This Is Where I Need To Be!

     So... my goal to go to the beach every day was short-lived. Tuesday in our district/zone meeting the first announcement was that we are not allowed to go to the beach and especially not allowed to touch the water. Makes exercising in the morning a lot less appealing.
      In other sad news, one of our pet geckos died yesterday in an incident with the bathroom door. Still not sure what happened, but now we are down to one gecko (that I know of). It was kind of sad to listen to the other gecko clicking away solo last night. At least we have one to eat the bugs.
     On the bright side... I tried Sopa de Avena. It is a Colombian dish my companion made with papas (potatoes), zanahoria (carrots), cebolla (onion), habichuela (string beans), avena (oats), salt, pepper, and water. You chop up all of the ingredients and then boil it.... tada! Oatmeal Soup! Serve with banana. Not gonna lie. I was a little doubtful, especially of the eating it with a banana, but it was pretty good. Good enough that I might make it on my own sometime.
     We had the opportunity to help an old man weed a garden with a machete, and later taught him and his employer a short lesson. The employer has studied with Jehovah's Witnesses, has Parkinson's, has issues with continuing revelation, and asked us about evolution. We set a return appointment with them and I am kind of excited... I mean, he's jumped right to evolution! This should be an interesting experience!
     I have come to realize that my Spanish is to the point that general conversation is possible. However most times I forget that that doesn't automatically extend to being able to talk about biology, geology, literature, Old Testament culture, and the weather. I am working on it. Poco a poco.
     To celebrate the anniversary of the Relief Society all of the hermanas dressed as pioneers and the youth danced a western line dance. It's always neat to see the Honduran twist to pioneer clothes and western line dancing. ...We had a really neat mini lesson with an hermana here in the ward who is trying to decide if a mission is what she needs to do. The Spirit was powerful, and it reminded me of my experiences being taught by missionaries. It is amazing what we are able to learn and understand when we let the Spirit teach!
     And last but not least, I still have a testimony that this is where I need to be! I know that the Lord has the master plan, and that when we are humble enough to let Him lead we can reach our divine potential!
     Thank you for your love and support!

Until the proxima,

Hna. Thacker

Other Pets

     So you asked about other pets, and last week off the top of my head I couldn't remember if there were any other than the cockroaches. But as soon as we got home I was reminded of the creatures in the cupboards. We have at least one pair of geckos that live in the kitchen cupboards, but it's OK they don't eat much. Our Jehovah's Witness friend told us that about the ants in his candy jar and I'd assume it goes for the geckos too.

     I don't remember if I've told you about the Jehovah's Witnesses we taught... He's from Denmark and she's from Honduras. He's not really interested in listening to us and hides when we come.. until the end when he can offer us candy.  We visited his wife last week and left a Book of Mormon. This week we returned and she had read it all up through the h's in La Guia Para El Estudio de las Escrituras. ALL of it. In a week. Then she tried to give it back to us. Her husband doesn't really like it that we are teaching her, and I think she was trying to give it back to appease him. That is one of the hardest things--when the family is so opposed that investigators quit progressing. Ultimately, we left the book and planted the seed. We will keep visiting them every once in a while, and I hope that eventually they both will accept the gospel.

     Well, this was a little short this week, but here's a picture...

 

     It's my goal this week to go to the beach every day. Since it falls in our area, if we get out and exercise every morning like we are supposed to I can!

     Yeah, the last couple of days it seems like I tanned a whole lot more. It is kind of funny... The Latinos say that tanned is burned. Here the goal is to look as white as possible. So all of them talk about how burned they are because they have tan lines! My only goal is to not look like a lobster....

Well, until next week!
Hna. Thacker

 ¡Lo maravilloso es que el evangelio realmente es verdadero!

A New Companion!

    So... I have a new companion! Hermana Calpa is from Columbia and has 6 months in the mission. She spent all 6 of those months in a pueblito called Olanchito, so this is her second area. She is really happy and has a lot of faith that we will see miracles here this transfer!

     Here in this awfully dark photo we are drenched and wearing trash bags. We just finished a lesson and it began to pour. The investigator we were with offered the trashbags, but in the battle between the trash bags and the rain, the rain won. Once we were sufficiently soaked and decided it was best to return home and change we totally had a water fight. The whole neighborhood and the visiting sisters from Roatan all thought we were crazy, but it was fun!

