Trincheras Week 3

Hey family!

Super great week! Full of ups and downs but still good. So we are still out of water so that's been a struggle. But at least we don't have to carry the water up the stairs anymore and we can just take it right in! I have been feeling a little better but I feel like my body is just shutting down! But the Lord has been giving me the strength to keep trucking everyday till I get home to fall in my bed. One thing that has helped out alot is that now a Sister in our ward feeds us lunch! She just offered one day so now we get a reallyyyyy great meal to give us more energy. Bye bye chicken noodle soup. 

Our new lunch! Sooooo good. 

The sister and I were talking and then we look over at ambler and he fell asleep!
 Poor kid's wiped out all the time!

Well we just got back from an area in our mission that has monkeys! It was so sweet! We showed up and I was like man where are they all at? Then I felt something on my head and this monkey was hanging down grabbing my hair! Scared me really bad. But we were able to buy cheetos and feed them! I would throw one and they would catch it! Super funny. At one moment I was holding a cheeto for one and had the bag in my other hand. All of the sudden a different monkey stole the bag and they both ran off! Little guys got practice robbing people. But it was a really funny experience. After that we hit up Wendys. It was a good morning.

One bad habit that the people here Honduras have is letting there little kids play in the street all day without supervision. So many little kids have huge scars and scratches alll the time from things they do in the streets. Super loco. Well during one lesson this week, we were teaching and it was all going well and I was in the middle of teaching when one of the kids comes limping in with a tonnnnn of blood following him. The parents don't even react and he comes up to us and asked for help. He was playing in the street without shoes and sliced his toe right open! and it as covered with dirt. We finally got it all clean and I told him jokingly that we are going to have to cut your toe off. He didn't take that too well. My comp took some photos... I'll see if I can get them sent over! 

We have been really blessed this last week with our investigators. Alot are progressing and we continue to find prepared people everyday! We were able to have many spiritual lessons and I'm just so thankful for the hand of the Lord that helps us everyday. We only had one sad thing happen this week. It was sunny allll week until sunday morning...and it rained! And noooo one goes to church when it rains...only 4 of our investigators made it to church but we still had a great class. It's great to really help these people in honduras. I love them so much and I love helping them come unto Christ! I love the mission! 

Have a great week! Love you all!

-Elder Sessions

Breaking all the dvd's of bad movies of a new member family... haha great feeling! (they told me to do it)

Elder Ambler hit 6 months!! so exciting! burned that tie to celebrate 6 months of hard work!
Such an awesome comp.

Trincheras Week 2

Family!

Shoot it's already Monday....Hope you all had a good week! 2 sisters and a sister-in-law all pregnant with girls! So awesome! Guess I have to wait till round to when one of them has a boy to name him Jarom. So this week was soooo amazing. Like last week we were able to find a couple more people and we received a lot of help from the Lord. It was kinda rough this last week starting off with my comp and I both got sick. And we still are. One day we were both super sick and every appointment right after another started to fall through. I couldn't even keep my eyes open I was so tired and we were both walking around like zombies. I said a quick prayer and it was like a night a day difference. We were able to find an awesome investigator and have a really spiritual lesson! D&C 84.88 is so true! The angels of the Lord really were with us lifting us up.

The new zone is pretty cool. My new district leader is Elder Rios, my trainer and first comp! Boy has that been weird haha Last time I saw him I couldn't speak spanish so we were actually having a conversation the other day and it was just awkward! Rios is a goofy guy.

 So last week I told you guys about the house and that there were some problems? Well the ZL´s said to move so we moved down to the first floor apartment which is soooooo nice!. It's huge! And clean and everything works. We spent alllll morning cleaning and moving everything in. I'm excited! What's been really hard is that for over a week now we haven't had water in the house. We just have the big pila ( where we wash our clothes). Bucket showers and washing dishes has been a pain. But I recently started boiling the water and taking warm showers! It takes the burner about an hour to heat it up but its worth it hahaha! It's soooo nice. But hopefully they fix the water soon.

I'm going to call this week a week of service. We did three different services this week which turned out to be a lot more than we thought! One sister needed us to fill in a hole for her....this hole was giant! It took a couple hours and alot of blisters. 

Then we had to help a sister dig the trenches for the pipes for her new house she is making. That didn't help the blisters. The last one was the worst one...they had to put a giant post in a hole so they could extend the cables for the electricity. Well It rained all that morning so the whole filled up with thick mud. My comp and I had to get in the hole and dig it all out! It smelt so bad I don't even know what this mud was. We both got super dirty but at the end and after many prayers we were able to get the post in the hole! This week was a testimony that there is power in prayer.

look how big my muscles are haha

bathing ourselves before we go home haha

We started teaching english classes in some house in our area. We got a bunch of kids coming and a couple of adults so Im hoping with time we can get some references out of it! Also we had interviews with President Dester! So great! Man he always motivates us so much. Such great blessing! We were able to teach the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ with a new investigator Mari this last week and this lesson was gold. She came to church with a less active family we have been talking to. The spirit was so strong when we taught about Joseph Smith she recieved her tesimony right then and there. She couldnt stop staring at the the photo of the first vision and was so happy that Heavenly Father is still talking to his children here in the earth. I felt like when I was talking I was saying things I usually dont say and my comp was just on a roll as well. It was one of those moments when the spirit is just so strong that you have the chills and feel a happiness that you wish would never leave. Mari accepted baptism and we have a baptismal date all set up! So excited! We have 2 others that have dates for baptism as well! Dinora who we met with a less active family and also we have Brain! Who is also part of a less active family haha. And they allll came to church this last sunday along with other investigators that are progressing! Huge blessings!

