WEEK #38 El Horno

My Elder Hunt

Hey guys!  Another week hotter than the last!  I guess its gonna be like this til like June but hey we might have some rain soon!  Gotta love getting out of the shower and then starting to sweat again as soon as you start ironing!  Its all good though!  My comp described this heat though pretty good he said its like putting a magnifying glass under the sun and pointing it on Honduras!  I wish you guys could feel this heat for just a day!

So this week we were having a Family Home Evening and I was sitting in a chair by a fan and this huge insect came out of nowhere and was flying above us.  This thing was massive and it came towards me and started buzzing around me so I stood up and tried to smack it out of the air and missed and then they were all saying its on you!  Its on you!  Lift up your arm!  So I was like trying to get this thing off me and it I guess it wasn't even on me but had fallen to the floor and they were all teasing me.  It was pretty funny!  But ya this beatle was pretty huge!  Also I have these 2 little kids that like to attack me with karate moves every time we go over to their house cause they were watching Jackay Chan or something like that so thats always fun!  They never give up either!  Its crazy!

Cow intestine soup- YUCK!

Tuesday I probably experienced the hottest day of my life the 21 of April 2015.  We were walking home from lunch and the sun was scorching us for like a mile and a half.  It didnt help that we ate sopa de mondogo (cow intestine, stomach soup) for lunch which was also really hot!  Ill send pictures!  But ya it was probably the hottest ive ever been in my life and we all hopped in the pila after!  All 4 of us!

We've started these Plan of Action Papers here with the members where they have to write down like 5 names for references that they can give us and they have to introduce the gospel to them give them a Book of Mormon and then invite them over for a Family Home Evening and invite us too and then from there we are going to teach them the lessons and have the members in the lessons!!  Hopefully it works, cause we dont have a lot right now!!  Our ward mission leader is pretty cool too and he came out with us to go check up on all the members and there plan of action!  Pray for this area Villanueva so that we can have more success and find the people that are waiting and ready to hear the gospel!! We need your prayers out here!!

Beautiful sunset

I got sick Saturday which was a bummer and my stomach was killing me all day and so we stayed in and I slept like the whole day with the fan blowing on me.  So that was fun but Sunday I wook up and was feeling a lot better which was good.  Sunday we ate lunch at this members house and he showed us this video on youtube of people like blowing up a baloon with a bottle and stuff and he was all excited to try and it and had all the stuff ready so we tried it!  Semi worked!  Hes a funny guy though and always has funny stuff like that that he wants to try!  Also Sunday I got to know some of our investigators a little better and found out that this lady Sonia that we have has been investigating the church since 2000.  She said 2000 and I was waiting for like 2014 or something but i guess theyve had the missionaries for 15 years now and still arent baptized!  Crazy!  Also we had a sweet lesson with a lady named Jessica and talked to her about how she can live with her family for forever and just because stuff happened in the past it doesnt mean that it will happen in the future!  We can learn from the past and the trials that we have and have a better life in the future and know how to make better decisions!!  I really think shes gonna progress!! Shes just gotta get married like everyone else here in Honduras!  

So that was this week!  Hopefully theres some good progress this next week!!  My comp is starting to get super baggy saying everynight 17 days left!! 16 days left!!  me voy!! im leaving!!  haha hes sick of this heat!  funny little guatemalan!  anyway just wanted to talk a little about what are mission president told us this last week!  he talked about the importance of Sunday and that he was in a conference with 3 members of the seventy, and the 3 members of the seventy were counseling them about what the 12 aposotles and prophet were counseling them on and what Jesus Christ was counseling them on which is the importance of the Sabbath Day.  That just goes to show how important the Sabbath Day is!!  A day to put aside all the wordly things and focus on the atonement of Jesus Christ and how he can clean and purify us even though we live in a world of turmoil.  A day to focus on the most important things.  Pretty cool to hear how that line of revelation works.  Anyways love you guys and hope you all have a great week!!!  Enjoy the weather in Utah for me and I cant wait to talk with you all next week!!  Miss you all a lot!!

Love Elder Hunt

WEEK #37 Sauna

Loving life here in Honduras!

Middle of summer here in Honduras!!  Feels like Im in a permanent sauna haha.  Have you ever heard of excercising in Saunas??  I did that this morning lolz!  So we made some progress this week and found some pretty cool new people!  

