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

Zone Conference

Well Im doing great! 
There isnt much to report on this week, except that we had zone conference which was awesome! But first, have I mentioned how awesome El Paraíso is? I think I did haha. But I am having a great time here! Im actually still learning how this area is, and what I realized this week is that this area is HUGE! I feel like im in Miraflores again because we have to plan each day with each area again. It is way to big to go from one side of the area to the next during the day multiple times. But that is such a blessing! I´m not seeing the same people everyday like in Las Unidas haha! There is a great variety of people here, but the good thing is that there isnt much of the rich snotty people here! They are all humble but not living in poverty. So our main priority still is trying to get to know the members of our area, because there is alot! The assistencia on sundays supposably hit about 200. So there is alot of work to do!! haha Well I think I mentioned this last week, but last week the Bishop asked me to give a talk this week, to motivate the members to work together. I was really excited about this! So during the week Ive been pondering on what to say. Hermana Vargas, one of the other missionaries in our ward said that in all that time she has been there, the bishop has never asked any missionary to talk, he doesnt like to because its a strong ward. The only time recently that its happened when E. Valladares asked to give a talk about 4 months ago. Anyway, I felt really priviledged! So Sunday came around, and I gave my talk. I prepared a bunch for it since I was really excited to give it! In my talk I tried to animate the members, not just saying, Hey! Give us references!! But instead, I tried to, well first present us because some dont even know that there are elders in the area again, but also to let them see that we were regular members before too, we know how they feel. As members, we have our friends and family members that are not members, but we dont give those references to whatever missionary. I strongly invited them to first, get to know us. We are really dispuestos to visit them, teach them, serve them, anything! I told them about the success we had in the Villa when the stake plan was to do 3 family home evenings a week! As well as how well going on divisions with the missionaries is. So that they can see how we work and how we teach. So they can see that we wont scare their friends away haha! Stuff like that. As soon as the first hour was finished, immediatley some members came up to us and said ´Hola! we are the Silva family! When can you guys come over?´ Man!! we were sooo happy! this continued until the end of church! I am so excited to see the results! 

On Tuesday we went to Teguz to the Mexican Embassy because some missionaries in the mission are waiting for their VISAs to go to their mission in Mexico. As well as my companion. My companion, Elder Rosales has 3 months in the mission, waiting to go to Mexico. President told us that he leaves this Wednesday, but the office has no idea whats going with that situation so we´ll see what happens! I think ill be recieving a mini-missionary. 

On Friday we had zone conference! Its when the President shaves us and says we need to straighten up! But in a loving way of course! haha Its also pretty cool because we get to see most of the missionaries in the mission. The city and the oriente get together for zone conferences, and the south missionaries have their own in the south. So it was nice to see the city elders again!!

 Anyway, during the conference sometimes there are some acitvities that we do to learn a certain principle. Well Hermana Lara, who is the enfermera of the mission, she needed a participate for her activity. I met Hermana Lara while I was in the south and of course now how i am, (always showing off ;) hahaha so guess who she calls on? Yeah that one elder, madero I think his name?? anyway, the principle was perseverar hasta el fin to get the best reward. So by the pulpit she showed me a piece of chocolate, she said, do you like chocolate? eat it. So I ate. Then she had a lollipop, do you want the lollipop? It takes 15 squats. Then she had a candybar? It takes 20 pushups to earn it. Then lastly, she had a Cocacola bottle. Coke is the great thing ever invented! <3 and it took 2 minutes being in the plank position. Ooooh que dificil right?? haha man it was so much fun because we put up a show! Era un gran relax!   

This is how El Paraíso looks like!

                                               

 This is our Ward Mission Leader, Elias and his wife, and my companion, Elder Rosales from Honduras, and the hermanas we are splitting the ward with, Hermana Moreno from Honduras and Hermana Vargas from Costa Rica.
                                     

This is our temporary chapel while the actual chapel is being reconstructed! It should be open in like 2 weeks!! 

I´m in Paradise!

