Trincheras Week 12

A really cool road!

Hey fam!

Some how is it already Monday....This week was good! The only problem is that it's the start of Semana Santa! That means everyoneee and their dog has vacations and leaves to be with family. EVERYONE. It was so weird, we were walking around and all these people have their suitcases and bags and were running around trying to get to the buses to get out of here haha. I don't blame them because it has been like 100 degrees everyday and they are all heading to the beach. It's been rough to get ahold of people but hopefully it gets better. 

Well the time has come...The epic companionship of Elder Ambler and I is at an end. 3 months of teaching with one of my best friends! This Wednesday is changes so we will see who my next comp is and where they send Ambler! Time went by way too fast but I'm so thankful for the time I had to learn from him and I feel like we have both learned so much! Since its our last week together we devoted our time in companionship study to study this talk that Tonya Meldrum gave me called " the 4th missionary." I have read before but its been super nice to really study it and make goals. I love how this talk really gets you to think and gives you the motivation to be a better missionary. It focuses alot on following the will of the Lord and not doing what you want to do. How can I change or be a better person when I come home from the mission if everyday I do what "I" want to do? It's not going to work! Sacrificing everything for the work brings true happiness and true change. Hopefully I  can continue to study and learn more and I can be the missionary that the Lord wants me to be!

We got so lucky this week. The family was going to throw away the couches that they weren't using so we asked if we could put them in our house! It's soooo nice. Our chairs are falling apart and it's so nice to study at the table with the couch. We got 2 so now the house is getting all pimped out... it's looking nice haha.

Cool experience! We met this younger guy this week and he seemed really interested in the lesson and had some really good questions. We taught about the Book of Mormon and like everyone else, he told us he would read it. Well when we came back he had already read like 7 chapters! Me and my comp were so surprised because that was the first time in this area that someone had actually read! He had the greatest questions we were really able to have an awesome lesson and he seemed have all his questions answered! All from just opening our mouth a little bit when we were walking around! Blessing from the Lord!

Honestly I forgot everything this week...haha I will start to bring my journal! Thanks for all the Bday wishes! Have a great week!

-Elder Sessions

Happy Father's Day!...they spelled it wrong!

The Ramos Family

We had a lesson/activity and the baby was my partner!

Trincheras Week 11

Hey fam! 

What a week.... I feel like everyone was out on vacations this week celebrating my birthday without me....Well this week I hit one year of being a missionary!!! YEAAAHHH. So I got to burn my shirt! It was a great feeling. But also kind of sad because it was a nice shirt. But everything requires sacrifice right? Overall it was an awesome week and we were able to find some cool families!

So this week like always we were helping this family chop the grass behind their house. It was so funny because we were visiting them and when we asked if there was something we could do to help them she told me that their son left so they have no one to chop the back yard and when we came back the next day and I saw the grass was as tall as me I said to her "How long has your son been gone?" and she said "oh like over a year"......ahhh but thats not the best part. I was in the corner of the yard going ham on this huge part of grass and hit some nest of these black wasps! Right when I touched it, one flew straight out and stung me on my eyelid. Allllll that day and the next my eye was all swollen and everyone laughed at me...haha I looked really weird. But now I'm all good no worries.

One of the easiest but hardest think for every investigator is to pray about the truth of the church. Im pretty sure its the number 1 thing I stress in every lesson. Everyyyy single time they pray, God gives them an answer. It's their decision what they are are going to do with that answer but at least they did the first part. And the culture here if you ask someone if they prayed they are always like oh yes I pray every day and every night. But when you ask if they prayed about the message you shared with them they always say no. It's so frustrating sometimes but I keep my cool don't worry. This week one of our investigators actually prayed and received an answer. He said that he felt like Joseph Smith when Moroni visited him in his room. Our investigator has such a strong testimony of the church and he wants nothing more than to be baptized. Butttt his "wife" wont marry him so he's stuck till she changes her mind....it's so sad. I know one day the Lord will help her understand.

