week 29 Balm of Gilead

I do believe I am cured. I won´t share the details, but I don´t think I will have to worry about parasites or bacteria anymore. But that also means that I probably will have to be more careful about what I eat. It´s a sad trade off.

This week hasn´t been too amazingly exciting. Joel and Mariana still aren´t married, Neither did their family go to church. Jimmy and Isis are being baptized this weekend... and I am going to do it in the ocean, so... more on that next week.

This week, we are going to have a conference here in the south area with Elder Alonso from the Seventy. We are going to meet Wednesday morning at 8 oclock in the morning in Choluteca. I don´t know how I am going to arrive on time, but I am sure I will figure something out.

Right now, our branch president wants to take out the truck to Ojochal. It´s a truck we pay to bring people from Ojochal, a far part of our area to church. It´s necessary for the members of Ojochal to attend. Trying to convince him to keep it. He wants more money from the budget for activities.

Aiight. I bought some batteries so here are the fotos!

week 28 Starry Smile

Sorry, the power went out yesterday so I didn't have the opportunity to send the weekly email.

This week Elder Olivares and I went to Tegucigalpa for my doctor´s appointment. Afterward we stayed in the office and went to go work with the elders there. The office looks super boring. Would rather not get called there but their area is cool. They have the Stadium and In n Out which is cool. It isn´t actually In n Out but it has the name.

HEALTH REPORT.

-Parasites under control? Unconfirmed.

-Bacteria's still present.

-Weight Loss -39 lbs.

I have a list of medicines that I now take for the next 10 days, and then afterward I will do another test to see if I still have bugs... So more on that another day.

This week we had Branch Conference. President Bowler, Sabino, and Colado came, (President of the Mission, his counselor, and of the district.) and presided/taught the classes. Because the branch heard that such important people were coming, the attendance flew from the forties and fifties to seventy-four. That was cool. A couple investigators came in, too, which is always nice.

The major ones are:

Joel, Mariana and Lizi - Joel and Mariana are a couple and Lizi is their 9 year old daughter that we are currently teaching. Their baptismal date is in March and we are just working on getting them married. The only challenge is that we have to take out their papers to get married, but Joel is from Amapala, an island just off the Honduran Pacific Coast, so he has to travel out there to take out his papers, and well it´s expensive and nobody here has money.

Luz - Luz is a mother of 7 and her baptismal date is also in March, she is already married, which in itself is a miracle. Nobody in Honduras is married and our DL almost didn´t believe us when we told him. The coolest thing about Luz is her grill. Her two front teeth are gilt with stars. Sometimes I can´t help but stare, but it isn´t my fault.

This weekend all the missionaries from Monjaras and Buena Vista came to my area for Mission Prep. They brought youth from all over to teach them how to contact and teach. It was cool to have all my friends come over and help out in the area. I went on divisions with Elder Akubeze who is from London.

This week I hit 6 months, to celebrate/commemorate? I burned a tie, and chugged a quart of eggnog to celebrate my loss of 39 pounds.

Overall a solid week, didn't get to eat iguana, but that´s OK.

WELL. The batteries on the camera just died. So you´ll have to wait a week.

week 27 Clayton Kershaw

- 6 months on the 19th -

The Road so Far.

Started off in Orocuina with my padre Elder De Jesus, from the Dominican Republic, worked with him for 2 changes, had 5 baptisms, and then killed him. 

Then came Elder Avila, from El Salvador, worked together most of the change, had 3 baptisms, then I had mini changes and was sent off with Elder Jones for 2 weeks.

Elder Jones is from Utah, we worked hard for a solid 2 weeks, had 2 baptisms, then he went up to Teguc.

Right now I´m with Elder Olivares, super nice Chilean. Probably the best person I know. Super innocent and nice and patient with everyone here. He shared with me his favorite scripture which is in Ether 12, where it talks about us having weaknesses so that we would be more humble, and then compared that to his really strong stutter.

Olivares and I get along great and everything is awesome. This week we climbed a water tower in the middle of nowhere - pics attached - and are having a blast! We also have 4 investigators who have baptismal dates for March, HOPEFULLY, they don´t fall through. I have faith. We have more investigators, but none others that are accepting a date right now. All chill in Guapinol.

Possibly my greatest achievement in the mission came this week when we were teaching a lesson on the beach. There´s this really ugly fish called ´´Cuatrojo´´ because they have 4 eyes to see above and below the water. I wanted to see how the looked up close so I picked up a rock and threw it out into the ocean, and nailed one right on the head. We weren´t sure if I had got it or not, until it floated to the surface bottom up. I left it with the member who was in the lesson and they cooked it and ate it after we left.

