October 28, 2013

The Jungle Report, Ed 28 Oct 2013

So hello everybody! So this week's report, so the family we have been working on the whole time I have been here, Miguel and Bertha got baptized yesterday. That is an awesome thing right there! They had been such a pain in the butt, but we finally dunked 'em so looks like we won. Other news I have officially decided the little kids are of the devil. Every single time without fail that we are having a spiritual moment some stupid kid starts crying or runs through without pants on, I just wish I could beat them all. But I will just take it one day at a time.
So another cool thing from yesterday is at the baptism an investigator approached us and literally said "Quiero ser bautizados" which for you non Spanish speakers means the fish just jumped into the boat for us. Which is always fun. Hahahahahahaha! So let's what else...
Oh I had a fever of 103.6 yesterday that finally broke right now as I am talking to you guys. Don't worry, I am taking care of myself, but sometimes you get caught off guard. Let's see what else...uh looks like I will getting a new companion in this next change, hopefully he doesn't have mood swings like this one. Let's see what else, there hasn't really been a whole lot happen this week. I mean we worked every day and the we had a baptism.
So it's good to hear that Navy lost (Sprint football). That is how it should be. Other than that just make sure to keep me update with any and all football news. It sucks so bad to not have any of it here. A whole lot. They think soccer is so cool, not at all. It is painful to watch all the fakers and floppers. It's almost as bad as the NBA.
In other news, hmmm, yeah not a whole lot actually. I mean we have been working every day and trying to spread the word but it is really hard to get people to read the Book of Mormon or the Bible when they can't read. And so they just listen to exactly what their pastor tells them without even knowing how to check and see if their pastor is full of it. And here there are so many different churches that it is ridiculous. Just about every single person has their own church. As in this town there are...about a hundred churches and they all have a different version of the Bible. It's so frustrating actually. But I will survive. Just have to find a way to get through these people's thick heads.
Well this is my report for the week, I will work on having a cooler one next week.

Mike

October 21, 2013

The Jungle Report, Ed 21 OCT 2013

So this week in the jungle. Not going to lie this week went by so stinking fast. It only seems like yesterday that I was writing you folks. So the news of this last week. So we have been pushing the limits of our searching expeditions into the jungle more. Before the limits were a thirty minute hike into the mountains so now we have increased it into a whopping hour hiking and at times hacking to the jungle north of the town. Yes turns out there are people who live there. Crazy as it seems they do live in the hidden mountain valleys and now a crazed gringo with his whiny Mexican senior companion hike into their villages and teach them about coming to church. It has to be the funniest thing in the world to see I am sure. So a gringo is dragging (literally) a Mexican up these mountains and then comes to their house and both of them are dripping sweat and teach about the good word. So in other words it's been tons of adventure times up here in las ruinas.
In other news, no my companion didn't go home. Our mission president, fondly called Pappy Dester, showed up and we had interviews which everything went fine until it was turn for my compa. Pappy Dester delivered the "machete" but with love. Which means basically told him what's up if he leaves. So now he is set on being here but he still whines about everything. And talks nonstop about Mexico. So this week I finally gave him the what for about Mexico. He understands enough English that this was easy enough to explain. I said that yeah Mexico is better than Honduras, but that is like saying a horse turd is better than a cow pie, in the end they are sill both crap. Yeah and it did help that the only reason that Mexico is in the world cup is solely because America just beat Panama up so much that they dropped below Mexico. So now that my companion is in check we will get back to tearing up the jungle.
In other news, we have been progressing with all of our gators and have been bringing more in. And yesterday was the greatest Sunday yet. So the parents in the branch here suck to say the least. As in the kids run wild and destroy everything including the spirit of the meetings. So yesterday I was the official police of the branch and it was a tight ship. Not a single kid escaped primary to interrupt Sunday School. One tried, Marito the son of the branch president, whom i grabbed and was dragging back into the juala when he kicked me in the shin and so I just brained the little turd and delivered him back to the primary crying. Now they know that there are two ways for them, both involve being in primary and only one involves not getting hit in the head. So hopefully this makes all the disaster relief clean up after church less so we can go teach more and don't have to have hellions running around all the time.
The only other news is that I am progressing with Spanish and can now deliver the machete of amor to our menos activos who we teach now and get them coming back to church more. Thanks for all the emails and love. I will hear from you all next week. Keep fighting the good fight.

Mike

October 14, 2013

The Jungle Report; 14 Oct 2013

So for this week's adventure...well it has involved a lot of hiking, a lot of sweat, and a whole lot of rain.