My birthday was like a regular day with teaching and walking and sweating but at night time a couple families invited me over for cake and dinner! Soooo much food and cake... we were singing and they shoved my face into a chocolate cake....They're lucky I like chocolate haha. But I am really lucky to be in this area with so many nice families. I have made many friends that I will remember for ever! Then at church I walked out to the Rodriguez family from my last area in the Smith! They remembered my birthday and came to our ward with cake! It was so cool to see them again...they are such an awesome family! Ambler's birthday is next week so more cake yess haha. I have 3 cakes in the fridge right now idk what to do with them... well I hope you guys are all doing good and that you have a good week! 

-Elder Sessions

Ambler made me breakfast!

Trincheras Week 10

Hey family!

Such an awesome week! I'll start with today. We went to the beach again! But this time we went to this old castle and museum thing. It was so cool and massive. We were so lucky to have some clouds so I didn't get sunburned haha. I'm so white its bad for my health. We played some football and had a huge lunch! It was really fun but now I'm super tired...My zone is really fun so it was cool to be with them all day. 

Well this last Saturday Elder Anderson from the 12 came to the mission! We had our mission and the the other mission right next to us come. 500 missionaries! So many people I didn't know... it felt like the first day of high school haha. I loved when we all sang and it was really loud and strong and we could feel the Spirit so much. Along with Elder Anderson was Elder Ochoa, Elder Maynes and Elder Davison all from the 70! You could just feel the authority in the room. Elder Anderson looks so different now I hardly recognized him, but he taught about the atonement of Christ and it was on point! He taught so clear and he would just walk all around us during the whole conference and it was cool to shake his hand and look him in the eyes. He challenged us to learn for memory 10 scriptures about the atonement. I'm excited to start and receive the blessings that come from following the Lords servants!

So like I said in my last letter we have been teaching the families in our ward that missionary plan for the individual families. Well we taught this one family and they have a kid who is 10 years old named Kenith. The next day he called us saying he was so excited to show us his friends so we put on appt. the next day to visit with him. 4 Days in a row for 2 hours each day he left to go teach with us and show us his friends and family! This 10 year old kid was so motivated to help us he was a champ! We found some really great people and also inactive members that he knew! I love missionary work!

With Kenith our super member missionary!

Every Friday we have an activity for our investigators and members where we have a lesson or something spiritual and then after we have an activity and we get to know everyone better. This time it was a little different. At church I told anyone that for every investigator you bring to church you get to throw a water balloon at one of the missionaries. Lets just say I went home wet that night. It was a success! Alot of people came and we met so many new people. Excited for the next activities to come!

Still working with those progressing investigators, Satan is working double time I feel like and there is always something that happens to make this people doubt their faith. We are going to keep working and pushing and we know the Lord will bless us and our investigators. I have high hopes for this week! 2nd to last week with Ambler makes sad :( Gotta make the most of it!

Love you guys!

-Elder Sessions

They call me Thor...

Fixing a neighbors fence

Fisssshhhhh

With Elders Olivas and Rodriguez

Trincheras Week 9

 Family!

Sweet week here in Honduras! So many blessings-- it has been great to see the hand of the Lord in the mission. Our area just got alot more sketchy because the Mara18 gang just came in. Just around our house in the last week 5 people have been shot! One night we were coming home at 9 and a couple streets behind us we heard like 5 gun shots and in the morning we found out that 3 people had died! There are alot more military dudes walking around so maybe it will get better! The Lord protects us so we don't worry but we just feel really bad for the people here.

Elder Ambler and I have been wanting to be more organized with our investigators and members so we made this sweet white board! It's cardboard and white paper with tape over it to use markers! It's been nice to just look over at it during planning. It helps us to remember all the people we are teaching and all the people we have found. We just started it so we still have more to do but I'm excited to get organized and help our investigators! 

