¡Hermana Snelson in Honduras!: Hello Honduras!

Hi everyone!

(Happy birthday to Matthew and Nicole! And belated to miss Danielle :)

Hermana Concoha. I don´t remember what I told you already so we will start from the beginning. She is 21 (latina´s could serve at 20 before the change) and has been here for 11 months. She has only been in this area for 1 month, and opened it which means we have a lot of work to do. Which I love because It keeps us busy. :) She has 6 kids in her family, but only she, and her older brother are members. Oh, and her grandparents are dead. I can´t imagine the sacrifices that she has been through. First, being one of two memebers in her family, and the fact that her mom was diagnosed with Cancer right before she left. So much faith! But, miraculously, her mom went to an appointment a few months ago and they said all the tumors were all gone. Aaaand they´re still not members. I love her so much and she is so patient with me and I call her mom and she calls me her daughter and is always watching out for me. Like today! But that´s another story :) And she ALWAYS says ¨I love you¨ :)

Next: our house. We live in an apartment behind someone´s house. She isn´t a member and wants nothing to do with the church but is suuuper nice to us :) We have a pretty big kitchen with a hot plate and no chairs, an office with tables and chairs where we study, and our room with a bunk bed. My bed is actually broken, kind of in half so it´s shaped like a V, which hasn´t been a problem so far since I am so exhausted every night I just pass out anyway.

Our neighborhood and area is part of the richer part of Honduras, so Hermana C says that the people don´t think they need anything because they have everything. But I am so suprised by how open people are. We just walk up to someone and ask if we can share a folleto about Jesus and they all say yes. Then we ask to visit them and they for the most part say yes. It´s so funny to me becuase that would NEVER happen in the states. Oh! Haha, something else that would never happen at home- We were teaching a lesson to one of the security guards (they´re everywhere mom, don´t you fret, I´m safe!) and he was talking to 2 random guys and we ask if we can go up and sing a hymn and say a prayer and they´re all, yes yes please do! So there we stood in the middle of the street, singing I am a Child of God. You know, welcome to Honduras! :)

Other thing- besos. It reminds me of Hawaii when I just hug and kiss everyone, but you know, welcome to South and Central America. Anyway, we go to teach this guy we had found on the street, and he goes into kiss my companion, Hermana. C and obviously she moves away. He looks at me so confused as to what he did wrong, and while I was laughing so hard I explained that it´s because we´re missionaries and it´s nothing personal, promise.

Spanish- pretty good! Having a companion that only speaks spanish definitely helps. The way that most lessons work is I explain a principle in my limited abilities, then she fills in the gaps. It gets better everyday, and my investigators notice and are so excited and proud of me. It´s so great :)

Current Investigators: Adonai and Miriam. So we taught them and discovered that they had taken the discussions before. At first, Adonai just talked. But then we realized that it was Miriam who really wanted the gospel. The other day we went over and she was making tamales in the kitchen. When we asked how she was she said she was sad because Adonai and her had gotten in a fight and he had stormed out and left. We asked if we could sing to her, and sang a couple hymns. We met her little granddaughter Angela, who volunteered Miriam to say the prayer. It was beautiful, not being able to completely understand everything, but she said she was so grateful for the Jovens in her home, and feel of such a sweet, peaceful spirit. The best part was that you knew she was feeling it too because there were tears in her eyes. We didn´t really have a lesson planned when we left, but it was perfect because she just needed friends and someone to listen to her and love her. She wasn´t able to come to church this week, but hopefully she can next week so her baptism can be the first week of August.

Mardan? Shoots I need to learn how to spell her name. She is about 13 and is Catholic and works for another family in the ward. She is super sweet, but so so shy so the lesson we taught her she hardly said a word which is frustrating because that´s the only way I can teach. But you know, the church is still true. She went to church on Sunday so we are hoping we can prepare her for baptism on the 27th. We´ll see. :)

Those are the only investigators with a date, we´ll see how the others progress.

This is the fewest investigators Hna. C has had her whole mission because she served in the south where it´s super poor and super humble. But I feel like the poeple are more humble than the states, even though we´re in the richer part.

Today was awesome! My whole zone went on a hike and I felt like I was in Hawaii the entire time.

So many waterfalls, and it was so beautiful. There are 14 of us. I was surprised how nice it was to speak English! Everyone is super nice but there are changes next week, so we will see who goes and who stays.