service project, pouring cement

Baptismmmmmmm!

Hey Fam, Ah well its been a really awesome week. Changes were this wednesday, but as expected I didnt have changes and I stayed here and im gonna be here with Elder Neilsen until he goes home on the 3rd of November... Im not looking forward to it just cuz its gonna make it really baggy but were doin good so far. In our zone there at 8 areas and 5 of the 8 areas had changes so we got a lot of new Elderes which was a good thing, for the most part. We just have a lot of old missionaries in the zone and for some reason they think that with the more time they have, the more lazy they can get. If youve got any tips on how to animate missionaries to work hard in their last 4 months... just let us know cuz none of them want to listen right now. Its been hard for us lately to show the example as far as results in our area cuz we havent had much success... but were getting better. We just had a really aweome baptism of an 18 year old future missionary!! We had been working really hard with Edin all week, he is a best friend of one of the other future missionaries in the ward, and ever since we started teaching him he has just been super humble and accepting. When we go to visit his family.. its just sad. They live in one of the worst conditions... for being in the city at least. I got used to seeing that when I was in the south but being here in the city its just sooo sad. Edin, his older brother, and Dad all work, they have machettes and they cut grass and clean different parts of the city... and for just 75 limpiras a day. Which is about 4 dollars. They live extremely poor. The first time we went to thier house, we saw a bag from the bishops store house that had rice in it before, and we found out that the future missionary who gave us the reference of them had given them what he had, because he as well, is homeless, he just has the luck to be living in the house of a returned missionary and his family. I have the faith that Edin and his family will soon be baptized with time. We took the chance to baptize Edin so that he could set the example for his family and just by having his family go to the baptims and see how beautiful it is. Well... Satan seems to be pretty good at throwing stumbling blocks in our way and his family, on thier way to the baptism, his dad passed out and fell down for which we found out later was lack of nutricion. Because of that no one in the family was able to go to Edins baptism, but luckily a lot fo members came and supported him. Despite that, Edins dad, just the day after was able to go to church, and being the super humble guy he is, loved the church, could only stay the first hour because he wasnt feeling good. We hope the lord will soften their hearts and help them come to get baptised as well. Im sending some pictures as well of the service project that we did for the owners of my last house in La Reforma. We went over early in the morning on tuesday and made cement and then hauled it in buckets back to the back of the house where we pulled off a Honduran cement job... it was kind of a joke, but it was fun. Despite the fact that they are really really strong and faithful baptists, they love us now, and they gave us one heck of a lunch. So it was worth it in the end. Maybe someday they will be baptised since the wife there has a sister that is a member, sealed in the temple and everything... its just hard, cuz she wants nothing to do with us! Anyways... thats my week in a short message, keep us in our prayers cuz as we go into this new month of October, and especially with General Conference coming up, its a huge week for missionaries just trying to find people to go to the conference. Were gonna need all the help we can get, especially with the very little investigators that we have. I love you all very very very much. I STOKED for General Conference.... I got home just 10 days after the next one....dont worry im not baggy and I dont think about it much... haha Love Elder Gardner

Yikes

Enjoying the Rainy Season!!

Hey Fam, Ugh well its been quite a week. The week right before changes and the week of changes are usually super hard, but we seemed to make the best of this one right before changes. We got to do some divisions this week and so I got to go back to my old area, La Reforma, for a day and that night for dinner some of the families that I loved so much were there waiting for me and made me a super amazing dinner. I miss all of them soo much. I never got to say goodbye to them when I left so I got me some pictures with them. Were starting to get into the harder more heavy part of the rainy season so weve been getting really wet, despite the fact that we have umbrellas, they dont seem to do very much for our pants and especially shoes as you can see in the pics I sent yall. Thursday was the Independance Day for Honduras so there were all kinds of parades going on...nothing like what they are in the states... instead of throwing candy to kids, the kids are told to stay away and the cops stand at the sides of the street and get all kinds of crap at them. Its scary, they take advatage of using these marches to say what they want to say and do all kinds of un called things. It really makes you miss the perfectly safe parades that they do in the states. We had a lot of good things happen this weekend though. We were on divisions once again on thursday and me and and Elder from El Salvador, Elder Barrera, went with me and we went to a new part of our area and found 6 new people and 2 new families. Sadly only one came to church but it makes you feel good at the end of the day when you felt like youve done something. Sunday turned out being a really awesome day. We only had 2 investigators in church, and the recent convert recieved the preistood yesterday and was super excited. The lady, Sarahi, that showed up to church on her own 2 weeks ago now, who sadly we tried but were not able to meet with her, she showed up alone once again and in the investigator class began crying about how her dad is in acoma, but was able to say that if she decided to get baptized, he will be there to support her in what she decides to do. The best thing about her is that the lord really has called her and shes a chosen, and that the doubts are not in baptism at all, its more that she wants to know perfectly these things are true before she takes any steps, we explained to her Alma 32: 16-19 cuz she believes in everthing we have taught her, but for some reason is scared to ask God, if the Book of Mormon is true. We had a great lesson with her after church though. Shell be baptized next month though for sure... thats the faith anyways. Everything is going really good here in Honduras, changes are this week and me and Elder Neilsen are definately ready for some new Elderes. Some of these guys are just tremendous and it seems theres nothing we can do to get them to work sometimes. Our area is getting better though as long as the rain lets up a little bit. I love you all very much though and I want you all to know that!!! Take care Till next week!! Elder Gardner