Hey everybody, How’s it going? Things are going great down here in Honduras. I’m really enjoying my time in the office. It’s funny though, because when they told me I needed to pack my bags, I thought I was going to take the spot of one of the missionaries that was here waiting for a visa to go to Mexico. So we go to the office and they told me I was staying there HAHA. I didn’t believe them at first. So these next four weeks the old financial secretary is training me until we have changes on February 15th.
President says he has a lot of trusts in me. He says that he only puts people in my position that he has 100% trust with. Out of all of the office secretaries, he says my job is the hardest and requires the most work and trust. He says although I have very little time in the mission I am very apt and able to do the job. He also said he brought me in because he really needed a change in the district of the office because there hasn’t been much success and he wanted to bring in my personality and excitement for the work to change the culture in the office. he complemented me on all the success I’ve had and told me that it is amazing the success I’ve had in this short amount of time. He let me know that in my 4 months I have more baptisms and families baptized than any other missionary in the office, and most have more than a year...I thought my success was average for the mission haha. But I am saying this in all humility. I have A LOT to improve on, and personally I think I’m here in the office just to learn more...much much more. normally I’m supposed to be trained for 5 weeks to do this, but president needs my trainer in another area in 2 days...so I had a week to learn EVERYTHING...I’m so overwhelmed guys, not sure how I’m gonna do it but I’m just going to have to learn fast. Also I’m not SUPER worried about my Spanish going down hill, because we can’t speak English in the office and I’m on the phone all the time with people from Guatemala or El Salvador or wherever so my language will continue improving. It’s also really important that I keep my mind in the area and not in the office. I need to constantly be thinking about my investigators and the members in my area, my purpose is to baptize and I can’t forget that. My goal is to baptize a family every month...now that I’m in the office and we only have nights to work it’ll be a little harder, but I just have to work smarter and more with the spirit. Also from here on out I’m a senior companion in the mission. My companion is Elder Quevedo from El Salvador, he has such a great testimony and really wants to work and is very loveable.
It’s most likely that I’m going to be here for 4 transfers starting on the 15th. Or it could be 5 transfers, so I’ll be here for anywhere between 7 to 9 months. I’m not sure how I feel about that because it seems like a really long time. But they say that the time in the office goes by really fast. There are 4 secretaries in the office. One is in charge of materials for the mission, another with records, another with migration and there’s me with finances. Usually the financial guy stays about twice as long s the other 3 because it is a lot of stuff to learn.
I’ll basically be in charge of making all the payments for the mission (houses, transportation postage, materials, paychecks for people the mission hires, and basically everything else) I’ll be going to a lot of banks … and it makes me nervous carrying large amounts of money around Honduras. HAHA But I get to drive the mission car so that’s sweet. I’m also really excited to be living in the Mission home because we have hot water, a washing machine and dyer, an oven, big fridge … basically everything. IT’S AWESOME! The only downside is that we have to get up at 5:30 every day to fit in our studies. And I’m not too excited about only being able to do proselyting for half a day everyday … not a whole lot of time to actually teach and be a missionary, but that just means I need to work a lot harder and smarter. The area I’m in is called Jardines de Toncontin. It has the airport in it I think because the planes are always super close above our heads. I’ll have to take some pictures and videos. It’s pretty cool. But the area is a pretty tough one they say. A lot of members have been less active lately, so we need to help everyone get excited about the work again. But I have a lot of hope for the area, there’s a lot of potential.
On Saturday we have our P-days, and this one was a lot of fun. We went to a soccer court by President Flores’ house to play soccer against the Tegucigalpa Mission’s Secretaries. (Our offices are in the same building … I actually spend most my time outside of the mission boundaries. HAHA Because the office and our house is outside of the mission as well as President’s house) we just take busses or taxis to and from our area every day. But anyways, we played Comayaguela Mission vs Tegucigalpa Mission. After we went to eat at president’s house. Hermana Flores made us some amazing carne asada and rice.
That’s crazy about the ward splitting by the way; it’ll be interesting to see how the relationships between the wards develop. Also that’s a bummer about the business class; I’ve been trying to think of ideas but haven’t really come up with anything to help.
One thing that’s interesting about the mission here that might help you all in Germany, we kind of have a motto here "para buatizar y retener mas familias" which means to baptize and retain more families. So when someone asks us why we do something, like “elder why do you study your scriptures every day" to baptize and retain more families. "Why do you put your shoes on in the morning" to baptize and retain more families...everything we do we keep that in mind...and with that we are ALWAYS looking for families. It’s now against the rules here to teach children under 18 without a parent. We are really just trying to strengthen the church with people that will stay faithful.
well I love you guys so much thanks for everything...if anyone wants to send a package soon I would appreciate some nutells, tide ‘to go, Colorado flag patch and whatever else haha! and always pictures.
Well that’s about it for this week. Let me know how everybody is doing. I love you all.
Con amor,
Elder Archibald
No comments:
Post a Comment