Trincheras Week 7

Hey family! 

Sooooo this week was a great one! I hope you guys had a good week! This week started a little different. Ambler and I don't have changes so it was a nice relief! But one of the other elders did and the new elder that came is the one and only Elder Olivas haha. He was one of my comps in the Smith! From Guatemala. Its been superrr weird living with him again but its been nice to catch up. Hopefully we can all work hard together and really see some growth here in the Trincheras! Elder Ambler has been great and its so awesome to walk around with him all day. He laughs at my jokes so we get along just fine :)

I don't know what it was but at the beginning of this week we ran into a couple challenges with some of our progressing investigators. Saddest part of the mission. When someone has prayed and really received an answer that this is the true church and then decide not to do anything about it or progress. Satan is working so hard with these people that when one little thing happens or when someone says one bad thing about the church they lose all interest and forget everything they felt and learned. It kills me. The family Zambrano went to take out money to prepare to get married and someone robbed everything on the way back to the house so now the wife thinks it means they shouldn't get married. Challenges on challenges but one thing we have been learning is that the timing of the Lord is the biggest thing. All we can do is teach, serve and testify. Sometimes its hard to see all the blessings we have been receiving when the challenges come into our lives. I'm excited to keep pushing on and to see where the Lord guides us.

There is this return missionary named Josue who has helped us alot with his friends and family that are not members. Two of his friends are brothers named Victor and Davison. They are the bestttttt. Their testimony has grown like crazy these last couple of weeks. They have both ended their relationships with girlfriends and Victor has stopped smoking a pack cigarettes a day to not smoking at all!! They come to church every sunday and they have been progressing so much. The way they talk and act has even changed and it's just a huge testimony that this gospel changes lives. I love the mission!

Really this week was so fast. When we come home at 9 and when I fall asleep it feels like 3 seconds later and its 10 in the morning and we are out walking again. My feet hurt and I'm always hungry. And all that means to me is that we are doing good. Elder Ambler has been helping alot and we feel really good about our work. My feet don't but its okay haha. Honestly we don't have many stories this week. Just alot of talking to new people and working with members. I love the members in this area!

Excited for these next weeks because we have members of the 70 coming and also Elder Anderson of the 12! Superrrrr pumped. Hopefully next week I will have more to write you guys.

Love you all!

-Elder Sessions

Dang ambler fell asleep during lunch again... turn my head for one second hahaha love this kid.

Trying to walk in the street but couldn't because Betsy was in the way

The family of lambs that chase us around!

Taking moto taxi (death machine) because it was super late to get home :/

Teaching the primary kids to play real football! They didn't get it but hey it was fun haha!

Trincheras Week 6

Family!

Hope everyone enjoyed their valentines day! Elder Ambler bought me a bag a chips on valentines day it was so nice of him. Another great week here in Trincheras! The week started out really good with finishing the Book of Mormon in Spanish! Took me about 8 months but I did it! Took some time to read Jesus the Christ too which I liked a lot. This was my favorite time reading the B.O.M. Even though it was in Spanish I was able to understand it more clearly and I learned so much! I know that the B.O.M. is the word of God and we are so blessed to have this sacred scripture. I encourage all of you to read the B.O.M. but you guys don't have to read it in spanish don't worry :)

So right now in Honduras there is this crazy epidemic thing going on called Chichingunua. Something like that haha! Well everyoneeeee and their dog is getting sick. Every single house we go into someone has this sickness. It hurts in your bones and people have problems walking and moving their arms. This last week we passed by our investigator Mary to see how she was doing and as luck would have it she was very sick with this sickness. She had already taken off work that day and if she missed tomorrow they were going to fire her. And the worst part is that she stands all day at her work. We were able to give her a priesthood blessing and right after, she stood up and walked without any pain. It was such an amazing experience that I will never forget! I love priesthood blessings!

We having been teaching this family for a couple weeks named Zambrano. There are 10 people in the family and they are best! The father has a huge testimony about the church already and we had the whole family come to church! It was amazing to see them all together happy in the church. Now they are working and getting the papers to get married! exciting stuff! This last week they invited us to lunch. They cooked "soup of the sea". For those of you that don't know....I'm not very good when it comes to eating sea food. I usually will dry heave about 5 times just to get down one peace of fish. But in the mission I am getting better haha. Well this family gave me a HUGE bowl of sea soup and I was sweating like crazy I was so nervous. I said a quick prayer and man was I blessed. I ended up liking the food and I didn't dry heave once! It might not seem like a big blessing to you guys but you can ask my sister Aubrey and she will testify of my fear of sea food haha. Power of prayer!

more fish.... :\

The soup of the sea after with the tail! 

