Elder Sam Jensen

Hey! (Yes, I am still alive) 🙂 This week was an interesting week, but it was a great week as well. With all of the excitement after the elections, and everything that is still going on, they grounded us for a few days. Then, on Tuesday, they let us out till 4, until 6 on wednesday, thursday until 7:30, and now it is normal. We read scriptures, watched church movies, drew on the table with shaving cream ( we were bored and out of ideas). Yes, we were very bored. But, this week they let us leave the house again and we were sooooooooooooooo ready to be working again. This week we were able to have Pathricia's baptism and it was great! Her brother who was baptized 2 months ago was able to baptized her and there were lots of people who came to share their support. Her sisters came as well, and they are interested in learning about the Church. We also were able to continue to teach Moises, and he is really interested in learning more about the gospel, he always has questions for u...

Heyoo, Wow, this transfer flew by! I have already been here in Santa Barbara 6 weeks, and it feels like a lot less. This past week we had a Zone conference in Santa Ana. They presented the new Christmas video for this year, in Spanish it is called "Ilumina el Mundo" (Light the world). It is about "lighting the world" through little or big acts of Christlike service. We can share the light of Christ that we feel with others who are maybe passing through a difficult time in their lives and need us to help them. Everyone should watch the video using #Lighttheworld, or on mormon.org! We also were able to continue to teach Patricia Rogel, and she is going to be baptized this coming week. The cool part is that her brother that got baptized a few months ago is going to baptize her. They are both super cool people, and have great testimonies of the Savior. This past week we helped a family clear a piece of land by their house. We used a machete to cut a bunch of huge w...

Hey! This week was great. We went to a part of our area that is probably the biggest part of our area called "El Jilote" every day this week. It is about 15 minutes from our house, and it is basically a road that winds up the side of one of the mountains and every so often there is a group of houses, or a path that leads to a group of houses. We had an appointment to teach José one day this past week, so we started the uphill. We got to his house, which is at the end one of the last paths on the mountain, and when we got there he wasn't there, but his mom and brother were there. We taught them and talked with them about the church, and his mom told us that she had been a member of the church, but had stopped going. Then, she told us that she had been praying about how to overcome some problems she was having. She said that she had finished that prayer, and then we had knocked on her door. It was amazing, and we could feel the spirit strongly as we were talking with her...

Heyoo! This was a good week! We worked super hard and have seen a ton of results. We found some new investigators that are really excited to learn more about the Gospel. One of them is José Alvarado. We had been told that José had requested a Book of Mormon. When we got there to give him one, he had already found one and was in the middle of Alma. He is super cool and wants to learn more. I have learned a lot about the talk from President Uchtdorf about learning from Alma and Amulek. In our lives, we need to be looking for the people that can help us progress in whatever part of our lives that we need to progress. We have found several people here that are always willing to help us find new people to teach and are always ready to be a friend to the new people that come to church. We can also find people in our lives that are like Alma, that we can learn from and that we can help. We had a change in the Branch Presidency this past week, so we have the opportunity to learn from an...

Hey! This past week was great! We were able to baptize Alicia and Kevin! They were both extremely excited to be able to make that step in the gospel. They are both great! Also, this week we were able to teach Patricia and she has been reading the Book of Mormon and tells us she really likes it. We also met a guy named Moises and he is really interested in the gospel. He saw the change it made in Kevin's life and he has a lot of questions for us. He is a super cool guy. We can do sooo much good if we are an example to other people in the world. I really like the scripture in Matthew 5:14. That is what the Christmas initiative is about, it is about serving others to be the light in a world that needs a little bit more light. We can all start to be more Christlike by being a light on the hill. Anyway, I hope everyone has a great week!!! Elder Jensen

Heyooo! This week was a great week! We continued to teach all of our investigators and we have been seeing all of them progress. This week Kevin will get baptized along with another investigator Alicia. Kevin has been awesome, and he has a strong testimony of the gospel, and he shares it with his friends. We have been teaching several of his friends because he has told his friends about the gospel and the change it has made in his life. We also have been teaching Gerardo and Nicole, they are a couple that has been listening to us and they are awesome. They have been gaining a testimony little by little and it has been awesome seeing them progress. Yesterday President López was teaching the class in the last hour, and he talked about conversion, and how most of the time we are the ones who get in the way of our own conversion. He talked about how the sacrifice has already been done by the Savior, what we need to do is do our best to accept what he did for us, and follow him to be mor...