Weirdest thing I have eaten. The fed us the meat of clams in a soup, and then afterward informed us that the soup was actually just the blood of a bunch of clams. Kinda nasty and the clams were super chewy (and I guess raw) but I actually liked that. Just had it the first time this week.

Update on the parasites. My little friends were not killed by the medication they gave me, so I´m going up to Tegus this week to see a specialist. I think it´ll be cool.

Happy Valentines Day to everyone hope you all have a great week.

The pics: A slingshot I painted for a kid in the village.

On top of the water tower showing off my lack of muscle

High tide and Low tide

The fish I killed. (Proof)

week 26 Heeey maan... jou espeakeh english?

Elder Olivares is my new companion. He is from Chile and has about 17 months in the mission. He has a really bad stutter but is a really good guy and incredibly nice. Me cae bien. He has a few problems but so does everybody. He actually used to serve in Monjaras, which is the central town in our district/zone, where we hold our meetings, so he knows a lot of members... unfortunately he has a huge crush on one, and it just so happens to be the member that cooks for us, so he and I aren´t allowed to come, which is a bummer.

Guapinol has treated me poorly. The water in our pila (water for showers and cleaning clothes) was black, so we called someone in to replace a bunch of stuff in our pila, then Elder Olivares and I drained it and scrubbed the inside down. It was really time consuming, but our water gave me a really bad rash over my body so it was worth it. The fish however, is delicious.

I got really sick again the first couple days Elder Olivares came in. I had a temperature of 39C and so we couldn´t leave the house to go work. I went to bed early to get rest and woke up at 5 the next day, when I walked into the kitchen, Elder Olivares had cleaned the ENTIRE HOUSE. And it´s a big house too, one of the biggest in the mission. He had even taken out all the spider webs and spiders, of which there had been hundreds. I guess you could say I´m happy with my new comp.

Guapinol is a peninsula and basically one very long road, so Elder Olivares and I (since we are technically opening the area) have been contacting the whole town. We started at one end of the road, and are just going to sweep the town. More on that will follow in the next few weeks.

Also my mysterious weight loss is no longer a mystery. I have parasites.

This week for Pday we went to the Peña. You might remember that I went a couple months ago and we played rugby. We did the same thing again because this time came Elder Carter and Akubeze who also played Rugby, and we had a blast. Pics to follow.

The mission is the best thing to happen to my life. It´s tiring, but I don´t think I have ever been happier. 10/10 would recommend.

Broncos.

Elder Anderson

Week 25 Ghoti

Week of Changes!

Elder Jones just finished his 4th change in Guapinol so he´s heading out and opening an area in Teguc. We actually never ended up taking a photo together, sorry bout that, but we have only been comps for a little more than a week. My new comp, who I have yet to meet, is Elder Olivares, from Chile. I´ll meet him later on this week.

So this past week has just been for me to get to know the area, but Elder Jones caught Dengue, so we sent him to another area and we did divisions in Guapinol with a couple different Elders. I am somewhat familiar with the area, but it´ll still be a little bit of a challenge once Olivares gets here.

This week I learned a couple neat tricks to bring back to the states.

1. My honda (slingshot) game has majorly improved.

2. An investigator taught me how to fish with a shrimp, fishing hook, fishing line and water bottle. Super sick.

We then baptized said investigator (Merlin) on Saturday. We also baptized his sister, Lucila. 

The baptismal service was actually pretty cool. There is no baptismal font in Guapinol, there´s just the ocean, and people don´t normally want to get baptized in the ocean. So normally we´d go to Monjaras to baptize. BUT... the pila water lately has been a sickly color. So we went to Marcovia to baptize, the area of the sister missionaries.

We went with the branches of Buena Vista and Monjaras, who all had baptisms as well. It was a huge service with many people, all of the Elders ended up standing outside the room for lack of space. We first baptized Merlin, then Lucila. Then Elder Anderson from Buena Vista went into the water with his investigator, and began to say the prayer. He baptized the man (about 50 years old) and when he came up, he was gasping for air. It turns out he had been holding his breath ever since he got into the water. It was actually really funny, and he wasn´t embarrassed so it was all good.

Last night we got into Monjaras with all of Jones´ bags (because he is leaving for another area), and ate dinner at a member´s home. Her name is Roxanna and she is in college. She was sick and missed a few days of school and asked us for help with her Math and Chemistry homework. A miracle happened and I remembered everything from High School and was able to teach her how to do it all. Suuuuuper dope. Maybe there is hope for me after all.

Wish you all the best.

So sorry for lack of pics, I forgot the cord to the camera.

Elder Anderson