Hello all!

This week was more of the same, we had some really excellent days where we found some promising investigators, and some not so excellent days as well, with investigators who aren't progressing or told us they don't want to meet with us anymore. It's all part of the game, and the Lord has been with us through it all. The hardest and most wonderful part is that these people have my heart! And it's pretty tough when they don't want to accept what we have to offer. But in the same breath it is incredible when we walk out of a lesson where the Spirit completely took the reins. 

We had splits this week with the sister training leaders, so I spent a day in Obrera with Hermana Garcia. She's great, we had a fun time and I learned a lot from her. She's from West Valley so I got to speak some English, it's always refreshing when I get to have a conversation where both parties understand everything. 

There's a family in our branch with a dog named Rocky, and whenever we pass their house Rocky will follow us the rest of the day. He loves the missionaries, it's so funny. Last Sunday he found us before church when we were going around for our investigators and followed us right into sacrament meeting. A member of the branch presidency had to take him out. 

And yesterday, we were sitting in Sacrament meeting and I looked down and in walks Rocky! He was very reverent, came and sat underneath our bench. Its pretty funny. So we figure we can count him as a progressing investigator, he's already got 2 asistencias so he's on track for a baptism in August. 

Things are good, I'm learning lots and progressing every day! Have a great week all!

Here are some pictures from my week. One of our investigators had these crazy crabs that he got from the beach and they were going to eat them.  He promised they were dead but they were totes moving. Also, this is our District, we all wore red for district meeting when the APs came to show that we are united or something. Also there's a family in our branch who makes these really cool paper flowers to sell for Dia de los Muertos, and she was teaching us how! Really neat. 

Anyway, that's all for this week. 

Hermana White out.

Familia y Amigas y Todos!

Another great week doing the Lord's work! This week we walked and sweated and laughed and walked and drank water and taught and felt the spirit and taught and walked and went to the temple! The Tegucigalpa temple is the most beautiful temple I have ever seen. It was so nice to go, though we had to leave San Lorenzo at 4 AM to take our bus up to Teguc. The buses here are podunk old school buses that can be very interesting sometimes. But it was wonderful!

I think I could understand a little bit more this week, the people here are very kind and patient with me. Everyone here knows the Hermanas and would do anything for them. I'm teaching my companion a little bit of English, and sometimes when I'm frustrated with the language I just start speaking in English and she's very good to pretend like she understands and says Oh, yes, Okay.  It's funny. She's cute, and super funny, we have a great time. 

Friday night, we were supposed to hold an activity for the ward to bring all their nonmember friends. We planned this awesome activity about strengthening relationships with God, your family, yourselves, and your neighbors. It was supposed to start at 6, but Honduran time dictates to start an hour later, so no one showed up until 7. It was frustrating because we have appointments after. So we left, and went to our appointments but they all fell through.

Disappointed, we went to get ice cream for dinner. At the ice cream store when we walked in someone said something about a Gringa, which is normal because I'm literally the only white person for about 10 miles so I ignored it. But then someone started talking to me in English! Turns out there was a family there who is from San Lorenzo but they all knew pretty good English and wanted to practice with me.

So we talked to them, and it was so refreshing to talk to them in a language I'm pretty good at. They aren't members and are living in Tegucigalpa right now, but we got their address to give to the sisters there and they took a Book of Mormon!

And get this: The dad was born in the church. As in, his mom literally gave birth to him in the San Lorenzo Capilla. It's a crazy story, including his mom not being able to get to the hospital, but how cool is that? They were super cool and I think they really were interested. It's funny how just when we think things are the worst the Lord can bless us in unexpected ways. I was blessed to be able to speak my language and find a family willing to accept the gospel! Also we had ice cream which is always a blessing. 

I hope things are going well up there in Utah, whenever I tell people I'm from Utah they first think I say Houston, and then if they know anything about Utah they know it as the Fabrica where they produce lots of Mormons. Kinda funny. 

Anyway, have a great week all! Love you!

San Lorenzo!

Amy's first area:

Oh Hey! (Also the keyboard is so weird)

Well hey there from Honduras!

  I'm here in San Lorenzo, look it up on Google Maps, it's in the very south part of Honduras. And what everyone said is true, it is blasted hot down here! But its awesome. 

  My companion is Hermana Montalvo, she's from Puebla, Mexico and has been out for 13 months. She's awesome, and I understand basically everything she says. She knows zero English but I teach her phrases sometimes. And we're both fluent in Espanglish. We share the branch with two other hermanas, and they're super cool. The people here are wonderful. We have quite a few investigators that we visit as well as recent members, less actives, and members. Our branch has about 80 members attending, but in actuality there are a lot of members around, but everyone's a little less active. 

  The people are so nice, they tell me my Spanish is pretty good for my first area, at least I think that's what they're saying, they have a thick accent here that is near impossible to understand sometimes. They also like to tell me that I am so so so white but by the time I leave I'll be darker. 

  Most of the people here live in tiny concrete houses, but there's one area called Las Pilas where its all shacks of tarps and tin and wooden poles. At first it just astounded me that people could live like this. But they are so humble and in reality very happy. Its pretty neat. 

  My worst fear was realized the other day, we were visiting with Hermana Araseli, a recent convert who we visit every day, and she gave us Curiles, which I think is some sort of shellfish, in a bowl of tomatoes and onions, which were sitting in a black liquid, which later I learned was the blood. I have never prayed so hard before eating. I closed my eyes and chewed real fast. Hermana Montalvo thought it was great.