HEYooo! This week I was transferred out of Ocotepeque, and I am now in Santa Barbara Centro. It is a super cool area, and we have some work to do now (like the scooby doo song.) For reals though, it is really beautiful here, and the people are very nice. The only problem is that every direction is uphill. I now understand the saying "uphill both ways". The branch here is awesome, they are all super supportive and President Lopez, the branch president, is awesome! He is organizing a Christmas choir and he asked me to play piano for it, so I have to get practicing again. Anyway, there is a recent convert here named Carlos, and he has been amazing. He always takes us to new people to teach, and all of his sisters have been talking with us and they are all excited to continue to learn more. We also have an investigator named Kevin. He is a super cool guy, and most of the time when we teach him something he has already read about it in the Book of Mormon or in the pamphlets. R...

Hey!! Another transfer has come and gone in Ocotepeque. We find out later tonight if I will leave or if I will stay. But, this past week was a  good one. We had an activity on Saturday for the youth here in Ocotepeque. Everyone was encouraged to bring at least one friend to play soccer at an indoor facility. It was amazing and at least half of the people playing were friends that the youth had invited. We talked with all of them and are going to try to start teaching them. We also found an investigator that had been to church a year or 2 ago and came to church yesterday. We are excited to talk with her and help her increase her faith in the Savior. We also were able to talk with Dania about the Book of Mormon a little more. After reading a little bit, she told us that if it talks about Jesus Christ then it must be good. We are still struggling with bringing her to church, but we are hoping that as she feels the Spirit more she will be more motivated to go to church. Anyway, ...

Hey!! This week was a good week. Alex was able to get confirmed on Sunday so that was awesome. A guy that is going on his mission tomorrow was able to confirm him so that was pretty cool. We also met this amazing family this past week. We knocked on their door, and without even thinking twice they told us to come in. As we started talking to them, we found out that they were investigators my trainer had taught when he was here. We were able to teach them about the Atonement and it was great. As we were about to leave, they told us to come back later that day so they could feed us dinner! (#score). But, they were really awesome and we are looking forward to continue working with them. This past week we also were talking with some of the members about Family History. With one guy, we opened his account and started filling out some of the numbers with him, and he was super excited about it. He called a family member to ask for a bunch of name and numbers to fill in his tree. He was ...

Heyoo! This week was a good week. We were able to work hard and find some new people. As we were going to a lesson, some young 'uns started to yell at us in English, just saying stuff like Hello, How are you, Good morning (at 5:30 in the afternoon), so we just kind of ignored them because we had a teaching appointment to get to a little farther up the road. We knocked on the door, and no one was there, so I turned to my comp and asked if he wanted to go contact them, and he just kind of shrugged and said ok. So we went up to them and started talking to them, and they were just completely shocked that we could speak Spanish, it was kind of funny, but we talked to them about the restoration. Just a little funny experience. On Saturday there were two baptisms in the branch, one was a boy named Oliver, and the other was our investigator Alex. It was awesome! Elder Rodriguez baptized both of them, and it was a really special day for everyone. It was great to see the support of the br...

Heyooo! This past week was awesome, it went really well. We nailed down a baptismal date for Alex Mejia so that is awesome. We are really excited for him. We also had a Zone Conference in Santa Rosa. We had another adventure with the highway because it broke again, so they had sectioned off a huge piece of the road to be able to fix it better this time. So, the 10 minute walk turned into a 45 minute walk from where the bus left us to where the other buses were waiting. But, the conference was awesome, and we talked a lot about the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon has the power to convert people in a way that a simple pamphlet never will. We talked a lot about how the Book of Mormon is another Testament of Jesus Christ. As we read it, we will come to know our Savior personally, and we will feel and see His influence in our lives even more. I know the Book of Mormon is true, and as we read and pray about it, we will feel the Spirit testifying to us that it is true. The only thing we...

Heyoo! This last week was awesome! We had divisions in Santa Rosa again this week. We had been told on Tuesday night that parts of the highway from here to Santa Rosa had cracked, so we might not be able to go to Santa Rosa. But, we went anyway. We were getting really close to Santa Rosa and still hadn't seen anything, so we were thinking that maybe nothing had happened, or that they had already fixed it. Then, we started seeing tons of semis parked on the side of the road, and we kept going in the bus for about 5 minutes. But, the bus stopped and told everyone to get out because they couldnt keep going, so we got out and started walking. We started seeing cracks in the road, like they had made mini mountains, 1 foot gaps where the road had separated, parts of the read where it had cracked and sunken down about 5 feet. Really crazy! So when we got to the other side of where all the damage had happened, we just took a taxi to the church in Santa Rosa. Apparently, it had been cause...