It's so funny here, the members call us alll the time and are like "hey Elders I need you guys to come chop our grass or paint the house or help move this stuff". Always haha and I love it! We love to do service for these families--its gives us a chance to get to know them better and maybe they will help us with our investigators. 3 or 4 times a week we help people chop the grass around their house. The other day we were able to help Teresa, our cook, with her house! Man it took all morning! The houses don't have pipes or tubes or anything so they just have like little rivers and the sides and in front of the houses. We had to shovel all the old stuff out so the water could run better. Teresa does so much for us so it was great to help her! And it was fun!

This is where you find us AFTER service!

One challenge we had this week was everyyyy single day from 2-5 every appt. would fall through. And this part of the day is really tough because everyone is either working or sleeping haha. And it's like 1000 degrees so that doesn't help either. It's been super rough but we have been learning to trust in the Lord. So we just start listen to the spirit to contact or visit other people. We have been able to find some great people and use our time wisely. But it would also be nice if the appts didn't fall through.

So we recieved a new "mission plan for the families" from the area 70 and it has been awesome! It's 6 steps the the families are going to do to have missionary experiences and for us to receive references! This week we have started sharing it with all the members and they seem very motivated to help and they have already started with their list of names and we have meet some great people! I hope you all pray to have missionary experiences, the Lords works is growing like crazy!

Well if all goes well this week, Saturday Victor and Davison are getting baptized! They are awesome and I'm so excited to see their progression! Elder Anderson is coming saturday so thats going to be great too! I hope you all have a great week! 

-Elder Sessions

Eating Baleadas with the Dinoras Family!

Trincheras Week 8

Hey everybody!

Hows everyone doing? Awesome week here with Ambler. Lot of stuff this week! At least I think so...if I can remember everything haha. Well tomorrow on the 3rd will be my one year mark till I'm back in the states! So weird to think about. Its been such a fun year and I've learned so much! This week went better with our investigators, we were able to find some new ones and we had some good lessons with the ones that are progressing! Blessings on blessings.

I guess I'll start with a funny story. Well maybe its not funny to you guys but to me it is. So we had a sweet lesson and Bday lunch at josue's house for one of our investigators named Davison. Josue has a huge pitbull and he said it was super calm so I was playing with him and petting him. For some reason my comp, Ambler, put on a huge sombrero from the house and walked over and put his hand out to pet the dog. This massive dog started to growl ( you guys know all my stories with dogs so you know I have a lot of practice) and I back right up. But Ambler being the gringo he is, put his hand closer to the dog! This pitbull took one big bite on his hand and Ambler ran so fast and screamed so loud we were all dying laughing! He had sooo much blood poor guy. But he was happy he had his first dog story.

This week we had the awesome opportunity to have Elder Ochoa from the 70 come and talk to us! He came along time ago when I was in my first area and all I remember was that he chewed out the whole mission. This time was completely different. He was so happy with the change in the mission and he talked about a alot of things that impacted me. Sometimes in the mission I might have a bad mindset and I will think that these people aren't going to progress in the gospel or... oh this person never went to school and doesn't work how can they possibly understand this message. Its so horrible and it just shows how hard Satan is working. Well Elder Ochoa give a huge talk about having faith. Faith in your investigators. Faith in your leaders. And faith in the spirit during the lessons. I learned alot and I have a different way of thinking now. I hope that I can continue trusting in the Lord and just do His will. Great conference!

Well this last Saturday we got to baptize Brian! He is 11 years old and is the son of a less active family. It was so cool, one day we were out contacting and we came across this family and they said they were members. The day before they were talking about going back to church where they have been inactive for 5 years. Right now they are preparing to go the temple and the daughter Kaylin has started her mission papers! Such exciting stuff and its been a huge blessing to see how happy this family is and how much the things have changed! Best part of the mission!

Pictures are better than words so sorry I don't have more stories! love you guys!

-Elder Sessions     P.S. B-day 21 first of march if you want to send that letter ;)

Ambler made me french toast! good guy

Bday dinner for Davison! chilli cheese dogzzz

Madisson is a slave driver and made me cut the plants outside