One Year / My Birthday!

                                                                           I hit the year mark!! 
                                                  Of course I followed the tradition and I burned a shirt!

What a week!! I loved it! 
Well to start off... i shook hands with Elder Oaks from the 12!! 
I will never forget that powerful firm handshake he gave me! Its incredible! He gave us an amazing talk! He didnt come to shave us, he honestly talked to us with a lot of love. And of course he even cracked some jokes! One of my favorite things that he told us was that we need to really know who we are. Where we come from, and where we are going. He read us Juan 8:14 14 Respondió Jesús y les dijo: Aunque yo doy testimonio acerca de mí mismo, mi testimonio es verdadero, porque sé de dónde he venido y a dónde voy; pero vosotros no sabéis de dónde vengo, ni a dónde voy.

 The Spirit was really strong and of course we all felt really insprired. It was funny because he told us that we should be Full Time Missionaries, not part time. He said to forget about our home, forget about the elections in the US, and forget about the girl back at home...she will marry someone else! hahaha  That was an incredible experience!

 And then I received my new companion, Elder Guerra. He is from Peru! He is my son because he is coming straight from the CCM. He is SOO awesome! He has already served a mini-mission so he already knows whats up! First day, we went straight to work and he already knows so much! And guess what? he knows PERFECT english!! He studied in a bilingual school and he knows a lot! Not only that, but we have soo many similarities! For example, shows? He loves Sherlock the BBC series. Music? Classic rock and some modern stuff. I have never met anyone who has ever liked my favorite band, Phoenix. and when I asked about it, he is like OH Yeah! I love that band! AHhhhhh!! This dude is great! The members already like him! This has been such a great week! Also because on Friday I hit the year mark!! What?!?! Where has the time gone! Of course I followed the tradition and I burned a shirt! And then on Saturday, it was my birthday! Man, i definitely felt a bunch of love from the members! We ate cake at my ward mission leaders home! It was good! 

so, now Instead of counting up, the countdown begins! I should be coming home in LESS than a year now! :)

Heres a rundown of how my first year has been: 

AREAS: 

1. Miraflores, Tegucigalpa

2. Villa Olimpicia, Tegucigalpa

3. Las Unidas, Choluteca

4. El Paraìso, El Paraìso

COMPANIONS:

1. Elder Westberg (USA) (My dad)

2. Elder Carter (USA) (Stepdad)

3. Elder Marin (Nicaragua)

4. Elder Agren (USA)

5. Elder Espinoza (Peru)

6. Elder Saucedo (Colombia)

7. Elder Rosales (Honduras)

8. Elder Medina (Honduras) (Adopted son)

9. Elder Guerra (Peru) (Son)

... Nine companions under a year is wayyy to much! haha But i love getting to know new cultures and making new friends!

                                           
                                                                 ONE   YEAR!! wooohoo!!
Burning a shirt was a lot harder than I thought... I don't know how I managed to burn the 5 gallon bucket as well. LOL LOL 

Best week ever!

                                        Check out this awesome new Mountain Dew design! 
                      I dont even like Mountain Dew but I like how Honduras is getting some recognition! haha

Well this past week was a great week, but I am just wayyy to excited about this week coming up!
This is definately going to be the best week of my mission!Heres why: 

1. Well today is P-day, and its pretty awesome.

2. Wednesday the whole mission is going to have a reunion in Teguz. We are going to have a special guest visit us... guess who? Dalin H. Oaks!! :D Yeahh!!! The apostle! We are all super excited!

3. After the reunion, we are going to have our changes meeting!

4. I will be recieving another kid! Meaning... I will be training again as District Leader!

5. Friday I hit the year mark! What?!?! I cant believe it! Time has gone by way to fast!

6. Saturday we will have 3 baptisms! 

7. Sunday is my birthday!! I cant believe I am turning 20 years old!! 

   ...so yeah, this is going to be a crazy week! I am way too excited! I havent met my new companion yet, he is still in the MTC. His name is Elder Guerras is all I know. My current companion is finishing up his mini-mission. I am super grateful he came and helped me out here, I taught him everything I know and I think he has managed to learn all of the important parts! 