On Tuesday and Thursday we taught this guy named Santa Ana and hes the husband of this recent convert here named Isidra!  Anyway we taught him twice this week and hes difficult.  He kinda likes to just argue everything we say and then after just says man i love talking about the bible with you guys haha so will keep working with him!  Its gonna be a hard one but Im actually learning a lot as hes testing our knowledge!  But my comp keeps saying once we convert this guy hell be a great leader in the church cause he knows alot!  So pretty cool!  

A scorpion we found!

We also found this new girl Angelina who used to live in Miami, Florida!  It was kind of like a best 2 years way of finding when we were having nothing and I said well lets go check out those hats and eat some chips and drinks at that store right there.  So we went over there and ended up finding this girl.  Shes way cool and wants to know more and has a huge family as well that we can teach!!  Im also gonna help her with her english and her grandchildren too!  30 minutes of lesson then like 30 minutes of english practice!  Hopefully it works out well!!  On Friday we also found some other sweet news who live right by us!!  I hope they all progress well!!  We also have these pretty good investigators Allan Vallecino and Jessica Mejia who were gonna put fechas with hopefully soon!!

This was a way cool day!

On Saturday Elder Mcneely (my comp from the MTC) and Elder Ochoa had a baptism!! The girls name is Astrid!  Pretty cool getting to see my comp from the mtc having a baptism!!  We got some pics too of that!!  Really cool though and now everyone in that family except for one is baptized!  The Dad baptized Astrid so that was cool to see as hes a recent convert too!  It was funny to watch him try and unplug the plug after the baptism as he did a diving motion like a swan dive but couldnt get the plug undone for a while cause he was a little too chubby and couldnt sink in the water!  Hes a really funny dude!  Also Sunday I had to give a little suprise talk/testimony cause the bishop called me up to share my thoughts about missionary work after McNeelys talk and I had no idea he was going to do that haha so that was fun but I think I did alright!

Anyway pretty chill fun week this week and hoping to get alot accomplished this next week!!  Life is good here though can't complain!!  Learning a lot every day and trying to build the Lords kingdom here in Honduras!!  Its hard but worth it!!  Sure miss you guys and love you all!  Til next week!

Love Elder Hunt

WEEK #36 Super Caliente

It's been so hot-this is how we cool off!

Something weird that I drank!

Yes, this is a tarantula!  

Man is it hot!  Definitely the hottest week of the mission so far.  My comp says that were living in Infierno.  Pretty true.  The humidity here is pretty intense.  Anyway this week was pretty good!  We got to work and found some new investigators to teach!!  Me and my comp made some pretty intense goals that are gonna push us to work super hard and talk with everyone!!

Lets see on Tuesday it was Elder Ochoas birthday!! Hes Elder Mcneelys comp from Mexico!  This kid is so funny!  He always makes us laugh just doing funny mexican things I guess.  Hes an interesting guy!  In the night time its still pretty hot so sometimes we all jump in our pila to cool off!!

On Thursday I saw the fattest little Honduran kid in the world.  He was only 2 and bigger than his 5 year old cousin and I guess this kid started walking when he was 9 months old!  I couldn't stop laughing I wish I would have had my camera!

Saturday I met this family that gave us lunch and the lady had just gotten back from Utah and showed me on her Ipad all these pictures of St. George, Mount Timpanogas, etc.  Ive forgotten how beautiful Utah is with the mountains and snow!!  She was really cool though and nice.  She kept telling me just how much she loved Chuckarama and Olive Garden and Tucanos haha.

Sunday was cool!  It was fast and testimony meeting of course so I got to go up and introduce myself and bare my testimony!  One thing thats way cool here is that the members dont just go up one by one.  If one person in the family goes up the whole family goes up and stands with them and they all bare their testimony one after the other and support each other.  I thought that was really cool.  Something I've never seen before! 

Another cool experience Sunday was that me and my comp were going to a members house and they have a dog outside on a chain that likes to charge you and get pulled back on the chain went it can't reach you.  So me and my comp were sneaking up on it and it was sleeping and then I pushed my comp a little further and it came charging us and we jumped back and it almost got us haha but the chain caught it.  We were having a nice little lesson with that family and then the dog saw a bike and started to chase after it and this time when the chain should have caught it the chain broke and the dog went free.  That just strengthened my testimony that we are protected out here as missionaries.  The chain could have broke with us but it didn't.  We probably shouldn't test the chain any more though! 

