Preparing for the Future

[from July 29, 2017]

Hey Family!

I usually hang out with my companion, Elder Reyes or the other secretaries or the AP´s. I really enjoy being with Elder Reyes (el chapin). He´s a really cool comp, and I´m glad to have him in the office with us. There are 6 missionaries that live in the same big house with me. Lots of people are pretty jealous of our house. It even has a pool and a hot tub, which would be really cool if we weren´t missionaries.

We eat dinner most days with members of the ward. We usually eat at restaurants for lunch. My favorite place is called the champa! It´s really good cause they give you LOTS of food. And it´s also one of the only places in Honduras where they give you a baked potato, which is kinda cool. My companion right now is not picky at all. He will eat whatever. One time when we were waiting for our food at a restaurant, he ate the food somebody had left behind which was really funny. He´s learning english and he just said one word "Appetizer" which I think he got off the menu. I really hope I´m not ruining his English. He´s gotta gonna wanna new english teacher after talking to me for these last couple weeks.

I was a pretty hot guy before I got here and have air conditioning. I used to bring a fan wherever I went, in the bathroom, to iron my shirt, to eat breakfast, the entire time I had a fan blowing on me.  When the power wuld go out I would be very sad.

Yeah missionaries are pretty disgusting sometimes. I hope I don´t have to clean up the houses for areas being closed again, usually they clean them up a little before they leave their house.

I am excited a little bit to leave the office, but I think here is where I need to be right now, or I would be somewhere else. I am enjoying it here though. My job here is kinda like I imagine a job is in the United States. Lots of Paper Work, lots of excel spreadsheets. Lots of boring stuff, but also I get to do some really cool stuff. Even the boring stuff is cool and exciting because I have to figure out how to do it while I do it!

I will do lots different in the field. I´m gonna keep up the things I´ve learned how to do in the office. Here I´ve learned how to talk really well on the phone, for example. I think I´m gonna be much more polite on the phone when I get back to the field.

The shoes I started my mission with are all way trashed by now as you can probably imagine. I´m walking in some brown slip on shoes right now. They cost about $8. They´re pretty comfy, but I don´t think I´d like to climb mountains in them.

I actually have two written talks that I carry with me always. I wrote my first one in Palermo (my first area) when I was really new and I´ve basically just made little tiny changes to it as I´ve gotten to be an older missionary. In Montecristo they asked me to give one twice, and the first one was a suprise, but luckily I had the talk in my backpack. So then I had to write a second one just in case, and I ended up having to give it a couple Sundays before I left Montecristo. The funny thing is that they always ask me to talk about the same thing... Misionary work, so it´s pretty easy to reuse the same talks over and over.

I hope by the time I finish my mission my Spanish is really good. Being around all these gringos isn´t helping though hahah.

I really hope I can make life easier for my replacement. I try to do my best to make everybody´s life easier while I´m here. I don´t want to do anything that creates another pain in the butt for anybody.

I love you guys!

-Elder Stoddard