He lives in Teguz, he says hes coming back for the baptisms on saturday. The area is doing good! We have a bunch of AMAZING investigators! This is the perfect area to train someone!

  

                 Check out our gospel principles class! It was packed! Full of converts and investigators!!!!!

This week we had a really interesting experience, we had the opportunity to go to school and teach some kids about the church! It was really weird because all of my life Ive been taught that school and religion do not go together, and well I guess its not like that here! haha It was a fun experience but not really that productive. It was really funny for me though, you guys know how I am, I like attention. Well once we started teaching, of course there is always that class clown. I think it was karma because of how I was in high school ! haha So of course we had our laughs as the class clowns and I were messing with each other. But the thing that I love about this gospel, is that no matter what people say about our church, todo tine sentido (everything makes sense).  So we cleared everything up and there were no more questions! haha 

sorry the picture isn't the best

New Chapel!

                                                        I recieved a letter in the mail, my dad got married!!! 
                                                                            What?!? Im still in shock!
                                      ( Elder Westberg was my dad while he was on his mission here in Honduras)

Well everything is going great! 
Sorry about not writing last week I was really sick, we thought I had dangue! But everything worked out and I cured right up. We had a really good week of hard work! I love training, you know why? I am teaching my companion the all of the things that took me months to learn, and he IS learning! When he goes to his mission in Mexico he will know everything already and will get to work his first day! This is the last full week of this change, its sad knowing that we willl be seperated! haha But i am sooo grateful that he decided to come on the minimision so that he can help me here! Something that Ive realized about him is that he has not complained once! Even when its late and we´re tired, he has no problem with knocking an one more door! I love that about him! The good thing is that he will learn that through hard work and obedience we will always be blessed, he is really happy about two baptisms we will have this weekend.

Well, for about 6 months the chapel here in el paraíso has been in reconstruction, so for a long time that members and the missionaries have been assisting at the temporary warehouse looking chapel, but guess what? 

The new chapel is open!! I am so lucky to be here in this area at this time because we get to experience this haha. 

It is soo nice! It looks like if it were a 2017 model! Everything is hightech and brand new! It tooks us a while to learn how to move the curtains up and down! They are fool-proof! haha The portable tv we have here is a brand new Samsung 55´´!! HUGE!! The youth of el paraiso have been pretty sad that the building has been closed because alot of the youth, member or not, like to play soccer at the court outside. So everytime we contact people we always mention that the chapel is open again and most importantly, the cancha is brand new as well!hahaha 

  

We packed 8 people into one taxi! haha

We found a really good Mexican restaurant that is pretty authentic! 

Once we ate, I told the waitress that I wanted to meet the chef, she kind of gave me the Why? Thats weird look... (I get that a lot;) and so the chef came out and she is Mexican! She married a Honduran thats why she is down here. We made good friends with her and she even invited us for dinner when she makes Mexican mole! yumm!!

 They had this painting of the Honduras flag and the Mexican flag, I thought it was pretty cool! 

New Companion!

