WEEK 86 - Q&A

1. When you wake up in the morning, what do you most look forward to?
Teaching

2. How would you rate your Spanish now in the following areas: speaking / understanding / reading / writing?
9 / 9 / 9 /8

3. How many nametags do you have? Have you ever had to get them replaced?
I have several but I have only ever used the same one through my whole mission.

4. What are things that you packed that you have never used?
Blanket, first aid kit, deet, Monkey Butt powder

5. If you had an empty suitcase to bring back and could pack it full of things from Honduras, what would be in it?
Beans, maseca (corn flour), mantequilla, Hondurans :)

WEEK 86 - Photos

Making lunch for Elder Leon 

Chicken nuggets & salad

Aidan with Eugenio Estrada

WEEK 86 - Update

This week was good.

Tuesday
We spent some time planning for a lesson we had to teach in our interview meeting. We went to visit Gabriela and her cousins. They are doing great and progressing very well.

Wednesday
We went to visit Yolany, she is doing great still. We visit Daniel, he is part of a member family, but he isn't a member. His aunt and cousins are members and they took him to church so we are visiting him. He is very smart and knows quite a bit about the gospel. We visited the Chacon family, the two daughters are members but the parents aren't so we are working with them.

Thursday
We had interviews with President, it was a great interview. We all gave good classes and it was a great meeting. We went to take some baptism clothes to the sisters. We went to our stake meeting.

Friday
We went and visited Bertilia, she is such a funny person. We helped do some service at her house. We visited the Zelaya family, they are doing good. We are working with Jaime to help him realize that he has felt the Spirit.

Saturday
We went to visit Daniel again. We put a baptism date with him for the 11th of March. We visited Gabriela and she is doing good. Her cousin, Maria Jose, decided she wanted to go to church with us.

Sunday
Maria Jose went to church. Daniel went to church. It was stake conference, they changed the stake presidency. They both loved it. We had a meeting with Cesar, our ward mission leader, and we planned some upcoming things.

Love you all. Have a great week!
Elder Baller

WEEK 85 - Photos

Teguc

Elder Leon and me

The six elders in our zone

Zone pic <3

Teguc <3

Elder Pickron and me

Picacho

Our zone, minus the office elders

Elder Leon and me at Picacho

Love this zone! <3

Elder Pickron, Hermana Parrales, and me in front of Picacho. she goes home this change, we are from the same group

High School Musical

WEEK 85 - Update

Tuesday
Valentine's Day. Good day. We went and knocked some doors for a while, we didn't have much success but it was a good time. We went and had a visit with Gabriella, she is kind of like a reference from some other missionaries. She lives in our area and works in another area so we are going to visit her as well.

Wednesday
We had a normal day on Wednesday, we had a good lesson with the Zelaya family. We are working hard with Jaime and we feel like he is pretty close, he just needs to keep reading and praying to get his answer.

Thursday
We had divisions with the Elders from La Era, Elder Lee and Elder Chamorro. I was with Elder Chamorro and we had some good visits. We normally would've had a stake meeting but it was cancelled.

Friday
It was a normal day as well. We visited Bertilia. She is a great member. She is so funny and faithful in the church.

Saturday
We went to visit Gabriella again. She and her family are doing really well. We are going to be working with them.

Sunday
We had church. It was good. Our convert Yolany gave a talk, it was great. We went and visited the Zelaya's again. They are doing so great. We went to visit another family that took their cousin to church, we are going to start visiting him as well.

Hope everyone has a good week!
Elder Baller

WEEK 84 - Update

This week was really good.

Tuesday
We had a meeting for leaders. It was really good, we talked about having a vision in the mission and focusing on what we are here for. We went to visit a couple who has a son in the mission but they are not members. We are going to be working more with them.

Wednesday
We visited Yolany, she is doing great. She is a great convert. She is going to seminary every day and working hard in her Personal Progress. We visited Allan, he is having some struggles but we are doing our best to help him out.

Thursday
We had a stake meeting about missionary work, it was really good and we were able to plan some things for the coming weeks.

Friday
We had our district meeting, because we had had the leaders meeting. We and the sisters had to teach. It was really good and everyone taught really really well. We went and did house checks in our zone with the missionary couple in our mission. We had divisions with the Elders from Villa Olimpica. I was with Elder Pickron, from my group, and we had a great time.

Saturday
We visited the Chacon family, they are doing great. We visited the Zelaya family, they are doing great as well. Kind of a normal day.

Sunday
We had church. We went to take the sacrament to a family and talked to them for a little while. They are an old couple and they are some of the funnest people in the ward. They are really nice and sweet. We had a fantastic lesson about the Gospel of Jesus Christ with the Zelaya family. We challenged Jaime to be baptized and he said he was going to pray about it, but we feel like he is changing and is getting closer.

Love you all! Have a great week!
Elder Baller

WEEK 83 - Update

My companion got pretty sick this week, and I did a little bit as well. We both had fevers and cold symptoms. We weren't able to do a whole lot, but we have been working with Jaime Zelaya. All of his family (wife and daughters) are members and he likes the church. He has been going very consistently to church and has been showing a lot of interest.

We also had zone conference on Wednesday, we talked about commitments, inspired questions, mission objective, and the changes in the mission. They are going to be changing the missionary schedule.

Hope everyone has a good week!
Elder Baller

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No photos or Q&A this week. 

WEEK 82 - Photos

From Alison: Elder Jones contacted Elder Real for me and asked him for pictures that he had of his time with Elder Baller. I specifically was hoping for photos of the Christmas decorations they set up in their house. Well, Elder Real sent what I was hoping for and SO much more! Thank you, Cy and Oscar! You guys are the BEST! 
As always, Aidan provided the captions for the photos. Enjoy!

I numbered Elder Real's ties from 30 down so he would put one on every day and when he took it off, he had to pack it in his suitcase. 

This is from the service project we did where we assembled baskets of food for people. This is only about half of what we were able to collect.

Recognition from the service project at the old folks home

Mission Christmas party

Decorating for Christmas

Merry Christmas (paper tree and presents from home for Elder Real and me)

Putting together the baskets

Delivering the baskets with our ward mission leader

Lunch on December 24

Gift exchange 

Christmas Eve with the Estrada family

Pics in front of a really nice house belonging to some members. They are rich. The husband lives in Utah.

Super super nice Honduran house

We sent Aidan and Elder Real a set of gingerbread houses to decorate. They did them with the Estradas

Up on the roof on New Years Eve

New Years fireworks

In a cave, hiking to the waterfalls

Elder Leon and me

The big three - Elder Anderson, Elder Pickron, and Elder Baller

Tarzan