Anyway that was about it for my week.  Hope you all have a great next week!!  Go over the conference talks again and mark what sticks out to you!  Yo se que esta iglesia es la iglesia verdadera sobre todo la faz de la tierra!  No hay otro!  Jesucristo Vive!! I love you guys and miss you tons!! 

Love Elder Hunt

WEEK #35 General Conference

Hey, how are ya?  Hope you all had a great week in Utah or wherever you are for spring break!!  Life is too good here in Villanueva!  I love this place!!  My new companion is awesome and the members and the area are so good too!  I hope you all were able to listen to the talks and the words from the living prophet and apostles this past weekend.  If you didn't get to make sure you go back and watch them!!  They're too good to miss!

My new companion Elder Gomez

So this week flew by in a flash and I have lots of pictures to show you all what went down!  Tuesday I went around saying goodbye to everyone in Santa Barbara and Uranya (Elder Cerros convert) had us all over for a huge barbecue.  I thought it was gonna be the average Honduras stuff, but she went all out and there was so much food!!  Reminded me of a barbecue from the states it was so good!  On Wednesday we all got up at 430 in the morning and headed out to San Pedro Sula for the changes!!  I got to hang out with my boy Elder Fackrell for a while which was nice!  He's headed to my first area I was in which is cool!! Puerto Cortes!!  Took the bus here to Villanueva and met my new companion Elder Gomez!  He's my second latin comp from Hue Hue Tanango Guetamala!!  Hes a funny little guy and this is actually his last change in the mission thens hes off to his house!  Crazy!  He knows a ton though about the gospel and is teaching me a lot already!  Its also way cool to be speaking spanish all day every day!!  I love it!  We walked to the top of this huge bridge here over a river and because it was Semana Santa everyone was out at this big river playing in it like the ocean!  It was funny to watch and tons of people were bridge jumping!  Made me want to flip it!

My new area is beautiful!

My new area is way good as well!  The members are legit!  They all feed us and take turn feeding us for free!  They give us tons of food too and its way good!  We don't have a ton of investigators right now cause Gomez last companion went home early and he was in a trio with other missionaries and couldn't work for the last 2 weeks in our area so right now were gonna try to get it back on its feet!  I'm excited to be working somewhere new though and being able to share the gospel with these people here!

Just some quick thoughts about general conference then Ill send some photos!  We heard a lot about the family and how important it is and how we can strengthen it.  We learned more about the role of our Savior Jesus Christ and how through his atonement the doors of heavens are opened and the windows of heavens are unlocked.  His atonement not only cleanses our sins, but it lifts us up when we fall and strengthens us and expounds our capacities to be more than we are.  There were many other things that we could have learned and many other ideas expressed to help us in our lives.  Now as we know its good to listen to the talks but thats not the main point.  The main point is what are we going to do now that we have heard these talks?  Are we going to say I'll try to change tomorrow or are we going to start changing today?  So my challenge to all of you is to go over the talks or check your notes that you took and find things that you thing you could change in your life to be the best you that you can possibly be!  Ask like Uchtdorf said last conference Lord Is It I?  I know that as we all do this the Lord will reveal to us the things that we need to better in our lives and as we change we will have greater peace and joy in our lives.  There is no greater joy or peace on this earth than that that comes from living the gospel of Jesus Christ!  I bear testimony that this is his restored church and that he loves us and wants whats best for us!  I love you guys and hope you had a great Easter Weekend!  Miss you guys tons and Ill talk to you next week!

Love Elder Hunt 

WEEK #34 Happy Easter and Adios Santa Barbara

So Cute!!!

Beautiful Santa Barbara

Well looks like I'm getting transfered!  It's been a cool experience here in Santa Barbara and I've learned a ton!  Gonna miss some people here for sure!  It's been real.  I'm super excited for this next area though.  The new place where I"m going is called Brisas del Plan in Villanueva.  My new comps name is Elder Gomez, I think.  I'll let you all know about him next week.  I"m pretty stoked to be getting a latino comp again though!  Gonna get my spanish down even better.  

