Week 10

On the way to Orocuina, eventually you´ll hit El Barranco, and an hour walk later you´ll pass La Plazuela. 10 more minutes and you´ll make it to Orocuina, and La Estacion, which is in the first part of Orocuina. The Station is an intersection and gets its name because it´s the bus stop. We live here.

 If you turn right, you´ll hit the River in 2 minutes, pic included. Across the river, you can go left to Barreal Limon, or right to Nueva Esparanza, NE only has 15 or so huts, and if you continue through NE for 30 minutes on foot, on you left will be a turnoff into another small town Tamarindo, which heads off into the mountains. If you continue straight instead, in another 30 minutes you´ll make your way to Apacilagua, where most of members and investigators live. We pay a truck to come by and pick people up and take them to Church everySunday because it´s pretty far. If you continue through Apacilagua, you can walk 40 minutes to a town called Savannah del Toro, which is pretty dangerous and way out there, we rarely visit.

If you continue left in Orocuina from the Station, you´ll head more into the neighborhoods and town of Orocuina where there are only houses. Our church building is two blocks to the left and a block to the right. It´s a house, but it´s a pretty nice house.

If you continue straight, you´ll head into the markets and more of the businesses of Orocuina, if you continue this direction through Orocuina, and leave Oro, you´ll walk past houses, don´t know what this area is called. But an hour walk through is Gicaro, where our branch president lives.

My first Sacrament meeting in Orocuina, we had an attendance of 28, our second week, an attendance of 37, and this last week, we only had 24, which was kind of a shock because I was really expecting more. So at first, I was super bummed. But what ended up happening is that the truck fell through, and so there was a lot of problems. I was really expecting at least 40.

Our Branch President is Presidente Chavarria. He´s a 50 year old guy that weighs about 30 pounds, he´s super goofy and probably my favorite person on the planet. Elder De Jesus is the counselor and I am the Secretary. The first hour of Church after Sacrament, I teach the teenagers and De Jesus teaches the adults while a sister in the branch teaches the kids. The second hour I teach the kids, De Jesus teaches the Teens, and Pres. teaches the adults. The kids are angels. The teenagers are the bane of my existence.

Our small branch mostly consists of teenage girls. We have 1 young man, and about 15 young men. There are 5 M. Priesthood Holders.

Monday is P-day and is Christmas. Yes Christmas. We go to Cholu and return around 5 to do normal daily stuff like teach, contact, etc.

Tuesday we usually go to the Apacilagua area and teach. Around 3 o clock to 3 30 everyday I teach English, and more non members come than members which is great, also I may not be the best Gospel teacher but I am actually pretty decent at teaching English.

Wednesday we head to La Plazuela and El Barranco to teach the few members that live there and to contact.

Thursdays are Apacilagua again and we teach Seminary.

Friday we head to Plazuela and teach Seminary and then head out to Barreal Limon. Which is FOREVER AWAY ON THE WORST ROAD EVER. And the people of Barreal Limon don´t really care to listen. A lot of less actives live there.

Saturday back to Apacilagua, yeah there is a pattern. Probably cause Apacilagua is amazing and everyone there is great. And alsoSaturday is for meeting with members to get them to go to church on Saturday. OH also Baptisms. I just had Baptism Number 4. Meysel Gissel Castillo Espino. She´s a sweetheart. I also confirmed on Sunday, but boy I do not know enough Spanish to give a blessing! But it went well.

Sunday is church, and is usually good, but this last Sunday, no one really took it seriously and it was more of a social gathering for the branch than actually church, which kind of peeved me, because my lesson I prepared was pretty rad. The kids were angels. Teens blegh.

Honduras is pretty, but I am getting used to the scenery so I took some pics while walking to send you guys before I stop taking pics.

Anyway. If anyone wants to hook a brother/Elder up with some thicker socks, that´d be tight I´ve got monster blisters that are pretty gross. My feet look like they´ve been wading in the river Styx. I hope that made sense. Or Moleskin or whatever. Anyway, if you want a pic of them, no prob. I won´t include the pics here cause they are actually pretty gross.

Week 9

Maybe it would be a better idea to bring my Agenda with me on Prep Day so that I can look back through the week and see what I did so that I can go back to doing the day-by-day-format. I would bring my journal, but by the end of every day, I am far too exhausted to write. I write once a week at the most, and usually not even that. It isn´t that it´s hard. It´s more tiring. It isn´t really difficult, or at least isn´t difficult yet. I want to be here, and for that, the mission is easier. Sure it´s tiring, but physical exhaustion is temporal, and when I wake up in the morning, I´m always refreshed... Anyway, down to the nitty-gritty.

Pretty much every day this week, it rained, but at the beginning of the week, we had a deluge. It started raining early in the afternoon and continued well into the night. Elder De Jesús and I had been contacting in the streets and teaching families in Apacilagua, about a 30 minute walk from our casa. It´s a little higher in the mountain and away and on the other side of the river, so we didn´t quite realize how bad it was until we began to walk home that night.

