Hey family,
Well this has been a really awesome week down here in Honduras. First off, everyone is finally back home from la Semana Santa so we´ve been able to find people in their houses to talk to and teach. This week there have been a few miracles that have really helped the work move along in our area.
First off, our investigator, Samir, has a baptismal date for the 28th of this month! It has been really tough to find him lately because of his work schedule. We can never go to his house because his family hates the church so we always have to set up an appointment with this member family, La Familia Sosa, who are his friends but they aren’t home a lot either so it really takes a lot of planning. And on top of that they live in this part of our area that’s really far from where we usually are. But on Tuesday we were over there (Las Brisas) to follow up on a contact we had, but nobody was home. We went and tried a few more doors but nobody really wants to talk to us in this area. Then we thought we´d just stop by and see if La Familia Sosa was at home. When we got there the door was open so we knocked and said hello, and the daughter came to greet us, And guess who came out to greet us after…Samir! He gave us this really surprised look that we were there and thought that the family had called us to tell us to come over because he´s never really at their house if we don’t have an appointment, but they hadn´t. We started talking and told us that he´s really glad we came over because he had been thinking a lot about the church and has had some doubts and wanted to call us, but something held him back. He told us about how all this has been really hard because of how he was raised and that this is pretty different. The fast and testimony meeting last Sunday really impacted him, and he was able to see the amazing impact the church and the Book of Mormon has left on so many people. He also said that he prayed earlier in the morning and asked for some sign to let him know if he should join the church. He took us showing up out of the blue unannounced and unanticipated as his sign. It really was a miracle. After that he told us that he wants to be baptized, and we set the date for the 28th. The cool thing is that one of his best friends will be coming home from his mission in Chile on the 17th and has been talking over email with him and they are both really excited. So all we need to do now is finishing teaching him the lessons and keep him coming to church, he´s been 3 times in a row already.
Also another miracle that happened this week with La Familia Matute. The missionaries from the Mission Tegucigalpa brought over a stack of Notas de Soltería, which is basically just a paper from the government that says someone is single and can get married. In that big stack we found there was a paper for La Familia Matute, saying that the wife is single! Which means that she doesn’t need a divorce after all and can get married soon. We went to their house that night to tell them the good news and she was really really happy, but the husband was just normal…I guess he has to think about it and decide if he really wants to marry her. We hope he makes the right decision. But at least there is nothing really impeding them from progressing that is out of their hands.
The ward is really struggling though; the attendance is way down. The Bishop is really discouraged and is just waiting to get released i think. So we´ve been trying to work really hard just trying to bring people to church. Sunday we had 5 investigators in church which was really great. Samir showed up on his own, and then those ladies that went to church last week to the other ward that we´ve been teaching (Éster y Yessenia) they showed up...which was a really big surprise because they had a nephew die and they had the funeral that day, but they ended up showing up to sacrament meeting so that was a really great surprise. They are really great, the only problem is that Éster doesnt want to get married to her children´s father who she is living with, and Yessenia´s husband lives in Haiti and comes home twice a year...but they arent actually married. So we are still debating if it would be a good idea for her to get baptized before getting married...some really difficult situations. But Elder Quevedo and I are SUPER excited for next sunday because we have 12 investigadors that have given really strong commitments of coming to church...so we are hoping to have them all come.
We´ve seen a real turn around in the area this week...there was so much time where we were working hard without any fruits, but finally, all at once, we´ve been blessed with a lot of new investigators that truly want to listen to us and progress. We found 8 new investigators in 5 days, and we have plans to find more.
Well, things are really going great here in the mission...I´ve never really been as excited as this to go work. I love my area and i love the people. sincerely. Just shows that we all need to keep just a little more faith, diligence, and patience, and blessings will come.
I LOVE YOU ALL! thanks for being awesome. hope everybody is doing good with all of the things they are doing in life and wherever they might be!
Con mucho amor,
Elder Archibald
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