Not much happened this week being as the holy week is starting (Easter)  so everyone is headed out on vacation and no ones in their houses.  On the bright side it hasn't been as hot this week!  These last 4 days theres actually been some rain storms which is weird.  But I guess my next area is super hot.  Thats gonna be fun!  

                                                                                                                                                                 This week was cool.  On Saturday we did a service project and went to one of the little schools here in Santa Barbara and got to help paint some of the classrooms!  It was a lot of fun!  I'd actually never been in one of the schools here yet so it was cool to get a feel for what its like.  A lot different from the States thats for sure.  They have like a main court yard and then all the class rooms surround it.  It was kind of ghetto.  Ill send some pics!  But we painted these classrooms and painted a little in the bathroom which was interesting.  They don't have janitors here I dont think...

Honduran School

Saturday we also had a Fathers Day Celebration at the church cause they do Fathers Day here earlier than we do in the states.  We had to come up with a skit as missionaries to do and being as my comp is somoan we ended up doing the Haka.  It was so sweet.  I think we might have scared some of those Dads.  Even though Elder Purcell explained it a little I dont think they thought that was coming!  Pretty sick though!

Anyway we will see what this next week brings!!  Have a Happy Easter at home!!  I miss you guys and love you guys ton!! 

Love Elder Guapo

WEEK #33 1/3 of the Mish

Nice day today!  Probably in the high 80's.  Today is my 8 month anniversary so that means Im 1/3 done with the mish.  Pretty crazy.  This morning we played some Ultimate Frisbee at the church which was fun!  I also just had some carnitas which were delicious!!  This week was good!  We found some pretty cool new investigators and dropped some that we've been holding on to for much too long.  Just not their time right now I guess.  

Elder Hunt 8 months in and Elder Purcell 1 year in!

Anyway heres some highlights of the week!  On Wednesday we decided to try a part of our area that we've never been to before so we went out to Caulinas and well basically we didn't find anything out there and I don't think that missionaries have ever been out there before because no one knew who we were so that was cool to touch a part of the earth where missionaries have never walked before!  But its a little too far away from where we live and costs a lot to get there so maybe missionaries will get assigned there one day cause its huge!  But we did figure out the reason we felt like we needed to go out there because on the way back we stopped at a bus stop in ILama and while we were waiting for the next bus to take us home we sat down and watched this little kids soccer game that was going on, on a big field below us.  These kids were playing barefoot and some with cleats and were wrecking eachother, it was crazy.  But we were sitting with one of the parents in the stands, (the only parents) and were talking and then the guy next to us was like, Hey! Whats up Guys?  You all know English huh?  So we started talking to this guy and evidently he lived in Boise, Idaho for 17 years and had just got back here to honduras 4 months ago.  I was talking it up to him about the states and Meridian Idaho cause thats where my family  the Andrews live!  It was sweet!  We also were talking about lifting a lot and all that fun stuff!  We started talking about the church and he told us that hes been to church a lot of times and just never got baptized because he was always busy with work up there, but he loves our church.  He said that he has a lot more time now in his life and that he would love to have us over and go to church and everything!!  So that was a sweet find!  I guess Gods hand guides us everywhere we need to go even if we have to take a trip out to Caulinas and back to find this family!

Friday we did a lot of service which is always fun!  We chopped in the morning one of our investigators yards!  Im getting pretty dang good with a machete!  Also on Friday I had divisions with my DL Elder Woods and it was so fun.  We went to this new investigators Rockys house and he was chopping some wood so we asked if we could help.  The axe he had was no good so we started chopping these logs with his machete!  We basically got all the way through the log  but the middle was super hard so Elder Woods had this great idea to lean the log up and drop it on the stump nearby.  What he didn't take into account is that there was a river below us full of poop.  So Woods dropped this log on the stump and it hit the stump and didn't even break and started rolling down the hill and went into the poopy river.  I was like you idiot haha.  So Woods had to try and pull this log out of the river and got his hands all gross and we ended up tying a rope around it and dragging it up.  Rocky was like alright you guys are done and then got upset with us cause his machete was a little bent too.  Pretty funny though.

