Week 16

 

 

Hey there family!

     well another crazy week over here in Honduras...sometimes i still cant believe im here haha. the other day i was standing on the back porch of our house just looking out and i was just laughing to myself a little bit thinking "wow...i am a LONG ways from home". And still getting used to being the only white person in an entire area haha. when tell people that im 19 they are super suprised and a lot think im like 26 because im so much taller than them haha. my spanish is also improving...a little bit day by day. i still have NO idea what people say over the phone though haha so that makes for some awkward phone calls.

   Lunes...haha monday i mean. Monday, pday was awesome. played soccer and spent some time with the zone. its always nice to be able to spend a little bit of time with Americans haha. after that it was back to the apartment to wash clothes the entire day...it takes FOREVER to do them by hand. i definitely miss the washing machine haha. but im getting better at washing them haha. Honduras is pretty 3rd world...at least the area im in. one thing thats been tough is that NOBODY is married and before they get baptized they have to get married and it costs quite a bit of money (about 50 bucks) so we have to do fundraisers for them to earn the money. we sell tamales or baleadas or bread or whatever they can make.

   On Tuesday i had exchanges with the Zone Leader Elder Medina. I went to his area, Cerro Grande. it was a really good day. it was funny, the houses there are so much nicer than in my area...well because theyre actually houses and not shacks. the houses really werent that nice compared to The States, but it was still weird for me to see. it also has one of the best views in the whole mission, i was mad i didnt bring my camera. maybe ill be there again and can take pictures. but it was a good esperience to spend time with a different companion and learn more. my spanish was a lot better that day too for some reason.  people i talked to literally didnt believe that i only had 7 weeks in Honduras...they thought that i had 8 months or something. made me feel good to hear that.

   Wednesday morning was awesome. i got to take a hot shower!! the house in Cerro grande has a shower head that heats the shower...i remembered Matts experience with the sparks flying down on him while he was showering so i was a little nervous at first haha. but it was sweet because its actually been pretty cold the last little while around 60 degrees in the mornings and at night...it SUCKS taking showers haha. its sooo freezing. i think im going to start boiling water and just take bucket showers with warm water rather than real showers with ice water.

    thursday the district came over to our house in San Rafael and we oredered a pizza. we were so stoked and super excited to get the pizza. we were waiting for a long time and then they called us and said that we had to walk to the other neighborhood because the driver wouldnt come to the house because the area is too dangerous or something. so we walked all the way up this giant hill, got the pizza, walked back, got to the house and opened the box....where we saw that we got pepperoni like we ordered...but they also decided to throw on some anchovies...we were so mad haha. it was pretty gross and it wreeked. and its not like in america where you can call and complain and theyll do something about it. its more like "well...sorry" haha.

   Friday there was a TON of military a policemen patroling in San Rafael, i think they were looking for someone...i think they found him, because they all were walking with a guy in cuffs when they left haha. avout 20 of them, he must have been a pretty important guy to catch.

   anyways that was basically my week! we are going to baptize 5 people this saturday so thats really exciting. its this family we{ve been working with for a long time and also another guy that we found and has progressed super fast.

 

thats crazy that dad got called to be on the high council in your stake in Germany haha.

 

 

i love you all so much. i atttached a few photos.

 

con mucho amor,

 

Elder Archibald

Week 15

 

 

Hola Familia!

 

this week flew by, also my first 6 weeks are done! it has gone be pretty quick actually...and i hear they just keep getting faster and faster. well 2 elders from my district got transfered, elder Dunlop and Elder Polamalu. i was kind of bummed to hear that they are leaving because we are pretty good friends. also they told me and Perez that we had to go to the transfer meeting even though neither of us were getting changed. We had to go to bring another companionship to our apartment. they are gonna live with us for about a week while their house is getting ready or something like that. its been fun to have some more people around the house and change things up. they arent working in our area, but the area that is right next to ours, their area is closed to white people hah.

but weve been having more success this week too, we are finding more people to teach and we have 13 with baptismal dates. we have 3 families that we are teaching and its been cool to see them progress because theyve been investigating the church for years and years before, some since 2007, and are finally deciding to make the decision to move forward and be baptized. its been really awesome too see that the families that ive taught are starting to integrate into the church really well and i really hope that they continue and stay active. in one year ill get to go through the temple with them. also my spanish is improving...i can understand the majority of what people are saying to me...but i still get super confused sometimes. at least the people are super nice with me about my spanish and dont make me feel bad.

funny side note, the mom of one of the families we are teaching was wearing a 3OH!3 shirt...the band from boulder, CO. haha i asked her if she knew what it was, but she had no idea. she told me later that she liked the music though hah.

also these last few weeks ive been losing a lot of weight, i think its a combination of constantly climbing the mountains here in San Rafael. i{m on the last hole in my belt and there is still space hah...i need to figure out how to put on some weight so i dont have to keep pulling up my pants.

 

well sorry another short letter, but we dont have a whole lot of time to write, i{ll try to write a longer one next week. love you all!!! youre all in my prayers.

