Monday, August 21, 2017

San Marcos de Colòn!


Finishing the way that I started.
If you remember, I started my mission opening an area as I was being trained. It was pretty hard, but a lot of fun. I always wondered how my trainer must have felt, well now I do! Opening San Marcos isnt easy, but we are trying to make it as fun as possible! 



Well anyway, I`ll start with last week. On Tuesday morning we picked up the new missionaries from the airport...and then from there, everyone was asking the same question... who will be with Elder Madero!? I was trying to keep that on the downlow so that the new missionaries wouldn't know, but President Chase made a huge announcement and let them all know that "One of you is going to have to take one for the team and suffer being with Elder Madero!" And they all just sighed and were depressed... just kidding. But it was pretty nerve wracking not knowing who my new companion would be! I tried to figure it out but I couldnt! I had to wait until the next morning when President anounces it to everyone. But do you know whats funny? Obviously everyone in the office tried to guess and were trying to figure it out too, I obviously didnt know if they were right or not. But, Elder Alvarado (my grandkid in the mission) guessed it right! He kept saying its him! its him! I know it is! He needs a Madero in his life! Little did I know that he was right! The next morning we had the changes meeting and I found out that my new companion would be Elder Taylor!
Elder Taylor is from Pocatello Idaho! He is so awesome! Hes been wanting to be a missionary for so long and now he is finally here! Thats how I felt, so I know how he feels! That makes me really happy because he is really determined to be the best missionary possible! I love training him so far. I love teaching him everything that I have learned in the past 21 months. Sometimes I have to slow down and let him breathe! haha He is going to be an excellent missionary though! 
So, we got on the South Bus! A big yellow school bus that we rented, and we headed down! Man, after like an hour we hit the wall of heat! (that south trip was alot different compared to being in the nice Frontier truck!) We were drenched with sweat! It was soooo interesting being back out with the missionaries again, because everyone talks about what they think is going on with a certain situation. I heard all of the rumors and chismes and chambre! THEY ARE ALL WRONG! hahaha But I didn't want to tell them. I wont be in the loop anymore though of what is really going on so that`ll suck! Anyway, we got to Choluteca pretty late so we had to stay the night there with our DL. It was funny, my companions first dinner in Honduras was a pulp dinner. Which is typical. We got to the little stores that are in peoples houses and buy little pan dulce things and a little carton of chocolate milk and thats dinner! But he doesn't mind! He already loves this country, the people, and the food. He eats allll of the food!! YES! That is supperrr important! I`ll tell you more about the area and members next week. But its going great here! I love it so much! We had an attendance of 15 people in our little group on Sunday! Which is pretty good! I was exhausted after church though... I had to give a 35 minute talk and teach primary class... and you know how I am with kids... haha! But I definitely feel like family here. There is alot of work to be done here though! 


We made breakfast honduran-mexican tacos! 
Ingredients: Freshly made tortillas from our neighbor, eggs, fried plantain, and mantequilla.:)

Monday, August 14, 2017

Revelación!

                                  

We had our last supper with the Chase family this week, it was little sad, but the food was super good! 


Well this week has been pretty busy, of course. We had to do all the changes for the mission. It was the first changes meeting for President Chase, which took literally 2 days straight. But it was necessary. But we feel so confident that these changes that we made are what our Father wants. I truly have a strong testimony with Revelation. I have seen it sooo much throughout my time here in the office. I have so many little experiences with this. And I can never get used to it, it is so incredible! For example, I´ll share one of my favorite experiences that has happened recently: 