  In lessons I try to understand what people are saying and then bear my testimony when my companion looks at me. It's frustrating at times, but it's so fun too, to be a real live missionary. We have some really solid investigators, and it's so fun to visit with them. The biggest problem down here for investigators is needing to get married or divorced or both, or that they have obligations on Sundays that they can't go to church. We have a couple who has a baptismal date for December 26th because the husband has school on Sundays.

  We live in an apartment behind a pupusaria, which is awesome. They have real good food. We have a lady in the ward who makes dinners for us and does our laundry, which is nice. We wash our whites, though, which we will do after writing. Wish me luck washing in a pila! [basin or tub]

  I attached some pictures, some of me and my companion, our apartment, and when we had dinner with our branch president last night. Just know that it is so hot down here and as such I am no longer cute. Remember the good times.

  On July 4th at the CCM we sang patriotic songs and dressed all in red white and blue, it was pretty fun. Also, I forgot to mention, here we get to go to the temple every six months and it just so happens that we will be going tomorrow, so we will take a 3 hour bus ride into Teguc in the morning which will be great.

  Anyway, I wish I could write about everything because there's so much, but just know that I'm having lots of adventures and am safe and happy. 

Love you all!

Hello from Tegucigalpa!

We are happy to say that Hermana White has arrived here in Honduras! We are looking so forward to serving with her for the next 18 months. We feel she is going to be an excellent missionary.

  

Sincerely,

President and Hna Bowler

I'm here, I'm safe, I'm happy

I only have a few minutes, but I wanted to say that I am officially here in Tegucigalpa!  

We'll stay at the mission home tonight and then move out to our areas in the morning. It's been a long, crazy day, but it's good. We flew to El Salvador and from there on to Honduras. 

It's a beautiful city. President and Hermana Bowler are great! 

I'll write again on my Pday, which I think will be Monday. 

Love you all!

Amy's letter to her dad
July 1, 2015

Thanks for your letter, Dad, I can always count on you to keep me updated. 

We have a planner to keep us all planned out, that helps a lot with time management. 

I'm excited to get to Honduras, though I know it will be another big change for me. 

It's good to hear all the support from people at home, I'm glad things are good there. It's actually been uncharacteristically cold here in Guatemala, really cold at night in fact. And it still rains. The other day we were doing sports outside and we could hear the rain coming from all the way down the street, hitting the tin roofs, it was coming fast and hard. We ran inside just in time to miss a flash flood, that was pretty exciting. 

I was studying Hope this morning during personal study, and was thinking about the Supreme Court decision. I really loved Ether 12:4, to hope for a better world. The whole chapter 6 in Preach my gospel is good, I encourage you to read and study it. 

Well, I love you so much! I'll be writing next week from Honduras! Eee!

Amy

Amy's week #5

Guatemala City CCM

This week's newsletter: The week before the end

Here we are, embarking upon the second to last week in the CCM. It's so crazy, the next time I write will be from Honduras! We won't know the full details of our travel until the night before, we only know that we'll be leaving the CCM at 3 AM on Tuesday morning to get to the airport to fly to Honduras. The missionaries that are going to El Salvador, Nicaragua, or other parts of Guatemala will be taking a bus to their missions. 

This week was more of the same, just studying and practicing and making the best of our time here. On Saturday we taught a menos activo [less-active], a brother of one of the teachers here, and it was an interesting lesson for sure. 

He came with lots of questions for us as missionaries. He told us he knew everything was true in the church, but he flat up didn't want to go. And he didn't want to read the Book of Mormon. It was frustrating for sure. He asked me directly what would happen if he didn't go to church for the rest of his life, and I was kind of scared to tell him. But then I felt the mantle of being a missionary and told him that he was living in sin and that if he didn't repent he wouldn't inherit eternal life. And because God loves him he's given him commandments to live by. God is just waiting for him to do what he knows he needs to do. 

He took that in for a minute, and I think it kind of shook him. It sure shook me. I had no idea where those words came from other than the Spirit. We were able to make him promises that if he changed his life he would be happier and could grow so much more from church attendance and studying the scriptures. It was a neat experience, and we've been praying for him. 

Also, our "investigators," who are our teachers who we teach lessons to, both fell asleep in our lessons this week. It was like so funny and also frustrating because we have so much to share for them and they wouldn't stay awake! Agency, I guess. 

Also, Hermana Thompson speaks Spanish in her sleep. The other day she extended a compromiso [challenge] to me, and I accepted.

We also sang again in Sacrament meeting! The talent pool is a little dry here. We sang "Armies of Helaman" in Spanish and it was really cool. 

The other day one of the new Norte Hermanas came to Hermana Thompson and me because she was feeling really uncertain that she should be out on a mission. Satan was working so hard on her, she was doubting everything. It was a neat experience to be able to talk through it with her and promise her that it gets better, that she is supposed to be here, and that God wants her to be on a mission to teach the people here. It was a good reminder for us, too. It can be so hard at times, and it's just about to get harder, but we have God on our side, and with Him we cannot fail.

That's pretty much it, although I wanted to encourage all of you to read Moroni chapter 7 this week. We studied it as a district and it's so powerful. It talks all about faith, hope, and charity, all that good stuff. 

I'm so glad to hear everything's going well back at home, enjoy your barbecues and fireworks this week and go Merica! 

See you on the flip side

Love, 

Hermana White