Gippers? Not Again!!

Hola Amigos,

I wasn't expecting to be able to write today. We were locked in our houses again for the day. But pres. is allowing us to leave to email. Usually I take little notes from my journal of what I'm going to write about on pday but I didn't for the reason above. I'm just gonna give a quick update of how the wave is down here and whatever else I can remember from this week. 

I'm loving Las Mercedes! It's super dope here! Everyday is a diferent experience. Yes, we are missionaries doing the work but we always see new things that interest us and we find new people everyday. This week was a nice full week of missionary work. I dig that. We have been teaching our normal investigators. We still have the problem of getting them to the church. If we can solve that we will have our success. 

We found a new fam this week. It's  5 girls--The mom, and her daughters--ages: 16, 13, 9, and 8. Let me just tell you they are crazy. We actually weren't even planning on teaching this family in the first place, but when we passed by their house the girls swarmed me and started interrogating me and telling me to translate stuff into English. It got to the point where they were begging for us to come into their house. They ended up feeding us dinner! The older girls are plain gippers, or flirters. We chatted with this fam for a tad and then we asked if we could share a quick message. They accepted. I think it was one of the most awkward lessons we've given. The gippers were staring at me the whole time and one of them kept  touching my ears. Gulp. By the end they actually seemed very interested in our message and wanted to learn more. As we were leaving their house my comp walked through the gate. Here it gets creepy. As my comp was on the other side the mom shut the gate and locked it so I couldn't leave. I was trippin. I knew they were joking but they kept me locked in for like 5 minutes! They talked to me about marrying a Honduran girl and about my eyes and other weird stuff! Finally the mom let me leave.

We have 2 other girls that we teach that live exactly across the street from the creepy fam. One is 17 and the other 15. They saw us talking to the creepy fam yesterday and now they are jealous. They drew us pictures of hearts saying I love you. They are trying to win us over. Enough with that craziness. We are teaching a few other people our goal is to get some of these people to the church. 

Hey guys. If you didn't know it's almost Christmas. I'm very happy to be in this country for that special day. It's really gonna help me focus on the true meaning of Christmas, the birth of our Savior. I challenge you to try and give as much as you can in this epoca navidena (Christmas time) and focus on the true meaning of Christmas. Keep on Illuminating the world and being cool. Have a grrrrrreat week alright?

Elder Sullivan

Knife to the Femur

Hola Amigos,

Entonces (so) we couldn't leave the house until Wednesday this week, but I learned quite a bit during the time we were stuck in our house. Usually the agua is supposed to arrive on Tuesdays or Fridays but it didn't come until yesterday. We had to take buckets down to our neighbors pila and fill them up. We've been showering with a cold bucket of water every morning. The water came yesterday, but now our shower and toilet still don't function so it's the same, but we fill the buckets from our own pila now. 

This week I got to know more of the members in our area. We even played cards with some kids one night after dinner. I met some dude that cuts hair. He's super funny! We ate dinner last night with his fam. I think I found my new barber here. 

We had our first district meeting on Friday, haha. There's only 4 people in our district (us and the zone leaders). 

Well. mis amigos. we have some good investigators these days. Blanca y Geraldo. They are really good and want to be baptised but they need to get married. The problem is that one day they want to get married and the next they get into a fight. One day we showed up to their house but only Geraldo was there. He then told us a sketchy story from his past. 

Blanca and Geraldo were in a fight. She was going ham yelling and getting out of control. so Geraldo came up behind her and hugged her to try and calm her down. Backfire. Blanca grabbed a kitchen knife and stabbed it into his femur and ran away. Geraldo was in a lot of pain. He then pulled out the knife and tons of blood started to run down his leg.He started to hobble to find help and eventually someone took him to the hospital. Crazy stuff right! but we hope that they can improve their relationship and find the gospel in their lives. 

Suyapa, Jessica, and Jairo. Suyapa is the mom. She is 27 and her daughter Jessica is 14. Jairo is the son. He's 9 years old. They are super good! They are such humble and friendly people! They have a date for the 23rd of this month to be baptised. Alll they need to do is attend to the church. They couldn't go this week because they had a family member visit. We really hope to get them to the church next week and baptise them this month!

The weather has actually been pretty cold lately at least for Honduras. It's mostly just because of the wind, so i've been wearing a jacket lately.

