Sunday June 23, 2024

We had a baptism here yesterday afternoon, Rodrigo Jared Romero Contreras was baptized by Elder Slade.  He is one of four boys in a part member family.  There are so many part member families here, perhaps everywhere, but little by little the missionaries are able to unite families through their covenants.  Lupe Romero is the grandmother of Rodrigo, and his brothers.  She is a very faithful Grandmother who tries so hard to help her grandchildren attend and participate in Church.  She was unable to attend the baptism because she has been unwell, she spent a week in the local hospital, but she was able to return home this past Tuesday, but was not feeling well enough to attend the baptism.  Rodrigo's dad, Lupe's son is not a member but now, the oldest three of their sons are baptized members.  He is not married to the mother of their children and have not made the effort to get married and then baptized.  It is so common here for mom and dad to not be married, and even more common to not even have a father who lives with the mom and the children.  We went out to visit Janger this week, she had a baby about a month ago, she still lives with her mom and there is no sign of a dad except the little baby. 

We also went out to the Lancetilla this past monday for P-Day, it is a favorite activity for us because it is so beautiful there.

Elder Cruze loves Soccer and was in heaven sitting out on the soccer field for a bit.  This week we had to go to a Pharmacy and pick up a few things, so Hermana Chappell got a picture of one of the armed guards that they always have in all the public places, they look so scary don't they? 

We also found another mural painted on a wall, the fun thing about this mural is that it is so very typical of the Garifuna people who we see around town and by the beach, they are always out selling their "Pan de Coco" which is a bread, dinner roll type bread made with coconut water.  I have never tried them obviously but a lot of the missionaries like it and Hermana Chappell says that they are pretty good too, just a slight hint of coconut flavoring in the bread.  They carry the big tubs or baskets full of rolls on their head, like the pictures you see from some areas of Africa.  

Colleen took these pictures today at church, Doris was not feeling well enough to come out and there were only 2 of her children and the one grandson that attended today.  We are going to have a Family Home Evening out there with them this coming week on Tuesday night so that should be nice.  

We also went to a food market this week where we have never been this whole time here, it was interesting,  not the cleanest place in the world.  I like the outdoor fruit stands better for some reason.     We also had our District council this past week on Wednesday, which is what we always do, but the Zone Leaders were here on exchanges with the Elders and the Sister Leaders were here on exchanges with the Hermana's so there were twice as many there as normal so we had to take a picture. 

The Elders took a picture while visiting one of our favorite families here in Tela this past week.  Lester and Christofer are always at church, they have been very active members for close to two years now.  They live with their Uncle who is a member but is not married with their aunt.  He has the greatest conversion story,  he said that someone was knocking on the door, so he opened it up and there stood two giants from Utah, with white shirts and ties.  So many wonderful stories from the wonderful saints here.  

When the missionaries leave the mission, they always send in a picture to post in the mission monthly newsletter as a leaving picture, that they post with the picture that is sent in with the missionary application.  So we went out and took a few pictures to choose from to send in to the office.  We choose the third one, which is more of a close up of the two of us.  It looks a bit different than the one we sent in with our missionary application.  I feel like we have both aged a bit.  We have one more week, and a busy week it is going to be.  We will be busy right up to the very last minute.  There are two Elders in the hospital again with Dengue, they can get so sick.  We always use repellent, there are so many mosquitos here,  it has been raining again and I am sure that is part of the reason that there are so many mosquitos.