Transfers, Elder Saucedo and hard work!

So lets get straight to the good stuff. I can skype on Christmas!! I have no idea what time so just be ready to go around like noonish I would assume. Not sure. But I'm way excited. I have a count down in my agenda of how many more days I have left until I can skype haha


So now some missionary stuff. We had changes and so I have a new companion. His name is Elder Saucedo and he is from Columbia. I never thought that by serving a mission I would have friends from just about every Spanish speaking country that there is. He is way cool. He is really good friends with Elder Reinoso also so we have a common friend. The only thing is that his accent is super thick. I mean he talks super fast and his accent is like the stereotypical latino super thick accent. So that makes it really hard to understand but by the end of this transfer I should be freaking fluent haha He and I work so hard. I seriously missed working. We are dead tired by the end of the day from just teaching and being on our grind all day. We alread have like 7 new investigators with baptismal dates and everything. Hes a stud. The only other problem is that he is the district leader and has no idea what he is doing. And because I have only been with district leaders in my mission, I am teaching him how to do it. It's really kind of funny haha
I'm super excited for this whole transfer. I am starting to feel really comfortable with Spanish, I can teach well, and people are understanding me more and more everyday. I have a ton of confidence in myself and a new determination to just get going. Elder Chichia was a really cool guy but he made me lose that desire to go out and find people and teach them. Now that I'm with Elder Saucedo, I'm just itchin to go and teach some people. Its a good feeling.
I love you so much and sorry for not writing yesterday, There wasn't internet in all of Cantarranas.
Elder Garry

Week 22 Good things and poop in a cup

Hello dearest family and friends!
Let´s just kick things off with the best news that a missionary can give! Our baptism went great!! I mean it was fantastic! She is so excited to start her new life and is so dedicated to the gospel it amazes me! I'm so happy to stay here for another 8 weeks to just see her grow! She has a huge family so I know that we will just sneek our way in and teach the rest of them too! One daughter already told me that she wants me to baptize her before I leave so that is great!! Baptisms just make all of your hard work and your crazy stressful life vale la pena! It's great! Xiomara even tells us that she wants to go visit people and share the word of God with us! She has an alcoholic sister and invites us over every time that she is there. The sister is literally crazy but I love her with all of my heart. I'm excited to work with her too. And Xiomara is in my Gospel Principals class and she answers like every question. It makes the class go my fast because I'm not just awkwardly standing there hoping that I get a response. She is just great. She washes our clothes for free and feeds us like every day. If we say jump, she would say how high. That's how much she loves us.
Okay, also we will have transfers this Wednesday which means that my ball and chain will be going home! I love him as a person I just hate him as a companion haha he made me really mad Saturday that I just started yelling at him in English. I'm sure I came off as crazy. We are fine now and later that day we were good to go as well but he really made me angry. I'm not usually one to get super angry either.
I'm excited to see who my new companion will be! I dont care who it is really. I hope its a Latino so I can speak Spanish more and get better but if it is a gringo I would be happy too! I want to train more than anything though. That would be so fun. Especially if my niño is like a 3 foot tall latino. That would be my dream. Maybe one day.
Another thing is that I was still sick all this week that I went to the hospital on Wednesday and had to poop in a cup. I've never been so ashamed. They didnt even give me a bag to put it in so I had to walk shamefully out of the bathroom with a cup of poop in my hand. Not fun. I go back again next Monday too. The first results said that I had nothing wrong but I clearly have something because I had been throwing up for like a week straight and every time that I eat I just feel sick. So that's why I'm going back. Maybe I will get sick and they will send me home for like 2 weeks to recover and i can be home for Christmas! haha quien sabe.
This week was just good. I was obedient and I felt the blessings of my obedience. We had old investigators ask us to come back and talk to them again and they are very promising. The Lord will bless you more than you can imagine if you just follow the simple rules. Its easy and I love it.
I love you and I look forward to talking to you all again!
Adios
Elder Garry

