Naco Week 1

Hey family!

So a lot has changed....I got sent to an area called Naco! It is very different. It's in the one zone I have been dreading but I have the faith all will go well! Here we don't have ward or a branch. It's called the extension haha. We have about 25 who come to church and we don't have a bishop or president or anything. Sometimes a counselor from the Cofradia ward comes to preside. They rent a little house thats righttt next to this HUGE catholic church haha.Yesterday in church I gave a talk, blessed the sacrament and taught the elders quorum class haha (we have one 2 priests and one elder). So it's been kind of a shock out here. The area is MASSIVE. we have to walk 1 or 2 hours to some the towns in our area. It's alot of farm land and big lots with not much people. We are excited to start working and finding those prepared people.

My new comp is Elder Chancay! From Ecuador! He's got about 2 months and is really excited to work. He's really humble and nice we just got along so quick! He's a tall curly hair goofball haha. The house is pretty legit. Its big for 2 and we have running water! I was really praying for a washer machine but my luck didn't turn out. Man I'm so tired of washing clothes by hand! haha Elder Porter who came into the mission with me has had a washer machine in ALL of his areas....i just don't understand....One day Sessions... one day.

This whole week was ´family week´ so every night this week we had an activity in the church. Since this extension is so small it's like a big family. They are all good friends and it's been great to get to know them so fast. 2 days of this week we had to go to the stake center. Weird part is that we are part of the same stake as my first area in Dos Caminos! I got to see all my friends that I haven't seen for a year! You guys probably dont remember Alicia but she got baptized with Elder Duff and I, well she was there with her family who recently got baptized as well! So great to see them all active. It was wierd it felt like 2 days ago I was with them. 

I'm so glad to be a missionary. This Church is true and I love this gospel! Well this is all for now. Hopfully we can get some sweet stories this week! love you guys!

-Elder Sessions

Trincheras Week 18

Our investigators sent pics of us to channel 6 news and we were on the tv #famous

Family!! 

Best week everrrrr!!! Mothers day! It's like Mother's day slash missionary day because we get to see the fam! Skype is sent from the heavens. It was the coolest to see my awesome Mom and the new baby Reggie. Only 7 months more and we can skype again.... 

Well it looks like this was my last full week in Trincheras. We will see where they send me next! 

I'll start off with the best news! All went as planned with the baptisms of Prudencio and Helder! It was a crazy day because they both had to work and left late so we had to rush and stuff but by the time it started it all went smoothly. Prudencio has expressed alot of desire in serving a mission and loves coming to church. The Young men program has activities and he likes how they are close and play games that are different all the time. I hope the ward takes care of him! 

Helder....so great to see him in white with his family right next to him. We have grown really close and I hope he continues to grow in this gospel. 

It was so funny one day this week it was late and we had to get to the house fast so we were like jogging walking. We were at a part that was really dark and all I hear is my comp say "AHH" He had slipped and fallen in a huge puddle of mud. I started to laugh really hard but when i saw his face I knew he wasn't in a funny mood. So i knew pictures were out of the question...But he was covered head to toe in mud poor guy.

Yo AMO la misión! Este es la Iglesia verdadera. Gracias por su apoyo y las oraciones! Les quiero mucho!!!

-Elder Sessions  

Hermana Teresa

Making corn tortillas

Making flour tortillas

Trincheras Week 17

Hey family!

Such an awesome week!! Started out with a rain day which means crazy humidity...but at least I wasn't get burnt for a change. Today was beach day for the zone! It's the day I wait for every change. We got to play soccer and eat awesome food. At one point no one was doing anything and just sitting around talking and I totally fell asleep. Super chill. This zone is really fun and we have a strong gringo force to keep it lively. 

With Elder Coe from New Zealand

Our District

With Elder Olivas

This week has just been PACKED. I feel like we have been running around like crazy to get things done. But the Lord really blessed us with our appts. and our investigators. Our investigator and Prudencio is progressing amazingly! He and Helder have the date for baptism this Saturday! Hope all goes as planned. Prudencio has been an investigatos of gold. From the very beginning he has accepted everything. He's an 18 year old kid that really has his mind set on the things of the Lord. He lives rightttt in front of the church and he  goes to the activities and seminary everyday! He has a huge desire to serve the Lord and actually reads the Book of Mormon! So exciting!

