Still in Olanchito

Cambios came and went and I am still here in Olanchito with Hermana Calpa. She is leaving in March when she finishes six months in Olanchito. I´ll stay here with a new companion for that transfer, so I´ll be here at least until April, maybe May. I hope not until May. I love Olanchito but I don´t want to spend six months in any one area. That´s a third of my mission!!

On Wednesday night we had to push start a car at two in the morning. Long Story.

Hermana Holdaway has kidney stones so she is in La Paz until her stones pass. She is actaully living with Hermana Turner!! Small world. Holdaway called me to talk about one of her investigators (since I´m working her area and mine until she comes back) and she mentioned that in La Paz the shower is kind of warm!! And they had pizza delivered to their house!! I don´t even know where to find pizza in Olanchito, let alone have it delivered to my house! We are living in two different missions.

The Book of Mormon is amazing. Just throwing it out there.

We are going to start eating lunch at the Vega´s house instead of the Duarte´s and I am stoked about it! They actually live in out area and she makes better food!

Hermana Calpa and I have decided that our goal for this cambio is to ride burros. I´m determined to make this happen even if it´s only for a few minutes.

We contacted this guy names Ever Galvez and he is so pilas!! He has some family who are members, so he already knew quite a bit about the church. He came to Sacrement Meeting yesterday and we have another appointement with him on wednesday. I swear, if I can help this guy get baptized he could be a seventy someday.

We also met a 15-year-old kid name Jose (everyone is named Jose). He reads everyting we give him and he has tons of questions. His mom died a few months ago so he is really interested in the Plan de Salvacion. We gave him a Book of Mormon and he realized that his parents were members of our church like ten years ago!! We´re looking for their records. Jose is the sweetest kid. He came to church yesterday and sacrement was all about the importance of seminary and Jose wants to start going to seminary. Que cool!!

Things I think to Myself that I Never Thought in America:

1.Did I turn the toilet off before we left the house?

2.It´s not birds chirpping that is waking me up in the morning... it´s the geckos chirpping that is waking me up.

3. I feel a little violated with that gecko being on the ceiling in my bathroom, watching me while I¨m trying to shower.

4. Yes, fried platano for dinner!

Saturday was the Dia de Mujer Hondereña. The Elder Quorum threw a party for all the women in the ward. I love kareoke, but I think kareoke to latin 80s music might be the greatest thing I´ve ever witnessed. At one point Hermana Villatoro was singing Bidi bidi bom bom, yes that Selena song that´s in the movie, so I actually knew some of the words. It was nice to hear a song I actually knew.

It felt really good to sing and be loud and laugh. I don´t get a lot of that here. I agree with Elder Passey, "I miss being silly!"

Since Erika and Denis want to attend the Olanchito Branch Kesler and Reyes are going to be teaching them from now on. The four of us went over there to visit them to help smooth the adjustment. Calpa and Reyes decided that Kesler and I needed to teach the lesson since we´re training and it was a weird experience to prepare and teach a lesson with an Elder.

We taught a lesson to Greysi and her mom yesterday. She is an 18 year old inactive. We asked her to give the closing prayer. She started to pray but her mom had to finish it for her because she was crying and couldn´t speak. I was so happy that she was feeling the Spirit.

We watched the movie Frozen today as a district and it reminded me that there are places where there is snow... weird.

That´s it for now. Love you all. It´s weird how my bagginess level changes from day to day, today I miss you all more today than other days. Have a great week!

Love,

Hermana Odekirk

ahhhhhhhhhhhhh

I have to pee so badly right now!! I only mention it because the only bathroom in this internet cafe is doesn´t have any water at the moment, so let´s all hope I can make it home in time. Btw This would never happen in America.

This week was super busy... but not with lessons... We taught 6 with member, 1 otra, and 2 to menos activos. Not our greatest week. 

After district meeting our whole district went and got chinese food lunch. It was really nice to have some time to bond as a district and the food was actually pretty good. 

On Thursday we went to La Ceiba for training  for all the trainers and new missionaries. It was really good. Although, I never win the PMG game. We´ll blame it on my spanish for now. ;) ha ha At one point a kid answered a question in the game and Hermana Alejandro wispered under her breath ´´Freaking gringo!´´ It was so funny. After the training we went to Dominoes Pizza and it was super fun!

