Merrill & Colleen's Honduran Adventure

 Sunday March 26, 2023  Isn't that a beautiful way to begin this blog post?  I think so!  I am so grateful for my Eternal companion!  Every day I am more aware of the blessings of Eternal Marriage and of Covenants with the Lord.  We are so blessed to have those opportunities provided to us.  We have deep fried bananas here with most every meal if we eat out, but most of them are not salted.  Hermana Chappell always says, "These would be so much better if they just had a little salt on them!"   Well guess what?  We were at the grocery store this week and saw these bags of fried bananas "Con Sal" 😋 "With Salt". So we had to buy a bag.  We had the Elders over yesterday for the Leadership session of our Stake Conference which was on zoom. So we had chips."Bananas" and guacamole.  They were pretty good.   After we went over to the church for the adult session on zoom, then today we drove to El Progreso an hour and a ...

 Sunday March 19, 2023 What a great week this has been.  We had the wonderful opportunity to attend two wonderful multi Zone Conferences this week.  Elder Giuffra and Hermana Giuffra of the seventy were here this week for a mission tour.  So they combined all the Elders and Hermanas into two main areas and held a conference where we heard from President and Hermana Ostler then Elder and Sister Giuffra.  It was such a great experience to be there and hear of their instructions and to feel of their spirit and love.  We went to both of them because Hermana Chappell has had several sick and injured missionaries that she really wanted to see and to just be able to talk with them and see them in person.  We have had two Elders get bitten by dogs recently and that is such a scare for the question of whether they might have rabies.  As it turned out thankfully neither of them did but it was not a pleasant experience for the Elders or for Hermana Chappell ...

 Monday March 13, 2023 Hello everyone, this photo deserves a new post for this week.  Meet Elder Chappell!  He arrived here in the mission Last August.  He is from Glenwood, Iowa.   We are 4th or 5th cousins, we are not sure but we will figure that out when we can be together with our family search app to know for sure.  Just before we left to come out on our mission my brother Dean and his wife Peggy called us, they were still on their mission at the Winter Quarters historical site in Nebraska.  They said that they had come to know a Chappell family that lived in Omaha and their son was on a mission in the Honduras San Pedro Sula Este mission, which was exactly the same mission where we were going to.  They also said that they had met Sean, now Elder Chappell, there earlier.  They also explained our familiar relationship.  I don't remember exactly what it was but his mom and dad are both from Utah, but moved out to Iowa after colle...

 Sunday March 12, 2023 It is interesting how every week is the same but every week is different in the great experiences here in Tela Honduras.  So a couple of weeks ago Elder Renlund of the Quorum of the 12 Apostles was doing a tour of Central America.  In the Church news they posted this picture which was from the leadership session on Saturday afternoon.  I looked at the picture and I thought, wow there are alot of people there, and even if I was there I wouldn't have known anyone.  But upon looking a little closer right there on the right side in white shirts and ties are our two Branch Presidents sitting side by side.  They have a blue circle around them.  Presidente Hernández from the Tela Branch and Presidente Mencia from the Telamar Branch.  I thought that was cool that they got their picture in the Church News!  Elder Renlund did a meeting for the youth, and a leadership meeting and a general session for everyone,  except the mi...

  Sunday March 5, 2023 This looking out our front door.  We park the little Nissan Kicks car that they have provided for us here inside our little front yard behind a locked gate.  There are some that park their cars out on the streets but I am glad that we can lock it inside just to be safer.  Garbage is picked up on Wednesday mornings so we take the trash can outside early, then bring it back in for the week.  Our drinking water is from the blue 5 gallon jugs like the one sitting on the trash can in the picture.  There is a truck that comes down the street several times every day except Sundays that sells water.  This is what everyone has to use for drinking water.  The tap water is filtered but not for drinking.  We boil the tap water to use for cleaning dishes etc.  The shower water is not filtered except for the little holes in the shower head which get plugged up rather often.  I just unscrew it, clean it out and put it back o...