This change just flew by in two seconds! My time with Matamoros is almost at an end and it's sad! He's been a great companion. And out of all my areas this one is just really special. There are a couple of members here that are like my family! It's going to be so weird not to see them all the time! I think I'm going to ask president for an extra change here. :) 

We had amazing baptisms this week! Evelin and Jenefer! 2 Sisters of a part member family. Wow this family is awesome! We found them when we were buying baleadas....shocker haha. The 2 daughters instantly found friends in the church and go to seminary everyday! We passed by them the other day and the older one, Jenefer, was talking to a woman and she didn't know we were walking by. She says "hey you need to come to church with us" and the lady laughs and says why? and Jenefer says because its the true church! And the lady asks "how do you know?" Jenefer says "Hey listen, I'm just going to send the Elders to your house okay?" Then she turns around to see us and says "Wow! Perfect! Here they are hahahaha!! Future missionary! Their parents are going to get married this next month so its sad I'm not going to be here to see it!

Well that's it for this week! Love you guys! Have a good one!

-Elder Sessions

Doing service????

Elder Olivas with a pig!

Trincheras Week 16

Family!

Superrrr great week! Honduras is so funny. Today the news says it's a record temperature and that it's dangerous to be outside. So they cancelled school for all the kids. So now they are all playing soccer in the streets haha... Honduran logic. But its been crazy hot. My watch tan line is out of control. I feel like every 2 minutes I'm buying a bag of water. We are just covered in sweat! 2 days this week we did service in the morning and my poor comp was like passing out from heatstroke! 

Today is Elder Bergstroms bday! ( and Chloe too)  We had some Hostess ho ho's and put candles in them and sang happy bday. Then after soccer today we all went to Pizza Hut to celebrate! Really fun!

Earlier during the week Elder Olivas played a prank on my comp and I. My comp is the same as me and wouldn't let that go unpunished....Matamoros called for Olivas to come outside and when he came out, I was waiting on the second floor with a big bucket of water. Welllll Olivas got soaked! So now my comp and I sleeping with one eye open because Olivas is loco haha! Love being with my bros all the time.

I really love the ward here in Trincheras but they have like a big problem when it comes to missionary work. So we've started doing these activities with all the members and our investigators. And this week was the biggest one yet! We played Jeopardy but with gospel questions and it went great! They were all enjoying it and the investigators got more friends! It stinks that finally we got a ward missionary leader and the ward is helping us and I'm going to be leaving soon. Just gotta take advantage of it right now I guess!

This week we have finally starting seeing the fruits of our work! Investigators are progressing and we have been finding new people. I think the one of the greatest blessing I've been learning in the mission is the power of prayer. Never in my life have I found myself turning to prayer as my first reaction like here in the mission. It has brought me so much joy and peace being able to turn to my Heavenly Father during the mission. I know alot of you guys know but man the mission is STRESSFUL. Praying for patience and love for the people is the #1 one thing getting me through this mission. I can really feel like someone is listening and cares about about my problems. I know God lives and loves to hear from his children and I'm so grateful for my parents who taught me these principles all my life!

Hope you guys all have a great week!

-Elder Sessions

Didn't he say it was record high temperatures???

Trincheras Week 15

Hey Fam!

Whoa what a fast week. The week started off pretty lame....Went to go to take out money from the mission card and the ATM machine ate my money. So I went to my personal card to take out money to help me till they fixed my card but not even my personal card was working. (5 different ATM's don't worry). It just wasn't my day haha worst part was that later that day we had to pay our cook and rent for the house! And I had ZERO money haha. The other Elders have been bros and are helping me out. 

We were able to help this lady carry water to her house the other day and when we finished we started to get to know her better. She has had many difficulties in her life and on top of everything her daughter passed away a couple weeks ago. She is a very sweet person and I feel like the Lord has been preparing her for the gospel. We felt the spirit so strongly and we were prompted to talk about family history and show pics of our families and teach about eternal families. She loves it so we hope so she can stop working on Sundays to come to church!

