Divisions

Hey guys! 
Well there is not much new this week! We're still working hard like always!
We are finding a bunch of new investigators! This area is pretty awesome! There are a lot of cool experiences here and there but ill just write a couple, and one of my favorite ones was when we went on divisions. Ok, to start off, this week we met a bunch of people right? Specifically a guy in our residential where we live who was blasting some Pink Floyd one day, and i told my comp that we need to go back some other day and contact him, i didnt want to do there and then because he was probably on something since hes listening to Pink Floyd!! haha jk. So anyway, i end up talking to him one day and he completely rejects us saying he knows everything about us already and is not interested. Well fair enough. Ni modo. I didnt really think of him again. Then early the day of divisions we were walking through the Villa Olimpica and we see this guy skating around with his friend, I remember him because I commented his cool shirt to my companion. Ok so now...we go on divisons at Lujos and Akubeze's area. So I went on divisions with Elder Akubeze from London. He is soo cool! He is also from my CCM group! Ok so anyway, he says we are going to a cita to a really positive new investigator. Ok so im excited! So we go and he is awesome! My companion is doing alot of the talking, which is fine because well its better that the investigator gets attached to him because hes in his area. 10 minutes into the lesson... people walk into the house. 3 guys. The guy I contacted that didnt want anything, and the 2 skater guys!! And it turns out they are all like best friends. And so they are super distracting in the beginning, and my companion just kind of freezes...but i was so excited!! Because i knew that it was not a coincidence that at the very moment that I was at that house, these guys from myyy area, who are like 15 minutes away, show up here. So i said, Wellll... Showtime. And i reach in my bag and take out my scriptures and just start teaching. I did a really good job at controling the situation because these guys were suppperr chistosos and distracting. But they ended up liking us and asking a lot of good questions! That was fun!
 The rest of the day of divisions was fun! We stayed the night with them and the next day we had a service project. We helped some inactives shovel a bunch of dirt! Thanks to my previous job fencing with my uncles, i shoveled away!! haha That was fun! So long story short, we finish divisions and we are on our way home. The other elders are with us to because we were on our way to lunch, then correlation in my area. but on our way there we had to pass some portones of the Villa. And we looked in and saw a bunch of people!! like alott of youth! And someone said lets go check out whats going on. But we were really hungry so we said nahhh, and as we were leaving the enterance I hear someone yell 'Elderrrr!!!' And i look over and i see the Presidente Torres  from Miraflores!!! I couldnt believe it! He saw me from far away and recognized me! haha and so i ran over to him and who did I see behind him? all of the Miraflores youth!!! we were all soo happy to see each other!! it turns out that they were doing a multistake youth competition thing at the Villa and at my ward. So it was supperr nice seeing them again!! 

Hmmm.. what else... Well we have this investigator who is really progressing! She is Glenis and she is awesome! We are planning the baptism this weekend! :) Last saturday we had a cita with her and so we stop by, and she said she couldnt attend us :( Why? because she was trying to get everything ready for sunday to keep the sabbath day holy!! hahaha we were sad, but also really happy! And so she went church, and we were supposeddd to have a cita at 3 but she cancelled us againnnn... something about she had to go to a fireside or something? Idk hahah jk, she is so positive!! 

Ohh! Last night we were walking around contacting, and this car goes by and on top of the trunk we see two little kids holding on! And then they jump off and then after a while, we see them jump onto another car secretly and go for a ride!! WHAT?!? those kids are crazy!!! My companion was not surprised at all.... thats Honduras! 

Working hard!

 Well this has been a great week!
 We´ve been working hard! Ill tell you why... The other day my companion and I were looking through our old agendas and comparing them. At first it was funny to see his first couple agendas almost empy right? he had really bad trainers who didnt do much. But as we went on and on, the rest of the agendas werent too great. My other companions have all been district leaders and are now ZLs so ive adapted to their mentality. And Ive learned how the numbers each day should look on an agenda. And I was not satisfied with the datos. Looking back, ive learned that my trainers were truly AMAZING! and ive learned so much from them! Mostly how to work hard! My companion didnt really get that in the beginning, but he is a hard worker. And so after looking at all of the agendas, i am now determined to make a change. I dont want him to look back at the agendas with other companions and see low datos with Elder Madero, I want him and everyone else to say, ´wow, this is a really good looing agenda! You guys worked hard!´ And so this week, we did our absolute best to lograr todos nuestro metas! And we had a lot of success! We met a lot of great people and investigators! And so im going to do my best to keep this going. 

