Beans and Rice and Beans and Rice: Rainy Season

February 27, 2016

Hey Guys,

This has been another crazy week, especially since I have been glued to my computer all week. I've been changing houses, opening areas, and in meetings with President trying to help the missionaries have better houses. As you all have heard from some of my house experiences, the housing situation here is not great, and sometimes that makes it hard to feel the Spirit, so we have been talking about a way to make the houses better without paying a ton of extra money. I think that we have finally found a solution and we should be able to improve all of the houses in the next 4 months or so, just in time for me to hit the road. It should be fun.

On Tuesday I went with Elder Ruelas (the new office Elder) to do the Ruta (and our companions went to the district meeting and stayed in the area to work). We get to drive from zone to zone taking everyone the things that they need in order to be missionaries. It is a blast. I get to hang out with an Elder that I get along with and go see old friends. Anyway, we started about an hour late because of a small issue, so we were racing to get it all done. In our haste, we forgot to give some Elders the packages they had received, so we had to double back afterwards and take care of that. It was this guy's first time, so some errors were expected. Haha.

Elder Ruelas (Texas) and I washing the car in the rain. It was so gross and black that we had to wash it, even in the rain. #HelpFromHeavan (get it: Because the rain rinsed it too) :)

So we got back to the office, and I got a call from the landlord in an area across town, so we had to go over and look at the house and pay her. (But first we went and picked up the packages from the post office, and that took a long time.) We got the keys and decided to help the new Elders move in. So we ran back and forth between their house and ours taking them the beds and chairs and table and so on that they needed. Of course, we decided to go ahead and do all of this during rush hour traffic... It took almost three hours to get it done. Now it was 8 pm, and we still hadn't actually gotten what we had to get done, done. We went to dinner at 8, then headed back to the office to actually get started on our days work at about 9 at night! We stayed in the office until about 10 and then made our way back home, where I collapsed into bed, exhausted. Talk about a busy day.

Late night working at the office.

On Friday morning, I got to go drop President Klein off at the airport so that he could go to Roatán with Sister Klein. I got to drive President's car, which was super awesome. He has a neat little Toyota Rav4. It drives way smoother than our clumsy little pickup we drive. I was tempted to go for a joy ride of sorts and go flying across Honduras, because it is just a blast to drive it, but I withstood the temptation and flew only to our house, where I safely parked it. The bad news is that it is leaking some fluid onto our tile floor, which should be interesting to explain to President when he comes to pick it up tomorrow. Wish me luck. Haha.

When President came to pick us up on Friday morning, he came in to see in what shape the house was in, and saw my make-shift ping-pong table I had thrown together. Last year I got a ping pong set for Christmas, and it has been a hit in all of my areas, but somewhere between Miramar and Progreso, the net went missing, so we always have to improvise with our net. This time I used tape and two pencils (I feel kinda like Grandpa "B" when I think of clever stuff like that. Haha), and it seems to work nicely. Anyway, President saw it and, without hesitating, picked up a paddle and challenged one of the assistants to play, follwed by my companion. It was fun to watch, although I think I will have to invite President over this week to play me, I want to see what he's got. Haha.

Last night I managed to download some talks, and I printed one that I couldn't find a recording for. It is called "Becoming a Consecrated Missionary" by Tad R Callister. Wow. That talk is so good, and it reminded me of some of the things I could be doing better. Anybody who is serving or is going to be serving a mission (cough cough Tyler) should read it. It is really so great.

Well, I hope that you all have a great week. I am enjoying my time here in the office, but man does time fly. Be good.

Elder Aldrich