April 13, 2015
Hey Everyone,
We had a really great week this week. I hope you all have had the same. We really haven't done a whole lot that was really exciting. We kind of just gotten into a rythum and we do the same thing every day. We have a few baptisms scheduled for this Saturday, but they are pretty up in the air as of right now because there is a chance that they will have to go out of town this week... So we will see how that goes.
We had a few interesting encounters with some Jehovah's Witnesses this week, the funniest being when we walked out of an appointment with a recent convert's house and found them teaching his sister. It was just funny because we all just kind of stood there awkwardly and looked at eachother while the dad unlocked the gate. It was just a funny moment I hope someone else will get. Hahaha.
So I was serious when I said that nothing really happened this week. I hope that I can have some cool experiences to share in this upcoming one. Hope you all have a great week.
Elder Aldrich
General Conference 2
Hey all,
I am going to start by saying that I love general conference. I love the spirit that is there and I love to listen to the people chosen by the Lord to lead and to guide us. I feel like I love it even more because we explain to people all day, everyday that we have living prophets in our day, and now we can live what we preach by following the guidance they give us.
Our week has been fairly uneventful. Actually, it has been super uneventful. Our area has been totally dead all week long. The week before Easter is called Holy Week, and everyone goes swimming and partying. Nothing like breaking a few commandments to celebrate the resurrection of our Savior, right? We only had a handful of our planned lessons, but we had some very spiritually ones, and we even had some investigators accept baptismal dates.
My companion completed his year in the mission this last week, so we decorated a shirt and burnt it at our cook's house. She is like 55 or something, and we woke her up at 9 to have her help us. She was so funny. She was more giddy than a school girl, and we even let her light it. Haha.
I am really excited to get back into the normal swing of things this next week now that people will be in there homes. I know I always say it, but I love it here. Hondurans are really hard to love sometimes, and Honduras is even worse, but I love it. The food, the people, and even the humidity. I really feel bad that all you guys don't get to come experience this place.
Hope you all have a great week!
Elder Aldrich
Takin a Swim
March 30, 2015
Hey Guys,
This week has been pretty great. We haven't really done a whole lot, but we did successfully have a baptism. Stim asked Elder Ramirez to baptize him, and Otman (we all thought it was Ossman until we filled out his baptismal record) asked the bishop to baptize him, so I stayed dry this time. It was really neat to watch all of our hard work show some results. Elder Ramirez and I are really excited because all of the people we found when I first got here are getting really close to being able to get to make the important decision to get baptized. We are hoping to see two more baptisms in April...but it will be up to them.
On Friday, I went on divisions with Elder Clouse from Mesa, Arizona. He's one of our Zone Leaders. It is always a great experience to go teach with other white guys. People all stare at us kinda funny, but they all talk to us to see just how much Spanish we can talk, and it always surprises them just how well we speak. It was fun to get to teach some people in Spanish, then have secret conversations in English walking down the street haha. He goes home in June, so most of our conversations were about home, but we talked a lot about the mission. He's a really cool guy, and his philosophy about missionary work is very similar to mine.
I am really excited to have conference this week. It's cool as a missionary because we can tell everyone that if they have any doubt about modern day prophets, all they have to do is show up at the church building Saturday or Sunday for two hours. A lot of people have told us that they are going to come, and we hope to be able to bring some of our major investigators to help them gain a stronger testimony. I always love conference, but it is even cooler as a missionary. I encourage you all to go with a question about something, then take notes. I promise you that you'll receive an answer. Conference is cool like that.
I hope you all have a great week. Enjoy your Spring Breaks and Conference Weekend!
Elder Aldrich
More Area, More Opportunities
March 23, 2015
Hey Guys,
We have another really exciting week here in Honduras. I am having a blast. This last week was transfer week, but only the sisters in our district got changed, so we officially inherited their area. They didn't leave us many investigators because the majority live in the part that went to the other companionship. We have contacting a ton, and we have found some people that are seriously incredible. I feel like every week we find more and more people that have been prepared by God.
This Saturday we are going to have a baptism! I am so excited. Their names are Ossman and Stim (pronounced "Steam"). They are two brothers and are 18 and 16 years old. It should be really cool.
This week we found a lady that is less active while we were eating dinner, and we asked if we could go to her house and share something with her. She said that it was fine, so on Saturday we went to visit them. She let us in and introduced us to her two kids and her brother. Her brother is super cool. Two years ago, he was in an accident and his legs were basically destroyed, so he can't walk or even stand. He just hangs out in his house all day, but he is the funniest dude. He likes to make fun of all the gringos and he is just an all around happy guy despite his condition. We are starting to teach him the lessons and hope to baptize him in April or May. The biggest issue is getting him to church, but we are going to talk one of our taxi friends into driving him to church every Sunday for free. Plus, he has tattoos, which will make the baptism just that much cooler! Haha.
Our week was pretty uneventful. I am loving the mission more and more, especially now that it looks like we are going to be seeing some of the fruits of all this work. I hope you all have a great week.
Elder Aldrich
Old Friends, Mission Calls, and One Cool Meeting
March 16, 2015
Hey Everyone,
I hope that you all have had an amazing week. My week has been incredible. I got to spend the night in the murder capitol of the world, I got to shake hands with 5 of the most important people in the world, and we might be having a baptism this Saturday. What? That's right. This was journal-filling week.