Well there have been some changes this week! Such assss: I recieved a new companion! In the middle of our morning studies on Friday, Elder Rosales recieves a phone call saying pack your things your leaving to your mission to Mexico today!! You have to be at the Danli stake center at 2! Wow! What a surprise! So he got everything ready as fast as he can and I tried to get the house as clean as possible to recieve a new companion! The greatest news ever was hearing that I am not leaving, that they are NOT going to close this area again!! Im so glad all of the work we´ve been doing wont go down the drain! haha So we went to Danli, and I dropped off an Elder and recieved another! I recieved Elder Medina!! He is from Tegucigalpa! He is actually a mini-missionary. He has his mission call to Mexico as well and he leaves at the end of november. A minimissionary is a missionary that is volunteering their time (time that wont count as time on the mission) to help out the current mission where they live. I am so grateful that he came!! His story is actually pretty crazy. He has been inactive for a large chunk of his life, but these last few months hes had a mighty change of heart and he decided to change his life completely, so he, alone, filled out all of his mission papers and got his mission call! And on Friday morning at around 10, he recieved a phone call from our APs saying, Hey we know this is last minute, but we need a mini-missionary quick! Can you serve a mini-mission from a month in el Paraiso? He said , Sure! The APs said, alright! you have to be at the office in TWO HOURS! what?! But he willingly accepted and now he is here! Well, im training! my new comp really doesnt know much, others that are training at least have the benefit that theyre comps have gone to the MTC, my companion doesnt have that background! haha Im not gonna lie at first I was pretty shocked and didnt believe the situation. But then I got my pilas together and got to work! haha the good thing is that my new companion is SO WILLING TO LEARN!! Alot more willing to learn than I was when I was in training lol. But he is incredible! 
We had general conference this week and it was incredible! My favorite talk was definately Uchtdorfs first talk!! It was so direct and powerful! I definately learned a bunch this weekend! Because my companion arrived in the tarde of friday, and we had conference on saturday and sunday, we didnt have much time to actually work. But we worked our tails off after the sunday conference and i realized that well, my companion loves working too! I love teaching everything I´ve learned throught these past 11 months! We had a pretty cool experience contacting on sunday. So personally I LOVE contacting.
 I love getting to know new people and them getting to know us and our message. As we were contacting, which was the first time in my companions life, we found some people that werent so positive. Some people that already assist a church and say that it is an unforgivable sin to learn about other churches. Others who say Well, you guys can come back, but nunca me van a encontrar aqui, siempre salgo. My companion would always write everyones name down, excited to revisit. But i remember I told him with a lot of confidence, they are not the ones we are looking for, there are always some that are waiting for us, just dying to hear our message, we just need to keep looking, and talk with everyone! After like 3 more doors, a joven comes out, we present ourselves and talk a little with him and he lets us in, he says that he used to talk to sister missionaries before. His best friend is a member. And he really wants to see the new chapel that we have there. So we talked a little more with him and gained his confidence so that we are not some strangers in his house. Then we taught a little and planned another appointment. He said that he is really willing to go to church on sunday, the only thing is that he has to ask his mom for permission. He has gone to the same church all of his life and has never asked his parents for permission to go to another, but he really, really wants to! We left that house, and my companion was almost in tears! He was saying, wow! Its almost too good to be true! Does that always happen? Basically I told him, no. Not always, there will be days when we dont find anything, not even dogs that wants to talk to us, but other days we find miracles, people who have waiting for us and our message. He learned, no, we BOTH learned alot from that! 
AHHHHH I love the mission!!
 I also love this oppurtunity I have in El Paraiso!! 
I am giving it everything I have, when I leave here I want to be that missionary that the ward talks about years after, and say....... that,  Ese Elder Madero si trabajo queda miedo!! Y era buena onda! haha 

As missionaries, we are not too happy about this! haha

I love COCA~COLA!!!!!!!!

                               

                                                      Saying goodbye to Elder Rosales was sad, he is such a great guy!
                                                        But he is going to Mexico!! How exciting!! Eating chile everyday! :D

                                    There was another festival in el Paraiso, and the parades always pass by our house!

                                                        This is our house!! The best house in all of the mission!
                                                                           Our house is on the top floor

                I talked to the owner as well, and she hooked us up with a water heater for our shower!! Woohoo!!

 

Our house is on the top floor, on the bottom is a paint company. So we have a pretty awesome view! Perfect for my hammock, and guess what?

! WE HAVE A WASHING MACHINE!! The only house in the mission with a washer!   :D