Sunday May 12, 2024

Happy Mother's day.  In Honduras Mother's day is celebrated on the 2nd Sunday in May, the same as in the United States.  In Guatemala and in Mexico Mother's day is on May 10, no matter what day of the week it falls on.  The branch held an activity yesterday afternoon for all the mothers in the branch.  They had games, a piñata and a dinner for them.  Hermano Mendoza brought his grill over to the church and cooked the kabobs and they had rice and red refried beans, which they have in every meal here, corn tortillas, pickled relish, tomatoes and soda.   Colleen didn't eat, she said that the meat looked scary.  

The piñata was made by Hermana Morales and another sister here, they made a big "Abuela piñata"   a piñata that was a grandmother.  They put candy in it which of course is the whole reason to have it, then the sisters of the group took turns whacking it until it broke open and the candy went everywhere.  Everyone scrambled to get some candy, especially the kids that were there.  I didn't go but Colleen had a lot of pictures and videos of the evening, there were a lot of sisters there and it looked like they really had a great time there together.  I feel like it was a great branch bonding experience for them.  I am so glad that they did the activity for several reasons, but I feel like it helps the branch members to create a closer bond when they have activities like this, there are so many new people trying to become a part of the branch and it is good to have activities like this besides the regular Sunday meetings, and classes.  They really did have a good time.  Hermana Chappell said that it was really fun, even if she didn't eat.  

We had an experience this week that we don't get to do very often,  there was a returned missionary who returned to Honduras with his mom and dad and they came to Tela for a couple of days.  It was fun to spend an afternoon with them and have lunch and just visit for a while in English.  They are from Cedar City, and Elder Porter, now called Thayne instead of Elder, was fun to share experiences and memories of his time here in Honduras.  He said that he is coming back in June to go to the temple with a family that he knew in Progreso and they are going to be getting sealed in the Tegucigalpa temple and he is pretty excited about that.  I am not sure if he will come back to Tela in that same trip or not but he said that he would let us know.  

Hermana Chappell is like a mom for so many of these missionaries here.  For those who never serve in Tela and who never have any health issues, not so much.  But especially for those who serve here in Tela who we see all the time and with whom we share so many great experiences with, there really is a great bond that is created.  Colleen also gets quite close to those who have health issues as they look to her to save them, and keep them alive so that they can get through this experience, there is also such a bond that is created there.  There have been so many of these wonderful missionaries who have reached out to her today to wish her happy mother's day, it really has been great.  One in particular was Elder Lazo, who is from Peru.  He served his first 18 weeks in his mission here in Tela.   It was a challenging experience for him to be away from home and his mom and to learn what it is like to be away from home and in a foreign land doing missionary work.  We got to be quite close to him and he sent a wonderful message to Colleen this morning.  We were able to see him this past week in La Ceiba at the zone conference where we got this picture with him.  

In his message to Hermana Chappell he said, in English, probably with help from google translate,,,  "Good morning Hermana Chappell.  Happy Mother's day.  I hope you have a good Sunday, you are an example for me, thank you for helping me in all things, more in Telamar,  you are a mother for me, I love you very much,  I miss you very much, you are the best and you are my family."  He is such an awesome young man and it has been a blessing for us to have been able to be here and to get to know him.  There are so many of these wonderful young men and women here that we get the privilege to create such a beautiful eternal relationship with.   There are some of the gringo missionaries, like Elder Porter, that there is the possibility that we will see them again, but there are so many others like Elder Lazo, that other than facebook we will probably never see again.  It is a rather bitter sweet experience to contemplate.  

We were in La Ceiba this past week and attended the zone conference there, so of course we got some pictures with some of them.  

The week before we were in La Lima at the other zone conference that they did there, and we finally got the picture from that zone conference.  

We had lunch last Wednesday together as a district, this is really a fun group of missionaries, they can sure laugh and have a great time together.  Elder Rosario has such a fun personality, he loves to have a good time and he is always so happy.  It is always fun to have them around.  

They have been painting murals on a lot of the cement walls around town, like I mentioned last week, and this week we saw a new one so we took a picture....

They had a group of artists from all over come here for some reason and paint murals all over town, it has been fun to see things show up where there was just an ugly cement wall turned into art.  It has been fun to see the murals all over that they have done.

 It would be nice to get back out to this one and see how it turned out.  I think they have all left now but it is fun to look around a corner and see a new mural on the wall where there wasn't one before.   

 There is a monthly medical mission that Colleen has on zoom where they all discuss different issues that the missionaries all over the world have to deal with, some more relevant than others, but this past meeting one of the Dr's showed this slide and said that he loves this picture because it is how he has felt so much of the time in his calling as Area Medical Advisor.  The patient is so sick, the nurse is doing her duties so well to help the patient, the Dr is worried about the diagnosis and the treatment plan.  Then there is the Savior, always there giving the needed help to both the Dr and the patient, He is afterall the master healer and he does take care of all of us, in our trials and problems that we all face.  We have participated in so many miracles here in this short time we have been involved with missionary medical, He truly is involved in the lives of all of us, sometimes it is easier than others to see His influence, but He is always here with us.  We have seen that so many times here, and we know that He really does love everyone and is always here to help us.