept working, we talked to every single living human that we saw in the streets, and they were only a few lol. 
Picture like a zombie invasion and everybody died, and we´re searching for survivors (to give them salvation and eternal life of course;) . Bottom line is, it was a hard week. But we still saw miracles! We found a couple super positive investigators who are progressing really fast! We had an interesting experience Saturday night, we didnt realze because it was semana santa that the Villa Olympica hours would change, and they did. So we went into it at night to cut across it to go home, but by the time we made it to the front door, they already closed it. And so we hurried to get out of the back door where we came in and it was closed too! We were locked in! and we couldnt find the guardias anywhere! we were locked in there for a good 40 minutes trying to find the one guy that had the keys lol. I honestly thought we were going to get locked in there. Anyway, that was a funny experience, and probably the only experience. It was a dead week. But now I can appreciate people a little more, its really hard to contact when theres no one here, now that I know everyone is back in town, there are no excuses! Time to work!

P.S. Im so excited for General Conference this weekend!!!

Esperanza Zone loves taking pictures together! -Dont read the newspaper. Its always so negative and scary, it accidently got in the photo

Villa Olympica!

  Well i bet your all wondering how is the new area...    it is AMAZING! 
I am so happy here honestly! It was a realllly hard change leaving my first area, but now being here and getting used to it, I know it all happens for a reason. What happen was that the last companion of Elder Agren (My comp currently) was really bullying him and stuff, but then they had to have emergency changes, and so we did a switch, I went to Villa and he went to Miraflores with Elder Marin. Which Is sad for him because the elder that was here is going to reallly struggle with Marin hahaha We were great friends and all, but this elder cant keep i dont think with our pace of working! lol But anyway, So yeah, I am officially getting used to Area #2!

  So i am not far from Miraflores actually, maybe 10 minutes away.. so im still in the city! I got lucky! haha I arrived Monday, so i had to unpack and everything, not much of a PDay. but its alright! My comp is Elder Agren. He is from South Jordan Utah and is super cool! He is in Carter's group! He loves to joke around and have a good time so we instantly clicked! So monday night we got to work, and we visited some members. I was super excited! So we visited the first family who was going to give us dinner and at first they were really quite and stuf, but since i was new i wanted to get to know them and stuff and so i kept talking alot to them, they ended up opening up...alot! The mom at one point even sent her daughter to go buy banana soda (which is superr good!) and my comp just looked at me strangely, he says Wow... They changed alot! I said what do you mean... He says they were always really bitter towards missionaries, especially because of his last comp, this family has nevvver since the time he has been there bought anything for them for dinner or anything haha! So i dont know how but i got them to like me! lol The next day we visited the Stake Presidents family for dinner ( they live DIRECTLY in front of us, so yeah... we have a realllly good relationship with the Stake President! No big deal) haha So we vistied them my first time and I instantly got along with them! Theyre soo cool! The daughters served in Mexico so we 're always talking about how amazing mexican food is lol but yeah, the Stake President is always helping us out too! The best part... he has a picture of him sitting casually with ELDER UCHTDORF AND ELDER HOLLAND in his office!!! I know right!!  Well anyway, our apartment is really small, but it does the job, we have HOT water for once!!! woohoo! And I now have the amazing experience of washing my clothes! I finally learned how and its not bad at all! Once you start washing your clothes..idk, its wierd.. like... you start to bond and get attached more with your own clothes! lol 

  So the majority of people here are allllllllllll STUDENTS! There are some universities here and the main thing here is the Villa Olympica. Its like a hugge Recreational Center. So alll of our investigaotors (which are actually alot) are all students, mostly a bunch of geepers! haha but there are some that really progress really fast! We have some baptisms already planned out after Semana Santa! Oh yeah, btw we are in Semana Santa right now, the HOTTEST WEEK of all Honduras. so EVERYBODY travels because they have this week off, and they all got to the south to the beaches. But the wierd thing is that yesterday, a cold front hit, and its pouring rain right now! Everyone is freaking out because its supposed to be realllly hot! Everyone is happy!lol

  I am really happy too! I love my new area. I love the people here. I love the members already, and the ward is already attached to me. I love my new companion, we work well together. I am having the greatest time ever!