Week 21

Alright so this week was a good one. My companion and I were both sick all this week so we actually didn't do much but what we did was really good. We have a solid baptism this week on the 5 and I'm super excited! It is a lady named Xiomara and has been talking with missionaries for literally years and never even went to church or accepted a baptismal date. Elder Reinoso and I tried to go to her house so many times but was never there and one day with Elder Chichia we didn't have anything to do so we tried her house again and she was finally there. We had been teaching her and she even started going to church, reading the Book of Mormon and has a testimony of her own! She told us that she wouldn't be getting baptized if she wasn't 100% committed to the gospel. It just was a super strong testimony builder that Heavenly Father really does prepare people at different rates and that there are specific people who are meant to help them in these moments. So I'm really excited to see this baptism. Elder Chichia will be doing it and I thought that I would be bummed to not be selected to baptize her but it really didn't bother me nor phase me. It should be a good day.
We have another baptism scheduled for the same day with the lady named Andrea but I get the feeling that it will fall again. She is such a bum! It´s super frustrating but we will just keep working with her until finally she gets dunked. Her daughter is special needs and blind so Andrea is always preoccupide(I've been speaking Spanish too long, is that how you spell preoccupied?) with the daughter and can never leave the house and when we teach, the daughter just freaks out and starts screaming and yelling and then Andrea just gets angry and starts shouting like an angry Honduran. But the times that we do get to teach are way cool and she understands and loves the church. Just a matter of how we can get her to feel the spirit with her daughter so she can listen to our messages more often.
One thing that was really cool this week is that we got a new church building! Elder Reinoso and I just went crazy and reactivated everyone and our old church building wasn't big enough so they had to build a new one! It is so big and pretty. I mean it is a place where you can really learn and feel the spirit! Its nothing like what we have in the states but it is still 1000x better than what we had. I am still not satisfied with it. The church people said that if we get 100 active members in our branch then they will build a real real church building like the ones in the states so I'm ready to get to work. Right now we have about 50 who are real active and then 20 who are active every other week. but in all we should have about 180 members who live in our area so I want to try to reactivate as many as possible! I WANT A REAL CHURCH BUILDING!
Another cool thing that Elder Chichia and i have been doing is Insanity. Its like P90X but I'm pretty sure I wont get any stronger from it just that my endurance will get better. This stuff is so hard but I love it! I feel so refreshed when I'm done and the videos are only about half an hour so they fit right into our morning schedule.
I'm still struggling with Chichia because he doesn't want to work but I'm doing my best to keep him going until he dies in like 9 days.
I love you all and miss you all.
Elder Garry

Week 20 and we are back in business!

This week was so much better. Last Tuesday we had interviews with Pres.Bowler and I basically just confessed everything that I had been feeling and how Elder C and I haven't been the most obedient. I was expecting to just get yelled at and I was looking forward to it too so that I could just get motivated and he actually was just angry with Elder C. Elder C went in first and told him the exact opposite of what I told him. He said that we were exactly obedient, and that he had been doing everything right, then I went in and kind of told on him. Pres. told me that if I wanted I could get a new companion that day because he was worried that I would end up like Elder C and then I just told him that I will just be the man in charge. So that is what I have been doing with him. I wake him up in the mornings, drag him out to study with me, then I drag him out of the house so we can actually work. Yesterday, I basically dressed him. It's a bit ridiculous but because of it, I feel so much better. I'm remembering how much I loved to be a missionary like when I was with Elder Reinoso. We are having success again and I just feel so much better. So yeah, life is good again in Honduras.
Something cool that happened this week was with a guy named Manuel. Like my third day in Honduras we found him by jumping from rock to rock across a river and we hadn't been able to find him or teach him until this week. We found out where he lived a while back but he is just never there. On like Wednesday, we found him and he was actually excited to talk to us! We started teaching the restoration and he stopped us when we said that Joseph Smith was a prophet and he just looked me right in the eyes and said that he believed it. He was so excited to know that there was a prophet called of God again on the earth and that he wants to hear more and more. That wouldn't have happened if I hadn't made a change. Heavenly Father is know helping us out because we are doing everything right. If Elder C doesn't like it, I don't even care because I love it.
The Church is so true and im happy to be here.
Love you and miss you
Elder Garry