Hey! This week was a great week. We were able to teach several people this week, and find some new people. This past week we taught an investigator named Besi about the Restoration of the Gospel and the Book of Mormon. It was an amazing lesson, we could feel the spirit very strongly, and it looked like she was able to as well. She was very receptive and when we were talking to her about the Book of Mormon, she was very interested in reading it too. We also talked with Alex a little bit about prayer, because he had some questions about that. Prayer is how we communicate with our Heavenly Father. We talked about how we can pray with faith and real intent. Real intent is important when we pray, so that we can receive and recognize our answers. We pray with real intent when we pray to know the answer to something, and we have every intention to act on the answer we receive. A good example of this in the scriptures is in Alma 22. We talked with him a little bit about that, and it seeme...

Hey! This week was our huge week of traveling, the traveling was not very fun, but every other part of it was awesome! On Wendnesday, we went and had divisions with the Elders in Santa Rosa, which was pretty good. They gave us the idea to take literally every opportunity to serve the people, even if it is super simple. I guess it is the whole thing about, "It is the thought that counts". It's just one way that we can show charity for others. On Thursday, we went to San Pedro Sula, and we had a meeting with Elder Cordón. It was super good and I learned soo much. One of things that stood out to me was when he was talking about when Moses was called to lead the Israelites to the promised land. Elders Cordon started by telling us about how Egypt was "the" superpower in the world at this time, they had huge armies, cities, and power." He threw in a funny part there and said, "So, Moses, your job is to go in there and take on Egypt and the Pharoah. But ...

Hey, This past week was a good week. We were able to find a few new people to teach. One of them was Xiomara. We were talking with her mom, Yolanda, that we found last week, and we invited her to listen to the lesson as well. She was super interested, and was asking and responding to questions. We finished the lesson and she invited us to her family's home to teach all of them. She also already has a friendship with one of the members here so that was pretty awesome. We are pretty excited for that. We also talked with Alex, and he is still reading the Book of Mormon, and he is still interested to learn more. He wants to be super sure before he gets baptized so we are continuing to work with him. This past week Elder Rodriguez had an ingrown toenail and he had to go and get it "extracted." But, he is fine. This week we have a big meeting in San Pedro Sula with Elder Cordón from Costa Rica. We leave Ocotepeque Wednesday morning at 7 AM to get to Santa Rosa to do divisi...

Heyo! This was a good week. We were able to find several new people to teach. Jorge is a younger guy that we found. We shared a little bit of the restoration with him. He seemed interested but, his work schedule is crazy and we haven't been able to talk with him very much. We also received a reference to teach the granddaughter of a member here, and we are going to go and visit her tomorrow. We also found an older lady to teach. She is one of those people that knows literally everyone in the town, so we are going to teach her and hopefully find some new people to teach. This last week, we had a ward family night and we shared a good video about forgiveness. https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2010-07-14-forgiveness-my-burden-was-made-light?lang=eng We talked about the Atonement of Christ and how we can invite the power of the Atonement into our lives not only to heal ourselves, but also to help us be able to forgive others. We also had a meeting for all of Copan that ...

HEY! This week was really good! We were able to teach Alex Mejia again, so that was awesome. We talked about the Book of Mormon, and he started talking about everything that he was learning and it was great. We talked about baptism and he told us that he wants to get baptized, he just wants to feel like he knows for sure that the church is true. He said if he feels like that then he will get baptized on August 24th. So, we are working to help him feel the spirit in his life. We also found a new investigator named Besi. We started talking to her about eternal families and she got really excited, she said she was going to come to church, but she had something come up last minute. But, we are still excited to teach her more, so she can help the rest of her family. We also went to the district meeting this past week, and they talked a lot about goals. With every goal that we have in life, we can ask for, and receive inspiration to help us achieve that goal. Yesterday in church one señ...

Heyoo This week was pretty crazy with all of the transfer stuff, and it turns out that I ended up having to go all the way to San Pedro Sula instead of just to Santa Rosa so here was the week... Monday- 9:30-Got the call to tell us that my comp is getting transferred, which we basically guessed would happen. They told us that we had to be in Santa Rosa Tuesday night so we can leave early to get to the changes in the morning on wednesday. Tuesday- 10ish am- They call and tell me that I have to go to San Pedro Sula too to take a picture for my Honduran residency. For the rest of the day I went around with Elder Sibaja to say good bye to everyone. 8:30 pm - the bus that we were supposed to take to Santa Rosa didn't leave because "there weren't enough people on the bus". So we talked to a member that told us where we can meet up so they can get us a ride to Santa Rosa. We meet them and the member flags down a semi-truck for us to ride to Santa Rosa. Kind of wei...