     I learned something neat this week about how Heavenly Father answers prayers. Pres. Klein, in a suprise conference we had this week, told us that Heavenly Father always answers directly when it is a matter of physical or spiritual safety. Like in the case of the Brother of Jared. He came to the Lord with two questions/concerns--how they could have air in the boats and how they could take light with them. His prayer about air was answered clearly and immediately. Air holes were a matter of life or death. On the other hand, light was something meant to improve their quality of life there on the boats. In this case the Lord provided the Brother of Jared with all of the necessary tools and turned it over to him to figure out how to make it work. President likened this to a teacher in an art class that provides the canvas, the paints, the brushes, and tells the students to get to work. In reality it doesn't matter what they paint, but rather that they act and learn how to paint. The Lord isn't leaving us totally alone, but instead He is trusting us to use our agency and become ''anxiously engaged in a good cause'' (D&C 58:27) What a blessing!

 Well, Hasta la proxima!
 Hna. Thacker

Cockroaches and the Book of Mormon

      This week we have cambios so the p-day stuff is all weird. I will possibly write more Wednesday... it all depends on whether or not we have transfers. We will find out tonight.

     This week was a little rough...
 
      So, I knew that there would be cockroaches here, and I was semi-prepared for that... at least I was expecting to see them. Well, in no way shape or form was I prepared to deal with them in the toilet. To quote my one of my companions from the CCM, ''Bugs are perverts.'' The other day there was a GIANT cucaracha in the toilet and it thoroughly freaked me out. Then, Clorox in hand my companion confessed that she enjoys killing animals. (She means insects, In Spanish she uses animal to mean anything living that has legs...) It was an experience...

     In other news, we are starting over finding investigators because all but one quit progressing. The one that is progressing--reading the Book of Mormon and going to church--is a minor and needs his mom's permission to get baptized. Problem is that she says he's already been baptized a Catholic, his whole family is Catholic, back generations and generations, and he will die Catholic. Oh, and she left to spend a month or more in France. A couple of weeks after she returns the whole family is going to move to Australia. At least he has a testimony and is the most active participant of Seminary. I have faith that eventually he will get baptized.

     Most exciting thing we experienced was meeting with some Jehovah's Witnesses! My companion contacted a lady on the bus and she invited us to come visit her. She is from here in Honduras, but turns out her husband is Danish. She was surprisingly receptive, except for her scripture about how God is a spirit.

     Well, Got to go. Thanks for your emails!

 Hasta luego!
 Hna. Thacker


 Part 2

      My companion had transfers, so she is leaving. She gets to stay in the city though, just in a different area as a Sister Training Leader for her last 6 weeks. That means I will hopefully get to go on splits with her at least once before she heads back home to Guatemala. Honestly I am nervous starting this transfer. At least for the first couple of weeks it falls on me to show my new companion around the area and make a majority of decisions until she is familiar with the area, the members, and the investigators. Then there is all of the what is she going to be like, are we going to be able to get along well from the beginning, and all of those little worries. In the end it will be good and I will learn a lot, but the not knowing what to expect is hard.

      There is some good news though! Remember the investigator José Constantino that left for Yoro to tend his sugarcane? He was our most progressing investigator at the beginning of the transfer, reading the Book of Mormon, attending church, and wanting to get baptized. He left at the beginning of February and assured us that he was only going to be gone for 2 weeks tops, and then he was going to get baptized. Well, weeks passed and we hadn't heard from him, and by the end of the transfer we had accepted the fact that he probably had left for good and we weren't ever going to see him again.

     Yesterday, as my companion was going around saying goodbye to everyone, we found him! He came back! And not only did he come back, but he was still reading the Book of Mormon and excited to see us. He told us that the first thing he did when he got to Yoro was to tell his whole family about the Book of Mormon. They were all interested in reading it and kept asking to borrow it. He had to keep telling them that he couldn't loan it to them because he had to read it every day that he was there, but he promised that when he left Yoro he would leave the book for them to read. My jaw dropped. He truly has a testimony that the Book of Mormon is true and is already planting seeds. Currently there is not a church in Yoro or missionaries. It is possible that in time he will lead the work there sharing the gospel. Maybe even be the first branch president of the first branch in Yoro. You never know how much of an impact one person with the gospel can make!

      Thanks! Love you! I got your Valentine yesterday :) Thank you!

 Love you! ¡hasta luego!

Learning to like Lobster???

We'll start with a picture this week :) This is one of the borders of our area.

     This week was pretty neat. On Tuesday we had a multizona conference with Elder Amado of the First Quorum of the Seventy. It was a neat opportunity to learn how to be better missionaries. I learned a lot about how imortant it is to pray continually in order to learn by the Spirit and how important it is to be obedient. He also spent a couple of hours talking about eternal marriage. :) Something neat he told us is that a majority of Church membership speaks Spanish, but the language of the Restoration is and will always be English. As he encouraged all of the Latino missionaries to take advantage of this opportunity to learn English here in the mission, I realized how blessed I am to speak the language of the Restoration. I am so blessed to be able to hear the Prophet's voice in my own language without a translator!

