WEEK 21 - Photos

Elder Baller here with your weekly captions for pictures.

First is my early Christmas present for the fam. Parts of this are very poorly done. Mostly Manolo. I think that Maria is actually pretty good though, pretty solid. This is my early, and possibly my only, Christmas present to the family.
(Mom note: Book of Life is one of our family's favorite movies -- Aidan and Brooke used to watch it together all the time.)

 I have done another photo shoot, because it's fun.

"Thanksgiving Day Smiles"
We'll say that I took this picture on Thanksgiving even though I forgot.

"Unprepared"
I was trying to take a certain picture and I set up the timer and it went off quicker than I thought.

"Thanks, Mom!"
Mom sent me the sheet music to this song and I'm very happy.

"Superfly"
I think I look super super fly right there. And yes, you may have noticed that my hair is very long right now. We didn't have time to cut it last week. You all know that my hair grows super, super fast. 

The famous bridge of Los Arcos (The Arches, in English). On Saturday, we went to give an Hermana a blessing. She has dengue, which is very sad. She can't walk very well and is in a lot of pain. And then, another set of Hermanas that live in Los Arcos asked us to bless their house, to dedicate their house. They haven't been able to find anyone in their ward who could do it. So, we went to another set of Hermanas' house and asked them how to get there. They said to walk down a road to a wooden bridge. And that the bridge would be really ugly. So, we were expecting an actual wooden bridge, like an ugly old bridge. And this is what we found. Those boards literally bent every time we stepped on them and the bridge would move a little. But I liked the picture. All of Danli is like this. Super green and I thought the bridge looked actually sort of cool.

No caption was provided for this, but I'm guessing Aidan drew this. Love it.

WEEK 21 - Q&A

1. What did you do for Thanksgiving? Did you even realize it was Thanksgiving? :)
We honestly didn't do anything different. Except for talk about it. And we imitated the First Thanksgiving when I gave my companion a bag of chips and he gave me some cookies.

2. Do people decorate for Christmas in Honduras?
Yes, there are houses already decorated. Some really pretty Christmas trees and lights in most of the windows.

3. How are you and Elder Alarcon spending your last week together? Any special plans?
We aren't going to really change anything. We are going to spend some time resting because Elder Alarcón told his mom he would get back some health and strength.

4. If you don't get transferred from Danli, will you go to the mission home for changes, or will they just send the new companion down to you?
It depends, if I am training, which I have heard is a possibility, basically everyone tells me I am going to train, I will go for sure for sure. If not it depends -- sometimes you go, sometimes not. I really want to be there to say goodbye to a few people that I will probably never see again.

5. If you could choose to have Norte or a Native companion next, what would you choose?
First, love the super gringo Norte. I would actually like to train a gringo. I would like to have my little white son lol.

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.