Snakes, Bees, and Waterfalls (Oh My!)

May 18, 2015

Hello Everyone,

We have had a crazy day today, so I have almost no time to write today. Lame, right? I will try to keep this interesting.

First of all, we had a great week. It has been a little rough getting used to the new companion, but I think we are finally getting a hold of things. We had a great week and cranked out a whopping 34 lessons, the most that I have had in a week since getting into the area and we had 7 people in church this week! It was a serious blessing because the power went out, so it was ridiculously hot through all three meetings. When I say ridiculous, I should probably mention that it was probably just a handful of degrees from being dangerous. Haha.

At 6:17 in the morning, on Sunday, we received a call from our bishop. First of all, I don't have to be up until 6:30, so he is a truly evil man to steal 13 good minutes of sleep from a servant of God. Secondly, he was calling from the church building, so it makes it ok because he probably got up a full hour before that. Anyway, he asked us to speak in Sacrament Meeting. I spoke on the Sacrament. It went well even though they didn't really get my clever jokes...but that's ok. Haha.

Today we went on a hike. I say hike, but I really mean jungle excursion. Hikes don't exist here, because we kind of just pick a place and run up the mountain on trails that are only barely visible through all the leaves and animals on the ground. We had a funny run in when Elder Peterson (from Vegas) picked up a snake-shaped stick that suddenly came to life in his hands. The funnier part was the mix of English and Spanish warnings of danger being yelled in all directions as Elder Peterson tossed the snake into a tree. It was just a giant green jungle snake. No big deal. Even better was when Elder Peterson managed to find a tree filled with bees to lean up against. He got pretty lucky though, and only got stung 7 times. I had a pretty vicarious moment when I had three on my arm at the same time, but they didn't sting me, so I guess they were just saying "hi." Haha.

The waterfall was pretty cool. It was cool to be so close. However, some missionaries decided to go play in it, which seemed a little more sketchy (and against the rules), so I sat back and watched. Nature is an amazing thing.

To start and finish the hike, we crossed a cool and very Honduran bridge made of cables, old fences, and some other metal that I didn't trust. We lived despite the Zls' attempts to make the bridge fall. The four of them (we had two zones together) made it swing. It was impressive, but I was more impressed that the bridge survived.

All in all, it was a great week. I am definitely loving the mission. It is just flying by. Thanks so much to everybody. You're cool.

Elder Aldrich