So on Wednesday I got a call from the mission office, and they told me that I had to go to San Pedro Sula to finish up my immigration papers. I hopped on a bus with four other missionaries at four in the morning and took off for the most violent city in the world (don't get too worked up mom, I made it back alive haha). We got there at about 10 a.m. and boarded a "rapidito" to get to the immigration office. Those things are INSANE. They go 200 mph and do not stop for anything. There were a couple times that I was sure we were gonna wreck, but since we are missionaries, we didn't do much more than a little tapping. Haha. We made it to the offices safe and sound and I finished up my papers.
Afterwards we went to another area in San Pedro to help some missionaries contact a new invasion that showed up about a week ago. We found a family of 14 people! How crazy is that? That is going to be a really cool baptism. After four hours of contacting, they shipped us off to the Mission Secretaries' House where I got to hang out with Elder Adams, my companion from the MTC. We took a few hours to just sit down and talk about mission stories. He's been on the other side of the mission these last 7 months, so it was cool to hear about how it is out there.
At 9 a.m. the next morning the entire San Pedro Sula missionary force was seated in the biggest chapel in San Pedro waiting intently for the guests of honor to arrive. We had the COOLEST meeting I have ever been to. We got to listen to Elder Ochoa (area presidency), Bishop Davies (President Bishopric), Elder Maynes (Presidency of the Seventy), and Elder Neil L. Andersen of the Quorum of the Twelves Apostles. It was truly incredible. They all spoke Spanish, they have all been mission presidents, and they all shook the hand of all 450 missionaries! It was seriously amazing. There was a power in that room unlike any other, and I was so lucky to be in the audience.
Afterwards, my companion had a meeting in the mission office for retention, so I got to go and hang out with some of the missionaries there. Elder Diaz, my first companion in the field, was there, so we went and ate some lunch at Burger King with him. It was fun to be able to finally talk to him in Spanish that wasn't broken and slow. He kept commenting on how weird it was to see me talking so with so little effort. It was fun, but we were with them longer than we had planned and barely caught the last bus to La Ceiba, so we didn't get back until real late.
This week is changes. My companion now has three changes here, so it's really 50-50 on whether or not he's out of here. I honestly hope that he sticks around another change because we have a large number of people that are going to get baptized (hopefully) during this change, and I would hate for him to miss it. Whatever happens, it's going to be a great change. I am so grateful that I can be a missionary hear in Honduras, and I love being a missionary. Thank you all for your answers to my questions and thanks for the support. Have a great week.
Elder Aldrich
Hallway Swimming
March 9, 2015
Hey everyone!
I hope you all have had a great week. My week has been really fun, spiritual, and fairly eventful. First of all, I got to baptize someone this week! It was the Sister's investigators, but they asked me to do the ordinance, so that was pretty cool.
Saturday morning, the ward mission leader decided to come to the building early to start to fill the baptismal font for the baptisms that day. He started to fill it at around ten in the morning, then forgot about it. We started a meeting with him at 11, and at 11:15, a guy comes in and says, "Elders, are you filling something?" We walked into the hall to see, and there was an inch (at least) of water in the hallway. We spent almost 3 and a half hours cleaning up that mess. Our mission leader took off about fifteen minutes into the project, so it took even longer.
We experienced some crazy rain Saturday night. Like, I thought the wind was gonna rip that thin tin roof right off our house. It was pounding so hard that even wrapping my blanket and my pillow around my head couldn't muffle it enough to sleep. To make it worse, the wind was blowing the rain up into our windows, so we got soaked without even leaving the house. After about twenty minutes of intense rain, the transformer box on the light post right outside our door exploded, sending sparks and smoke all over the place, followed by a lack of power for a large part of our neighborhood. It makes for a great story haha.
Elder Duncan, the Central America Area President came to talk to us this week. It was really cool. We all got to meet him and shake his hand and everything. He talked about a lot of really cool things, but really focused on our goals. If we don't have a specific goal, we will never get any better. He had us right down the things that the "Perfect Missionary" would do, and then told us to make that our goal. There is nothing that says we can't do it, we simple choose not to. I feel like the same principle can be applied in the normal lives of all you non-missionary folk. If you really want to progress and become better everyday, you have to put down some goals, and then, you can't let anything, especially Satan, get in your way. Just thought it was a cool thought.
So I would like to give you all some homework, and this goes for every single person that reads this email. What blessings have you received for following the commandments of the Lord? It can be as simple as daily scripture study, or more intense like the Word of Wisdom, it's really up to you. The more specific the better. I'd really like to hear from you and what you have to say. Thanks.
I seriously love it here in La Ceiba. These last few weeks have just flown by. We have several baptism dates ourselves, so it won't be long until we start seeing some pictures of me in white again. Haha. I love you all and I hope you have a great week!
Elder Aldrich
**dearelder.com is a great way to send Elder Aldrich a free letter.
Tarde Catracha
March 2, 2015
Hey all,
Hope you all have had a great week. Our week has been pretty uneventful. We are just working hard. We walk a ton (several miles each day), but our area is super cool. We went and contacted people on the beach the other day. We even gave away a few copies of the Book of Mormon.
This week we had a ward activity, and it was a blast. We played games, had egg races, and water balloon fights (I was the only one to hit the bishop...what?). We had a ton of investigators there, and it was a total success. We took a ton of pictures, but they are on a different camera, so I will be sure to get them out next week.
We have had the opportunity to give several priesthood blessings this week, and it has been very cool. I am so grateful that I have been trusted with the priesthood and the blessings it brings into my life and the lives of those around me.
In soccer news, our team this Friday never lost. I had a series of goals (6 to be exact), including one with my head (that's right, like a pro). The real star of the show was the deaf kid on our team. He is super good, and scored about 20 goals by himself. It was really entertaining and fun to watch.
I hope you all have a good week. Thanks a ton for all of your support and prayers.
Elder Aldrich
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