Week 24

Dear Family;

Well since there isn’t any time to write e-mails I’m gonna  try this; write a letter by hand, take a picture and send it to you.  I feel bad that I haven’t been able to tell you all about what’s going on here, and now some lucky member of the family gets to type parts of letter to post on the blog or forward in e-mails to people.

This last week has been great though.  Monday we had an awesome p-day.  A few of us in the zone took a bus ride to a place called Zambrano about an hour away.  It’s this pueblo (town out in the country) and is super pretty.  I was amazed to see how pretty it actually is in some parts.  I’m used to being in the city where it’s really ugly and dirty.  Once we got to Zambrano we walked to this park/zoo thing, where we had a BBQ and then checked out the animals.  It was sweet because we were the only people there.  They had a bunch of monkeys, a lion, some leopards, parrots, beavers and other random animals.  It was pretty funny because the cages that they’re in don’t look very well-built and I’m pretty sure that if it want to, the lion could break out pretty easily.  But yeah, it was awesome to hand out with the missionaries because most of them were in the group that came with me into the mission, and also one of my best friends in the mission was there too, Elder Luna from El Salvador.

Tuesday I had exchanges with the zone leaders, I left to as to their area, Cerro Grande.  Is was a good day and I learned a lot, but I like working in my own area more because we have a lot of awesome people we’re teaching.  The Medina family are still waiting to get married.  We got money from the Bishop to help them out, so that’s going to be a huge relief that we don’t have to do an activity right away and raise the money before .  They are an awesome family though.  They come to church pm tjeor own every Sunday and study for the lessons before classes and go to the firesides and devotions during the week.  I really want them to be baptized this month, because it’s most likely that I’ll be leaving San Rafael January 4^th.  When we taught the word of wisdom the dad told us that he quit smoking a week earlier, just because it seemed like the right thing to do and he felt like it was something that wasn’t in accordance to what God would want of him.  I was pretty amazed to hear that.

On Sunday I got a call from the Bishop at 7 in the morning and he told me he needed me to give a talk in Church that day.  HAHA.  I didn’t have much time to prepare anything because Church starts at 8.  But everything went pretty well and I filled up all the time that was needed.  It would be one thing to have to in English, but I was pretty nervous to do it in Spanish.  It was hard, but I did it HAHA.

Well that about it for this week, I love you all.  Thanks for all the Christmas packages!  I’ll open them on the 25^th J And I’ll call on the 25^th too.

Con Amor

Elder Archibald

Here’s a list of random things and requests….

1)My USB that has a virus, I took it to a member in the ZL’s area and he cleaned it up for me and saved all my files and put on a protection, but the mini SD, I didn’t bring with me so it still has a virus.

2)I love getting the “Dear Elders” from Dad of the missionary letters!  I get them every once and awhile (like once every 3 weeks).  But it really just depends on when people go to the office to pick up mail.  The only dad thing is that sometimes they get mixed up because there’s more than one to a page and the pages aren’t in order and it takes awhile to figure out how to put them together.  It might be a good idea to send your letters to me through “Dear Elder” so I have time to read them.

3)My MP3 player died again! Gah! That design is really crappy, I think.  The same thing happened, I was listening to music, it froze, and then just turned off, and now it won’t turn on.  I feel bad always asking for an MP3 player, but if some could send me another that would be awesome.  One that can play mini SD cards and can support a 16 GB card … and probably a different model or brand that the last ones.

4)Okay, the call home for Christmas.  How they normally do it here, is on the 25^th they make the call.  We buy calling cards here and borrow a cell phone from a member.  It usually pretty cheap to call the states from here.  And as of now I’m planning ton calling the Vonage number 720-842-7232 … Right?  And I’ll call after 1:00 pm my time.  That sound alright?  Probably around 3:00 pm my time actually.

5)I got all the letters from the McKay Lake Ward on Monday.  That was really nice to get those.  Read some really nice and encouraging works from some of the families in the ward.  Its good to know I’ve got a lot of people praying for me and that I’ve got support.

6) Well it turns out my MP3 player actually works it randomly turned on and resurrected, then died again and wouldn’t turn on.  Then the next day it turned on again… The other one still doesn’t work.  I am a little nervous that this one will crap out.

7)  Also, about the “Dear Elders”, Elder Grover’s letter take up a lot of paper because it only goes to the middle of the page and start a new line, it doesn’t fill the margins.

8) Alright, so the temple in Honduras, I’ve heard that its not going to have a laundry and that it doesn’t rent temple clothes.  So at some point I think I’m going to have to buy temple clothes here.  That’s how it is in the San Salvador Temple which is almost identical to the Tegucigalpa.  Any news on the Fort Collin’s temple???

9) I have some letters written for some people, but I don’t have addresses.  I need the addresses of … you guys in Germany, Grandpa, Elder Wood, Elder Gonsalves, and Elder Lontine.  I don’t have a way to get them.