 

Love elder archibald

 

ps. feliz cumpleaños Mateo

 

pps. i{m glad to hear the boys in florida got my letter

Week 14

 

 

hola familia

 

Dont have a whol lot of time to write this week. monday for pday we got to leave the zone to go shopping. we went to this market place called mayoreo where the sella bunch of fake rolex and jerseys and all that fun stuff. it was pretty cool to see. reminded me of when we went to he place with brett in mexico city. on wednesday we had a meeting for all the newbies in the mission. it was awesome to see all the missionaries that i came in with me. it was fun to share stories and see some famliar faces. also i had an interview with president flores, he says i need to be ready to train at the end of this next transfer...its not a sure thing that i will be training but i guess it is likely. also later that we were teachin one of our families that has a bptismal date. they put up their daughter for adoption a long time ago and just recently they got her informtation. she lives in hawaii and doesnt speak any spanish so they had a hard timecommunicating. so that night they had me translate over the phone between them. it was an awesome experience. the daughter and the mom were both crying...i was just glad that i was able to understand enough of the language to translate. on saturday we had a baptism of la familia Andino. it was an awesome experience. this was the first baptism of a family that i found, taught, and baptized. im super grateful that i have been able to see this much success in my first area, 8 bapisms in my first 6 weeks.

 

We are putting more baptismal dates tonight, and are hoping to have a total of 9 baptisms this month. Its really amazing to see how the gospel changes lives. Today isnt going to be that exciting, we just have to clean the house really good for the new group ofmissionaries coming in. it is going to be nice to not be in the newbie group anymore

 

 

hey well i love you all so much! talk to you soon

 

Elder archibald

Week 13

Hey family!!

This week flew by. it was pretty rough as far as success goes because most of our appointments fell through, but it was still a good week. ive been trying to think more positive haha. Every day should be a good day, even the bad ones. But anyways dad asked about the house i live in so i'll talk a little about that. My place is actually SUPER nice...compared to the other houses here in San Rafael haha. our place is huge. 2 stories, 2 bathrooms, 2 showers, bedroom, big kitchen about the size of the one in our house, and big living area...but it looks so empty because we have nothing haha. we have our table where we study and thats about it haha. i'll take some fotos to show you next week...and about the photos i dont know how to shrink em down. i could change the quality on my camera so they are smaller, but they look really really blurry when i do that and i want to keep nicer quality. sorry about that. but anyways, we live by this evangelical church. they are always playing SUPER loud music and it echoes through all of san rafael. when were teaching in houses, the music is always in the background...every night. and theres also a few other churches that play music a lot and its so loud haha. also the people who live below us blast american 80''s music every morning haha. its mainly really epic 80s love ballads. their favorite is the song is Total eclipse of my heart..or whatever its called, it goes "and i need you more than ever!" but they play that every morning almost so its been stuck in my head haha.

oh and random thing, for whatever reason everyone started dumping there trash just on our street about 50 yards from our house. it reeks. i dont get it, the dumpster is just further down and it would be so easy for them to throw away their trash there. makes me mad because we have to smell it in our house haha. i imagine that thats a little different from germany haha. Tuesday was pretty rough. ALL of our plans and back up plans fell through so we contacted for 4 hours straight...in the pouring rain. we only got a couple positive contacts, but hey its something at least. Wednesday was my 3 month mark...wow. i thought the first 2 months went by pretty fast in the MTC but compared to this last month they were like years. this month FLEW by. its pretty crazy how days go by so slow, but weeks and months go by fast. days feel like weeks, weeks feel like days. Thursday we had a little adventure. there was this giant wasp nest outside our back door. and a ton of GIANT wasps. so i put on my jacket and gloves, got a broomstick and knocked it down and then ran back
inside...unscathed!

 
Friday night was super rough; we had 4 dinner appointments. we met with a less active lady who gave us some rice and bananas and pork...the pork was gross and im pretty sure it was from the pigs that are always eating the trash down the street from my house. but it was a lot of food. then we went back to the house to eat our own dinner, but as soon as we got there we got a phone call from a family telling us that they made dinner for us and taht we had an appointment with them. so we ran over there and had some more rice, beans, meat, and tortillas. it was pretty good. then after that we went to pick up this member who was gonna teach with us that night, he invited us in to eat dinner with his family. we couldnt say no because earlier he said how some missionaries turned down dinner with him and he got mad about it. so we ate this weird mixture of sweet potatoes and uncooked chicken. i had to choke that down. at this point i was about to throw up because we had eaten SO MUCH. then on our way home this member told us to come in and she gave us a bunch of this pasta stuff that was pretty gross too...haha it was so much food haha. its funny though because we NEVER have dinner appointments, but for whatever reason they all landed on the same night.

Saturday and Sunday were awesome. conference was amazing. the morning session on saturday i had to watch in spanish, afternoon they had a gringo room where we watched it in english online, priesthood session was in spanish. the sunday i got to watch both sessions in the gringo room. its really cool watching conference as a missionary because you pay a lot more attention to all the mission stories.

Well thats waht happened this week! we have a baptism this saturday. La familia Andino. they were golden investigators. my favorite family so far. they really were prepared to hear the gospel. there wedding is saturday and baptism right after that. its tough because nobody is married and they have to use what little money they have to pay for it.

well i love you all so much. youre always in my prayers, thank you for your prayers. until next time!

con mucho amor
Elder Archibald