Thanks for that intro, anyway so today marks the end of one really strange week. So in news we dunked another jungle dweller this week. her name is Yoselin Lopez and she is 14 and a geiper (pronounced geeper) which means that she has a crush on a missionary, can you guess which one? Yeah kinda strange, anywho, well she got dunked in a pila which is basically a giant water trough that we use to clean our clothes. Yeah but it was still awesome. So chalk up number two!
The work here is progressing and we are working hard. Well most of us. So the bad news my companion is being a butt and not wanting to work so I have to drag him around pretty much everywhere. The thing is he is a perfectionist and so when anything goes wrong, which it does every single time that we do anything, he freaks out. The reason for this episode is because the baptism didn't go exactly according to plan and stuff so he just sat down and did nothing while I worked like a mad man and solved our problems.
So tomorrow we are going to have interviews with out president of the mission, fondly called "Pappy Dester" and my companion is all set on asking to go home so maybe next email I will have a new playmate here in the jungle. So after the baptism we had a few lessons and then we confirmed Yoselin on Sunday and she ended up just having so much fun, but the bad news is her mom, who is a member, doesn't even support her and so the thing now is trying to get a family in the branch here to "adopt" her and take care of her and make sure that she has a support group.
So other crazy news we gave a blessing to a guy who got chopped up with a machete and he is healing remarkably well and then on Sunday after church we were asked to go give a blessing to a lady who we thought was asking for a blessing for health but as it turns out she was wanting comfort and didn't figure out why until we go to the house, literally 40 minutes of hiking through the jungle later. So we got to the house and this is when things started adding up that something was really wrong. So this house is literally on top of a mountain with no other houses even close to it yet there were about 30 or so people around the place and then when we walked in we saw that it was a funeral for a little baby of like a day old and so our whole day was spent comforting this new mother and teaching about the Plan of Salvation.
Well it was sad but at the end it was better with her. She was feeling a whole lot better. Well that is about all the news for this edition of the jungle report.

In other news, I still haven't had sight nor sound of any birthday packages and have only received letters, three (3). Just so you know. Well loves ya all,

Mike

October 7, 2013

The Jungle Report, Edition 7 Oct 2013

To all that I love and count as family and friends, and those of you who are on here because it is wisdom to keep your friends close but your enemies closer (you know who you are, Jack),

Anywho so this week has been, well there is no other word to describe it other than really freaking weird. So this week started really nice with us working and packing because we had change meeting to change areas and companions, then we got a call from the president of the mission, fondly called Papi Dester, which is always kinda scary cause then I am thinking to myself "oh crap! Did he hear about (insert event here)?" Well this time and all the others so far this hasn't been the case. This time was to tell us it was necessary to pack our stuff but not for change meeting it was because we were moving houses and giving our really nice one to two new missionarAs. There is an emphasis because they are girls and thus in Spanish this is signified by the letter "A" at the end of words instead of other letters.
Yeah so we had basically a day or so to do three things, 1) find a new house in our half of our old area that has now been split, 2) call and get the zone leaders here to chick it out and give us the okay, 3) pay for get our new stuff shipped from mission home in San Pedro to here, (5-6 hours by bus away) and then after that gets here we get everything moved in and then deep clean our house for the girls. Yeah it was crazy. So we accomplished that and got all this done in the time allowed and were prepped for the hermanas to arrive.
Well then it was Tuesday and we had to take care of a wedding for our investigators Miguel and Bertha and nothing seemed to work at all. So it takes a month for the paper work to be processed and sent back to you and then you have to show up at the time exactly or else they send the paperwork back and you have to pay and wait another month for them to arrive again. So the wedding was to take place at 1030 in the morning and so we showed up to the castillo de municipalidad and then waited as the minutes ticked by and no one was there. Then the bride showed up literally ten minutes before the thing is to start, but no groom and no testigos for the wedding.
So with four minutes to spare the testigos showed, but still no groom. He showed up with literally one minutes to spare, but we had to run into the building to the office of the judge and it took two minutes to get in there. Yeah but thankfully there was a milagro and the judge was in the bathroom so when he came out it looked like we were waiting on him. Hahahahahahaha! Yeah it was the wedding of like 17 miracles.
So then the next day the hermanas finally showed up and I guess it finally set in with us that were literally losing about all of our investigators to them. So then the rest o the week was spent trying to find new ones in our outer reaches of the area. As in before we had the town and the jungle so it wasn't possible for us to go into the deep jungle are before, but now we only have the jungle while the hermanas have the town center. So we are back at the hacking through the jungle and having fun all day.
Oh and I thought that I might escape Asian tourists here in Honduras, but guess what...they strike again! It is so funny and brings back the ole fish bowl effect again at West Point to mind. Well that is about all the report for today, this computer is acting up and won't let me send the picture of me Tarzan swinging on top of the biggest mountain around, but if it would let me attach it, it would go exactly right here --> <--

Well can't wait to hear from you next week,

Mike