Sunday 24 December 2023
We are joined today for our Christmas eve lunch, with four amazing people. We are so grateful for the blessing to be here in Tela Honduras this year with these wonderful young missionaries to celebrate Christmas together. Today is Christmas eve so there was only a sacrament meeting at church. Four of the youth that attended the "For the Strength of youth camp" spoke in church. The camp was this past week, it was 4 days in San Pedro Sula. They all had a great time and got to know a lot of other youth from the Northern half of Honduras all together for a week. It is great that the church has these camps for the youth to give them exposure to church activities, and experiences that they will always remember. We have so many missionaries here in this mission that say that their experience at the FSY camp was what changed their life and helped them to decide to serve a mission. Then Presidente Garcia gave a talk about the Savior and it was really good. We had the missionaries over for lunch today, then they went to spend the late afternoon and evening with other members of their branches, we went with the Hermana's and had some food, sang some christmas songs and had a prayer with the Madrid family. Their son Javier was there visiting so it was great to see him again, he lived here with them for a while then moved because of work.
Javier, Me, Hermana Recinos, Hermana Chappell, Hermana Lopez, Reyna, German Madrid. They are long time members even though the dad, German has not been a member for 15 years, he has a goal of being baptized on his birthday, Feb 13. I hope that can happen. It would make our mission so complete to be able to see him back on the covenant path with his wife, and children. He said that many others have invited him to make the necessary changes and come back to church. I think I wrote about this last week, but he said that he always told them yes but then never did, and now he feels like he really does need to get himself baptized and back in full fellowship with the church. She said one time to us that her really true wish in this life before they die is that they are both full members in the church. She has been afraid that he would never see that wish fulfilled but I think now she is more hopeful that it might be real. He attends church every week, but she never leaves the house. She did say though that she wanted to try to come over on the first week in January for the fast and testimony meeting. She has a walker with wheels and a seat, that she uses inside the house. Where they live is literally across the street from the church, on the side street, through the parking lot which is a basketball/soccer playground. We told her that we would help her to be able to get there. I don't know how many years it has been since she actually went to church, she just never gets out, because of her health, which means she is very weak and doesn't have the strength any more to really do very much.
After lunch we had to get another picture before they all left. We drew names here in our district between the 6 of us and opened those gifts here this afternoon too. Elder Borders had Hermana Chappell's name. He had me send him some pictures of Colleen's favorite things she has done here. He then got them printed and made a little box. He said open the box then pull the sides down. Which when opened looked like this....
It was really sweet of him to do this for her, she loves pictures and these all have special meaning to her so it was very meaningful. Everyone had fun and enjoyed opening the gifts. We each had to say some good characteristic about the person we had the gift for and it was nice to hear good things about each other. They are typical 18 - 20 year olds, so they nit pick each other some, not bad but they are typical kids. So we try to be positive and uplifting to help them feel that way too.
We had Christmas multi zone conferences this past week in La Ceiba and in La Lima. We had to go to both, because we always do but also because they had to give all the missionaries the first two doses of the rabies vaccine, which is a sub Q in both the right and left deltoid. Then in two week everyone needs the second dose of another sub q dose in each arm again. We didn't have to get vaccinated but we did anyway, peer pressure. After the two doses, if someone is bitten by a rabid dog then they only need to get two additional shots. Without the vaccine then they need a very expensive numerous doses of vaccine. So this saves time and money as a whole. There are dog bites typically once a month on average here in our mission, and sometimes they know the dog and the owner and they say the dogs have been vaccinated so they don't have to do any more than clean the wound, put antibacterial cream on it and maybe take antibiotics. There are so many street dogs here, everywhere. That may or may not have rabies but if one runs out of nowhere and bites them the only option is to assume that they have rabies. So the missionaries were not too excited about the shots but they did get to sing Christmas songs, share testimonies, watch a short Christmas movie, have a great lunch then play bingo and musical chairs. They all had a good time. It is always great to see missionaries that have been here, but who have now been transferred to new areas with new companions.
The mission rules are that you cannot hug people of the opposite sex. This has been the hardest rule to keep for Hermana Chappell, because she loves to give hugs to those she loves. And knowing that after the mission we will never see some of these wonderful young Elders and Hermana's again is just hard. We are so blessed to be able to be a small part of this wonderful work of the Lord, in His missionary army that covers the world.
Part of the "Fun" of being in Honduras is having to boil water every day to wash the dishes. Just what we do every day.
Another "Fun" part of Latin America, at least here in Honduras is the never ending search for a "clean" bathroom. I don't think they exist here. In the churches they are not nearly so bad but there is always the chance that there in not toilet paper or paper towels to wash your hands. There is never hot water in sinks. That is something that I have never seen here. There just isn't hot water here unless you heat it up on the stove or microwave. Which makes cleaning up dinner an additional "Fun" experience.
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