Yesterday was my first visit to the church in my new area. Last week we couldn't go because of the craziness here. The church here is big and there's about 3 times the members than in Guayape. Church was good untill sacrement. 

My comp had to give a talk. While he was talking, two little girls came up to me. They had already stolen my comp's phone somehow and they were basically yelling at me to unlock the phone. Everyone was looking at me because they were sooo loud. I was tripping and didn't know if I should take the phone back or just let them go ham. I decided to try and take the phone but they just started crying,  so I let them have it. Then they got into my comp's bag and took 15 lemps and an orange. Then they finally gave me the phone and ran. 

This week we've been telling people about illumina el mundo. I really dig the vids on the website and I don't know who wouldn't, so we've been handing out little cards to people lately with a link to mormon.org. I'm sure you guys have already heard about it, but if no,  check out mormon.org or on their youtube channel to see some dope stuff! 

I love you guys and I hope you have a great week! 

Elder Sullivan

FueraJoh!

Hola Amigos, 


Hey creeds, I'm back and things have changed quite a bit in this last week. I moved areas all the way from one side of the country to the other. I'm in Las Mercedes. It's  pretty close to Tegucigalpa. It's completely different than Guayape. i feel like i just moved from a farm town to New York! There are houses everywhere and the architecture is just crazy! Houses are pretty much stacked on top of eachother and there are stairs all over the place. i really dig it. Our house is super legit too. It  has really nice beds instead of matresses on the floor and  hot water! A niiiice view! Oh,  did I forget to tell you that it has HOT WATER! Anyway, my new comp Zapata is a dope bro if you ask me. He's straight out of Chile, the only Chileno in the mish. He only speaks Spanish so its been very strange. I'm  gratefull though because I'm  learning a lot.

My first day here was pretty nutz. After I unpacked all my stuff we went to work. I was pretty much trippin the whole time because there's so many people, cars,  and noise. We went around to some of the members houses so I could get to know them and they are super cool! I was walking along a sketchy street and I heard some bro behind me say something about my watch, so I  turned around and the bro looked so sketch man! He had piercings and tatoos everywhere and he pointed at my watched. i was so scared and I had previous experiences with being robbed so I began to take my watch off to give it to him, but he was like broooo relax. I just want to know what time it is haha. i was pretty embarrassed . He shook my hand and walked away. My comp and I were laughing pretty hard. 

Later that night while we were at a members house eating dinner,  let's just say I passed out and was bleeding on my arms and head. haha 

Okay. Now the next day we did some contacting, but didn't find anything good. We talked to our investigators and got 2 fechas! I really love the investigadors we have. They are really funny and we can actually joke around with them! They are super positive. We have Blanca y Gerardo. They just need to be married. Also, Suyapa y Jessica. They just need to attend church. I'm  excited to go ham in this area. 

That night we got news from Pres Ferm. to get to our houses. It was about 7 pm. Things are nuts with the elecciones around here. We later found out we will be in our houses for about 10 days. Death to that, so  we had the opportunity to buy some food and prepare ourselves for that time. We were looking for a store to buy some food but all of the stores were closed. The windows on all of the buildings were smashed in and there was graffiti everywhere saying fuerajoh. meaning out Juan Orlando Hernandez. There's  black spots on the streets because people light them on fire every night. We ended up having to buy food from a pulperia.

So. these past few days I've been reading and studying, trying to take advantage of the time. The nights are really entertaining because the people schedule certain times to go ham at night. It's usually at 8 oclock and another at 10pm. During these times the people. and I mean everyone. They  chant fuerajoh. They have their boobooselas and their fireworks. It's  suuuuper loud. With our nice view we have the oppurtunity to see all of this,  to see the people running in the streets lighting fires and setting off their firecrackers. 

My spirituallness is increasing a lot because I've been reading books and scriptures like crazy. if you guys haven't read Our Search for Happiness, I  really recomend it. Aight.

We have the day today to do some more shopping and write about what the gill is happening out here. I hope you guys all have a wonderfull day.and have a wonderfull one too!

Elder Sullivan

4 months?!! I Must Be Trippin Maaaan

Picture Christian drew of him and his comp, Elder Valadez

Hola Amigos,


Another chill week in that one place. The weeks are flying by!  I actually hit 4 months yesterday! My training is over and changes are tomorow. I've learned a lot but I still have tons more of experience and growth left for me. I'm leaving Guayape tomorow. My new area will be Las Mercedes in the Zone Country. It's nearbye Teguc. My new comp will be Elder Zapata. 