Que Hay? This week was pretty good. We went to a town called Santa Rosita this past week to go and teach Alex and his family. It's a little town about and hour and 15 minutes away from Ocotepeque. It was a good lesson but started out kind of rough. His dad is Catholic and at the beginning he was very closed minded about the church, and what we taught. But, instead of arguing with him we testified of what we knew to be true. We taught about the plan of salvation and as we taught and testified the spirit softened him and we were able to share a lesson and feel the spirit. The power of testimony combined with the Holy Ghost is amazing. Alex also told us he wants to be baptized, but he wants to be ready, so we are continuing to work with him so he can feel ready to be baptized. The only sad part is that this transfer ends on Wednesday and we have a feeling that Elder Sibaja is going to leave. This past week church was good. We had several people come that don't normally make it...

Heyo! This past week was pretty good. It felt like it flew by. Partly because we were in Santa Rosa almost half of the week, but it was amazing. We had a Zone Conference on Tuesday, which was awesome. We learned a lot about the Sacrament and the Atonement of Jesus Christ. We learned about how we can help other people to understand the significance of the two. Hermana Bush taught about faith. She said we need to first believe enough to act, and then have the faith to act in the way the Lord wants us to. It was an awesome conference and I learned a lot of things that I am going to apply with my investigators. After the conference, we had divisions with the other missionaries in Santa Rosa.  We were able to teach some of their investigators and contact some other people that were super cool. Then, on wednesday at about 4ish we ended the divisions. But, it had started raining the HARDEST it has since I have been in Honduras at about 3:45, so we had the 10 minute walk to their hous...

Hey!! This past week was pretty good, we had some cool experiences with several people here. First of all, we went to a less active member's house and we were able to dedicate their home.  It was a spiritual moment in the week, and pretty amazing to feel the peaceful feeling come over us as we were dedicating the house. Also we went for a follow-up visit to all of the new investigators we found in Los Garrobos, and one family at the bottom of the hill was at home. As we went up the hill, the rest of the investigators weren't at home. So we started back down the hill, and ended up finding the people that weren't at home in the street on the way. We were able to stop and share a quick message with them, and see how they were doing. They are all doing well, and are ready to learn a little bit more. On Thursday, it started raining really hard, so we took shelter in the catholic church in Sinuapa. We went and talked to two señoras who were there in the church. They were...

Sam's week: Los Garrobos Hey Everyone! This week was a very good week. We tried contacting in an area that we don't really go very often, called Los Garrobos or Brisas del Pedregal.(Everyone calls it the first name, but its official name is the second one). It is a little bit farther away, but it is a cool little part of our area here. It is a 30 minute walk, but we take a moto taxi to the bottom and then walk up. We have several new investigators. We are teaching the Lopez family. They are a cool family and already have ties to the church because they have friends that are members. We are hoping to teach them and have them come to church. We are also teaching Betty and José. They are awesome and they seem like they will be receptive to the more we teach them. Also, we are meeting with Victor. We think he might be kind of hard to teach at the beginning, but that he will accept more as he starts to trust us. We also had 3 less actives who came to church this past week, so w...

Sam's week: Looking and Finding Hey, This past week was a pretty good week. We decided to focus on certain inactive families that we were going to try to find. We found them and they were really receptive. We talked with them about the importance of pushing forward and the blessings and the importance of taking the sacrament. They seem really interested in coming back to church. We also have an investigator, Alex, who comes to church a lot even though he lives an hour away. It is kind of complicated teaching him because of the whole distance issue. Also, contacting people here is kind of hard, most of the people who let us in the first time don't want to set another time for us to come back to teach them, some people don't even open the doors. But, every once in a while there is someone who really wants to learn more about the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Church was really good yesterday, we were able to track down a keyboard to play for the music during the ...

Heyoo! This past week we got a reference from some members about less actives in a little town about 5-6 minutes away from ours called Antigua Ocotepeque. We decided to go where they told us we could find them. It was literally a barbed wire fence in front of a huge corn field, with some little houses in the background. We walked and found a little part in the fence, that we guessed was where we were supposed to go in. So, we started walking and thought, like.... what happens if this is someones land, and we aren't supposed to be here. We kept walking and we got to the main road of the little town, and all of a sudden from behind us we hear someone yell, "Elderes!" So, we started talking to them and it was the family we were looking for, it was pretty cool. We are going to go visit them again sometime this week. Yesterday, I spoke in church which was pretty cool. I spoke about the Atonement of Jesus Christ, and how we can always have the atonement written in our hearts. ...

HEYO! One more transfer has flown by! I can't believe how fast time is going.  I remember thinking in the MTC, "How long can one week possibly be?" Now, I think the opposite, "How short can 1 week possibly be." Literally, I feel like I was just emailing yesterday. Anyway, as short as the week feels, I feel like we get so many things done. This week we visited a ton of less-active or inactive members to invite them to church. I was able to get to know many of them that I hadn't met yet, and be able to learn from them. I am sure that with time they will begin to accept the gospel again in their lives. All we have to do is bring the Spirit to their hearts, because the only person that can bring the spirit into their hearts, is them. I know that when we let the Spirit into our lives, we will begin to receive so many blessings. I have seen that time and time again here in Honduras. People who change their lives little by little, can look back and see how comp...

