President Nelson in Honduras

Photo by Sister Klein 

August 24, 2015

Hey Everyone,

This has been another great week here in El Progreso, Honduras. I can only say, "I love being a missionary." This week has been so spiritual and exciting and I can't wait for this next one.

This week we had a surprise visit by the president of the Quorum of the Twelve. Talk about awesome. On Monday last week the DL called us to let us know that the zone conference for the next day had been cancelled and that we would be listening to an apostle of Jesus Christ speak to us on Saturday. We were so excited, especially since Elder Andersen came in March, only 5 months ago. We showed up to the stake center and found out that he was actually in Tegucigalpa, and that we would be watching him speak over satellite, so that was a momentary bummer. His talk was incredible. He spoke in English, so it was a little slow with the translation every ten seconds or less, but it was awesome. I could feel the Spirit so strong and I learned so much about how to be a better missionary.

He talked about the importance of knowing the basic doctrine. Like why we build temples, the importance of the Abrahamic Covenant, and why Family History is so important. He left us a list of all the things that he thought Hondurans needed to hear in order to remain active in the church. He pointed out the same thing as Elder Andersen, people here are very easy to baptize, but very difficult to retain. He told us that if we would study and apply these things (there were like 10 in total) that our converts would stay in the church and be converted to the gospel (or maybe visaversa haha).

I got to go on companionship exchanges with the zone leaders this week, and that was a blast. One of our zone leaders was in my first district in Olanchito, and at the time, he was one of the more disobedient missionaries I had met, so it was a surprise to hear that he was a zone leader. I got to spend a whole day with him, and he is not the same missionary that I knew back in Olanchito. The guy works so hard, and he knows what he is doing. We had a good talk about how his mission had went, and there was just a moment when he realized that it was just time to grow up and serve like he knew the Lord expected of him, so that's what he did. It was just a cool experience to see how the Savior's atonement helps all people from investigators, to members, to missionaries.

My companion and I are just pluggin along here in Progreso. I love the work and we are finding a ton of new people to teach. We even have people coming to church! I can't wait for this upcoming week! Have a great week, everyone, and share the word with someone new this week.

Elder Aldrich

Back to the Beach

August 17, 2014

Hey everyone,

We had a great week this week. I am a little tired today, because we got up at 5:30 to go to Tela, but other than that, everything is going fantastically. My companion and I continue to work hard and find new people to teach. We had a pretty tough week, but we don't get discouraged. We just keep on keepin on and we make it through the day, and we realize it didn't go exactly as planned, but we can see the people that we have been able to help during each day.

This week we had an investigator that finally went to church. He has been listening to the missionaries for two or three months, and he finally had the opportunity to go to church. He studies on Sundays, but now he is going to start vacations, and he is pumped to start coming to church. We are now just hoping to see if his new schedule will allow him to get baptized.

As I said earlier, this week was just a difficult one here in Progreso. But we never get beat down, we never give up. We always give it just a little more and God gives us the success. I love to be a missionary. When people ask me how long I have left to be a missionary, I always get a bit of a lump in my throat as a think about how to use my last year to it's potential. I can't wait to see what the Lord has in store for us in the next few weeks.

Elder Aldrich

Progressing in Progreso

August 10, 2015

Hey all,

We just finished another outstanding week in Progreso. I still am missing my converts and investigators from La Ceiba, but I am more and more excited to be here. The work in Progreso is interesting. Our area hasn't baptized anyone in SIX MONTHS. That is kind of a ridiculous amount of time for an area to be without success. I was honestly a little pumped when they told me that because God doesn't stop preparing people to be baptized, so we have six months of people to find and baptize in addition to the people God is currently preparing for us; and man have we found some prepared people.

I would just like to share the quick story of Super Mario (now retired and raising a daughter). My companion and his companion before me, found these two contacting, but never were able to teach them. We tried again when I showed up, and we got lucky. The husband (Mario) was home and he let us in. The first problem was that at that very moment, the CONCACAF Gold Cup was 5 minutes from halftime, and he didn't want to turn the TV off. So we talked to his wife for a minute and waited for the game to go to half. At halftime, we turned off the TV and he gave us fifteen minutes to tell him what we had to say. That's all we needed. Haha. We started to teach about God, prophets, Jesus Christ, and the Great Apostasy, and the whole time he was checking his phone, playing with his six-month-old daughter, and just wasn't paying attention. As we started talking about Joseph Smith, however, we kinda leaned forward, and payed close attention. He listened to every word as my companion recited the First Vision, and when Elder Valenciano finished, we all just sat there in silence. Then came the questions. Like actual questions about doctrine and God and why a church is important for each of us. We closed with a prayer, and went almost two weeks without having any contact with him.

