The Field is White: Week 9

Today is my 2 month mark!!! Woohoo! 1/9th through my mission. LOL

Ok so to start off answering questions in the email....I got 2 packages from you this week along with a whole bunch of letters. Everyone was jealous because I got the biggest package. LOL I got 2 letters from Aliscea and 2 from Alexa. I got a letter from Aunt Becci and one from Mom and one from Tania:) THANK YOU for the Nutella!!!!!

Unfortunately my MTC binder and notes have not been found yet. :/ I seriously doubt if they will ever find their way back to me but I still pray everyday for them, too.

When families fix us dinner it depends on their living conditions as to whether they are in the room while we eat. Lots of people only have one room to their houses so we sometimes eat outside. Usually they will check on us after we are about halfway through the meal, but typically they just let us eat in silence. There is no meal calender like in the states. The bishop's wife makes us lunch every Wednesday. We have lunch with a less active family once a week. Every Sunday we have lunch with a family in the ward...and they make very interesting food. We have dinner with another less active family every week too. Other than that the rest of our meals are on our own.

Feel free to send me any disney movies--except Monsters University and Wreck it Ralph because I got those ones. We just buy them at the grocery store. There is a stand that sells them. People sell them on the street, too...I'm sure they are just copies, but that's all people have here.

Angie did not get baptized on Thursday, but she did get baptized on Saturday with Victor, but not at the same time. There was a service at 3:00 and one at 5:00. I felt really bad becasue the water was so cold and then it was raining outside and now she has a cold. :( She forgot a towel, too!

We have changes on the 11th (we have only 4 weeks this time so people can go home for christmas)

Anyway, I love Ms. Swanson -- she is so sweet. :) They are so great!

You can send me lavender oils if you want, but I can survive. and I think that a 1/2 inch binder should be fine, but if you think I would use a 1 inch then you can send that. And some of the cloth headbands that are kind of wide that girls wear when they don't wash their hair...i don't know how to describe them but they are like knit usually and a circle and people wear them right on their hairline... because we don't wash our hair everyday here and mine is always up so a headband might be nice.

Hna Dester doesn't speak Spanish but Pres Dester translates for her. She is trying to learn though.

1. What was the highlight of your week?

We went to the beach today for P-Day. The ONLY beach in our mission: Omoa. It was really pretty, but there was no sand or anything. But we ate at a resaurant that had a deck above the water:) It was just nice to get out. We went as (mostly) a zone so it was fun to get to talk to other people. We could see Guatemala from the beach! And the mountains were gorgeous!!!!

2. What was the funnest/funniest thing that happened this week?

We had dinner at the other Hermanas' casa -- there are 3 sets of hermanas in Campana and 2 of us live together. But one hermana was playing music and then everyone started dancing and it was really funny.

3. What was the spiritual highlight of your week?

We were teaching who I think of as our miracle investigator, Eleu, who was the investigator who walked up to us and said teach me! Well, not exactly but that's essentially what he said. So all of our appointments had fallen through and we had like an hour and I thought -- well it was probably the Spirit -- that we should go see if Eleu was home one more time because we had stopped to see him like 3 times. So we went and he was just sitting on his front porch and we went to teach him and he is just great! So we are teaching and asked him about prophets and he was like "I will be honest, I have never read the Bible and I don't know anything about them." So Hna Pickett asked him why he wanted us to come teach him. And he said, "I don't know. I just got a feeling that I should learn the word of God. It jsut seemed like a good thing to do." And so we just kept teaching him and then we asked if he would say the closing prayer and he said "I don't know how. I have never prayed in my life." So we taught him and then he prayed like he had been a member his whole life. It was pretty awesome! He's just super great!

4. Where are you in your scripture study right now and what stuck out to you this week in your personal study?

Well...we haven't had personal study this week except for like 2 days. We had to go to San Pedro Sula this week because Hna Pickett got bitten by a dog and had to get a shot. We never have personal study on Sundays because of church. We don't have personal study on Tuesdays because of District/zone meetings. And we don't have it on Mondays becasue it's Pday and we clean and go to Puerto. It really frustrates me, but I am trying to get in as much study as I can. The last I read was in Helaman. I was reading the letter that some Lamanite leaders wrote to the Nephites and just realized how many of Satan's tactics to tempt us were found in that letter. Satan will flatter us. He will make sin seem like the right thing to do. He will tempt us by saying that if we don't sin, something bad will happen -- like he puts pressure on us to do something. I just thought that that was an interesting parallel.

5. Are your Crocs wearing out quickly?

They are doing fine for now. I try not to wear the same pair 2 days in a row though. I should be fine for another little while.

6. When you have baptisms at the church, do you have to haul in water to fill the font?

Our chapel is new and pretty nice so there is a font. We just turn on the water and it fills.

7. Have you had to speak in church yet? Or play the piano or lead music?

I have not. Hna Bahr plays the piano and someone from the ward leads the music. I did get asked to lead the hymn for Angie's baptism. Which really involves giving them the tune and just singing loud lol. People cannot carry a tune here to save their lives!!!

8. The big pink hibiscus flower you sent a picture of last week was gorgeous! Are there many beautiful plants and flowers there?

YES!!! There are lots of pretty flowers. I took pitures of some of them. But, yeah, it's so pretty and everything is really green which reminds me of Georgia! Which reminds me that on the bus today there was a plaque that said, "Blue Bird, made in Fort Valley Georgia" :) It made me smile

9. What are you doing for P-Day this week?

We went to the beach like I said. We still need to do grocery shopping and such.