Sam's week: Divisions in Santa Rosa Hey! This week went by super quick. Even though Elder Sibaja was sick for 2 days, we were able to work hard and teach some awesome people. We also had divisions with the DL in Santa Rosa this week. I went with Elder Rivera and we went and taught Luci. She is super cool, and really wants to follow the teachings of Christ. We were able to teach her about the Book of Mormon, and she was super excited to read it. In our area, we went and taught a family that has had a lot of health issues, but still put their faith and trust in Heavenly Father. They are a really good example to me, that no matter what happens, when we trust in what God has prepared for us, we always be able to come out on top. Today, President Bush and the APs came to Ocotepeque and we went to El Güisayote with them.  It was cool the 2nd time, but the clouds were a little higher this time than the last time. But, we had a good time. Time is flying, I can't believe how quickl...

Favorite color: Blue Favorite food: Baleadas Favorite number: 100 Favorite Candy: Reese's (Even though they don't exist here) Favorite movie:  Captain America  2 Favorite TV show: Agents of Shield (I am missing out on several seasons) Favorite moment on my mission: When one of the converts in Castaños bore her testimony after her baptism Favorite thing to do with dad: Talk Favorite thing to do with mom: Talk Favorite thing to do with zach: Be a goober Favorite thing to do with Maggie: Cook Favorite thing to do with Casey: Hang out Favorite thing to do with Jill: Listen to her funny one-liners Favorite thing to do with Anna: Watch movies on the ipad Favorite thing to do with Emma: Make Cookies Favorite sport to watch: College Football Favorite sport to play: All I play right now is Soccer, sooo.... Favorite song: Warriors Favorite hymn: Nearer, My God To Thee Favorite Animal: Cougar! Favorite book: The Book of Mormon, Way of Kings 2 Favorite ice cream flavor: Rocky Road Favori...

This past week was great. We had some awesome experiences with people here. Yesterday, we visited a less active sister named Florinda Leon. We met her one day walking down the street, we said Buenas Tardes, then she asked us if we were the elders in this area. We were kind of surprised by her question and with a little bit more conversation we found out that she and most of her family had been baptized into the church. But, they had stopped going to church 2 years ago. Yesterday, we shared 2 Nephi 31 with her, and afterwards she told us that she felt a desire to come to church recently but she had been somewhat hesitant. Then, the member we were with shared his testimony of the church, and the spirit was so strong. She told us she would come to church this week and try to bring most of her family with her. It was awesome. We also had 2 investigators that were able to come to church yesterday. We were excited. We went to a National Park called El Güisayote, which was awesome. It is ...

Hey everyone, this past week has been crazy! We had a ton of traveling to do so we didn't have a ton of time to work in the area this week. We invited a ton of people to come to the conference, and 2 inactive members made it so that was super exciting. Thursday 7:00 P.M. - What was supposed to be a 2 hour bus ride to Santa Rosa turned into 3 hours when the bus driver decided to drive at the speed of a horse with a limp. We stayed with the Elders in Santa Rosa for the whole weekend. Santa Rosa is awesome! It has the same weather as Ocotepeque but it is a bigger city. Friday 8:00 P.M. - Hour and 15 minute bus ride to La Entrada de Copan for the Zone meeting that started at 10. We learned a lot about finding new investigators which was something we needed to focus on a little more, especially in this area. We already have some new ideas on how to find some new people to teach. 4:30ish P.M. - Bus ride to Santa Rosa where we had interviews with President Bush. He gave us some i...

Heyoo! This week was awesome and I got to see and learn a little more about Ocotepeque. The city that I am in now is called Nuevo (New) Ocotepeque. That's because the old Ocotepeque was almost completely washed away by a flood. There is still part of that town left, I think we are going to go see it next week. Anyway, the parts of the area that we spend the most time in are 2 towns right next to each other called Nuevo Ocotepeque and Sinuapa, separated by a cool river. This past week we were looking for a less-active member named Luis Andres Gonzalez. We found him, and started to talk to him. He started to tell us about himself, and we found out that he was the mayor two times here, and also a judge. He is a super cool guy with a lot of stories. There is also a recent convert family here, Familia Peña. They are super cool people that are really following the Savior in their lives. We have to go to Santa Rosa de Copan (2 and a half hours away in a bus) for several meetings th...

