Last week with President Bowler

Tough times.

                                               The floor was wet. lol

 

What a week! 
It all started with our trip to South (again) on Monday! Which of course was alot of fun.

 We stayed with the Zone Leaders of Porvenir, which is where Elder Guerra is right now! So that was nice being able to catch up with him again. We had our Zone Conference on Tuesday and it was awesome!! Everybody liked it! 

Missionaries from the City and the South

We had everyone participate in this zone conference so everyone was happy with that. We made this really awesome video that had some people in tears! Then after the conference was over, we left as soon as possible back to the city! We left at 2:30pm. Early enough right? So we thought... we ended up getting back to the city at 10:00pm. Yeah... there was alott of traffic and rain and road construction! But of course we just made the trip as fun as possible! We got there that night and Sister Bowler calls us and asked if we made it okay, and then says go ahead and eat dinner we´ll take care of it! So we had a nice meal at Dennys! :) 

On Friday we had our Zone Conference in the city! The name of class was ´Enseñar Como Jesucristo´. 
We tried to help the missionaries teach the way our savior did. We gave them alot of cool examples, we shared a couple clever techniques we knew that has helped us teach people, and stuff like that. More than anything just so that we as missionaries dont sound like robots. Instead, we sound like representatives of Jesus Christ, and actually listen to our investigators and care for them. Teach them what theyneed to hear. 
It was alot of fun, because like I said before we had everyone participate and share their personal techniques that they use. We had this one section that we talked about how to Eliminate Distractions. So we took this fake picture of us teaching and had them find the problems and how to fix it. 

                            ( This is the picture that we used as an example on how to eliminate distractions.)
Its really nice to hear after the conference that people really liked the conference! You guys cannot imagine how busy we are during these days. More than anything getting ready for the new mission president coming and the all of the classes that we have to prepare on top of that!
We dont get much time in our area anymore, but thats how it is here. This week we should be going to the temple.
 This week will also be the last week that we will be President and Hermana Bowler! The whole mission already said their goodbyes but we dont until this weekend when we recieve our new mission president. 
He will be landing here on Saturday! We are really excited for this new adventure but we are a little sad about the Bowlers leaving, im sure we will see each other after the mission though.
 We are super excited for this week!!

                                                                     President and Hermana Bowler.

We played soccer and basketball for PDay with the office this morning!

People taking a stroll of their horses, random horses on the road, people bathing in the waterfall on the side of the road. This is all normal here.

Back to the South!

Another crazy week...

So we have a lot on our plate right now, or plato, as they say down here. And its been very hard to manage everything im not gonna lie!! haha but man its fun!

 So I´ll just start with monday. Monday we are in the office like usual, meetings with our president and doing our office work. We are there all day mostly working on the classes that we have to give to the mission soon. 

Then Sunday morning we get up and pick up the new missionaries from the airport! We only had about 4 new missionaries this time, but theyre pretty cool! Two from the states (One from AZ) and one from Nicaragua and El Salvador. So we had to take care of them.

 on Tuesday, we showed them around Teguz and took them out to eat at a Mongolian Restuarant. Make sense right? Their first day in Honduras they eat food from another country. Well at least they liked it! haha 

Wednesday was the changes meeting. We had to teach the new missionaries and the trainers which was alot of fun. Then after that we had to make sure everyone gets their new companion, gets their things, and leave back to their areas. During this time, I had the chance to say good bye to one fo the best people ive met in my life. One of them being Elder Garry from Washington. Im sure you guys remember him from when we were together in Danlí! I cannot believe he is already home! It was honestly really, really sad. But thats how the mission is!

I ill miss you Dude!!!

Elder Pickron, going home back to Mesa Arizona!

 Then after working in the office for the rest of the day we finally went back to our own home. We get home at about 9pm and we are so exhausted and still havent eaten dinner. So we go upstairs to our neighbor to borrow a pot to make dinner, when we come back down we have two missed calls from President. We knew obviously sometyhing wasnt right. And guess what? EMERGENCY CHANGES... again! So we had to meet with him and figue out where everyone is going and which areas we are going to close. We had some missionaries finally get their visas so that they can go serve in the mission they were assigned to, so thats why we had these changes at the last moment. So on Thursday we pack our things and head to the South! We had to go pick up some sister missionaries and take them to their new area. The trip was honestly alot of fun! We took the beast! (The truck) and were on our way! Its rainy season now so the south went from being hot and dead, to hot and green! Its so beautiful!! We took a bunch of pictures of how awesome it looks! 

We had a blast. 

It was quite a trip to San Lorenzo. But theres nothing that this truck cant do! haha 

we stopped by the nearby beach and I stuck my hand in there and it is BURNING HOT! Its hot water that you shower with! Thats how hot it is here! Its insane! haha 

And we saw some guys fishing... without fishing poles. It was really interesting watching them fish just with the fishing string and their hands!

We stayed the night with the Zone Leaders of San Lorenzo in the south.