One day we were contacting at the far end of our area we came across this small town at the toppp of the mountain. These people have never seen gringos or missionaries before and they all came out of their houses and stared at us. But it was so cool because we found alot of awesome people. Actually some family members of active members from the church! We are excited to start working with them it should be really fun. 

Cool night pic from the top of a hill

Hope you guys have a great week! Love you all!

-Elder Sessions

blister with in a blister  -inception

Trincheras Week 5

Whats up family!?

Glad to hear everyone had a great week! Elder Ambler and I had a super long week but awesome week. First it stopped raining so the streets and starting to clear up which is nice. But now we have the sun...I don't know which one is worse haha. But I was able to get some new shoes today so lets hope they last! Poor Ambler has been pretty sick with his stomach so we had to take it a little slow but he was a champ and we were still able to have some great experiences. Had stake conference and it was so cool to see a lot of our investigators come and see more of how the church really is.

 

So our friend Madisson that always helps us just got her mission call! She's going to Guatemala! She is going to be great! On her only day off work she goes and teaches with us alll day. She shows us where members live and alot of people we can teach. Super good example of a member missionary. And she makes us baleadas so thats pretty cool too haha.

We had the opportunity to help this family with their new house they are building! Mostly we helped paint the roof and chop the grass and dig holes for the pipes. Well this hive of wasps started attacking us so we had to destroy their home that they had made inside the house. As luck would have it, the two tall gringos had to knock it down. But it was like stuck really hard on the roof! My poor comp didn't get the "run fast" memo and got stung a couple times. They got it on video it was hilarious. I've never hear a white man scream so loud before.

Finally remembered to take pics of the house! Remember how we had to move everything down to the bottom house because there was a bunch of water? So now we don't have much light because we have a wall all around the house. Our bedroom is in the back corner of the house and the windows just have a wall on the other side and ZERO light gets in. Its kinda nice, We can sleep better but its sketchy because you cant see anything. We call it the bat cave. I don't know. It was Amblers idea haha the house is great but still we just don't have water in the house so it's just annoying.

The baptism went perfect this last week! Dinora has such a strong spirit. The water was freezing because it had just rained and she was like," Elder this is crazy" I laughed so hard it was a great time. Now we are working with her son so pray for us that all goes well and that we can help her family be together for ever! I love you all have a good week and send me candy! 

-Elder Sessions

Always good food for lunch

Trincheras Week 4

Family!

Hows everyone doing?? Elder Ambler and I had a superrrrr good week! Started with a priestood blessing I recieved so my health could get better. Woke up the next day feeling much better! Still have some stomache problems but its been alot nicer. We just got back from a awesome zone activity! We went to the beach! Its about an hour away. We were able to go to some zoo and see some animals. It was a sad excuse for a zoo but hey at least they had a tiger. The beach was amazing tho, there was a nice breeze and we got to eat and relax for a second. Best P-day so far. It makes me miss the beaches in Mexico!

We were able to paint the house of our cook, Hermana Teresa! It took so long but it was a fun time. She always likes to mess with the missionaries she thinks she is so funny :) The neighbor also came to help! Her name is Madison and she is the besttttt. She is always helping the missionaries with food or investigators! Love this area! Except for one reason....the mud...So much mud. It rained 3 times this week and the roads are all just dirt and mud. My shoes dont have a sole on the bottom so water and mud just come right on in haha I need to find time to fix my shoes. And with all the mud our pants get soo dirty and I always feel so bad walking in peoples houses. But for the most part they understand. Good thing its all just tile floors!

Its been crazy to see all the little blessing that the Lord has been giving us these last couple of weeks. We had an appointment with this young guy and we were going to meet in the corner street. Well we waited and waited and finally decided to go contact because he didn't show up. We were in an area that was soooo big and had a ton of houses that were like a maze. I have no idea how this happened but we ran right into the man we were suppose to have the appt with! He had tried to leave but had to watch his younger sibling in the house. We were able to have a great lesson with him and was so cool to be guided by the spirit in that moment. And I'm serious these hills just have random roads all over! Great experience.

Elder Ambler and I are very excited for this weekend! We get our first baptism together! Her name is Dinora Martinez and she is just the best. We met her like my 3rd day here in this area. Her family are members and she has been wanting to get baptized for a long time but wasn't able to. We were able to teach about temples and the work we do for the people weren't able to receive the gospel when they were here on the earth. When I brought up the baptisms for the dead she began to cry and told us her daughter died at the age of 19 and never was baptized. She expressed how happy she was that she can go to the temple and do the work for her. One of the greatest lessons I´ve had in the mission. The spirit was so strong and I didn't even want to talk. So awesome! And sundae we were blessed with 10 investigators in church! Cool to see the progress of the hard work. Our investigators are doing great! We are teaching a family of 12 people its been so crazy! Love this work!

Hope you guys all have a good week!

-Elder Sessions

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.