        Well, we found ANOTHER good place to eat around here. It's actually street food. Some lady and a dude wake up every morning and make the best baleadas I've ever had! 

We taught a suuuper poor dude named Francisco this week. He's about 50 years old. His house has all dirt floors. It's not flat though. There's foot deep holes everywhere but he still has furniture and stuff. There's dust floating everywhere and about 4 dogs that just chill in there with him. He's really interested in the message and I hope that Valadez can have some success with him. 

Thanksgiving was just a normal day.

I had another intercambio con Elder Roberts. He's really cool and fun to talk to. I learn a ton each time we work together. We are two gringos together when we work so things get a little crazy.

We had our very last district meeting. It was a very spiritual experience. Elder Banda gave The Last Sermon about our purpose as misionaries and then we all shared our testimonies. 

Elections were yesterday. It is known for people to die a lot on those days. I was sketched but presidente told us to work normal. We went to a members house after church yesterday and we saw on her tv,  gulp, it was a bro. A dead one. he had flies crawling all over him. He got shot I guess, but we realized that it was actually about 4 minutes down the road from us! We were beasts though and just kept working.

Well, I'd like to talk a bit about prayer. Prayer is one of the best gifts we have. The ability to communicate with God. We can pray anywhere at anytime. We can pray out loud or in our hearts. I think sometimes it's very easy to get caught into saying the same prayer all the time. But actually we should take advantage even more of the chances we get to speak with our heavenly father. He loves us and he wants us to be happy! We should take all the time we need to thank him and ask him too. if we ask with confidence and with faith. He will answer us. 

And if you feel like you aren't recieving answers to your prayers. read in Doctrina y Convenios seccion 6. and 8 and 9. 

Okay guys,  I hope you had a good week last week and I really hope that you can make this week even better than the last! Seeee yyaaaa.

Elder Sullivan

Orange Juice Sounds Nice

Hola Amigos!

Let me give you guys the lowdown on the investigadors we have right now. 

 Celia:
She's super dope actually. She has a huuuge organization for single mothers. She's interested in the message, but she's very busy all the time. She said she wants to teach me how to make baleadas and tajadas!!! 

Bryan:

 He's 14 and fooorrr sure wants to get baptized. He has been going to church and seminary for almost a month. The only prob is his mom. She doesn't think he's ready because he's mean and irresponsible. We talked to him about it and hopefully he can change. We'll see man, we'll see. 

We also found a new investigador named Anderson, who is 17 years old. He's super chill. Also interested. We talked to him for soooo long. We talked about our hobbies and interests. He even gave us a tour of his house. This man is getting baptised.

We have a few others. They all just won't go to church--either they work or don't want to walk there.

Anyway, this week we found a dog. Not any normal dog, let me tell you. He was goin ham on us jumping, running etc. We named him Gremlin. (Watch the movie and you'll understand), but he wouldn't stop following us. We walked about a mile to our house. He followed us every step of the way. We gave him some water and we actually let him into our house because he's a pretty cool guy. We tried to escape him to get to the Texaco but we couldn't lose him. The only solution was to find the owner, so we walked him all the way back to his house (the opposite way of the Texaco) and gave him back to the owners. We don't walk by that house anymore. 

This one eerie night (actually all nights are eerie here) we were chilling at a pulp,  drinking some water bags, and this suuuper poor guy went up to buy something. I just looked at him and forgot about it. A few minutes later he came up to us and handed us both a little thing of orange juice. He talked to us a bit and we introduced ourselves and gave him a little tarjeta. It was pretty crazy. I love the people here. 

Speaking of orange juice. guess what we drank for the sacrement this week?? ORAN! It was reeaaally hard to not laugh while passing the sacrament and seeing the weird looks on people's faces. Also during the prayer. "'Santifique este agua." Phew man, that was tough. 

Well, some spiritualness coming at you. 

I have a book that's supposed to inspire missionaries. It actually works and i think it would work for anyone. I don't have it with me right now,  but I remember something that really pumped me up. It says something like this:

Look to this day! For it is life! Yesterday is only a dream and tomorow is a vision of hope and if you live this day great, yesterday will become a dream of happiness and tomorrow will become a vision of hope. 

