WEEK 21 - Week 15 in the Field

This week was excellent.

Tuesday
Tuesday was fairly normal. We went to Urrutia and we machete'd Eidy's house. She is our first convert and she is so great. She has helped us with her sister and her niece. We contacted a reference from the Bishop and it was a couple that are super super positive, they are really busy so it is hard to find them, but we are working with them.

Wednesday
Wednesday was totally normal and I have nothing special to write about.

Thursday
Thursday was.. Thanksgiving. We went to eat a restaraunt that we go to every Thursday because we didn't have enough money to go to Pizza Hut with the zone. :( We went to a new area that we have never been to called San Marcos Arriba. Super great and we found a bunch of new people there.

Friday
We went to Urrutia again. We visited Eidy and talked about the mission because she has a real interest to go and she told us that she is going to go, so that is awesome. We had a meeting with our Ward MIssion Leader and after there was a wedding in the chapel of a couple in the ward. Our investigator was at the church using Wifi so we talked with him.

Saturday
We went in the morning to give a blessing to an Hermana and then went to dedicate some other Hermana's house. The rest of the day was normal, we visited several members.

Sunday
We went to Church, which was fantastic as always. We are planning 3 baptisms for this Saturday. Hermano Salgado, who we have worked with for about 2 months, and our neighbors. The aunt and one of the kids will be getting baptized. When we asked the aunt if she was ready to be baptized this Saturday, we all just kinda sat in silence for about 2 minutes. Whoo the Spirit was strong! After that she just kinda looked at us and said, Yes I am. Wow. Great experience.

Love you all. Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!
Elder Baller

WEEK 20 - Photos!

Again, as always, captions are provided by Elder Baller himself. :)

Pictures of the baptism we had. It was great!

Next, I decided to do a little photo shoot. And I have named all of these pictures.

"The Search"
Basically, I was trying to set up this camera with its self-timer so I could take pictures.

"Happy"
Because I'm happy

"Deep in Thought"

"Water of Life"
Because water IS life

"Patriotism"

"Obedience"
These are vitamins that Mom has reminded me to take about a million times, and I do... every morning. So, for these reason, it is called "Obedience."

These didn't come with captions, but obviously he's playing soccer. :)

WEEK 20 - Q&A

1. What's the weather like in Danli now? Have you ever been cold?
This is kinda funny. It is not cold, but I am so used to the weather here that I am like freezing most of the time. It rains a lot. It is super hot sometimes. The weather here is more bipolar than Utah.

2. Do you have rules about how often you need to clean your house? Does anyone ever check it?
We clean it once a week, on P Day. They check every once in a while, but they tell us when so we always have it super clean.

3. In the photos of your house, it looks like there is a lot of stuff everywhere. Do missionaries leave stuff they don't need when they get transferred?
Yes! There is a ton of stuff that is not ours. Boots. Shirts. Suits. Pants. Tons of stuff that other missionaries don't want.

4. Do you and Elder Alarcon make your own food usually? Or do you make meals together? How do you decide?
We sometimes cook together, sometimes we do our own thing. We like the same stuff so we usually just agree on whatever.

5. How much of the time (percentage wise) do you feel that you understand Spanish being spoken? 
Understanding-wise, 85%. Maybe more. I have basically been able to understand everything since day 1. What I can't understand I can usually figure out pretty quickly. The problem is talking.

WEEK 20 - Week 14 in Danli

Hey everyone, this week was really great!

Tuesday
On Tuesday we went and got to know an RM that got home on Tuesday, Noé. He is super cool and the ward did a little welcome home thing for him. It was great.

Wednesday
We had interviews with President Bowler, which was great. I talked with Hermana Bowler because I had been feeling sick for a few days and she told me to only eat potatoes, rice, bread, and bananas for two days and to have a test done.

Thursday
We did the baptism interview for Astrid on Thursday, we went with the Zone Leaders and she ended up not being there. They had another interview to do, so I went with one of them to Paraíso, while the other stayed with Alarcón to wait for her. We didn't get back until super late, but it was fun.

Friday
Friday we talked with Eidy, our convert, and she went to the temple on Thursday and did baptisms for the dead. She is so great. She is going to take her family names the next time she goes, which might be this week!

Saturday
Saturday we went and helped some Hermanas in our zone move because they were changing houses and needed some men. Haha. We were the only guys there and ended up carrying a ton of heavy heavy stuff. After that, the nurse of the mission called to give me the results of my test, and I have a parasite. Don't worry mom. It is no big deal. Just 2 pills a day for the rest of my life and that's all. No just kidding. 2 pills a day for 3 days and that's all. We had the baptism for Astrid and it was great. I got to do it again, everyone asks for me. My companion says it is because I have the face of an angel.

Sunday
Sunday was normal, church. Church was really really good. I was feeling super super sore all day long, but it was a really good day. We worked a lot with members.

Love you all. Miss you all.
Elder Baller

WEEK 19 - Photos

Selfie - I got a haircut

I was reading the Liahona, and I found Grandma Ferguson. I'm like 90% sure it's her. It was in a section about Visiting Teaching. I wanted to see if you guys think it is too. Weird.

This is a soup we made. It's just water with beans, potatoes, rice, spices and mantequilla. It was way good.

We made kind of like pupusas, mixed with something that's Honduran called catrachas. This was actually pretty good... kind of. A catracha is like a fried tortilla with beans on it. And the white stuff on top is queso -- cheese. But it's different from in the states. And then that is mantequilla on top. The problem with this one was that my companion made the dough and put way too much salt. And we fry the beans in something called sofrito. And this time, we used one bag of beans and one bag of sofrito. So it was way too much sofrito. It was crazy flavorful. We made them again today and it was better. Today we put cheese inside of them like actual pupusas.

The sky here is very beautiful. These are typical houses here. The windows here are all barred. 

The building you see is a house and the building to the left of the house is a tobacco factory. The barbed wire is typical on all the fences here. These two pictures together and it's a panorama. The sky is so different but it's right next to each other. I love the sky here!

This was my dinner Saturday night. Super good. Yes, that is a Coca Cola. I drink it when I am feeling sick. I made this by cooking the spaghetti and scrambling and egg with it. Then I threw it all in a pan with some butter and corn. Mixed it up, seasoned it with salt, pepper and vinegar. It was super good. It looks boring, but it was really good.