Well I got to head out love you all! 

-Elder Sessions

Some roads we have to take almost every day

It's been pretty foggy lately

Eating eggs and beans with Nelly and Holga Guzman! awesome family!

Making breakfast with my man Ambler

Our investigator Jose with his new baby! I miss my nephews and niece.

Trincheras Week 1

Elder Sessions and Elder Ambler

My peeps!

Hello everyone this is Elder Sessions emailing you from the land of the Trincheras! I'm in a little town about 40 minutes north of San Pedro! Say goodbye to concrete roads and normal streets. My area is straight mud roads and hills. And I really mean hills. Sooooo many. My legs are killing me haha. We don't have lunch or dinners so its back to the days of Dos Caminos and cooking all day! But I like it so I can eat what I want. My new comp is Elder Ambler! He is from Colorado and he is the bestttttt. He's got about 5 months in the mission so it's been really different teaching but I love it! He has a great spirit and has no fear when it comes to talking so he will pick up his Spanish so fast.

A little Basketball...

And a lot of Pizza!

Its always rough getting to an area when they don't have any investigators or anything so this week we went out like crazy contacting and asking for references. What a week of blessings. We were able to find so many people! The members showed us so many of their friends and they all seem so interested to learn more. Our planners have been full and we always have someone to teach now. It was so amazing to see the hand of the Lord with us this week trying to find all of his lost sheep. And when Sunday came around we were able to have a lot of the new investigators that we met come to church! Ahhh just blessing on blessings. So excited to keep working in this area! And we just started!

A hill in our new area

We had a couple cool experiences with finding some people. So my comp only has one change in our area and its like a maze so he is still learning it as well. Well we got kinda turned around one day and we were kinda lost. And just then a sister walked by and told us that her and all her family were members and that they have been talking about returning back to the church! We were able to go to their house and had a really spiritual lesson with the mother and the 5 kids. One of the kids is at the age to be baptized so they are all excited for that too! Also they introduced us to some cousins that are wanting to come to church too! Never thought getting lost in your area would be a good thing.

So when I first walked in our house my first thought was whoa I feel like I'm in Mexico. It has that same feel to it. Its pretty big and I like it alot. My next thought was, woooooow this house is dirty haha. 2 elders just finished their missions that were living in the house so they didn't care about anything! Man there was like 3 inches of dirt and trash. So we had to spend so much time cleaning and killing bugs. And we still have a long way to go haha. We also didn't have power for a couple days and for some reason we had like a mini flood in a our room from the bathroom! Challenge after challenge haha. 

Its been so much fun walking with Ambler and I feel like I'm learning so much in this area. Learning to take charge more or learning to be more obedient or learning to be a better missionary in general. I've really been able to learn a lot from my personal studies and the promptings of the spirit are starting to flow within this new companionship. Overall I just feel really happy and blessed. I can't remember every experience I had this week, I should probably bring my journal with me to help me with this letter haha. I love being a missionary and I love you all so much! Thanks for your prayers! 

-Elder Sessions

my comp has to play the piano in church so he has to practice...

The Guzman family from my old area

The Penas from old area

with Jorge

 

San Pedro Sula Smith Week 6

A sweet bird! Bit my ear tho..

Boom! Boosh! Pow Pow! (fireworks)

Happy New Year! Well this week felt like it passed in 15 minutes. New years is a lot like Christmas here. The 31st they sleep or prepare food all day. Then in the night they keep me up with their homemade bombs and crazy latin music. Then allll day on the first they don't do anything except sleep. It was 3 in the afternoon and not one restaurant or house was open. Except Mcdonalds because they know what's up. And once again everyone is out of town so the work was kinda rough. Man I just can't wait to get everything back to normal! Changes are this week so we will see if I have a change! 

So we had an awesome district meeting this last week. It was about how to work with your comp and be more united. After we had an activity to practice working with your comp. We were blindfolded with a spoon in our mouth balancing an egg. One comp had to help the other get to the other side only by using his voice. It was super funny! Well after we finished we noticed that there were alot of eggs left over. And being men we had the great idea to have an egg toss. I started throwing an egg with Elder Garcia. Its his first month in the mission poor guy. I threw the egg a littleeeee too high and BAM. Right through his hands alllll over his shirt, tie and pants. hahaha I felt so bad but hey he agreed to play. He forgave me I think.

Our ward right now is struggling a little bit at the moment and now that we have 4 missionaries we have decided to push more activities and help from the ward missionaries. We have about 25 ward missionaries so we had a activity were we talk about their calling and we did some practices and games to get them motivated to help us. And it worked! now we have 14 companionships of ward missionaries to help his go and contact and find more people. Most of them are preparing to go on the mission soon so its been a great help for them as well. Im excited to see the growth in this ward! (if I dont have a change).

Other than that we are just in the work. Im going to miss the Christmas season because it was so easy to talk to people and bring up Christ. I have alot of new years goals and I'm so excited for 2015! The full mission year....whoa. Well i love you guys! thanks for everything! Sorry I don't have lots of photos like last week I'm just scared of getting robbed. Everyone right now is getting robbed! Have a good week!

Elder Sessions

p.s. At the end of his email time he sent us the following quick note..."I have a change! I'll tell you next week where I am!"

My two converts with my plaque (name tag) and backpack ready for the mission! I love them so much. They are going to be great examples for their family! Imagine how they would have turned out living in honduras without the gospel....

my sweet new honduras shirt