Heyo! Transfers were on Wednesday and they were interesting.  We got the call Monday night that we were both being transferred. I was sad to have to say goodbye to some awesome people in Castaños.  The change was interesting because they closed my area, because 1) there were 3 companionships in a ward with an attendance of 120, 2) A lot of missionaries went home last change, and only 6 came in. So, they had to figure out what to do with all of that. So, I showed up to the changes with my suitcases and all ready to go. My old trainer (who is now one of the secretaries), came up to me and told me that I was going to an area called Ocotepeque. What I knew about that area when he told me was, that it was in the Zone Copan, and really far away. I was super excited. We jumped on the bus to Copan, that was basically a school bus, with a bunch of other missionaries, and I saw one of my friends from the first ward I was in that was training at the same time as me. We started on the...

Sam's week: Hey! This last week was a good one, but a little bit weird. First, we had a multizone meeting, which was really awesome. We learned about how to teach with members a little bit more. It was super good for me because that is something that we are kind of struggling with here. We also had an interesting day on Wednesday. On our way to lunch we lost our phone, with all of the numbers of the members and investigators in it.  We were able to get a replacement phone that same day, but we lost all of the numbers, so we were running around doing that almost all day. Then, around 6:00 our landlady called us freaking out and said our house was flooding. We were super scared so we ran back to the house. I was expecting to see water all over the place, but when we opened the door to the apartment, there was just a little bit of water in the bathroom where we had left the faucet open and a little bit in another room. It took us literally 30 minutes to clean everything up. It w...

This week was pretty good. We had some good lessons with people. Our investigator, Jackelin, introduced us to her little brother and we are going to start teaching him as well. We also have started teaching Maribel, Emili's mom. She has a lot of questions about the fact that families can be forever. It was super cool.  This week we also had divisions with the Zone Leaders. It was super great to be able to see a different way to teach people. We also have a multi-zone meeting tomorrow with Valle de Sula, so that should be really awesome.  Also this is the last week of the change, so I am working hard to try to make the area as good as it can be if I end up leaving  next Wednesday . Anyway, hope everyone enjoys your week! Elder Jensen 

Happy Easter Everyone! Easter here kind of gets grouped in with the rest of the week. Look up "Alfombras y procesiones semana santa". It is kind of interesting. This week was ok. This is vacation week here and everyone goes to the beach, so there was hardly anyone at home to teach. The street was completely empty of cars and people. It was super quiet the whole week. But, we were able to visit some people and share the easter video on mormon.org. On Monday, we had the 2 baptisms and it was super cool. When Emili got baptized she went up to her mom, and said, "Mami, I am baptized now. I feel good!" It was really awesome. Jackelin also said that she felt peace and the drive to go forward in her life. We also started teaching Emili's mom, and she is progressing slowly. We were able to visit Jorge and Maria again, and Jorge told us that he wants to take the next step and start going to a church, but he wants to be sure he won't let the Lord down. We also...

Sam's week: Hey!!!!!! This past week was super awesome. Jackelin and Emili are both going to get baptized later today, so I will have other pictures of that next week. Also, this past week, a part-member family asked me if I would baptize their little daughter so I was able to do that, which was super cool. And, there is a family that has been going to church for a long time, but haven't able to get baptized because they were still in the progress of getting married. They finally finished that process on Saturday, and were able to be baptized as a family. It was amazing, and they are so awesome. There were so many missionaries that had a part in their lives, and lots of them were able to come back to this area to see them be baptized. We also have continued to teach Jorge and Maria. They are doing well, the baby is healthy and everything. Here in Honduras is the week that they call "Semana Santa" (Holy Week).  This week they make a soup with dried fish and the...

Heyo! This past week was really good. We were able to teach Jackelin and also Emili. It has been amazing to see the change that has happened in Jackelin's life. When we first found her, she was a little bit beat down by life. But, now she is so happy, and she has a hope for her life that she didn't have before. We are still teaching Jorge and Maria, and they are awesome. Jorge has a desire to change his life, he is just is a little scared that he will mess up and he doesn't want that. But, when we mess up there is always a chance to come back to the correct path. Through the Savior, Jesus Christ, we can truly change, even when we continue to mess up. We can continue to pick ourselves back up, and continue to do what we know is right. Also, this week was the hottest week I have had since being here. The fans have stopped helping, because all they do now is blow hot air on us, and it is worse than not having any fan at all. But, we are finding other ways to cool off. ...

Hey, Well, we were kind of surprised that I am still in the same zone, but it is super cool because we are teaching some really amazing people here. We are still teaching Maria and Jorge and their family. Maria just had her baby, so that is really cool. We are also teaching Jackelin and she should be able to be baptized  on April 10th.  She is awesome, it has been really cool to see the changes that she has made in her life. We also have been teaching a little girl named Emili. Her older brother is a member, and her mom has given us permission to baptize her on the 10th too. She is awesome, and really funny.  This past week we went and had the Zone Attack in one of the areas in the north of the city. It is a pretty cool area, because it extends up into the mountains, and there are some pretty cool views. Also the people were super friendly, everyone wanted to stop and talk to us.  Anyway, this week went by super quickly. This weekend is general conference, so...