 On Friday morning we picked up the sisters and came back to the city, but then we had to keep driving all of the way to Valle de Angeles! So this took up pretty much our whole day. But then we finally finish and go to the office because President calls us in. As of right now we´re telling ourselves well, at least we still have a few more days to keep preparing for the zone conference coming up next wednesday. Our president tells us that there is a last minute change of plans and now the zone conference is now going to be on Tuesday. And because of the traffic we are going to drive down to the south again on Monday! What!?! Ahhhhh!!!! But thats alright! This all happens for a reason.

 We have been put here for a reason and everything will work out. We just need to do our part. That is definately something that I´ve learned on the mission. Everything will work out. This has been a crazy week with little sleep, and alot of stress, but there is no where I would like to be. I love it here. 

We can take a deep breathe, for now!

Well, its been a great week!
 Everything worked out perfectly! If you remember last week was pretty hectic for us, with the whole surprise visit from Elder Renlund and everything. Well he came this past wednesday and it was pretty intense! I´ve never seen how much the church actually prepares for something like this until now. They clean every little corner of the chapel and repaint everything and fix everything before he comes. We had to do alot on our part as well. Mostly because we were in charge that our mission knew what they are supposed to do, but also the mission right next to us. I remember on Tuesday I had the idea to call the APs of the Comayaguela mission and see how everything was going, I realized that they didnt know much about it! They didnt know about the rules, or anything about the schedule. (They were actually planning on being here an hour later than they were supposed to!) So not only did we have to instruct our mission, theirs too! But it was fun! On the big day, Wednesday, we all got into our positions and got to work. We had the office elders stationed in different places of the chapel and we were throwing out secret crazy code words and signs, making sure that no one goes where they are not supposed to go, and they stay and do where they are supposed to stay and do. It was pretty stressful. Mostly because the whole mission was there and so I saw alot of my friends and they were all trying to talk, (as well as people I dont know trying to be friends all of a sudden! haha ) but I couldnt talk, we were super busy trying to direct everyone and the ´big boys´ in charge of all of this event had to keep giving us the instructions at the moment and we had to transfer that message to the rest of this missionaries. We actually got to shake his hand! It was awesome! You guys cant imagine how relieved we felt when we finished all of this! We were finally able to go back to our area and work!
 On friday we had our weekly planning and we realized something... Little by little we need start saying goodbye to our area.
 We took our 3 month calender and we realized all of the big events that we are going to have pretty soon! All of the Consejo de lideres, Interviews, and Zone Conferences that we need to set up soon. Its exciting! But there is no other way to put it, its going to get pretty stressful. But I really trust my companion, we know that if we keep working hard and stay organized and keep thinking ahead everything well work out.

 We are making a new presentation for the missionaries coming to the mission this week so we took some pictures around the city so that we can explain a little of how it is here.
 im going to attach some pictures of the transportation at least from today.

The other night we were on a taxi and we realized that our driver was really really bored, to the point that he was playing Fifa on his phone! haha

 These nice buses are called Rapiditos, they cost 11 Lempiras, they are usually pretty nice, and usually has good music 
playing.

These are the regular buses, they cost 4 lempiras. But you get what you pay for... you can fit about 200 people in here sometimes and they do not care! It is insane how many people they can squeeze in there! 

There will always be a TV in front and they will always be blasting reggaeton.

These are Motortaxis, they always charge you way more than they are supposed to! Don't get on these!

 It was really funny, today we went to central and we saw these group of people and we see that they were practicing for the  quinceanera dance! 
I remember those days! haha

Last minute change of plans!

Our office car! 2018 Nissan Frontier, I feel pretty spoiled not gonna lie!

Hola! 

