Elder Cook Week Thirty-Seven

Que ondas familia

Sheesh!  This week was the strangest week of my mission! Every day had something different happen.  Monday, my comp decided to cut his own hair and left a big hole in the side of his head, so we decided to go get haircuts.  When it was his turn, I was reading the LDM. [Book of Mormon] He said ¨Mire!¨  and I looked up to see what you saw in the picture I sent!  Then in about two minutes, the husband of the hair cutter said that her buzzer was messed up, took out his own, and shaved the rest of my companions hair!  I´m pretty sure it was the most humbling experience of his life. The look on his face made me really sad.  We walked out to get back to work, and everyone on the street was saluting him like he was from the army!  

Tuesday, we finally set the baptism date with lady in the pictures I sent last week!!!  She´s the one that has had her own baptism date in her head that she said would be a surprise for us!  Then Wednesday, the power went out  in the whole colonia from about 5pm until the next day, so we had to head back to the house because it´s a mission rule.  We missed about 4 awesome lessons that we had planned!  It was a bummer.  Thursday, we had the multi zone meeting with President which lasted about 8 hours.  Friday we had the worst day we´ve had in the last 2 months with not even one lesson and only 2 contacts after 2 hours of knocking doors.  Then Saturday through Monday we had to stay in the house! All in all, super weird week.  And I heard fewer gunshots in those three days we stayed inside than we hear on a normal day!   I did a lot of laundry, read about a hundred sections of Doctrine and Covenants, read the book of Alma, and ate all my food that I had in the house this weekend. Well, that was my week!  Love you!

Elder Cook

*We were happy to hear from Elder Cook today. All missionaries in Honduras were asked to stay in their homes for a few days during a nation election.

Elder Cook Week Thirty-Six

Familia

I always forget how big I am here until I look at those pictures!  That´s weird.  And I¨m super white.  This week was pretty interesting!  I learned that Heavenly Father really is protecting His missionaries.  I´ll tell you that story in about 16 months.  We ended up contacting a ton this week because nearly all of our citas fell through!  It was a bummer.  And we had hardly any contacts either!  That´s not usual in this area.  We did finally got into a house on Saturday with this really old guy who was super nice, but I´m pretty sure he won´t remember a thing the next time we come.

About half of the economy in Honduras depends on door to door selling.  People walk down the callejones yelling whatever they have to sell, like Rica donuts hecho en casa!  Or Arreglamos lava manos, lava trastes, baños servicios!  Or Pescado!  And then people open their doors and buy it.  So while we were contacting the other day, a guy passes by selling homemade donuts so I bought a couple (I always get suckered in.  The things they carry always look so heavy, and the lug them around all day up hills!), and then he started serenading my companion!  He sang some song for like a good 3 minutes, just staring into his eyes. I was dying laughing.  He wasn´t even drunk!  Not too much more has happened this week.  We haven´t been able to put a date with any of our investigators, but we still have those four teetering on the edge so we´ll see what happens next week! 


Oh by the way, we have to stay inside Saturday, Sunday, and Monday now too so we won´t be writing until Tuesday.  I´m happy, feeling healthy, working hard, and learning a ton!  Don´t worry about me for a second.  Heavenly Father guides and helps His missionaries and His work.  Hey for Christmas it would be sweet to receive letters from all the family and little cousins!  Love you guys a ton! 

Elder Cook

This lady makes the best tortillas! She'll be baptized soon

We got to shower in brown water the other day!
We don´t know why it came out that way.

Elder Cook Week Thirty-Five

Quedito Familia

Changes are this week!  I might have a new companion.  The work is going great!  I love this area! We found a new family to teach!!!  The wife wants nothing to do with us but the husband is awesome!  After the three hours of church, he asked us if there was more!  He wants his family to participate so bad and asked us to do everything we can to get them involved so we planned a FHE this Tuesday and we hope that will do the trick.  He was so prepared to receive the gospel!  Our colonia is divided in zones, and this family is in zone 5. The members tell us not to waste our time there because the area is difficult, but we were determined to find someone and we found gold!  He´s been reading the Book of Mormon a bunch since the first visit.    

I love the mission so much!  It´s great to be a missionary.  We have about 4 other investigators right now.  They have all the lessons and believe everything, it´s just setting a date that´s difficult with them.  One of them, an older lady, told us she has made her own date for baptism in her head and will be baptized that day and no other.  But she won´t tell us what it is.  This one lady in the ward invited us over for cake for her daughter´s birthday the other day.  She´s convinced that I look just like some guy from her novela.  Everyone is obsessed with novelas here.  She showed me to all her friends that were there too, and they made me take pictures with them and their kids.  I ate something pretty cool this week too!  I forgot what it´s called, but basically it was a giant lizard, about the size of a cat.  It tasted alright, but we had to drink the lizard juice at the bottom of the bowl too.  Apparently Honduran legend says it can revitalize the dead or something like that.  Love you guys!

Elder Cook

Elder Cook Week Thirty-Four

We had a baptism Saturday!!!!!  It was awesome.  The missionaries have been working with him for a while.  At his baptism most of the people that attended were all kids his age, about 20, so hopefully we´ll get some good references out of that.  As a district Saturday, we had 5 people baptized and one family!  This area is so ready to receive the gospel.  We got 5 positive contacts yesterday and one guy even let us in to teach!  I am so pumped to be here.  And yeah the elections are on the 24th and 25th of this month and so President said to make sure we have food and water those days because we aren’t allowed to leave the house. Our next change would’ve fallen right on Christmas so President said that this change will only be 4 weeks, and the one after that 8 weeks!  That Costco place is called Price Mart but I´ve never gotten to go there.  It´s way outside of my areas.  I heard they sell donuts too, so I´ve wanted to go so bad!  Sorry not much has happened this week.  Just working hard, trying not to sound too Gringo, and breaking chairs.  Broke another this week, but luckily it was my own in the house.  I sit on the floor for studies in the morning now.  Love you!

Elder Cook