   The area is totally awesome! Last satuday a concert came to Villa Olimpica and no matter how far you get from the area, you can hear the music. Which got really annoying when we were contacting and teaching. I didnt recognize the artist, it was some cristian genre guy. Put the last concert was Marco Antonio Solis, and the time before that was Maná! So im hoping next time it will be someone actually good again! haha But this week we met a bunch of great people! For example, we met this guy, Felipe, actually he contacted usss. He asks us if the church had some drug rehab group, and well we told him we would do some research, but if it were okay if we can stop by his house sometime. He agreed, and then we stopped by a few days later. It turns how that he had a really hard life recently, but because of a near death experience, he changed his life around. He was a previous investigator who was about to get baptized, but then didnt. But now he willing to give it another shot. He actually already had a tesitimony but we´re going to teach everything again. He came to church this sunday and he loved it! He is a really scary looking guy actually, but with a BIG heart! And all of the members did their part to help feel at home and like family. We found another investigator one day contacting, and since we are representatives of Jesus Christ, we always offer to serve people as well. And I was contacting this joven at her doorstep and she seemed really worried, so i asked if there was anything that we can help her with, and after some consideration, she admitted that she had a rat in her kitchen and shes really afraid of it and cant get it out. And so we helped her! My comp was a little scared as well and so I had to do the best I can to be the macho guy and get rid of the poor innocent rodent. We eventually trapped it, and then we taught her! That was a really funny experience. We also met this joven who let us into her house to teach her, she seemed really interested and so we were really excited to throw down some doctrine! But then 5 minutes into the lesson.... three of her really catholic brothers sat around her and started to try to intimate us. It was funny because my comp and I just smiled at each other and said ´showtime´. (we didnt realllly say that, but we thought it)haha and so even with them trying to contend with us, we had a really spiritual lesson! And we have another cita with them soon, mostly to talk with the brothers! haha And well there are so many funny contacting stories that we have but so little time to write all of it. But heres another one! Rewind back to Miraflores... Elder Marin and I were contacting and we found this super postive investigator! he was super pilas and all but the problem is that he can never get to church because of his job, he has really bad hours. And so we kept talking to him about this, trying to make him talk to his boss to change his hours so that he doesnt work on sundays! but he says well theres only like 3 people who work in the kitchen, and the other guys dont want to work on sundays, so i have to. (he works at Little Ceasars) and so We were contacting here and we found a member on accident! She is super awesome! but she is having some problems with her husband, the husband doesnt like going to church and so he doesnt allow her to go to church either. And so we were talking to her about him a little bit more trying to get to know him, and shes well he works at Central making pizzas and has to work alot due to the short staff. And instantly I rememberd our previous investigator from MF! And i ask her, wait, does he work at Little Ceasars? Yes. Is there only like 3 chefs in the kitchen? And does he ask for sundays off? 

Yes as well! DANG IT!! Its this guy´s fault that we couldnt baptize our other investigator!!!! hahahaha that was really funny, and i realized that Honduras is pretty small lol Well thats it for this week! 

Stay Tuned :)

General Conference / Sara

Well it finally happened! We baptized Sara!
 Sara is an investigator the elders found like a week before I got here and she is incredible! She has one of the strongest testimonies Ive seen that has been investigating the church. She is about 22 years old and studies at the universitity, and shes studies Phsycology, so she is super smart! All of her answers to our questions are always really intelligent and she will never lie to us or anything, the point is, is that when she says she wanted to get baptized....she WANTED to get baptized. You can tell that she knew that this is something she truly wanted to do and no one was going to make her change her mind. Even her whole family was against it, but now... her mom is even investigating! We had her baptism Sunday morning before conference and it was a great service! Very spiritual! The best part? When she bore her testimony! 

   Well anyway, I am doing great! My companion and I are getting along great! We are making a lot of progress here. But the next best part of this week was Generel Conference. Since the 4 missionaries in this ward are all gringos. we had a gringo room! (We left our investigators seated with members) So we watched conference in English. ( My second language ;) But man! Conference was amazing!! This is the first time I actually stayed awake for all the sessions haha and the first time I took notes for each talk, and man! It made a difference! Taking notes during conference really helps us to remember what we just learned and helps us apply what we learn as well. I cant decide which of all of the talks was the best. Some of my favorites were: The talk by Stephen W. Owen when he talked a lot about leadership. The main thing I learned from this talk is the the Greatest Leaders, are the Greatest Followers. Just like Jesus Christ. Man that hit my hard! I also liked Deiter F. Uchtdorfs talk in Priesthood Session that mentioned this one line that he said to the men looking for wifes.: If there werrrrre a perfect women out there, do you really think she would want Youuu? Ouch! Of course, everyone laughed here... and I couldnt stop cracking up! I really liked Thomas S Monson speaking as well, even though he didnt talk much, but his words were powerful! ´Choose the hard right, then the easy wrong´. I learned alot from Conference, and I hope all of you did as well. 

   Well whats new? There is not much new this week except for the bapism and conference. Changes was this week and our Zone changed up a little bit. We have a bunch of new people. One of which is someone Ive seen before. Elder McKee. Ok so for those who have wrestled in the Mohave Tournament know of the two best schools that always compete there, Springville and Shadow Ridge. And Elder McKee wrestled at 132lbs like me, and he won pretty much every year! He wrestles for Nevada though so that is the only time I ve seen him. But its really funny because now we are good friends, and back then we had NO idea that one day we would be in the same district in a foreign land as missionaries. 

Its funny sometimes how things work out.  

Well Im doing great guys! Dont worry about me! :) 

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!