Week 27

 

 

Hey Family!

New area, new companion, new challenges.  Another crazy week in Honduras.  My last few days in San Rafael were awesome, it was hard to leave.  Tuesday we went around saying goodbye to some of the converts and members.  A lot of the people actually cried when I said goodbye...It was kind of sad to leave but also made me feel good that I left a good impression on the people there.  Tuesday night we had the baptism of the Medina Family and also Jared (brother of Gerrardo, who I baptized awhile ago).  It was really cool to see him that night because he was really excited, happy, laughing a lot, and just looked brighter when normally he doesn't talk much or even seem very interested.  You could really see the affects of good decisions and the Spirit in his countenance.  He asked me to baptize him.  And finally the Medina Family finally got baptized!  They were telling us how much they appreciate us and the gospel because they have seen huge changes in one another and are a lot happier.  The mom, Nelis, asked me to be the one to baptize her.  The actual baptismal service was awesome too, about 30 people came, including all my favorite families in the ward came and I got to say goodbye there.  It was probably the best way I could have spent my last day in my area.

In the morning we went to the changes meeting with all my bags packed up.  We listened to President Flores and Sister Flores for awhile and then we got our new areas.  My new area is called Jesus de Otoro in the zone La Esperanza.  My area is about as far west as you can go in my mission.  It's by the city La Esperanza in the state called Intibuca´.  It's about a three hour bus ride up into the mountains or Honduras.  It's the coldest area in the whole country.  They say that sometimes snow falls.  I've been pretty warm though, except when we are out working at night.  I get pretty cold in my short sleeves, I only have 1 long sleeve and I'm not sure if I want to buy a sweater because it's probably going to start getting warm soon and also it's hard to find sweaters to buy.  But my area is super pretty, a lot cleaner than Tegucigalpa.  It's in this valley between the mountains, and its this village with a lot of pretty traditional Honduran homes.  The area is actually pretty huge, before there were 8 missionaries here, and now it's just my companion and I.  It's a branch of 46 members, and it sounds like they hardly baptize here.  They have I think 5 that were baptized in the last year...so there is a lot of work to do.  I'm trying not to get discouraged.  The members don't help much and the Branch President hardly has time to meet with us so there are some obstacles there.  Oh yeah, I'm the second counselor in the Branch too, Ha Ha.  My companion is the first counselor.  His name is Elder Miranda, he'*s from Kansas.

Sunday was good, my first time sitting up on the stand as part of the Branch Presidency.  During Sunday School randomly <president Flores came in and joined the class.  Surprising to see him all the way out here.  Later that night we ate dinner at the Branch President's house and he just kept giving us more and more food, I ate way too much.  After we left the house and turned the corner I threw up, Ha Ha.  It sucked.  Well, that's whats going on here!  Love you all.

Con Amor,

Elder Archibald

P.S.  I'm not going to be getting mail from the office very often out here far from the office, so mom & dad you can just write your whole email and I'll print it out here.