Saturday night, we finally got lucky and found him and his wife again. He had read the Introduction of the Book of Mormon and had a ton of questions. We answered them, and invited him to be baptized. He thought about it for a good minute, then explained that he and his wife are Catholic, and that they really planned on remaining Catholic, until we got there. He said that God had sent us there for a reason, and that they would talk about it and decide what to do after praying and asking God if the Book of Mormon is true. After this lesson, I realized that these things don't just happen in movies. Our Heavenly Father is preparing people that we need to find, that we need to teach, and when His sheep hear the Shepherd's voice, they come.

We are having amazing experiences here in Progreso. The field is white and begging for a harvest, and my companion and I are ready to do it. We are looking forward to the next few weeks and I can't wait to see what else the Lord has in store for us. I hope that you all are helpin out your local missionaries with investigators. You'll be blessed. A referral is like a Christmas gift in August. Haha.

Have a great week!

Elder Aldrich

Week 2 in Progreso

August 3, 2015

Hey all,

I hope that you all have had a great week. Our week has been pretty interesting. Progreso is super weird, I think. People here are all super friendly even though they're all like, "freak. The Mormons found us." They let us in, invite us to sit down and share something, then say that we can come back a few days later...to look at an empty house. Like, what? If you aren't interested, just go ahead and tell us. Haha.

One day this week my companion and I had eleven appointments in one day. Correction: Eleven people told us to come by on Wednesday. THIS JUST IN: ten of them were lying hahaha. We had a pretty fun day on Wednesday tracting. It turns out that my companion, probably because he is so new, doesn't know where our area ends...so that is a problem that we are going to be taking care of this week. But the tracting helped us both get a little better feel for the area and find a new confidence in contacting (contacting and tracting are the same...).

As I have previously mentioned, I love contacting. It is fun to just talk to random people and be like, "Hey. Let us in your house." The missionary tag does magic, because I never let strangers into my house, nor will I probably ever do so. People let us in about half the time, which is incredible when you remember that Honduras is one of the most dangerous places on Earth. Haha. I would love to tell you that we had some mind-blowing spiritual  experience, but we really didn't this week. We did, however, find eleven new people, so we will see how the next couple of weeks go.

I hope you all have a great week and that you all can do your part to help your local missionaries. Peace!

Elder Aldrich

Training in Progreso

July 27, 2015

Hey All,

Yep. You all read that right. I'm training! That's a little weird. I got lucky and he isn't new new, he's already had one change, but his comp got changed and now I get to finish up his training. His name is Elder Valenciano from Mexico. He is exactly like my trainer was, so that is really funny. We should have some success here and I am grateful for the opportunity.

I am in a city called El Progreso, Yoro. It isn't that far from San Pedro (about 15 minutes in bus). It is even bigger here than La Ceiba. I am in the Progreso Ward, and one of the counselors to President Klein is in our ward, so that was a surprise on Sunday. Haha. It is awesome because we live somewhat close to an actual grocery store, so I bought grape jelly! I am so pumped, and my companion was really confused as to why. I just laughed and told him that he would understand when he goes to places like Olanchito.

Progreso is a great place and the members are super supportive. I am really excited to be here and start baptizing. Haha. I can't wait to see what this change brings for us here. Have a great week!

Elder Aldrich

T - Minus 2 Days...Maybe

July 21, 2015

Hey Everyone,

Wow. We have had an amazing week, and I feel like I have a ton of things to talk about. First of all, Wednesday is transfer day. I am like 99.9% positive that I am going to be transferred this week, and boy is it a bittersweet feeling. I have had some amazing ups and some insane downs here, and I am so grateful to my Heavenly Father for every last experience. I am going to be so sad to leave behind all these people I have grown to love. We have several people who will be making the decision to be baptized in the next month and I will be sad to miss their baptisms, but I can't wait for the new adventures that will come! I can hardly wait.

