Honduras Style!

Hello!

First we start with some questions I received:

 How is Jose doing? Still fired up and coming to church? 

Jose is amazing! He has the strongest testimony. When we're planning for the day, we usually try to make our appointments with Jose for 2 hours. He is reading the book of mormon right now, and so we usually end up just discussing what he read and answering all of his questions. He also got a calling yesterday- secretary for elders quorum! He is STOKED! He sent us a text telling us "I know you have p-day but I'll leave work early so I can meet with you right at 6."

Did he ever tell his family that he was baptized? 
I'm pretty sure. I know his mom does because she came to church yesterday and wow, she loved it! I was so happy because she was so happy to be there. This is the first time she has shown any type of interest, so we're excited to go over there tomorrow :)

And now....

My crazy week!

One thing I love about the mission: for all intents and purposes we are doing the same thing every day- wake up, study, eat lunch, go out and teach, eat dinner then come home. But every day is completely different. Everyday I'm teaching new people, or your english class randomly decides to throw a birthday party for "Mr. Dockendorf" so the lesson plan that day is learning how to say "may I have some cake, please?" 

The most exciting things that happened were zone conference, and the wedding and baptism.

Let's start with zone conference!

Conference was with President Ochoa, a member of the 70 who spoke in this past General Conference. ( He told the story about the little boys who left with the horses and played marbles). Anyway, he is really nice! He wanted to meet all of us, so we all went up in the front, shook his hand, and said where we were from. He has such power, and everyone was really pumped after he spoke. 

I learned a lot, but the best was when he had people stand up and share a miracle. After, he asked why they had that happen. It boiled down to two simple things: they had prayed, fasted, or both. I love it. It's so simple, but really that's all the difference.

I also found that faith, one day, over 3 months ago. I woke up. I was frustrated. I was new in my area, and my companion was stressed and frustrated because our area is one of the hardest in the mission. Didn't matter what I said, she was still frustrated. I was praying and praying, wondering what I could do, and the thought came, "Have faith". I still remember walking into the office, slamming my hand on the table and saying "Hermana, I have faith that we can find one person who is ready to be baptized!" Well, we talked to over 50 people that day, and the last one, right when we were walking home, was Rosa's mom. 

What had happened if I hadn't been praying that day? If I hadn't had the faith sufficient enough? Would God have still placed Rosa's mom in my path?

I honestly don't know. 

But I'm grateful I don't have to think about that. I just get to think about how happy Rosa looked as she came out of the baptismal font. I had the peaceful feeling of "you're doing it Aubrey, you are changing people's lives." 

They still have a lot of work and progress to make, but that's one thing I love about the gospel! There is always more that we can do. We are never perfect, but rather are all trying to be made more perfect literally every day. 

I love them so much. As we drove to church yesterday, 4 of us squished in the back and Allison in front on Rosa's lap with Rolando singing some Christan song and stuck in Honduran traffic, I  couldn't help but smile, perfectly content with my life and the opportunity to be here. 

Love you all!