Christmas Music

Christmas is Coming

I got the Christmas package! I´m excited to talk to you. 

Selfie with New Camera

Rocking the Santa Hats

Lots of people here have Christmas lights. Everybody here and I mean just about every peson belives in Jesus and are not afraid to show their love for him, which I think is super cool. A bunch of cool and crazy things have happened so far, I think I´ll save them for Christmas though :0


We got to sing in sacrament meeting us and the other four missionaries that go to church in our building. I also have lots of times where I don´t know the words to songs. In the actual sacrament meeting I gave an investigator my hymnbook and without the hymnbook I have no idea what the words to most songs are. 

Every baptism is super cool and super spirirtual, and me being a little sick didn´t make it any less cool. That is awesome that you guys had a baptism in the ward, and a youth too. It´s good that you guys are friends. There was a talk or something I heard that says every new member in the church needs a friend and a calling\responsibility. I´ve seen that to be true so far in my mission, the peopelwho are super active in the church are the people who are supported by their friends. 

My new companion (I don´t remember what I´ve already said about him) is from peru too, he´s way clean in the house and he´s an excellent teacher. Working with him is a bunch different that when Marquezado was my companion though. 

Hanging with David

I got to see the Tuttles and we had a good time eating cheeseburgers. It was super cool to see the them.

hasta navidad,
Elder Stoddard

A New Companion & Charity

Hey Family:

I´m really excited to talk to you guy, I think it will be through skype, I still don´t know about when and how that´ll all work, but as soon as I find out I´ll be sure to let you know. 

Mario & Flor

Baptisms were really great, I was super sick that day though my stomach was really upset. So the whole experience was really cool, but I was really grateful when I got to go to sleep that Tuesday night. 

Sindi

It was actually Elder Marquezado´s last day inthe mission field, so he got to leave with three baptisms, a pretty cool way to go out. 

Honduras is a busy place for missionaries. 

Right now we have a couple people planning to be baptised but none are super close.

The new companion´s good, his name is Elder Quinaya, also from Peru. It´s super different working with him than with Elder Marquezado. Also, I know the area and he doesn´t so I´m always leading which is kinda weird for me. 

We´re pretty excited for Christmas here. We bought some Chrismas lights today and we´re gonna put them up outside our house tonight. 

It still feels like summer here right now, I think it´ll be like this year round. I bet it´s already snowed there huh? 

The two biggest things for me here are the dogs in the street and people are always burning stuff by the side of the road, I´m not a huge fan of all that smoke, but that´s how peopel get rid of their trash much of the time. 

Now for your question about experiences I have had with charity: 

Members here have helped us so much and been instumental in every situation we´ve had. 

One time we were stuck really far away from our house late at night with no money and a member picked us up and brought us home. There´s one member who every Sunday picks up one of our investigators and brings her to church. One of the things a member has done for us was that there were a couple of gangs here fighting and a member brought us into their house where it was safe, that was pretty memorable. 

I´m so grateful for the emails I´ve gotten from members of the ward that are always encouraging me. 

I´ve seen people work some incredibly hard and dirty jobs to be able to provide for their families. 

I gave a white shirt to Christian so he can pass the sacrament. 

I have tons of storys I don´t really know what you´d like to hear in specific.

Love you guys
Elder Stoddard

Teaching, Baptizing, and Looking Forward to Christmas

Hey Family,

Big news is tomorrow we´re gonna have three baptisms, a 16 year old girl named Sindi, and a brother and sister Mario(12) and Flor(10). 

This past Sunday we brought a pastor to church. Yep a legit pastor with a congregation and everything came to a mormon church and really enjoyed it. 

i got up to bear my testimony this fast Sunday with my companion (it´s his last Sunday here in Honduras) and told about how one time we were contacting knocking on doors and a kid answered us ´my mom isn´t here´ so we said ´tell her that we´ll pass by another time´ so the kid turned around and yelled ´mom, they say they´re gonna pass by another time.´ And then the mom came to the door to answer us and she turned out to be a really nice lady. I related the story about sometimes the people who need the gospel most are hiding and we need to work hard as members of the church to strengthen eachother.

Christmas is a big deal here, but not like it is in the USA. I´ve heard that during Christmas eve there´s a ton of firworks and stuff going on, so I´m looking forward to that. As far as traditions go here they eat tamales. I can´t wait to talk to you guys. I miss you guys, but i think this Christmas is gonna be cool, you guys have six months of fun ahead of you! 

I´m so excited for you guys to go to france. I thought you guys would have a moving company, but it´s good to hear you aren´t as rushed as we´ve been in previous moves. It´s true Dad is a master tetris player, I´ve seen our moving vans, and I have no idea how he does it. 

One of the things that was weird when I first came here but I quickly got used to is that there´s no laws for noise here. If your church wants to play music super loud or if you´re selling something and want to strap a couple megaphones to the roof of your car you absolutely can. 

Love you guys!
Elder Stoddard