Church was good on Sunday we had our investigator Karina there who is probably going to get baptized in like a 2 weeks!!  So thats exciting!  We also made some progress with Cory this week!  So everythings good here in Santa Barbara!  Probably going to be having changes here soon though so will see who everything pans out!!  Also super cool to see Uranya who is a recent convert of the Elders that live with us teach our recent convert Jose Luis in Gospel Principles class.  Just strengthed my testimony to know that this church is growing!  Anyway love you all and hope you all have a great week!!

Love Elder Caza

P.S. my boy Elder Purcell hit his 1 year mark this week!!  Us burning his shirt!!

WEEK #32 Apostle Anderson and General Authorities

So this week was so good!  Lots of crazy cool stuff that happened!!  First off, its getting so hot here.  Thank goodness the sun is starting to go down earlier is all I have to say!!  Getting some mean missionary tan lines though!  Today we went to the Speed Ball Cancha and played some fútbol!!  It was pretty legit!  

Cool bridge!

So Tuesday was pretty sweet!  It was Elder Estradas birthday and we all pitched in and bought him a nice little guava cake!!  Which we shoved in his face but It was delicious!!  Its also a tradition here in Honduras that on someones birthday you have to egg them!!  So we did!!  We bought some baleadas from Pres. Yanes and then bought some eggs while Estrada wasnt looking!  We walked up the road a little and told him that we wanted to make a video for his birthday to send home to his family!  So we started filming and then my companion made a distraction and while Estrada was looking over there we all smashed eggs on his head!  It was hilarious and it smelt so bad!  Pretty funny tradition though!  Then on Wednesday morning at like 3 in the morning I woke up to go to the bathroom and stepped on the ground only to have my foot covered ankle deep in water.  I was like what the heck am I still dreaming and then I realized that the house had flooded again.  So I hurried and picked up all my stuff from off the ground, and the next morning we swept it all out.  So that was fun.  Its gonna be nice when I have a house without a pila in it!

Thursday we found some pretty cool new investigators!!  Some random kid came to church last week with his girlfriend whos name is Blanca and he lives in our area, but we didnt know where and we ended up finding his house as we were contacting a random street that we had never contacted before so that was cool and were gonna teach all of his family soon too!  We also found the house of the guy that drives the bus to church every sunday and his family is huge!! Were gonna go teach them soon and see if he'll stay for church this next sunday!!  Friday we also found 4 news and 2 of them are a missionary couple from another church who have been struggling and not been recieving any support from their church and loved our message!  So maybe will convert some missionaries!!  

So happy to spend time with Elder Measles!

Saturday was the big day that we got to go to San Pedro Sula and see an apostol and general authorities talk to us!!  This event was so big that the East and West mission combined together to listen from these general authorities!!  We had to wake up at 3 in the morning and then caught a bus at 430 to San Pedro Sula and ate some quick McDonalds to start the day off good!  Then we went into the big chapel and I saw some buddies from the MTC from the East mission!! It was so cool!  I walked into the chapel and then I saw ELDER MEASLES!!  I gave that kid such a big hug!! It was so awesome seeing him and just whack!  It was like having a little piece of home with me for a little!!  So good seeing him!!  We all got to go up and shake the hands of the General Authorities who were Elder Richard Maynes from the Presidency of the Seventy, Bishop Dean Davies, Elder Ochoa and from the Quorom of the 12 Elder Neil L. Anderson!!  It was so cool being able to shake their hands and look into their eyes!  You could just feel the spirit so strong listening from them.  Elder Anderson speaks like 5 different languages and he asked when he was beginning his talk for the powers of heaven to be lowered to help him to be able to deliver his message in Spanish.  He did it without a translator or anything and you could hear exactly what he was trying to say even though he would mix in a little bit of Portugese and French on accident!  But the gift of tongues is real!  He did such a good job and basically told us that its not just about baptizing but making sure that our investigators have a change of heart and experience the atonement of Jesus Christ in their lives and feel its cleansing affect.  We have to make sure they feel that or otherwise they will go inactive!  That guy also had like the whole Book of Mormon memorized and knew in each chapter what it was about off the top of his head!! Way too cool!  Hearing his testimony and all the others just strengthened my testimony even more and I just wanna say that I know that this is the true church of Jesus Christ and that we have a prophet and apostoles today that recieve revelation to let us know what we need to be doing in our lives!!  

I love you guys and hope you have a great week!!!

Love Elder Hunt