10. How is la familia Buh doing? And Senia? You said she is the first investigator that got to be yours – what does that mean? Has she been to church yet? How is Familiar Hueso doing? And Familia Sabillon? And how are Angie and Victor? Did they get baptized?

So Famlia Buh did not come to church so they can't get baptized this week. We went by to wake them up and everything and nope. I found her with Hna Pickett. We keep records of everything we teach to investigators and at the top of the page it has a spot for the names of the hermanas that found them, so Senia was the first one who has my name on the page! She didn't come to church either and she wasn't home any of the times we stopped by, but we left a Book of Mormon for her and hopefully she is reading it. Familia Hueso is half progressing. Two of their daughters always come to church and could be baptized but none of them feel like they have gotten an answer to their prayers yet and the parents still haven't come to church! UGH Familia Sabillon...we vistited them again this week in the rain and mud...we took a member with us (luckily) and he had to help us climb up the hills without falling. But she said that they aren't sure if they will be able to get married now... she says they don't have the money. Which I don't believe because they are one of the more well off families that we teach. I don't know... But we already paid the 200 lempira for them to get one of their certificates they need to get married. The river we had to cross to get to them was even higher than last time becasue of the rain!!! Angie and Victor are great! Victor even got up in church to bear his testimony on Sunday:)

11. What has been the strangest food you’ve eaten this week?

I had some sort of fried fish at the restaurant today. They brought out the whole fish on my plate...it was staring at me, lol. It wasn't bad, though, but definiteloy not my favorite

12. Are you getting to eat dinner in the evenings yet?

We eat. I'm fine. We usually have a big lunch and so making it to 8:00 for dinner isn't terrible. Really, I'm fine.

13. What have you learned about yourself this week?

I know exactly how I learn and exactly what I need in order to progress in the language. I need to memorize some phrases in my missionary books. Then I need someone to teach me the flow of a lesson, scriptures that they like to use or analogies, the main points of the lesson, then I need to practice by myself putting things together so I have a bank of things to draw from. Then I need to practice teaching someone else. But if I don't have anyone taech me, then I just feel lost. I need a script to learn before I can improvise. Anyway, I had that realization this week on a crappy day when I was studying by myself. And then when I felt like I could teach it I asked Hna Pickett if I could teach her and then I did and it was awesome. So now we can solidly teach ayuno--fasting. lol

14. Where/what do you feel like you’ve improved this week?

I don't know... I wish I could say in the language or with patience. But I really just don't feel like I have progressed much in anything. Other than the fact that I can understand more and more and that I recognize more places and people.

15. Do you know we love you SO much? And are so proud of you?

Yes:)

16. How is the language coming along? Can you ask Hna P to speak more Spanish with you at home so you can get more comfortable/confident with the language? Yeah...I have and it doesn't happen. I pretty much tell her, "Speak Spanish to me!!!!!!" and she doesn't.

17. What is the most beautiful thing you’ve seen in Honduras?

The green mountains. They are just so pretty! And they are layered with different colors of green. They aren't rough or jagged like Utah mountains, but they are soft and just super pretty

18. What has been the most unusual/strangest thing you’ve seen?

I have now seen 3 people using the bathroom in the street which is gross.

19. What new investigators do you have this week?

We contacted a woman making tortillas, there was a kid who just showed up at church with another family and he is like 9 and we started teaching his family. And, yeah, that's really all the new ones that I can remember althogh I know there are more. We teach a lot of people!!

20. What can we do to be better member missionaries and to support and encourage you better?

Just keep writing and sending emails:)

Okay, so to answer questions to Aunt Becci--I can make rice crispies here. I really like anything with chocolate or anything that is sweet as far as food goes. I'm really not too picky. The weather here was hot, but this week it was REALLY cold! And it rained. Really out of nowhere it just got super cold! And we don't wear any hose here becasue it is too hot and too wet!

So speaking of the cold...There was a day that I wore both jackets that I have! It's crazy! It's not that it is eally that cold, but it mists and then the wind blows and it gets really chilly! But I am surviving, don't worry! Today the sun came out so that was nice. I think it will be like this until February--that's what I have heard people say because we are in rainy season now. Bummer. Can't work on my tan anymore.

I ate some of the jellybeans from Mom and the black ones reminded me of Papa:)

Oh, so since it was so rainy, the water in our house went out. And we didn't have any water in the shower for three days. So I showered with a bucket full of water from the pila. It was great. Third world problems:)

This week was full of super interesting things. Hna P got bitten by a dog so we had to go to San Pedro. Well, she doesn't know her way around San Pedro so we got off at a bus stop and after a few blocks she looks at me and says she doesn't know where she is. So we ask people for directions and then we still can't find it and then we ask again and then find out that there are two 6th Streets which is where we got off, just at the wrong one. So then they couldn't decide which of the two different church chapels we were supposed to be going to. So we start walking with these poeople who were going to show us the way and we passed a park that Hna P recognized and then she knew we were going to the wrong one and she was freaking out the whole time and usually I would be the one freaking out and I just wasn't. But we found the church and all was fine. Then on the way home our bus ran into another bus... it just scraped the side of the bus and bent the mirror so it was fine but it was quite an adventure. Then we had Victor's baptismal interview and the elders showed up an hour late to it jsut as we were about to leave. Like I said, I showered with a bucket. It was quite interesting. BUT I am suriving and I really do love the mission.

Oh, and arroz con leche is rice with milk and it's hot and really good

les amo mucho!!

Hermana Gisseman

A tree blew down in front of our house