Tracting has become a love of mine. I definitely would totally follow it on Twitter or give it a "Like" on Facebook if I was allowed to use social media. It is fun to get to just talk to people. We are in a small area, and I have tracted out ever last house here 2 or 3 times, but we just keep sweeping through the streets because God's thoughts are not our thoughts. People think, "I've contacted this house 4 times already and Mrs Angry can be pretty rude, we better just skip it," but God says, "you better knock on that door because I have children in there." That happened to us this week. We tracted a house of a lady who had previously yelled at us to get out of there, but we felt like we should contact her home again. This time, another person came out and asked us to come in. Her first question was, "if there is only one God, why are there so many different religions?" That was a great lesson, and I could feel the Spirit very strongly as we testified about the need of prophets and that Jesus Christ is our Savior. It was a cool experience and I was grateful to have listened to the Spirit.

On a different, funnier note, we met a sweet old lady this week named Jesus. She was funny, but I don't know what her parents were thinking when they named her. Also, on Thursday when we were walking in the street, a random guy got really close to us, and I was sure that he was gonna rob us, but he didn't. I was slightly surprised when he asked "are you guys Mormons?" I was even more surprised when we answered that we are and he started yelling "call the pastors! They have demons! They have demons! We need an exorcism!" Like...what? So we just left the guy where he was and hopped into a member's home before he came back for us. Hahaha. You gotta love a good anti-Mormon.

Today we played soccer with the two zones here in La Ceiba. I have become rather popular as a goalie, and I pretty much played all time goalie the whole morning. Haha. Then we put together a Gringo Team and took on "Los Chapines." (Chapin is the nickname for Guatemalans.) We had two of us Vegas folk, a kid from Idaho, and a guy from Utah, and we rocked. Haha. It became a point to get us off the field. I scored two or three, the other Vegas kid got one or two, and our homie from Idaho stopped a few goals that were quite impressive. GRINO POWER. Haha. It was a blast. I will be teaching everyone how to play mini-soccer when I get home.

I absolutely love being a missionary. I still have a year left, but I feel this urgency like "you're running out of time!" I hope to be able to have success whereever it is that the Lord sends me. I hope that you all take a moment to help someone else during the week. Have a good one!

Elder Aldrich

One Year and a Week

July 13, 2015

Hey Guys,

This week was really great, except that I spent my one year mark in bed with a migraine haha. Crazy, right?

This week, we had a baptism planned. There is a boy named Kevin who is about to turn 13 and has been attending church by himself for the past two months, and he finally has decided that he wants to be baptized. Our only issue is that he drinks coffee, because there is nothing else to drink. Anyway, we had a Family Home Evening with him the the youngmens president's house with all the youth. It was really cool to watch a group of youth all bear their testimonies and bring this guy into their group.

On Tuesday, I had a kind of funny experience. We were in a families house teaching, and another person came in and wanted to listen, so I hopped up and gave my spot to her, and sat on the ground. As soon as I sat down, one of the investigators started laughing and then I felt it...I had sat in something wet... Apparently one of the kids had wet himself, and they had just forgotten to clean it up... Like what?! Who just doesn't clean up kid urine? I had checked before I sat, but I just didn't see it, and nobody warned me. It was pretty embarrassing and I about killed them haha. But don't worry, it was our last appointment of the day, so i didn't smell bad for too long.

We are also teaching a guy that reminds me of my Uncle Matt a ton. He's about the same age, looks a little like him, they talk the same (well this guys speaks Spanish and Matt speaks English, but you get the idea), and our investigator even has a cat that he loves to death! Hahaha. This guy lived in Salt Lake for almost 10 years with his family, but he got into some trouble with the law, so they sent him back here. He hasn't always made the best decisions, and he has a lot to change, but when I listen to him pray, I can just feel his desire to change and we can see the Spirit working on this guy in ways I haven't really seen. It's just moments like these where all the trials that I have been going through don't matter. It doesn't matter that I'm tired or sick, or worried about things at home, but I can see (and feel through the Spirit) that I was meant to stay here for another change and struggle through the things I have struggled through.

I love my Savior. I hope that you all can find a love for Him as well this week and every week.

Elder Aldrich

This is a recent convert in blue and the investigator that is going to be baptised in red.

Still goofy.