Just as we were leaving Apacilagua, on the corner of the last street to leave the town is a pulp. (short for pulpería, which is a tiny store to buy basic stuff and snacks, there are a million in every town.) and the woman in this pulp called out to us to tell us the small stream down the road was flooded. We kinda of just brushed it off, but 5 minutes later we arrived at a party of a few cars, cyclists, and mototaxis all looking at what used to be a dry stream bed. It was now about thigh deep to me, and about 20 feet wide and flowing fast downhill. The stream is perpendicular to the road. Eventually a truck pulled ahead of everybody and plowed through. It took a while, and I wasn´t convinced it would make it through, but it did, so Elder De Jesús and I crossed first, and we made it. No one else tried for a while. And I know this, because we had walked pretty far before anyone else passed us.

After crossing through a couple streams and pools in better conditions than before and walked a decently while, we were almost back to Orocuina, but we still had to cross the bridge over the river. It wasn´t an issue because we had a bridge. But the water, which used to sit at least 10 feet below the bridge, was now running into the bridge, and several trees had crashed and were stuck on the bridge.

The inundation for the rest of the week never got that bad. But it rained every day and I am so grateful. It is so much nicer to have this rain than the scorching heat I had when I first got here. I love Orocuina. I love the people and the culture.

It´s incredibly different here, women breastfeed in Sacrament, and every one lives in a hut with a flat screen. Because soccer is everything.

Everything. Today for P day, we played Soccer in an outdoor fast court that we rented for a little over 3 hours. I am exhasted, and I am not very good compared to the Latino Elders. In fact, I am awful compared to the Latino Elders, but playing 5 on 5 is still really fun, and I look forward to the next time we play.

On Saturday we had two more Baptisms, Milton and Rosa, and their families came, this time we went to a church in Cholu because the water was muddy and flowing from all the rain.

The mission is great. Sorry I don´t know what more to write, I will start writing in my journal more often so that I can give you a better review of the week. Anyway, thanks for all writing me, and have a great week.

Week 8

Fairly sure this is week 8, but who knows. It feels like day 8. I don't feel like I have been in the mission for very long. I read that Eryn went to a waterfall, and I was like "Oh tight, me too." Until her video finally downloaded... Then I realized she went to a REAL waterfall and I went to a 99 cent squirt toy. Speaking of loading. This computer place I am at took 15 minutes for me to open my email. 15! So if nothing sends?... well I won't be surprised! But it's a good in the Hood...uras. Puns.

I am not especially in the mood to give a play by play of the week. Mostly because I'm sure it won't be as interesting as my other emails. I understand the implication of my decision. No one is going to write me because of my boring email. WRONG. Since I don't want to say, this day we did this, and that day no one wanted to listen to us. I will tell you the craziest thing that happened to me thus far.

IT ALL BEGAN ON A TUESDAY. Elder De Jesus and I had our appointment to go teach Jose Angel who lives in a different town. I BEGAN THE WALK EXPECTING A NORMAL AFTERNOON. NEVERTHELESS I WILL NEVER FORGET THIS DAY. We walked... and walked... for an hour and a half to Jose's house. We enter and talk, and they offer us dinner. They served us Garobo... If you don't know what Garobo is... google it... If you are too lazy to google it... It's more or less an iguana... And it was delicious to be honest with you, I wouldn't mind having it again. People just kill Garobos in the streets with slingshots. No I'm serious. People just walked out and hit them with rocks and kill them and take 'em home. Kids have competitions to kill Garobo. AND THUS IT SEEMED A NORMAL VISIT. And then the grandma comes in and asks us to give the grandpa a blessing.

We accepted and enterred the room, inside was the Grandpa with a cloth over his foot. Elder De Jesus asked what was wrong, and the Grandma explained something I couldn't understand about what was wrong with the foot. Then she removed the cloth. The inside part/side of his big toe, and his big toe were missing. Half of his foot was gone, and heavily infected. We gave our blessing and the thanked us and left.

We walked most of the way back to town, but on our way was the house of our investigator, Milton, whom we frequently visit. We call out to their house from the gate to talk with them and the call us to the backyard. In the backyard was the family surrounding 3 pigs. A really big one that was laying on its side breathing hard, and two babies feeding. Again, Elder De Jesus asked what'd happened because we could see a fair amount of blood.

A passerby in the street took it upon himself to shoot the pig twice. They then decided that they shoot put it out of its misery. Three of the sons held the mom down and got on top of it, and it began to scream. Like scary scream. The two babies got really excited and the daughter of the house kept them away. Then one of the 3 sons goes and grabs a knife...

WOW. I just realized kids could be reading this. SORRRY. But I don't have time to start over and write a happy story... Anyway... the pig didn't die for quite some time, and I've never seen more blood. It was really kind of sad to watch. But anyway.