      Other than that, the biggest news for the week is that I tried lobster for the first time today. My companion ate her entire piece--hard part, fins, and the white meat inside. I ate about half of the meat from inside and then shared the rest... Important thing is that I tried it and it wasn't all that bad :) My companion thinks I will leave the mission liking seafood. We'll have to see...

 ¡Hasta la próxima semana! Hna. Thacker

An Interesting Lunch, a Birthday Party, and a Real Baptismal Date!

     Well, nothing out of the ordinary this week other than a matchmaking lunch, a three-year-old's birthday party, and an investigator with a for real baptismal date!

     Last Monday we got invited to lunch at the house of the first member here. She was baptized in the capitol and when she moved to here she brought the church with her. Turns out, her matchmaking led to the marriage of the parents of the misionera who first taught Hna. Tajiboy, and she also arranged the match of the current patriarch and his wife. Well, long story short, she invited us for lunch because her grandson was in town... and she's hoping Hna. Tajiboy will marry him :) It was quite entertaining.

     This week we set a baptismal date with Reily! He is the muchacho in the orange shirt. We met him and his cousin a while back, and initially it appeared that the cousin was more interested than Reily. However, once the cousin left for Copán Reily started to come to church every week, last week he showed up at seminary, and the other day we gave him a Book of Mormon. He is already to chapter 11 of 1st Nephi, and literally just a minute ago here in the internet place he showed us a picture of the temple and told us that it's his goal to go there. It never ceases to amaze me how much the gospel can change lives!

     Last week we finally got copies of the conference edition of the Liahona in English! This week I have been rediscovering the gems from last conference, and if you haven't looked at them in a while I recommend reviewing them. One in particular I was studying this week talks about how to teach with the power and authority of God. The thing that really struck me the most was that in order to teach like the Savior you have to live like the Savior.The more I learn about the gospel the more I realize how it is not, and cannot be a list of things to check off in order to recieve salvation. It truly requires a change in the way I live, a change in perspective, and a change of nature. It requires becoming. The more this sets in the more I realize what an amazing opportunity a mission is to practice living like the Savior!

Well, I guess that's all until next week!

Con cariño,
Hna. Thacker

''¿Les gustó el himno?"

     Angelina (the daughter of Levi and Veronica who turns three on Wednesday) continues to imitate us even when we aren't there. Her mom told us that she sits down with a little book and says ''Cuenta de tres. Una. dos. tres.'' and begins to ''sing.'' At the end, just like Hna. Tajiboy, she says ''Les gustó el himno?'' (Did you like the hymn?) She even prays and pretends to write in her agenda when she is going to come back. :)

     Well, the biggest most exciting news for the week is that we had divisiones. Not going to lie, I was scared to death because it meant that I was staying in our area while Hna. Tajiboy left. I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to find any of our investigators and that if I did I wouldn't be able to talk to them without Hna. Tajiboy leading the conversation.

     Turns out Heavenly Father still knows what's best for me, because it was exactly what I needed. I found out that I really do know our area and the people we are teaching. I can talk to them, and I am more able than I thought. I had the chance to get to know and learn a lot from Hna. Hill. But most important I re-learned how important it is to invite. Agency is so critical to the whole plan, but you have to have options in order to use it. That's where the invitations come in. Invitations provide opportunities to use agency. I am learning that it is important to not be afraid of inviting.

     This week we also met a Catholic family that likes to listen to missionaries of all types. They are very nice and even have a collection of all of the pamphlets they've received over the years. The coolest part was the Libro de Mormon that they brought out from 1991. It is as old as my companion and she felt like the testimony written in the front cover was written just for her. It was pretty neat. We left with two little caracoles and two copies of a talk given by the current Pope which included a photo.

     We also had an old contact show up during a lesson we had with his sister. He told us that he has realized that he needs to be baptized and that he wants to follow the Savior. He expressed his desire to follow with all of his heart, and told us that he just has had a hard time giving up dancing. We tried to explain that dancing is not evil, but I don't think it sunk in until the next day after church when the bishop asked him if he would come and teach the young men to dance for mutual. Afterword he told us how he really liked how our church encouraged the use of agency and developing talents, and he accepted a baptismal date :)

      Well, I think that is all for now...

Hasta la proxima semana!
Hna. Thacker