I think I've told you guys about how hard it is to marry down here right? Well it's almost impossible. So when you find married people its like a number one priority! Wellll this woman got baptized like 8 months ago when her husband was in the states working. He just got back recently and he is so awesome! We all hit it off super fast and he jokes around with us alot. His name is Helder which is just Elder because the H doesn't have sound. He's come to church a couple times and likes it alot. Hoping he continues to progress and that we can get them to the temple!

The weeks have been great this change. Us four in the house all get along really well and are always making jokes and having a good time. We have really started to get the trust of the ward and they support us more! I'm just loving the mission. Have a great week everyone!

-Elder Sessions

getting ice cream on pday

We left the door open and this kitty just walked right in like he owned the place!
I'm not complaining!

Having Pizza with some friends!

Having pollo con trajedas with investigators

Trincheras Week 14

Hola gringos

Well this week was great! Started off with Interviews with president and that was awesome to see him. He truly is a man called from God! Im not going to lie...this week went by superrrrrrr fast and everyday we were just contacting and teaching and I dont have a ton of stories :/ just the normal missionary life. We did some service for a member that lives soooo far away up on the side of this mountain and when we finished, us four missionaries climbed to the very top! It was crazy high and it was cool to see our entire area. Now my legs are sore but it was worth it!

At the top of the world looking over our area!

A little competition after our service project

One day durring the week, we were contacting and we had been going door to door for such a long time and we weren't having a ton of success. We had just contacted 2 houses in a row that were pastors that yelled many bad things and then a lady who was very strong in her religion that just hated us for some reason. I was unmotivated really, I mean I'm used to this happening eveyday but I started joking around and said to my comp, " how come all these people have awesome stories while contacting and meeting people who were praying for the missionaries to come by" and stuff like that. Two seconds later we contacted another house and out came a woman and her husband (actually married--this never happens) who were super excited to talk to us and wanted us to come by again in a couple of days! After that my comp started laughing at me and said "O ye of little faith" hahaha it was an awesome experience!

We had 3 people accept to be baptized this week so we are really praying they progress. The only bad part is that the weather is getting crazy hot and that means the people don't want to do anythingggggg. But God has his plan for everyone! 

So excited for Aubrey and Jeremy and the new baby Reggie! So sad I can't be there to see her :/ by the time I get back she'll be walking haha!

I hope you all have a great week and give Reggie lots of kisses from her favorite uncle.

-Elder Sessions

Hermana Teresa makes my favorite Baleadas!

My comp.....

Trincheras Week 13

Family!

Hows everyone doing?! Well as you all know, my dear Ambler left me this last week. He went to the zone that I was at before! Lucky dude. My new comp is Elder Matamoros! He's from Nicaragua! He's a nice guy and we get along really well. Best part is that he likes to talk and joke around so I feel like this changge will be great! Also Olivas got a new comp named Elder Bergstrom who is from AZ too! He's a bro so right now the house is really fun and we are having a good time. Excited for this week because now we have a normal work hours and the people are back from vacations! We have found a couple more new people so we are pumped for the work!

Elder Matamoros

Elder Bergstrom from AZ

The last day Ambler had in this area was also his birthday! He's so lucky because the members here are so nice so we had a great dinner to celebrate! Our friend Madisson and Josue made a tonnnn of hamburgers and fries and we had a sweet feast. I ate wayyyyy too much but everyone tells me I'm skinny so.... The end was the bad part....when Ambler walked outside they smashed 3 eggs on his head! And I was just there laughing and madission smashed one on my head! We smelt soooo bad.

One cool thing that has been happening lately in our area is activating the inactive people. There is a family in our area that have been members for many many years and all the sons have gone on missions and the dad was president of the branch along time ago. Well when I got here alllll of them hadn't been to church for almost a year. I`ll never know why they were inactive, but through doing activites, FHE, service and bothering them alot, they are all coming to church now! The son just got called as the ward mission leader! It's been so great to grow close to this family and see the change in their lives.

One of the activities we did with our investigators

General Conference! So awesome! I watched the conference in spanish and we didn't have the best internet so I'm excited to get the Liahona to study them better!

Love you guys thanks for all the support! Have a greattttt week! 

-Elder Sessions

Sandwiches...YES!!!