Heyo, This past week was awesome. We had a Multi-Zone meeting and we learned a lot about teaching like the Savior. He always took the time to love the people he was teaching. That is something really important that we need to put into practice in our lives as well as being a missionary. I love it here in Honduras, the people here are amazing. Every day I keep getting amazed by some of the life stories here.  Also, the Sister Missionaries in the ward had a baptism of someone that had been an investigator for 8 months. It was awesome to see her be baptized. She is one of the most converted people I have seen in the mission.  We also had 2 service projects this week. On  Saturday morning , we went to another area to help build a house for some people there. It was raining the whole 4 hours that we were there but it was awesome. We had to cut down this huge tree to make room for one of the walls that we were putting up. It was a fun service project and we were ab...

Hey guys!! This week was super cool. Today I complete 8 months in the mission. Time is flying by. We were able to continue to teach Maria and her family, and we met the father yesterday too. He works all week except for Sunday, and he is a super cool guy. He works as a bodyguard. Kind of an interesting job choice, living in San Pedro Sula and everything but, he is awesome. Yesterday, we were able to talk to the whole family, and they are excited to be able to learn more from us. We are also still teaching Jackelin, and she still has a lot of desire to learn about the Savior. We are trying to teach them as much as possible because this is the last week of the transfer, and we are pretty sure that I will be leaving.  This is my 3rd transfer in the area, and my 5th transfer in the zone. If I leave, I will be kinda sad to go. The area kind of grew on me. At first I didn't really like it very much, because it is hard to find people to be able to teach here. But, the people we have...

Heyoo! Hey, this week was a little slow, but sometimes that happens here. It looks like this next week will be a lot better so that will be good.  This last week we were able to teach Maria and her two kids Kenneth that is 10,  and Allisson that is 7. It was a super good lesson, and we feel like they are really going to progress. It is just that Maria is 9 months pregnant and doesn't really want to move around a lot right now, so we are just going to keep teaching her until her new son is born. But, they are awesome. Allisson reminds me a little bit of Jill. She is hilarious. And Kenneth is really smart. He understands everything we say, it's so cool.  We had an activity as a zone this week called Zone Attack. Everyone in the zone went to one area and tried to contact as much as we could to find some new people to teach. It was super cool, we kind of broke the routine, and helped other missionaries in the zone teach more people. So that was super fun. I hope that ...

Heyo! This week was super good. We really focused this week on trying to find some new people to teach. We found a new family that is super cool, so we are really excited to teach them. We are still teaching Jackelin, and she came to church yesterday. She told us she really liked it and she wants to come next week too.  We also had a zone meeting this past week and it was super good.We learned about conversion, and how it is a process, and not just a single event that happens. Every choice we make helps us grow.  We learned how to teach that to our investigators a little better so that was cool.  This past week I learned how to make Pupusas. They are super good, especially when someone from El Salvador makes them. We are halfway done with this transfer, so we are focusing to try to get things done before then, in case one of us gets changed out. But, we have been working really hard. Even though it has been 1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000...

Hey, This week was really good. We went and tried to contact a bunch of people that we talked to when I was here for the first 6 weeks. That was super cool, and we are excited to see where that goes.  Yesterday I had to give a talk in church. They gave me the topic of missionary work. So that was a pretty easy talk to give. The hardest part was that it was in Spanish. I was pretty worried about it, but everyone afterward told me I did well, so that was a little confidence builder with the language.  This week we went and worked with the ZLs again, so that was super cool. Today for PDay we went really early and hiked up to the CocaCola sign on the mountain. It is kind of like the Hollywood sign just smaller. We got to see the sunrise and everything. It made me grateful for the world that our Heavenly Father has given us. Even though it is 10000 degrees during the day here, with 1000% humidity, I love Honduras, it is a super awesome place.  Funny story The other day ...

Heyo!!! This past week was super awesome. We had changes last Wednesday. I am still in Castaños, but I am with Elder Morales now. We get along really well.  This past week we taught Lesly Calderon, and she has a baptismal date for  the 25th of February . It is super awesome, she is really excited to continue following the Savior.  Today we had a huge meeting with the 2 missions in San Pedro Sula and it was amazing. I sang, "Abide With Me" in a double quartet, but in Spanish. It was funny because we sang the first verse acapella and when we started the 2nd verse with the piano we were off key, so there was a little key change which was interesting. But afterward, we learned a lot about teaching and living the gospel of Jesus Christ. We learned about being disciples of Jesus Christ and not just kind of following him, but following him with everything we have. We also learned how to have more charity and how to care more for the people that we are serving in Honduras....