So, I never really knew if I was going to leave the office or not, there was still a very high chance that I would stay for another 3 months here and train the next Assistant. To be honest, I´ve been wanting to leave. I miss being out there in the field and getting rained on, starving, using the same clothes for a couple days straight, not being able to shower because there is no water, etc. So anyway, If I leave the office, that would be that someone would have to replace me. Who? That was the big question. We went through everyone and tried to see who can be the next assistant and who met some of the qualifications. From about 10 candidates, we narrowed it down to about 5. For a long time, we just kept looking at these 5 to replace me. I didn’t know who it was, and I didn’t really ponder about, all I knew was that I was leaving!! Lol Well, these past couple weeks we realized that the time is getting closer until we have to decide. Well, this whole change we have been driving around the whole mission with President Chase and showing him around, going to the Interviews meetings and teaching. And so we have seen all of the missionaries, and we still felt the same about the 5 candidates that we had. Once again, all I knew was that I was leaving! But then, we went to the last interviews meeting, which was last week. It was down in the south, we showed up and set everything up. Then we started with a hymn and prayer. As one of the zone leaders directed the meeting, I thought of something. Then President got up to start the individual interviews with everyone. (he usually starts with the zone leaders so that they can tell him how the missionaries in their zone are doing). But then I instantly got up and went to him and I made a comment to him before he interviewed that missionary, I told him “I don’t think we have considered this enough, but this missionary can be the next assistant.” (he wasn’t part of the Top 5 that we considered a lot) But the more I spoke to this missionary, heard him teach, and seen how much he cares for his zone, the more I felt that he was my replacement. Remember, that we never considered him! And I would have found it VERY strange if he wasn’t. So, President interviewed him, and the time went on, President prayed about it throughout that next week and when we started the changes meeting, we saw that that missionary is replacing me. It felt right, more than any other. That’s called Revelation. When God reveals time at HIS time. That’s something that President Chase taught us, he said one time as we were trying to figure out a certain change: “Maybe we don’t know right now, because we don’t need to know right now”. God reveals things to us when the time is right. I´ve definitely have learned that here. Even when it came down to where my next area is going to be. But that’s a whole other story! 

My next assignment will be to open an area in the South! It’s a small town wayyyy down there by like Nicaragua. It’s called San Marcos de Colon. I will be opening it while I train a new missionary as well! I am so excited!! I will tell you about the area next week while I’m there. This Tuesday we will pick up the new missionaries from the airport and one of them will be my next kid! Haha Woohoo!


Elder Huff came back to Honduras and was visiting everyone! Look back at the previous posts in the blog, I have a picture with him while he was here in the mission. He is a missionary that really impacted me! 


We had a carneada for our last Pday together! 

Monday, August 7, 2017

Last week as an Assitant!



Well, this coming week is going to be my last week as an Assistant here in the mission. 


Its been a blast! I´ve been here for 3 changes, my companion finishes his mission next change, so I can´t stay unless I want to stay for another 2 changes to train the next assistant that comes in... but... I really want to go back out in the field! Being in the office is very different! It has a its benefits!(alott of them!) But you deal with a lot of problems that an average missionary doesnt, and so its pretty hard after a while! But man, its been soo fun!


 This week was another adventure! We had August´s Consejo de Lideres. And we did it the new way again and everybody loved it! The cool thing is that it wasnt a new thing anymore, everybody was expecting it and so they arrived and were ready for business! We talked alottt about how we can improve! Do you remember the last class that we taught? About goals, and the importance of them and stuff like that. And we gave that Roger Bannister example of breaking the 4 minute mile and setting the new record? Well guess what?? WE SET A NEW RECORD for baptisms!!! So we are SUPER happy for the mission!! We skyrocketed!! And so we are going to try our best for them to keep on keeping on! Everybody loved in Consejo again because we gave them good food again! Its not pizza anymore! We know this member close to our area that cooks for the Marriot, and so we went to her house and she had us try her food! So we went with President and Sister Chase and their daughter thats here. The food was suppperrr good! 








The next day we traveled down to the South to do the interviews for the San Lorenzo and Choluteca zones. My last trip to the south! :´/ but it was fun! When we arrived to the city of Cholu we had an unexpected surprise, President Chase had us stay at a very fancy hotel with them! 


it was super nice! It was nice also because we arrived very late and it would have stunk trying to find a place to stay with elders that have enough beds. But the best part about it was that they had a very nice breakfast in the morning where they make you an omellett! They had a very nice pool too! Too bad we couldnt get in... just 3 more months! haha So this week will be our last week to work in our area, the week we make the changes for the mission with our Mission President, and the week I say goodbye to my families here...

Out of the subject, there I was yesterday, at a restaurant, going to the restroom, taking care of business, and then I look straight ahead and do you know what I see? The newspaper, and do you what it said?! Super amazing news!! Neymar is on my team!!! PSG!! What!! He is out of Barcelona and is now in Paris!! I am super excited for when I get home and see all of their games! Im not a guy that just hops on the bandwagon for the winning team, theyve always been my favorite! Anyway...thats what everyonnnne is talking about here! I can wear my PSG shirt with even more pride now! :)