Well this has been a great week. A crazy week. More than anything there was one major event to write about this week. Everything else was pretty normal. We found a bunch of awesome new investigators! On thursday we actually found 10 new investigators in that one day (two positive families). So not bad right? We´ve been having a bunch of family home evenings with the members to get their trust and references. We are realizing that there alott of members here because we havent had a family home evening with the same family twice yet! So thats good. They are starting to cooperate with us now! :) So anyway. The change that we are in right now is a little strange because it is just a 3 week change. The first week is the changes week. The second week is getting ready for the Liders Council Conference for the 3rd week. And the third week, that conference and the changes meeting. Everything was well planned out. (If you know me you´d know that I like to have things planned out ahead of time just so that everything comes out perfect, so right now..im happy) But guess what? Last minute changes! Last sunday we were out working waiting for an investigator to come to church to teach there and I recieve a phone call from our mission president, saying that there is a change in the schedule! He said that the Consejo conference will be changed. It will not be next week anymore...it will be on 31st. And I tell him ´but President, there isnt 31 days in June...´ And he says ´I know, it will be in 3 days. The 31st of May. Why? Because I just recieved the news that we are going to have a special visit from Elder Renlund, one of the 12 apostles on the 7th of June!´ What?!?! So we definately freaked out! So yeah an apostle is going to visit our mision and the Comayagüela mision! Theyre coming here to the chapel where our office is! So we had to get to work! We were going to use this week to work on the Consejo de Lideres conference for the next week, but now, we have about 2 days to set everythinnnng up! The most important part is our class, we always have to teach classes to the leaders of the mission to help them be better. Setting up a class like that in two days isnt easy, trust me. But, we recently had an experience where we realized that we would be fine. A couple days ago we were pondering and thinking about what to teach in that class, there are obviously alot of options that we can choose from because we can choose from anything! It could be about the importantance of the key indicators, working with members, planning, obedience,etc. But there was a certain topic that was really stuck in my head. It was on leadership. The importance of being a good leader. Something like that. I spoke to my companion about it and he agreed, we would keep pondering it and we´ll see how we feel on the week that we start working on it for real. (I think this was on a friday.) And then Sunday we had Stake Conference! One of the reasons was because they are going to split the stake soon, its going to be the Villa Olimpica Stake! And also we had the visit of one of the seventy! Elder Moroni Perez. It was awesome! All of the talks were amazing, but there were two talks that really struck us. Our mission president´s and the seventy´s talk. Our president talked about when he was first called to be a bishop, how of course it was hard for him to think that he can be a bishop, but he realized that he really had to magnify his calling. Elder Perez talked about being called of God and becoming a leader. It was crazy! During the talk, my companion and I just kind of look at each other and say, Wooow! It was like they were speaking straight to us! We definately felt that it was like a comfirmation that is what the Lord wants us to teach to the mission. So we spent pretty much all day monday and tuesday working on this and we are really proud of that class! We really like it, and from what the misionaries told us, they said it was one of the best Consejos that theyve been to! :) The theme of the conference was ¨Esfuérzate y sé valiente¨, based on the 6th, 7th, 9th, and 18th scripture in the 1st chapter of Josué. I love teaching in conferences! The other missionaries that we assigned to teach did an amazing job as well! Thanks to the help of the Lord everything came out great! So now we need to set everything up for the conference that we are going to have with Elder Dale G. Renlund this Wednesday!

The Office Squad

Well here I am, in the office. My mission has definately changed.
 But I like it. Like if you picture a theatre show, a typical missionary is out there performing, working out in the field. Now we are ´backstage´. Making sure everything is working out and everyone is doing good. (Im not gonna lie I kind of miss being out there performing haha) But its so bad being here. It has changed my perspective in my mission alot, now that I know how the mission works. We recieved all of the statistics and stuff, we get all of the phone calls from missionaries having problems or in a serious situation, and we have to prepare all of the conferences to help the missionaries do the best they can when they are out there in the stage (field). Our time in our area to work has been cut down, which is a little sad. This week were the transfers. I recieved a new companion! Elder Akubeze went to be a ZL in Danlí and my new companion is Elder Lindsay. He is from Colorado and we have about the same in the mission. He is pretty cool! The thing that I really appreciate is that he a really organized person and so that is something that we both love! I realized something though, now that Ive gone through a whole transfer, I realized that my relationship with the ward is not that great. Alot of times we are in the office, and when we get back we try to work with our investigators and go find new people. But my goal for this change is to start visiting some members and helping them build their testimony. Something that is definately true is that if we work with the members we get more success. I kind of forgot that because of my last area, La Villa de San Fransisco, where there were barely any members. We learned to work independetly. But now im in city so that needs to change. We have been putting this in practice and it has been working out so far! We have been working hard lately and we´ve seen the fruits! We baptized a lady last saturday and it was awesome! But she didnt get confirmed, so we will be doing that tomorrow. Today, we were supposed to have a baptism too. But this is what happened... When we brought our district leader to do the baptismal interview she told us that her grandma didnt get her permission, although she really wants to and her parents support her. (Her name is Vivian, she is 17, smart, lives with her aunt for the new few months, but lives in Olancho with her grandma, that is why she needs permission with her grandma.) It was honestly really sad. She will still be able to go to church and everything but she have to wait until the grandma´s heart is opened and allows her to follow her dreams.We are praying for a miracle. That really hurt, we worked really hard with her, and now... nothing. But it is really intersting how things work out. We said, oh well! We need to just keep working. And so we went to the other appointments that we have for that day. This is what happened. THREE different investigators all kept their committments and read and prayed, and now feel that what we are teaching is true! They feel like they have recieved their response and accepted baptismal dates! I wish I had time to explain each of the investigator´s sitatuations because they are really interesting! and you would see how much of a miracle that was! One is a family, Familia Matute. Another is Helen, a really old investigator that finally did her part, and another is Jenny, who not she wants to keep progressing, but now her boyfriend and her uncle that lives with her! Yes!!!! I love these moments! Anyway, changing the channel... because this week was transfers we had to drive to the airport and pick up the new missionaries! That was so much! It got me a little baggy because it reminded me when I got off that plane about 19 months ago! Its insane how fast time has gone by! 

Find the problem in each picture......

-Carwash is spelt wrong!  LOL

-In every single one of my areas...there is always a donkey following me around.