El Paraiso is the greatest place ever! 
Now I know why missionaries say that this area is one of the best in the mission! 
I testify of that! f you notice the little map on the blog that should be on the left side, you´ll see a map of our mission. El Paraiso queda under Danli. It is a small city kind of Well, Its like Wickenburg. But better... ;) Its a really powerful ward here! This ward is the best in the Stake of Danli. We split the ward with hermanas, but we have the good side haha. Because this area is know for being #1, they expect a lot out of us. Which is just what I wanted! We are opening area meaning that me and my companion are both entering the area not knowing anything. Starting fresh pretty much. My second time opening area, I opened my first area in the mission as well, so at least I had experience how to do successfully. So this week we have been going out with the members to get to know the area, and its HUGE! We have also been doing our best to get the members to get to know us and trust us. Letting them know that we are here to work, which hasnt been easy... the previous elderes didnt leave a good example and their isnt too much confidence with some members now. For example, we only have meals with members like 3 days of the week, the rest we are on our own. But little by little they start trusting us and then starting inviting us over to eat. We actually already have some references from them! I made sure to visit the bishop asap. He is a great guy! We talked to him and stuff and we let him know who we are and what we want to do, he was impressed. He told us he can see the honesty and sincerity in us. He even asked me to give a talk this sunday and saying pretty much the same thing we told him because we need to animate the members to work with the missionaries again. I gladly accepted the asignment, what better way for the members to get to know us? We are currently meeting in like a store house type of room on Sundays. The past couple months the chapel has been under reconstruction, and it should be open in October! It is a really nice chapel! It honestly feels wierd to be in a ward again lol wheres my humble little group I love!!!! I´ll upload some of my goodbye pictures of some members from Las Unidas speaking of them.
But this area is awesome! The people recieve us so easily! It is really really, REALLY wierd that someone rejects like they do in the city lol they dont slam doors here! The climate is great! Its a cold area, but right now its really fresco. My companion is great! He is Elder Rosales, he has 3 months and is from Choluteca Honduras! So he is a paisano haha for only having 3 months, he knows ALOT! Our lessons together are great! He is waiting to to get his Visa to go to his mission, which is in Mexico, DF sur. This week was pretty cool because it was Honduras´s Independence Day and their was a huge festival parade thing here. 

Oh! I completely forgot last week to write about the assignment I gave you guys about Nephi and Laban! Well, Nephi was commanded to kill Laban right? Well I thought that well he did it out of obedience and because the Lord commanded him to do it, and that it is better for one person to die than a whole nation. Well my companion and I realized that before Nephi was commanded to kill him, he and his brothers tried to reason with Laban before and it didnt work out. The first time Laman want, and Laban tried to kill him. Then they took the riches that they had, and what did Laban do? He robbed them and tried to kill them again... which by the Law of Moses (eye for an eye) Laban should be put to death right? Its interesting to think of it that way haha. 

Anyways, everything is going great here! We are having a great time getting to know this area and the members. Estamos echando fuego! 

                                             Im going to miss how steep the mountains are here haha

                                             My last day in Las Unidas. Saying goodbye to the area and the members.

                                                     El perro estaba triste porque me voy a ir... sniff sniff

El Paraíso is calling my name!

Well everything is going great in Las Unidas.
I truly love it here. I´ve been here for two weeks and a change (a total of 2 months). During this time we´ve worked hard and found a bunch of great people. Some prepared people and some not prepared. We´ve also worked hard with the members, trying to earn their trust and mostly reactivating them lol but also trying to have them help us in the obra misional. We have their trust now in my opinion. When they invite us over for ´tortillas y queso´ that usually means they love us. haha
I love these people so much!! They are so humble and ive learned a lot from them. Ive lived in a town my whole life and im used to it. Then going from being in the city a bunch during the mission, back to a small village, i feel at home.
 While Ive been here I´ve tried my best to help contribute to help this group become a branch, and I cant believe that last week they announced that they will send the papers at the end of this month! When I got here to this area the asistence at church on Sundays was 22, I am happy to say that this past sunday we brought it up to 41! 

