Week 104

Hey Family,

     Well its been another great week. The end is getting closer. Only 2 more weeks...pretty crazy. The weeks feel like days. first things first, I got the $100 from elder hamilton, (2000 lempiras), I also have the card in my possession now. I though the letter from Brooke from US bank was pretty funny. Hand written, "hi tyler, i hope youre enjoying your time in honduras..." good customer service haha.

    Also i have no problem speaking in the 2 sacrament meetings on the 4th when i get home, im glad they both want me to speak.

    On tuesday i was pretty sure that america one the soccer game, because nobody said anything to me about it, so that was kind of a relief that we one to not have to listen to people talk about it for the next few weeks haha.

    Things are going really well with Allan and Angel and Cristian. We brought them to mutual with us so they could have a little more help making friends. They are making models of temples for a multistake youth activity that theyll have soon. At first they were kind of just sitting in the corner, but later on they were right there helping everyone cut and glue and laughing a lot with the youth in the ward. Its awesome seeing your fruits remain. 

    On thursday we had the soccer tournament, we took our investigators and recent converts and they had a lot of fun. It ended when somebody kicked the ball over the fence and went down a really steep and long hill...they looked but couldnt find it.

    On friday the zone got invited to the birthday dinner of one of my old investigators in Lempira. They have a really nice home. She studied in the states and her husband was a less active return missionary. Anyways, we ate a roasted pig leg which was delicious and met a bunch of her friends. She said that she wants to get baptized on the 6th before i go home. Ill have to see if i can go to the baptism.

   Theres a family here in the ward, familia flores, They have been investigating the church for the last 5 years now and go almost every single sunday. They havent gotten baptized because they were both married previously but hadnt been divorced. They have about 20 years of living together, the wife, leslie, got divorced from her first marriage a few years ago, but the husband has had more legal problems with his divorce because his legal wife wants a piece of land that he owns and he hasnt wanted to give it up. But lately we have been talking a lot with him about sacrifice and the blessings he is missing...he decided that he will give away the land so that his legal wife will sign the divorce papers. Its amazing to see his sacrifice to obey the commandments. The papers and divorce should be done next week. Then they will get married and baptized very soon after. I doubt ill still be here for the baptism, but im glad that they will be able to finally get baptized. There son who got baptized a few years ago will be leaving on his mission this december.

   The missionary broadcast was amazing. I loved it. I felt like a lot of it couldnt really apply exactly to the work here in honduras, because we are a few generations behind in the church. But its good to have a vision of how its should be and help the members get to that point. But more than anything it made me excited to get back home and to be a good member. 

   How is everyone else doing? thank you so much for all your prayers and support. only a few letters left. Im sad to be leaving Honduras and ending my time as a missionary, but it makes it easier knowing that i have a great family to come home to.

con mucho amor,

Elder Archibald

Week 102

Hey family,

    Things are great here in Tiloarque, Comayagûela. In week 9 of the training progress...its kinda cool to be able to review all these things to polish up before i finish. I really love the ward here, making some good friends and people are really excited to help us out. Ive never seen a ward get so excited about missionary work. Next week we have a stake activity in the chapel of the temple. We are inviting all investigators, recent converts, and less actives. President Fortuna will be giving a message and then we will be able to walk around the temple gardens with our investigators. We have a few families that we are teaching, and i think that would really help them a lot. There is a family that is really great that we are teaching...they are our neighbors. The son is 20 years old and got baptized a few months ago...the bad thing is they kept it a secret from the dad. The dad, Rafa, wasnt to keen on the idea of his son getting baptized into the mormon church, but he has chilled out a lot and really likes when we visit him. He said he couldnt connect to the sister missionaries that were visiting him before. But the mom and son are still trying to figure out how to tell the dad...pretty uncomfortable. im afraid that if he decides he wants to get baptized with the family and he finds out that his son already got baptized then he might get mad and upset with the church or i dont know what else could happen. The mom, Jenny, Comes to church with her son every sunday almost and is really positive. Right now we are just working on getting the dad to church. He opened up a lot to me when i asked him about his work and talked a little bit about soccer. I think that in a few weeks we`ll be able to get him to church...especially because they only live like 50 yards away from the church.

    Alan and cristian are getting baptized this saturday. Yesterday, Alan didnt go to church, we went to his house with his friends that go to church and went to wake him up in his bed haha but he didnt want to wake up. So that was pretty frustrating because the day before he had really really really committed to going. But he can still get baptized, so we are gonna be visiting them every day this week. its pretty frustrating/funny because they cant have us in their house at night from 7 to 9 because they watch a telenovela (soap opera) and i guess its getting reeeeally good haha because almost nobody wants to open their doors during that time on the days that its on. Same thing when Honduras is playing soccer haha. Tomorrow jamaica comes to honduras to play...so we are gonna have to find something to do. The city literally shuts down. They close schools and work to watch the game.

