January 11‏

Good Morning Good Afternoon and Good Night to all of you guys out there wherever you are. I am happy to be writing to you today and hope that all of you are doing well. This week has been, well...alright I guess. Let´s see...where do I start.

Since our area is so large, it includes a few small villages outside the city, and we tried our first time going out there this week. Our ward missionary leader lives in one of them, so that makes a great bonus. This last Wednesday we visited the Sosa Lobos and La Granja (the farm). It is really sweet over there and Elder Lopez and I loved it. The people are incredibly nice. La Granja is actually anything but a farm haha. It's just a really small village out about 20 minutes from the city where there are a bunch of nice houses. You guys should have seen the pathway we have to take to pass from the Sosas to the Granja. When I have my new camera I will take a video of it and send it because it looks like I'm walking through the Amazon! It's a small dirt path in the middle of a small forest. But we visited a family that have been investigators for about 2 years (that just have problems getting married) and as well a member that lives that far out who want to go to the temple. The only problem over there is the transportation to get to the chapel. They have to take a bus to get to Juticalpa, and sometimes on Sundays the bus does not come to the villages (the people actually keep the Sabbath Day Holy here pretty well). If they walked it would take about and hour and half, trust me I walked back from the villages and it's tiring. We felt really bad for the members and investigators over there, and we are thinking about ways to get them to church. We have seen a few people that own small buses, and we are going to try and ask them if we can pay to bring people to church on Sundays with our own money. Who knows if it will work, but we just feel so bad because these families want to go to the temple, but aren't really worthy for a temple recommend because it's so difficult to get to church. Were going to do all we can with that.

With respect to the Joseph Smith movie we showed on Thursday, it was a big hit. We had just as many people present as there are in a normal sacrament meeting! The sacrament room (I forgot how to say that in English) was full to packed (well...its really small haha). But all I can say is that it was awesome, because hardly anyone had ever seen it before, and it really strengthened their testimonies of the true prophet of God.

The English classes have been suspended a bit, due to the fact that these last Saturdays we haven't been able to do it, firstly because Elder Lopez was sick, and this Saturday we had a Stake, well, District Leadership meeting in the neighboring city that we were invited to go to. There we talked to the members of the 3 branches here about how they can help out the missionaries. This zone is the most difficult zone in our mission, which averages about 3 baptisms every 6 weeks in the entire zone. So we took this opportunity very excitedly and did all we can to excite the members into helping us out. But we're hoping to get back on the English teaching soon. Haha except everyone wants me to start teaching piano lessons instead of English lessons because we have been singing in a choir these last 2 Sundays. We're going to sing for District Conference which is coming up, and of course everyone wanted me to play the piano, why is it that this talent must always be revealed to everyone!

Other than that, the work is going very slowly. Missionaries often get discouraged out here in the boondocks when the work is slow like this, but we´re doing all that we can to keep ourselves excited over here. With Yuliza, I'm not really sure what's going on, one day she has tons of questions and says that she prayed and knows its true, and another day she has no desire whatsoever to go to church. So, we still don't really have a baptismal date because things are going like a roller coaster with her. I'm really hoping that one day I will have some good news for you guys about the people here in Juticalpa. I was thinking a lot this week with a mind a little bit discouraged. "How is it that our Savior can love these people when their minds are the furthest thing away from living a gospel oriented life?" I went a whole day thinking that, and then something hit me... "How can a sinner such as I was and am, be qualified to preach the gospel, am I really qualified to do this kind of miracle work?" I just would like to say that the scriptures have the answers to everything. In Alma, Chapter 14 the prophet Alma explains that angels are preparing people out there for us to teach. They are being prepared to receive the gospel of Christ. All we need to do is repent daily, live a pure life, and love the work we are doing. I challenge you all to apply this in your lives as well, as the prophet Alma as well has challenged us.

I love you all, and I'll talk to you next week!