Merrill & Colleen's Honduran Adventure

 Sunday Oct 29, 2023 We took this picture of our district this week at Zone conference on Wednesday.  We have two new missionaries in our district. From the left there is Elder Lazo who just got here from Peru last week, his trainer companion Elder Borders from Tooele,  Elder and Hermana Chappell,  Hermana Lopez from Mexico, also new to our district last week, and Hermana Tzep from Honduras.  It is always great to get to know  these missionaries and hear their stories.  Hermana Lopez says that her parents are going through a divorce right now.  She said that when she left home things were not great but they hadn't filed for divorce, and she told them that she was not going to be coming back home no matter what they did until her mission was ended.  She is very firm in her commitment to serve.  She is the oldest of three children.  It is her birthday today, so Hermana Chappell had everyone over for lunch today after church.  We ...

 Sunday Oct 22, 2023 Happy Birthday Hermana Chappell last Monday.  There is a nice little Italian restaurant here in Tela where we went out to dinner Monday night.  This picture is of Colleen on her birthday.  This is a big one for her, she is now 65 years old, she never thought that she would reach that age.  I am so glad that she is still here with us.  She was able to visit with Todd and his family and also Meggan and Janise as well as most of her family as well.  For lunch the missionaries came over and we had pizza and birthday cake.  They brought a candy gift over for her and we had a great time.   The Hermanas, who are both from Guatemala, sang a happy birthday song to Hermana Chappell which is a traditional birthday song from their tradition.  We have a little video of them singing but I can't get it to upload on to the blog. The missionaries all love Hermana Chappell and she loves them.  It has been a great week. ...

 Sunday Oct 15, 2023 We went to "Miami beach" this week.  It is west of Tela, in a more remote area.  You have to go down a dirt road for maybe 15 kilometers but it is really pretty.   It is on a narrow peninsula where the ocean, caribbean sea is on the north and a big freshwater lake is on the south of this narrow piece of land. There are people who live out there but it is very sparsely populated.  It seems that here the outer more rural areas are where the black people live.  Here they are Garífuna people, which is an Afro Caribbean race.  They speak spanish but their native language is Garífuna.  They live here in Tela as well, and there are several who are members of the church in each of the branches here.  In fact the Bonilla family that I talked about last week who had the accident on the motorcycle are of that race.  The mom was on the phone with someone while we were taking them out to the hospital and she was speaking tha...

  Sunday Oct 8, 2023   There are always so many things going on in the life of the missionaries.  Hermana Chappell is always helping those who are suffering with physical and at times mental issues, on the phone talking with them, also through messages, and the best of all are the days when we have Zone Conferences where we are all together.  This past week we went to La Lima where we had a 5 Zone conference.  There were over 100 missionaries there so Hermana Chappell was crazy busy.  The other reason she was so busy is that they had flu shots there for all the missionaries.  The people from the health dept were there to administer the vaccines but she had to keep track of them all and then add that information for each and every one of them on their individual health history.  Here are our Zone Leaders after getting their shots.  Elder Balsells and Elder Williams.  It was a good day but very tiring between the travel and all that h...

  Sunday Oct 1, 2023 This has been a great General Conference weekend.  The Elders and the Hermana's were here with us both on Saturday as well as on Sunday.  Colleen fixed lunch and dinner for everyone yesterday and then today we all had lunch together.   Hermana Chappell, Hermana Tzep, Hermana Gomez, both from Guatemala, Elder Valenzuela, from Argentina, Elder Borders, from Tooele, and Elder Chappell.  It is a lot of work for Hermana Chappell, but it is always great to be together with the missionaries.  Elder Valenzuela drives Hermana Chappell crazy, but it isn't forever.  There is such a difference between 18 year old boys and 20 and 21 year old young women.  The conference this weekend was so good.  They always are but being here in this setting it seems to take on a more important focus.  We had the computer plugged in to the tv, playing in spanish and the other laptop was on the kitchen table in english for Elder Borders, and...