On a happy note I had my first baptism on Saturday. Her name is Carin, she's 22, and I baptized her in Combalí. She's really smart, like crazy smart. And asks about everything we teach and I'm not educated in spanish so basically Elder De Jesus talks to her because I don't understand half the time.

On another happy note, on Sundays I bless the sacrament, teach the teenagers the next hour and I TEACH PRIMARY the final hour. It's super cool. Also I am the branch secretary and I do the tithing. Probably cause no one else knows how to use the computer. It's pretty crazy on Sundays. Most of the branch are teenagers so my class is HUGE. Most of them live in Apacilagua, a little town up in the mountain from Orocuina. It's our favorite part of the Area. Everyone there is... excellent. Well. Party on, Wayne.

Week 7??? Possibly.15 hours to save the Earth

Somebody tell me what week it is. I have no idea. ANYWAY. I had 32 emails to read and to respond to, so here goes my attempt to give a global email... in 15 minutes. I see that Hermana Anderson has copied my daily format. So I will do the Hipster thing and do something different. I will say that my time up until the 29th of September was rad, and this is what came next.

The best week yet. We flew from Mexico City to El Salvador and ES to Honduras. In Teguc I was the first one to get through customs and everything and therefore the first to meet the AP`s and President and Hermana Bowler. They are super nice and super great. They showed us a little bit of the city and took us to a Stake Center. There we were given some instruction, and half of us went on splits with the missionaries already there and the other half had orientations for an hour.

I went out with the first group and talked with people. Most people in Honduras are super nice. They`ll listen to you and accept everything you say and take time to talk with you about the church and help you with your Spanish. There`s also people who "know" what faith is. They point in the air a lot and go something like "Siii! Sii! La fe La fe!" I don`t get it. Then there`s people who spit on us and tell us that there church is true. Those people are tight because that is how you learn to understand Spanish when someone isn`t happy. Hahahaha!

I came in and had my boring Orientation, pizza, and then we went back to the Assistant`s house to rest. Then to Dinner with President and Hermana Bowler then bed.

AND then I met Elder De Jesus, my companion. Heis from the Dominican, and is a super cool guy. I just never have any idea what he is saying. His accent is so strong, no one can understand him. No one. But he is a super cool guy, and we get along great. After some meetings on Wednesday, we left for our zone.

In the afternoon of Wednesday, we arrived in Choluteca. It`s in the South of Honduras, it`s pretty cool. There we stayed with Elder McKee and his companion. After that night we left for our area.

OROCUINA. It`s this tiny place in the middle of nowhere. It is super pretty but also super poor. But it is amazing. We live in this tiny room in this plaza. Right next door we have a Pulperia and on the other side, our dueña. Our shower is a bucket, and we have no running water, so to flush, you just pour water down the drain. All in all it`s pretty neat and I don`t mind too much because Orocuina is gorgeous and the people are the nicest people you willever meet in the world.

Besides the people in Pacilagua. Which is village that is about a 20 or 30 minute walk from Orocuina. It is where most of our members live. Mind you there are only like 26 people that attend our branch, and my companion is the 1st counselor and I`m the secretario. For conference we contracted a bus to take our branch to Choluteca. But on Friday he told us he couldn`t. so we walked way out to this place called the Savannah Del Toro.

We left all of our stuff with a member because Savannah DT is supposedly super ghetto. And walked out to contract a bus. We found a guy,and he hooked us up with hisbrand new school bus. Super G`wowww!! All week we had been inviting people to come to conference.

We had a whopping 52 people show up on our bus. Yeah. Crazy right??

Anyway, the fifteen minutes is up, but I got pretty far... I don`t have my camera sorry. I will send pics next week. I love you all. OH I FOUND 2 WHITE HAIRS WHAT. ON MY CHEST AND MY SIDEBURN. BASICALLY I AM DYING.

Cheque

Elder Anderson

mission home letter of arrival

Hola from Tegucigalpa!

We are happpy to tell you that Elder ­­­­­­­­­­­­Andrson has arrived safely in Tegucigalpa. We love him already and look so forward to serving with him for the next two years. We have attached a picture of him taken with us on the day of his arrival.

He has been asssigned a missionary companion who has been selected to serve as a trainer because of his experience and diligence as a missionary. We know your missionary will grow to love him and learn a great deal from him.

We want to assure you that we will be in close contact with your missionary during the coming weeks and months. Our greatest responsibilty is to dutifully care for each young person with which the Lord has entrusted us. If there are ever any concerns for his well being we will be in immediate contact with you and/or his local priesthood leaders.

Thank you for all you have done to prepare your missionary for this wonderful opportunity to serve. We know your family will be greatly blessed as you support him from home.

If questions or concerns should arise at home during your missionary’s service, please feel free to contact us or call the mission office at 504-2239-5587. We also have a blog for parents. The website address is ServingInTegucigalpa.blogspot.com.

President and Hermana Bowler

Honduras Tegucigalpa Mission