   Thanks dad for figuring that out with my card, ill be waiting for the card in the mail, and ill be taking money out with elder hamilton soon. Hes a really good guy. we have a family reunion in august? where? let me know what my topic is for my talk on the 14th so i can prepare a good one ;) haha. heathers basement looks like its coming alot great.

 

   I love you guys, thanks for EVERYTHING. trying to finish strong these last 4 weeks.

 

con MUCHO amor y cariño,

 

Elde Archibald

Week 101

Hey family!

    Well another pretty normal week. Changes meeting was last wednesday, we didnt go because we dont have changes. So its official, im ending in Tiloarque. Im on my last change now and have about 5 weeks left...pretty crazy. they just sent me my flight plans. its getting a little more real now. im actually going home. Im really happy about how im ending.

   Its been raining a lot all week, on thursday night we were leaving our apartment and walking down the stairs in the dark and i fell down the stairs. it wasnt too far, but i still scraped my elbow and twisted my ankle pretty bad...i heard a pop, but i dont think it was anything bad. It got pretty swollen. now the swelling has gone down and its just purple. but it doesnt hurt that much and i can still walk fine.

   On friday we went to teach Alan and Cristian. Alan hid from us, but his family let us in and we found him haha. he was eating and didnt want us to interupt his meal. We talked a little bit more with him and he says that he wants to get baptized on the 15th. There are lots of his friends there that are neighbors that want to go to church and even get baptized, but their parents dont allow them to go. So we are using that to find some more families and clear up some misconceptions. 

   There was a baptism on Saturday of an investigator of the sisters. It was a really great service with lots of help from the members. a drunk less active guy that i talk to sometimes in the street showed up randomly to the baptism and was a little drunk and he sat next to me so i got the job of trying to keep him under control...its the worst when drunk people want to whisper to you, horrible breath. 

   Thats awesome that you saw the brother and sister Ray at janet´s funeral. Send me pics of heathers house! i want to see how its coming along.

    alright, thank you for the pictures and the updates. im glad everyone is doing well. youre all in my prayers. 

les amo mucho,

Elder Archibald

Week 95

Hey fam! 

   Things are going great here in Tiloarque. Im continually impressed by the ward here...they are really far ahead of the rest of the wards that ive been in. A lot more maturity in the culture of the church. the really get how the church is supposed to work...starting meetings on time, not participating in gossip, etc. We are working with the ward mission plan and everything seems to be going great. The bishopric and ward leaders love us and we love them. They keep giving us a lot of great references that theyve been holding on to. Lots of the investigators went to the temple open house but hadnt been contacted by the missionaries so we are getting on that. There was a 12 year old kid that was coming to church every sunday, his name is emanuel, he isnt a member but he went to the temple with his family and their neighbors are really strong members in the church. The mom and uncle and brothers and sisters are all really receptive and said that they would love to go to church with us, so we are working with them.

  There is also another family of less actives called the familia Coto, the son and his wife had gone to church to present their new baby, but arent members. before the husband Marvin could never go to church because of his work, but how he has a better job and has weekends off. We visited him yesterday and he says that he really wants to make changes. He and his wife have a baptismal date  for the 25th of this month.

   We are going to the temple tomorrow! its been soooo long since ive been to the temple. Im really excited. we are going to the morning session at 7 am. but we want to get there about an hour early to watch the sunrise. My temple recommend expires at the end of this month so ill have an interview with pres. fortuna to get it renued. I will get to go one more time my last day in the mission with my group when we leave. 

    Well thats about it. Our pday is actually tomorrow now because of the temple trip, we are just writing today. Let me know how everyone is doing. Love you guys. Im excited to talk to you next week. the last phone call...crazy!

Con mucho amor y cariño,

Elder Archibald

Week 94

Hola familia,

    Well another good week here in tiloarque. We are gettin into the groove of things, its pretty tough opening an area but the ward has made it a little easier...lots of references that the members didnt want to give to the sisters haha. This week we found 17 new investigators and 5 new families...it has been pretty good. Lots of contacting in the street and references. Its been kind of cool to see how much easier missionary work is now than it was at the beginning of my mission. Its been a good experience training so far. Im really able to polish up and take advantage of good companionship study. There are lots of good families progressing, just have a few problems with divorces and weddings...as usual. But we have also been working a lot with less actives who have family who arent baptized..ive never been in an area with less actives that loved the missionaries. 

