Sunday, February 8, 2023
President and Hermana Ostler introduced us to Honduras and were so good to let us stay with them for a week until our house was ready in Tela. They helped us find groceries and other essential items before they brought us here to Tela. We are grateful for their love and help, they have both made this transition easier. Hermana Ostler told us that it was not glamorous, and she is right, but we are so very blessed to live in a safe area. Thanks to Presidente Ostler we are doing great in this little corner of the San Pedro Sula East mission. We love them so much!!! We are about 2 hours away from the mission office in time but not distance. It takes 3 times longer to go anywhere, all roads are just 2 lane roads and anything goes! IT IS WILD!! Yes I used all capitals!!Pot holes, large and small, speed bumps, people walking, on bicycles, motorcycles, semi's, buses and cars in 2 lanes going any speed at all. I have not driven here, too scary, but Merrill has taken to driving like a wild man very well. I told him after we went to a Zone Conference in our car that I was not sure he was the man I married. He can drive like a maniac if needed.
A tour of our humble abode. Very, very nice for Honduran standards. We are in a nicer area with a row of 4 townhouse homes, we are number 3, but there is no address. No mail is ever delivered. Mail service is non existent. If someone wants to know where you live you just tell them an area, Barrio La Curva.
GATE TO OUR HUMBLE ABODE
The Kitchen has no cabinets, just open shelves, I can not hide anything out of site. We rarely have visitors so I guess that does not matter?
LIVING ROOM
All of the floors are tile. I miss getting out of bed in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and stepping on carpet. All water must be used either from the water jugs or boiled for 5 minutes for safe use. We miss brushing our teeth at the sink with running water over our brushes, instead we use bottled water. All food must be stored off of the floor and in a sealed container to keep ants, bugs and creatures out of the food. Food in the fridge is ok, but everything else must be sealed up. We hand wash all of our dishes. No dishwasher. It is very nice and comfortable here in Tela! There is a Harry Potter bathroom under the stairs with a sink and toilet. Every bit of paper used in the bathroom must NOT be flushed! The sewer system can not handle anything but.... therefore all paper goes in the wastepaper basket near the toilet!!HARRY POTTER BATHROOM
The PILA where I wash my clothes!
Not true, so thankful that Presidente Ostler and Hermana were able to get us a washer and dryer. A TRUE blessing and luxury!! We are grateful for Omar, too!
PILA, all missionaries and most Hondurans wash their clothing in a PILA. Only the very wealthy have a washer and most no one has a dryer!
There are 21 hard tile stairs to get up to the bedrooms and bathroom upstairs. You must be very careful going up and down these stairs in sandals.
There is a small seating area at the top of the second stairway? I don't know what you would use it for but it looks nice.
The upstairs bathroom is nice, the shower is an experience in itself. No hot water, unless you use the heated shower head that has electricity directly wired into the shower head!! Scary to me but they say it is safe. I am grateful for a shower with hot water. The poor Missionaries do not have this luxury, just a cold shower or shower with a bucket!! Todd says showering like that is a good life experience. I just want to invite each one of them over for a shower at least once in their mission experience. We are very blessed and thankful we have this luxury. 
We have 2 bedrooms upstairs, the master bedroom is larger than the 2nd bedroom, but we still have somewhere to put all of our suitcases. No real storage or closets to speak of. All of the closets are open and you can not hide any mess, tough for me. I like to shut a closet door and hide my stuff. We have a nice little balcony off the master bedroom. We have not been out there yet but it seems nice, You can hear the dogs barking day and night, but it seems they really like to bark at 1 AM and 4 AM??? Go figure. There is a lot of traffic on the main road that you can hear 24 hours daily. We have air conditioning in both bedrooms and the kitchen living area so we are very, very comfortable, in fact Merrill gets cold often and we have to turn the air conditioning to a warmer temperature. I think he worked for so long in the cold for so many years that he really enjoys being warmer, I just like being an even 72 degrees all the time. Now that I have cleaned every little nook and cranny, we are doing well in our little castle in Honduras. President and Hermana Ostler made sure that the "Princess Chappell" would be happy in her castle!! We love you all! We love the missionaries and we love our Savior who makes all of this possible!!
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