Heyo! This week was pretty good. It is the last week of the transfer so we wanted to work hard to end on a high note. We found some awesome new people and we are excited to teach them about the gospel.  We have been teaching Lesly Calderon and she is really close to having a date for her baptism so we are excited for that. She is really receptive and just wants to learn more about Jesus Christ so she can follow him better.  This past week we had divisions with the Zone Leaders and that was really cool. They are great missionaries. We got some ideas from the way they taught. We also found an old investigator named Manyer. We hadn't seen him for about 5 or 6 weeks, and then we were walking one day and found him where he was before selling grilled corn again. It was super funny.  We went and talked to him, and he just said he had decided to take a break.  Also, for the big mission meeting, they decided to make a choir of about 10 missionaries and they put me in it. ...

Ok, this week was really good. We had some changes happen in the schedule this week. They gave us a little bit more liberty in where to put some of the things we have to do during the day, and with reporting some of the numbers that we keep track of. They told us about the changes in a broadcast but before they talked about the changes they were talking about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Which is: Faith, Repentance, Baptism, Receiving the Gift of the Holy Ghost, and Enduring to the End. They talked about how sometimes we treat each part as a separate thing like a checklist. But, each one is interwoven with the others. Our faith will lead us to want to repent, and as we repent we will feel the influence of the Holy Ghost more in our lives, which will build our faith even more, and that will help us as we try to endure to the end. It was awesome to hear about that.  We also had a multizone meeting this past week, and that was about having eyes to see, ears to hear, and hearts to feel...

Hey everyone! So this week was super good. We were able to keep teaching Lesly and Leiny. It has been awesome to be able to see their progress in this time that we have been teaching them. We are excited to keep teaching them, and we hope that they will continue to learn more about the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  This past week we were running out of places to contact, because our area doesn't have very many contactable houses because of the gates on the streets, so we went to a poorer part of our area. It was super cool, because we were able to find people that were awesome and prepared to hear the Gospel. So we will see how that goes with all of them.  Elder Trujillo was kind of sick this past week so that wasn't very fun for everyone but, we are hoping the medicine he has now will help him out.  Every time that I teach the Restoration of the Gospel I feel the spirit, it is amazing. I know that the Church is true, and that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. In my...

Hey everyone. This week was really good. One of our old investigators Leiny Garcia moved back from Tela so we are really happy we get to keep teaching her. We also have been teaching someone new named Lesly Calderon, and she is really excited to learn more and more about the gospel.  This last week we served a lot of people. We swept so many sidewalks and garages. We washed a car. We mowed a lawn (remember that that means using a machete). It was super great. This week we worked to try to find more people to be able to teach, which is kind of hard in this area right now. But, we have been able to find more people through service. Through sweeping a sidewalk we found two new people to be able to teach so that was really great. That is one thing I really like about serving people is that when they are being served their hearts are opened and it is a lot easier to start up a conversation with them. Not only that but when we are serving we feel good too.  Anoth...

HEY!!!!!!! Its been a good week here in Honduras. And that is not just because it has been......a little cold??? Yep, the past 2 days it has been 50s, 60s and rainy and windy. It has been AWESOME! I never thought I would see 50 or 60 here as a temperature ever! We worked really hard this week trying to find more and more people to teach. On Sunday, we found this super cool lady who is SUPER interested, we are really excited to be able to teach her. We also started teaching english classes this past week, and it has been really helpful for my Spanish. I dont know why, but explaining in Spanish why we talk the way we do in English has really helped me learn some more things about Spanish. It is also really cool, because there were a bunch of kids in the class trying to learn, and they were learning so quickly it was awesome. One day last week, everything we had scheduled had fallen through, so we were trying to figure out what we could do to be able to teach someone. Then the impres...

Whats Up! New Year's here is super cool!!! Everyone here waits to eat until midnight, and  at midnight  everyone in the city sets off every firework they could possibly find. It was super loud, and all of the air was full of smoke and everything it was so cool! The day of new years eve we went to a members house and learned how to make tamales the way they make tamales here in Honduras. It was kind of weird, because they use plantain leaves instead of corn husks, and then they just put a bunch of the filling inside, but it is all raw. The chicken, rice, potatoes, all of it is raw. I was kind of weirded out, but they turned out really good. They cook them in a huge pot over a fire. I would send pictures but I forgot to bring my camera to email today. With changes this week, we lost one of the members of the trio, and I am still in Castaños. We also went to an investigator family`s house and we talked with them about making new goals for the year to come. We talked about how, ...