  Today for Pday we went to Picacho with my new zone! Theyre so awesome!! I was already really good friends with ZLs so i instantly got along with all of them! Especially one of the ZLs, Elder Reinoso, he is from Cuidad Juarez Mexico!! 

There is also Elder Lujo and Heramana Cook from Cali, i dont know there is so many awesome missionaries! haha Here are some pictures

                                                
                                                               I just had to take a selfie with Jesus! 






                                                      The Elders from the Esperanza zone!

                Elder Reinoso, Me, and Elder Lujo. My comp had a selfie stick and I realized its alot of fun! haha

                                                   

                                                                        My new comp, Elder Agren!                                  

Big Surprise!!!!!!!

Well its been a really good week.

The beginning of this change wasnt as good as it is now. My comp and I had some differences to settle, but I learned to handle it correctly. And now, wow! We`re great friends!! Now we are always having fun times and spiritual lessons. Well we`ve had a lot of investigators lately,and we`ve gotten alot better at bringing them to church, and of course the ward families get all excited and invite us for dinner haha i honestly cant express how much I love them! Hmm... whats new? Oh! So I came up with a new strategy for finding young investigators. So we were contacting right? 

And so we see some teenagers hanging out and kicking a soccer ball around.So we got to them, and we made a deal with them. If I can dribble the ball on their foot more than they can, we teach them a lesson.If we lose, we give them each a gift (foyetos). Haha so ive gotten pretty good and i felt confident,so i went first I did about 12 lol. The youngest one goes and he does, I kid you not, 140. What?! hahaha so we definately lost but it was fun, and they said they wanted to hear the message anyway :)

Well, i honestly cant even think of the other experiences that happen this week because i am really shocked. Yesterday was an amazing day, we finished our fast, had amazing lunch, and had amazing dinner with Family Mairena and the hermanas and it was so much fun! We got done and had amazing lessons with investigators, my comp and I were having the greatest time ever. Then its 9:17and we`re planning, and we recieve a phone call, its one of the APs saying that I have mini-changes. Its like emergency changes.A certain companionship didnt get along and so the President switches them out. And I got chosen. He said pack your things, be at the office tomorrow at 1. Your going to Villa Olympica and your new comp is Elder Agren. Wow... just like that, things can change. It was so unexpected. But of course im sad, really sad honestly because this area and ward isamazing, but im also happy to experience things in other areas. I barely had sleep lastnight due to packing so I had a lot of time to think, but i realized that I know that myHeavenly Father has a purpose for everything, and I will be guided and protected. I love the mission so much and im always learning so much! Ill let you know next week how the new area is! :)

Popeyes!

Pues todo esta masiso aqui!

 Not much new, its been an ordinary week. Met a lot of new people, got some new investigators, lost some investigators, same ol same old.

 But probably the coolest thing about this week was this epic conversation I had with some guy while we were contacting, this is how it went: 

-Hola Hermano como esta! 

Bien bien, y tu?

-Pues bien, aqui no mas conociendo las personas, usted como se llama?

Nain

-Nain?

Si, como dice en Lukas 7:11. En la Biblia. No se recuerda verdad? Oh es por que Mormones no leen la biblia...

-Si hermano, cada mañana leemos la Biblia.

La Biblia! No el Libro de Jose Smith

-Ok bueno pues, Yo me llamo Elder Madero. Igual como dice en Hechos 10:39. Se recuerda? en la Biblia...

(His eyes were all big and surprised)

Then he starts laughing and gives me a high five, then he says hes an exmissionary messing with me haha That was fun. Lets see whats new.... not much, the weather is nice, nothing spectacular this week. P-day was a lot of fun with our zone! We played soccer and watched movies at the capilla. Then we went to Popeyes and it started pouring rain like ALOT! 
So we stayed there for a lonngg time, which is alright because its Pday haha but theyre all alot of fun!