Surprise Trip to Tegucigalpa

[from November 18, 2017]

Hey Family,

So I haven´t been transferred still, but last week was so hectic. Um, well to start things off, my replacement is here (his name is Elder Devenport) and I´m showing him how to do my job. It´s pretty fun to have him doing all the work while I just kinda help him out and show him what to do. They also finally called another Ruta secretary, so they have Elder Devenport, Elder Gonzalez (the new ruta secretary), and I in a trio so I can show both of them what to do. I think it´ll be good thing to have them splitting up the work. So yeah, but I´m getting ready to head out of here pretty soon. Also, this time all the changes were in one day, so I was pretty occupied during that week getting things set up for that craziness of picking up new missionaries, sending off old ones, and helping set up the transportation of missionaries with changes and opening three new areas. All in one day.

You can use this for the Chrismas card

Also, during last week I had the opportunity to go to the temple here in Honduras. That almost never happens for the missionaries here in this mission so I got really lucky. I´m gonna do my best to explain, but I could do it way better talking than writing. So what happens in that a lot of cases, when a Young Man/Woman from Honduras receives their mission call, they have to wait quite a bit and have to jump through a lot of administrative hoops in the government to be able to leave here and go serve their mission in a different country. And lots of the time, when the time comes for them to leave on the mission, their visa isn´t ready yet. So what the church does, is they assign them to a mission here in Honduras while they wait, and their visa becomes the problem of the migration secretary (my old companion E´ Reyes).  

My plaque is still white. Haha.

So usually when that happens it´s an Elder who´s here for a change or two, and then they leave on their real missions. This time it was a Sister missionary who got called to Brazil, so she had to go to Tegucigalpa to fill out the last couple of things for her visa. Usually if it ´s an Elder they go with the Migration Secretary just the two of them. But because this time it was a sister, she went with her companion and I went with Elder Reyes. So we took the journey down there, visited the temple, visited the biggest mall in Honduras and waited forever in the Brazilian embassy.

It was pretty fun. Also Elder Reyes and I (and those two sisters) are the only missionaries from this mission who are currently serving who have visited Tegucigalpa. I told Miles I was went to his mission, but I didn´t get to see him :(. But anyways- a cool experience that I didn´t think I would get to have, hahah.

I think it is a really good idea (not necessarily to memorize) but know where the scripture mastery verses are in the book of Mormon. I brought that little seminary flash card on the mission, and even though I don´t have them all memorized, knowing where they are and more or less what they say has been a huge advantage for me. 

I´m not super sure about the pictures for Christmas cards. I might just send the pics from the temple and you can pick your favorite.

Yeah for this Skype call I´ll be out of the office. I don´t know where I´ll be but we´ll be finding out pretty soon! It´s been fun, and I´ve learned things here that I don´t think I would have been able to learn anywhere else. 

Everything went great with Javier, he shared in his testimony how grateful he was for our diligence with him and never giving up on him. It was really cool. 

Our other baptism for this week fell through, it was a little sad how that happened, but I hope he still gets baptized in the future. 

I was talking to Javier the other day. He was playing soccer and hurt his leg pretty bad he had crutches and looked like he was in pain. He said basically, it´s all psychological. So if I think my leg feels fine it feels fine. I was super impressed with that, and I´ve honestly been thinking about it a lot. It´s honestly really weird that Dad said that too, seems like Heavenly Father might be trying to tell me something. I hope I can always keep the happy state of mind from here on out! 

I was a little bit weirded out about how I felt about Grandpa Joe´s passing. I feel like he´s at peace and in a better place now. I don´t feel sad at all, and I think it´s the knowledge that I have about the plan of salvation.

I have a lot of good memories from that last trip when Grandma and Grandpa visited us.  I remember we went to go buy a jack so that the RV would stay level.  I also thought it was pretty funny when Grandpa Joe took the personality test, I can't remember what color it was but I remember he was almost 100% that one haha.

I´m glad I´ll be able to drive the marshmallow again when I get home. I really liked that car, and I´m so grateful that Shawna gave it to us to use. I hope I can figure out how to not drive like a crazy person when I get back home haha. 

I´ve realized something weird about myself these days. The food that makes me sick now, is not Honduras food. I can eat a thousand baleadas and feel just fine. but what makes me sick is american fast food like Burger King or Wendy´s. Pretty strange, I hope it´s not that way when I get home.

The America shrine in our house.

Love you.
E. Stoddard