Sunday November 12, 2023

The winter is well underway here in Honduras, look at how green and pretty it is here in winter. 😆

They say that November and December are the winter months here.  When we got here last year in the middle of January obviously we had just come from winter in Utah where it had been snowing and we didn't have any winter clothes, they were all packed away and we were dressed for Honduras.  When we got here it seemed pretty warm to us but they were all saying that the weather was nice and cool.  It did get steadily warmer though, until probably about April, then it just stayed HOT until about October then it did seem to get a little cooler.  I think that this past week there was actually one day that I didn't sweat at all the entire day.  That was very odd, but nice.  There hasn't been as much rain this week as last week but almost every day there is a storm that rolls through, keeping everything wet, and cooler, it is raining outside right now.  The mosquitos like the wet weather, they are everywhere.  With Dengue out there, we are careful to put mosquito repellant on whenever we go out.  That is one thing that we do not want to get while we are here.  

The Elder that was in the hospital with Dengue finally was released from the hospital this past Tuesday.  He was happy to be able to get back home to his area, even though he is still weak at times and has to take it easy for a while.  He is such a small skinny Elder that he doesn't have any reserve in his body anyway, and he was so very sick.  We are grateful for his recovery though.  He was worried about his mom, he said that she had been so worried about him.  I know that all their faith and prayers, as well as ours, that he was able to recover.  I hope he doesn't get it again, they say that it is always worse the second time that you get it, and yes, I guess you can get it over and over again.  He completed one year here on his mission while he was in the hospital so hopefully he can get through one more year without any problems.  He said that he did not wear repellant before but that for sure now he is going to.  We get them sometimes in the house here but since we have air conditioning we can keep the doors and windows closed most all the time, so that helps a lot.  Hermana Chappell very rarely gets a mosquito bite but I seem to get a new one or two almost every day.  I don't know why they like my blood so much.  Even with OFF they bite me.  We also have eucalyptus oil that we put on to keep the mosquitoes away.  We got that to keep the fleas away from the pesky flea ridden dogs that like to get too close but it also helps to keep the mosquitoes away too.  

We went to a multi Zone conference this past week and so we were able to see some of the missionaries that have been here in this area.  Elder Pineda who will be finishing up with his mission and is going home in December and hermana Ortega, who we got so close to while she was serving here in Tela.  

On Monday for P day we went to the Playa and had lunch and took pictures at the beach.  It is always a blessing to be with them. 

With all the rain, Hermana Chappell has had lots of sick missionaries.  One called and said, "my stomach aches and I have been throwing up, What can i do?"  Well,  that is such a common thing here,  it seems like everyone after getting here has that problem then we get over it and pretty soon it happens again.  Throwing up or diarrhea or both are common events for our missionaries.  We are very lucky / Blessed in that we prepare 99% of the food that we eat here at home.  We have only been invited to eat with members a couple of times, and we are ok with that.  Cleanliness is not what we, coming from the United States and from clean homes are used to.  We have been very open about the fact that I can't eat anything with flour in it, and since that is such a foreign concept for them to have someone say that they can't eat flour, it is like wow, what do you eat?   They eat a lot of wheat tortillas here and breaded chicken, fish or pork, as well as the regular things like bread and cookies and cake are common food items here.  I am so thankful that Colleen helps me to stay well and away from gluten.  This heavy damp high humidity air is terrible for Colleen's sinuses, she is really struggling with the sinus infection, stuffy head that she has had since before we came here.  She has constant back pain and never sleeps, I don't know how she keeps going but here we are, still plugging along.  A bad thing about being in the medical field, and more especially with being the medical health advisor here in the mission is that she is always getting calls like, "I'm sick, what can I do?"  That gets so hard to deal with 24/7.  I think she will be a lot happier once we get home and she doesn't have to listen to and advise teenagers about how to take a pill and you will get better soon.  Or just go home and drink some water to hydrate and rest for a bit and you will feel better.  Especially when it was so hot, it was so often a matter of staying hydrated, you have to drink a lot of water when you are constantly sweating, not only water but Gatorade and "Suero" which is a powder that you add to your water to replenish the electrolytes. I just hope we don't get any more sick missionaries with Dengue like this last one, that was not good.  What made his situation worse was that he was in an area quite far away from good medical attention,  I am sure it made a difference for him when he was moved to the better hospital in San Pedro Sula.  I hope that everyone always remembers to pray for the missionaries, I know it makes a difference and I know that we have been blessed because of prayers offered in our behalf.