   So for mothers day i already found a place to skype. so let me know when you guys can let me know whats going on over there in the states and what will work out for you.

   How is everything going back home? sorry i dont really have much to write or much time to write it. Im sure i will have more to write when we get more investigators. oh yeah, next tuesday on the 7th we are going to the temple!! im really excited.

well let me know how everything is going at home. les amo mucho!

con amor,

Elder Archibald.

ps...i had a dream last night about working at the MTC haha any prospects there? also Zombies were attacking comayagua in the same dream

Week 94: Tiloarque

Hola familia!

    Well Im writing you from the Chapel in Lempira where i was about 3 changes ago. Im back in the Comayagüela zone but im in an area called Tiloarque. I have a feeling that im gonna like it here a lot.

    I was pretty sad to leave Comayagua. We went to visit la familia Rivera on monday and they decided they wanted to get baptized the next day. So we got to the chapel early to get everything ready...BUT, there wasnt any power or water...dangit. So we had to go to the other chapel in comayagua. La familia rivera wasnt too excited about changing the place...but we just got in there car and drove a few minutes to the other chapel. They didnt want to make a huge event out of the baptism so there were just a few people there. It was a very special baptismal service, the spirit was really strong. Brother Rivera was a little worried about it because he wasnt sure if he was going to be able to get baptized because he lost part of his leg from the knee down. but everything worked out great. They were pretty sad when they found out i was leaving. Luther Hyde got baptized on Saturday, I am really happy that he got baptized.

   Wednesday morning i got up early to travel to tegucigalpa to the changes meeting. My new companion is Elder Hernandez, fresh out of the MTC, he is from Guatemala City , Zona 18. He is one of the 18 year old missionaries. I feel kinda old haha. We are opening the area so its kinda hard to get started. The house is really nice...all new stuff. but the ward is AMAZING. its a really great bishopric. there are 30 return missionaries in the ward and they are all pretty excited to help with mission work. There havent been elders here for a year so the whole ward is like ´´yes! elders!´´ haha. We share the area with the sisters...well thats about all thats new for this week. still trying to find new investigators.

   Well thats about all the time i have for today. love you guys! the church is true!

con amor,

Elder Archibald

Week 93

Hey family,

Another good week here in Comayaguay is still really hot. You cannot escape the heat.

Its been a pretty eventful week. Monday we did the usual playing soccer and shopping. On Tuesday we went out to the military base for our family home evening group. We had a pretty good turn out. We are getting a lot of support which is pretty cool. We have a few investigators and less actives coming pretty consistently. We are making quite a few friends out there. Our investigador lance gives us rides in his military police hummer pretty cool haha. He wanted to take us out to the shooting range to watch them do target practice haha pretty sweet.

On Wednesday i got a phone call from the zone leaders in my last area telling me that carlos, one of the sons in la familia landes that got baptized, died a few days earlier. He was 12 years old. He got hit by a motorcycle and had some head injuries. He was in and out for a few days in the hospital until his lungs collapsed the doctors weren't too focused on anything else but the head injuries. The dad, Juan carlos, had gotten the melchisedek priesthood a week earlier and one night while in the hospital with carlitos he woke up and saw his son struggling. He gave him a fathers blessing telling him that if it was god will, that he pass on and start his mission on the other side of the veil. 20 minutes later he died. The family is doing pretty okay considering the circumstances. I wrote them a letter, and the dad sent me a pin of the temple that he had made (he is a jewler). Im really grateful that carlos was able to receive a baptism before passing away. A few hours after the zone leaders called me we went to the church for interviews with president. One of the first things he asked me was are you ready to train?创 haha i was pretty surprised. I wanted to finish my mission training and that exactly what ill do. On Friday i went to tegus for a meeting for people who will be training. There are 4 of us from my group that will finish training. Pretty cool.

On Thursday Rima Rusnac bought us a bunch of beef jerky and Swedish fish and other stuff from the PX on base love that place.

On Saturday our friend Matt Moss from the military base took us out to the run way and flight deck to see all the blackhawks. IT WAS SO COOL. We got to sit inside and he showed us how to fly a Blackhawk felt like a little kid. He had just gotten back from a mission in Belize burning marijuana crops. Pretty cool stuff.

On Sunday I bore my testimony in church and was able to say goodbye to the branch. I really loved it here. Then at 1600 we went to the service on base. It was a good day. We got to talk with the chaplin and some people from other churches that wanted to know more about us.

Well that about it for this week. Transfers on Wednesday so it sounds like its good bye Comayaguay next email ill be writing you from some other place. I love you all. Take care.

Con mucho amor,

Elder Archibald