Carnival

May 25, 2015

Hey Guys,

This was a great week. We had some really unique and interesting things happen to us this week. First of all, we had a surprise baptism. That isn't something that seems to happen very often, but it was cool. She is a little girl from a member family, but she just never had gotten baptized. Her mom finally decided that she wanted to baptize her, so she called us. We taught her a twice just to make sure that she could answer the interview questions, and then we baptized her on Saturday. Boom. Haha.

Last week, we found a family that was in need of a little bit of help. They are super poor. Like ridiculously poor. When it rains, all the water fills their house, forcing them to sleep on top of tables and chairs to keep from getting too wet. To solve the problem, they somehow got someone to give them a TON of free dirt to fill in the sides of the house to create a drainage system. However, the lady is 80 something years old and her daughter is 60 something. When we found them, they were sitting in front of their house staring at the dirt that had been dropped off an hour earlier. We asked them if we could help them out, and the old lady (who is very catholic) starting getting very excited and telling us how grateful she was to her Heavenly Father that we just happened to show up. We ended up helping them move dirt with buckets for two hours, leaving enough room for cars to pass, and we worked four hours on Saturday, and four on the following Wednesday. It was a ton of dirt. The two ladies probably won't progress or get baptized (mostly because when we challenged them to baptism, one said to the other "we might as well. We baptize ourselves everyday when we shower because our water is holy."), but they have a 13 year old boy who lives there. He is friends with a recent convert of ours, and the Gospel could really help this boy out, so we will see how that goes.

This week was Carnival here in La Ceiba. Supposedly it is the biggest carnival in all of Central America, and it was evident. Not a single person was home. Not even the pulperias had people to sell stuff. It was crazy. Of course, they did it Honduran style. They payed for really big-name reggaton artists and free alcohol. From what I have heard, the death rate out there is high, and the morals are not. The missionaries stayed far, far away from that area. Haha.

The mission is always coming up with new ways to keep me on my toes, and I am so grateful for the opportunity I have to be a servant of the Lord. I hope you all have a great week.

Elder Aldrich

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

Variety is the Spice of Life

May 4, 2015

Hey everyone.

As I said last week, this last Wednesday was change day. My companion did, in fact, get changed. I was pretty bummed to say goodbye to him. We really became great friends during the last couple weeks together and I was sad to see him go. But not too sad. Changes are always fun and bring the needed variety into our normal routine.

My new companion is Elder Miranda from Guatemala. He is pretty cool. He has 20 months in his mission, so he has come to La Ceiba to finish up his time her in Honduras. I am excited to learn from a veteran. Up until now, I haven't had a companion with more than 13 months in the mission. Haha.

For those of you who will not be talking to missionaries this weekend, you may not have noticed, but this weekend is Mother's Day. I hope that all you mothers out there enjoy your special day. I hope you all enjoy it.

This week we have been running around like chickens with our heads cut off. We are trying to get to know the members, find new investigators, help people overcome addictions, reactivate people, and even get some people married. That is a lot for two 19 year old boys to do on their own, but we are seeing miracles every day here. The changes in these people are incredible and it never ceases to amaze me to watch the Spirit work on people.

This week it has been raining like crazy here. In some areas, rain helps with contacting because people feel bad, so they accept us out of pure pity. Here, however, people decide that rain gives them the right to sleep, so we kind just stand in front of people's homes and yell "buenas" hoping that someone will hear us. Haha. This next week we are planning to contact a ton, so we are hoping for less rain.

I hope you all have a great week. Thank you so much for all the support. I would like to give a special shout out to the Moon Family (whoop!) who sent me a package with Nutterbutters, cause they're cool like that. Haha.  Thanks to everyone who has sent me a letter or package! Thanks a ton.

Elder Aldrich