 I have to share this experience with you guys: My companion and his last comp contacted this one guy in the street, and they put a cita, everytime they would go, he would never be home. And then I came, we kept going as well, but like always, never there. Its not that he was anything that incredible is just that for some reason he was a future investigator that we always kept trying to find. (ive never met him) But I always felt like going to his house and knock and see if he was home. Saturday night, we tried again. and guess what? He just got home from work! So he comes to the door and we talk for a little bit. He lives right in front of an Adventista church. So I wanted to get to know him a little bit by talking about if he has ever gone to the church in front of his house, it turns out that he doesnt go because they dont eat fish and he cant work on Saturdays... so that wasnt the answer that I wanted haha. And he firmly stated that he is catholic. And I forgot how but during the talking he said something like ´un bolo no puede guiar a otro bolo´ ... so he drinks. By this time I can tell that my companion wants to leave (consejo de grupo was starting) but I wanted to get to know him a little more. After a while, he started to realize we arent robots, we are real people. (that sounds wierd right?lol) so then he tells that hes talked to other missionaries before, like 3 years ago adn they gave him a book, then he lets us in. After a few minutes he finds this book, El Libro de Mormon. I open it and see the front page has a photo of the two missionaries and their testimonies written there... we were pretty surprised but grateful they did that! He goes on talking about how hes read the Book of Mormon upto Mosiah! And he has been marking his favorite scriptures. By now, we are beyond happy, we are sooo happy! then he tells us a story. He tells us that in his job, his workmates are pretty cruel and mean. And one time religion got brought up. Of course they were bashing on every religion, especially our church. And there was this certain guy that was talking bad about the Book of Mormon, and our investigator got frustrated, and he took out the Book of Mormon THAT HE HAD IN HIS BACKPACK and opened and read his favorite scriptures to them. (and by now, we have our eyes WIDE open we cannoy believe what we are hearing) and thennn... he tells us that he told them, firmly, holding the book, He said ´Yo SE, que este libro verdaderamente viene de Dios, no le he leido todo, pero yo se que es verdadero´ By this time, I´m tearing up, as macho and might that I am (Que humildad va?;) My companion and I were speechless, yes because of his testimony of the the veracidad of the book, but also because we are so grateful for recieving another blessing from our Heavenly Father. We definately learned that we always need to be listening to the Spirit because we never know who is waiting for us, and need to hear our message or visit them. I love the mission so much!

Well anyway, heres the juicy part of this blog post: Today was the day that they tell us if we have changes or not. We invtied all of the missionaries in the south to our stake center and we were going to see the changes together. It was so much fun being with everyone, ive made soo many amazing friends here!!  Well because Ive been here for only two months I figured I´d stay here...but guess what? Im leaving Choluteca... I AM OPENING AN AREA IN ´EL PARAISO´!!

 I cant believe it!! Im leaving the south and I am going to the EAST. Its nice and fresh over there. Everyone was congradulating me, saying that the area I am going to is one of the best areas in the mission and that they were proud of me for opening another area, President must really trust me! haha I am so excited!! Im pretty sad about leaving Las Unidas but I know that these changes were by revelation, and that is were the Lord needs me.

 I truly feel like Ive done my part here. Now its time to say goodbye to this amazing area.

                                                                 

                                                                         Last group photo together! 

 My Llave and I, Elder Saucedo, now its time to say goodbye to this awesome Columbian. In Columbia, they say Mi Llave to say my friend or my homie. Which is translated to My Key haha but its catchy!

 Elder Garry from Utah, Elder Tuz de Mexico, y Elder Iongi from Cali, Im gonna miss these guys a bunch!!!

                                                       This is our district, its always hard to say goodbye! 

-Elder Iongi is honestly one of my favorite friends that ive made on the mission! 

Shoutout to some of the hermanas from our zone for making us Pupusas for lunch! 

Pupusas are the El Salvador equivalent to Baleadas in Honduras. But the pupusas were super good!!

Elder Flores brought a Mexican flag to take pictures with, and all of the mexicans were going to take pictures, and it was funny because they were like, Donde esta Madero?? 

Diga a ese Mexicano que venga!! hahaha Awww I love my paisanos!! :)

                     The cool thing about being in the South is being close to Santos and Nelson. 

They are two different guys that both buy a whole bunch of different skins and make stuff with them. Exclusively for missionaries! Santos came all the way to our house on his bike the other day to show the skins he had! He really likes us because he doesn't do that with everyone, and we live far! He made me a custom White Boa Belt!