I think thats right.

Well, friends have a good day and a great one too. Peace!!

Elder Sullivan

Who Is This Man?

Hola Amigos!!

Que onda locos? Out here chillin you know the usual. I'm doing good.  It's still death hot here if you're wondering. A few weird things happened this week if you asked me. 

          We taught a pretty weird dude this week. His name is Isabel. I think he's like 40 50 years old, but we couldn't actually teach him because he wouldn't stop talking and asking us creepy questions. He was telling us about how he's a man of God and that he can heal people. He says he heals his family all the time and offered to come to our church to heal some of our people too. I was like soorrry bro but I just think YOUR TRIPPING! 

          That whole night was weird because we went to this pulperia nearbye and we were gonna buy some bags of water and a snack but they gave us dinner!!! I was sooo happy and a little creeped. We actually taught them a little lesson too. 

          So Valadez had to do a lot of baptismal interviews this Friday in Juticalpa. While he was doing that I split off and worked with Elder Banda my other mexicano brutha. We found some nuevos but we also visited a less active girl. Not just any girl. She's 15 and has a 1 and a half year old kid. Another on the way too. Her boyfriend lives with her and he's 37 YEARS OLD!!!!! I just think to my self sometimes how does that happen? We woke up in Juti  the next morning and hit up Oh Crepe! again. I bought a nutella crepe with whipcream strawberries and bananas. Dang it was soooooooo good! 

            Another one of our new investigators is a lady, about 40 years old. She has her own single mother organization with thousands of members. She's loaded, but shes interested and she said shes gonna teach us how to make baleadas and tajadas! My two favorite foods here!!!!

           Church yesterday was pretty crazy. We had to bless the sacrement. During the sacrement my comp and I looked out the window of the church and guess who we saw!!! ISABEL!!!! The healing man!!! We were soooo scared he was gonna hop in there and start saying some weird stuff. He just waited out the sacrement and then came in and sat next to us quietly. I had to give my first talk in Spanish! I wasn't even scared at all for some wierd reason. Haha, but it was about 10 minutes long and I think it was dope. After sacrement Isabel stood up fast and just ran out without saying anything.

         Also yesterday on the way home from dinner I saw the biggest pig I've ever seen!!! It was the size of a donkey. The pic really tells the story of my fear. I thought it was gonna charge me! 

Enjoy the creepy pampers babies too.  Have a good day!  Peace!!!

Elder Sullivan

​

May The Force Be With You

Hola amigos,

Otra semana out here in Guayapppppeeeee mis amigos! So guys do you remember how I said there are naked children runnin around everywhere? Well, this week we saw next level creepiness. A naked man  just walking around near all the stores and stuff! I don't ever know what to expect these days. 

        Intercambios this week. I hit up Juticalpa again and stayed the night there with Elder Banda. He has 22 months in the mish so he's really wise and knows the ways of the force. During comp study  his prayer was at least 8 minutes long. He's super humble, but funny and chill at the same time. We even fasted too! I dig that. We contacted a lot and I got to see how a very experienced missionary preaches the word. We also taught a lady that is 99 years old!!! in Honduras?! Yeah man!

         So it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas! Just kidding. It's the same heat of death everyday. At least I'm keeping my tan on. I'm starting to understand more and talking to people more and to members  during lessons. 

         We went to a multizone in Guaymaca. Eeee. It's one of the nastiest places I've been to here. Actually,  yeah it's the nastiest now that I think of it. Suuuuuper flat dirt roads, no trees. I got to see Elder Briggs though, one of my CCM buddies. He's doing good. 

       Today as a district we hiked to some doooope caves and at the end of the cave there's a big gate. The guide told us that it's a cemetery and that there's a ton of bodies in there, but it was super cool. 

         I can't believe my training is almost over. After this most likely I'll  have to train a greeny, most likely a Latino that speaks no English at all. We'll see how that goes. My comp and I have found some really good investigadors this week. One is named Pablo. He lived in the U.S.  recently.  He's been here for 5 months, but he was super positive. He wants to be baptized. When he said the prayer at the end he said thank you lord for sending these 2 magnificent angels to preach me your word!!! I was like yeaaa man. You know thats right. I'M KIDDING. 

Have a good day my friends! Love You!