Week 19

So this week was also frustrating. nothing serious went down but I'm realizing that I do not know how to be a missionary. We didn't have changes so I am still with Elder Chichia and he goes home in like 20 days or something and he doesn't want to do anything at all. We actually worked for the first time this week because I kind of forced him into it and I completely forgot how to contact people because we just haven't done it. We have been focusing on all of our investigators that we already had that we just haven't contacted people and when we went to do it I just blanked and freaked out. It sucked.
I have days when I literally feel like I am fluent in Spanish and I can do it all but this week wasn't like that. For some reason, I feel like all of the Spanish that I have learned just got taken away from me until today. I speak fine now but this whole week was just chasta (lousy). I was teaching gospel doctrines yesterday and no one payed attention the entire time and at the end I was so mad that I cut it ten minutes early and told them to just talk like they had been the whole time and then this lady told me that she was talking because she didn't understand anything I said. Then like my mom from Honduras totally yelled at her and praised my spanish but it still sucked.
Investigators still aren't getting answers and we have had to drop a couple because they don't want to talk to us anymore because they don't believe it because they didn't get an answer. We challenged people to baptism and they all said yes. However, they need to get married first and here, they just don't do that so basically they will just be investigators all their lives. We did have one and she should get baptized but she needs to just go to church. She told us that she had talked with a ton of missionaries but that we are the best and that she really really wants Elder Chichia to do it so hopefully that all goes well.
Here are some funny stories that happened this week however.
1. We were teaching the restoration and how Christ did the atonement leading up to how he established his church. So I said que mas hizo Jesucristo. which means, what more did Jesus Christ do. Then the girl said ¨"ahh si, que macizo" and that means oh yeah, how cool haha she combined the words that I said and thought that I said that Jesus was just the coolest hahaha so that was funny
2. We were teaching about the word of wisdom and I asked like the kind of food to eat. Of course they said eggs and beans, then I asked what drink we should drink. And they said well coke, and if you don't have coke I guess you can drink water. It would be funny if they were kidding but they were dead serious. These people genuinely drink more coke than water. So I thought that was pretty funny too
Being a missionary is super tough. No one ever said that it was easy but i have never heard anyone say that they hated their mission so i am sure it will pick up. Just endure to the end right?
Love you
Elder Garry

Week 18 aka The struggle is real!

Being is a missionary is hard. Who was it that said that these will be the best two years?? I´ve got 4 months now and I'm just burnt out! So my week was sucky. Remember that lady that said those really nasty things to our investigators? Well she is back at it!! And pretending like nothing has happened. We thought that we could have been able to fix it but now it is probably game over. He told us he didn't want to get baptized this week nor does he ever want to go to church or talk with the missionaries. Not just our church but all churches because he decided that no matter how hard he tries, he will always be a screw up and can't change. So I'm assuming that stuff is all the work of that dumb lady. And the other baptism we should have had fell as well because I guess she did something bad. I dont know what it was, she wouldnt tell us. So this Saturday was baptismless and depressing. I feel like all of my efforts are just going down the drain. I work so hard and I have nothing to show for it. All of our investigators are falling because the can't get answers to their prayers and we can't find anyone to teach now for some reason. The last transfer all we had was success and now we have nothing. We can't even get people to wait five minutes so we can teach them something. We do a lot of walking now because we don't have any appointments so we tract a lot and go to members houses to try and get references. I am just so frustrated. However, its still all good. I´m still working hard and still just trying and trying. I know that eventually something will happen. Also turns out I will be in this area for 6 months now probably so I'm sure that something good will happen in that time period.
On a brighter note, there are apparently only like 4 movies from honduras and there is another one being filmed in my area!!! like every day there are people with cameras filming something! So when I get back in like 20 months, lets watch a movie about my first area!!
Elder Garry

Week 17

Well, like every week, this one was really fast as well. We really didn't do much this week, not because we are bad but because it is just how things worked out. We had district meeting on Friday so half of the day was there and then we had to do interviews for these people who are getting baptized in another area because Elder Chichia is the district leader. Got stuck in that area because there wasn't a bus so we spent the rest of our day there. Then Saturday we had district conference which is basically Stake Conference but for the branches all day. And same thing on Sunday. So our last three days have been really chill.  We still got some work done and talked to a bunch of people. We should have two baptisms this week. We could have had five buuuuut one of our members said some really not nice words to three of our investigators and now they want nothing to do with the church. We went to her house after we figured it out and she wasn't there. Which may have been good because we were both really mad at her and probably say some not nice words to her as well. So we will just go to her house another day. But that was really the first time I have really been really frustrated in my mission. Other times are just dumb things like I cant speak or I'm tired of eggs and beans but this time was for real. I was really angry. We talked to one of the people and they are now chill but 2 of the 3 are nowhere to be seen. We saw one in the street and she completely ignored us and the other today on a bus and she did the same. I am heated as they say in the states.
But life goes on and there are still good things about being here. I can honestly speak spanish. I can say what I want to say and without thinking too. I just can't understand it!! I dont understand how the words are in my vocabulary but when they speak it just doesnt make sense. I hear every word that they say but their sentences just don't make sense. Basically they speak like old English style. So in English it is ¨who am I talking with¨ but in Spanish, ¨with whom am I talking¨ it is so frustrating but I'm figuring it out. Elder Chichia and I have like real conversations now so that is fun. And I can teach a lesson but the second they as a question or say a comment, game over and i have to have Elder Chichia help me out.
I still love it here and I am so grateful to be here in Honduras. It is a really cool country!
I love you all!!
Elder Garry