Friday Hermanas Calpa and Alejandro had to go San Pedro to residency so Hermana Holdaway and I were here in Olanchito together. IT was a great day! We proved that we can totally do this! We got a taxi by oursleves, bought water from the delivery guy, got a reference for the ZLs, and taught two lessons! And I got us from Hermana Holdaway´s area to Hermana Soto´s house without getting lost! We are totally capable. We had to home by six because two gringas aren´t allowed to be out past dark by themselves so we couldn´t teach any more lessons, so that´s a shame, but oh well.

Also, we did a lot of math and realized that there are eight and a half transfers in a year, not eight. So there are nine transfer days. So our missions are actually 13 transfers not 12. So I have 11 transfers more not 10!! My world was shaken a little, but it´s all good.

Saturday Hermana Holdaway and I sat around until two because we had to wait for our compañeras to come home from San Pedro. I got some good studying in. It was nice to have some time to relax and study.

That afternoon we had interviews with Presidente Klein. I will never doubt that he inspired. I told him one of my goals for the year is to develop more patience and he knew without me even telling him that the reason I get impatient is because I am so judgemental of people. It was a great interview. Also, right when he got to the church he slipped a twizzler in my hand because he remembered a thirty second conversation we had a few weeks ago about how twizzlers are delicious. Que thoughtful, right?

My zone leader Elder Itza is from Mexico, but HE CAN´T ROLL HIS Rs!!! It is super funny. Elder Passey completely changed my life. He said in orfer to roll your Rs you need to have your toungue touching your top molars. I tried it and it totally helped!! I still sound ridiculous but it is at lease better.

Well, I still really have to pee so I´ll end it here. Love you all.

L

Week 4

This week has been interesting. There has been a bit of tension between Hermana Calpa and I about how we should set our daily goals and how to prioritize our time. I´m trying harder to have patience and not get frustrated. The moment I start getting frustrated I lose the Spirit and I never want that. It doesn´t help that I can´t always express exactly what I am trying to say. I just need to keep working on it. We think Hermana Calpa might get transfered next week since she has been in Olanchito for four months already and and six months is a long time for a sister to stay in one place.

Tuesday at lunch Hermana Duarte gave me parts of a chicken that were certainly not meat!! The lung, heart, liver, and such of a chicken are not my first choice of things to eat. The next day she fed us pig hoof. I ate part of it, but I don´t want to eat pig skin that still have hair on it.

Thursday was Grow Up day for me and I okay, not awesome, but okay. We got some young women to come on spits with us to we could cover more ground. That means that for three hours I was in charge of teaching lessons with some sixteen year old girls who aren´t missionaries! I was stressing. None of the people we were planning on teaching were home!! All of a sudden I had two and a half hours to fill and I wan´t sure how to do it. I decided to start by going to teach a member family a quick lesson and ask for references. It was great!! Sariah told us she had a friend who lived down the street and that she was willing to go with us to go see her on saturday!! And in front of that family´s house we ran into a guy that Hermana was supposed to have taught an hour before ( I still don´t know why it didn´t happen) and I made another appointment with him to teach him the next day. I thought about teaching him right then, but I knew had a lot of questions that I don´t know how to answer in spanish, so I decided to wait for Hermana Calpa.

Then we went to the brnach president´s house to see if he needed help with anything, until I could think of something better to do, which was good because if turned out Hermana Calpa was just down the street, so I got to talk to her and coordinate the rest of the afternoon.

On Saturday I was fed scrambled eggs and an avacado with my beans. I was in Heaven.

Maritza is making great progress!! Although she didn´t come to church on sunday so that´s not cool. She is super pilas! She always reads everything we give her and has tons of questions. She and her husband aren´t legally married (a common thing here in Honduras) so they need to get married before they can get baptized. WE are hoping they can baptized on the 25.

Erika and Denis came to church too!! But the wrong branch!! It´s a bit frustrating.

We hiked Pakura!! It is tallest mountain in the valley and I stood on the peak. It was awesome!! Unfortunately though, we brought some of the simgle sisters from the branch with us and they really shouldn´t have been there. They struggled a ton and it ended up taking 12 hours instead of the planned six hours. And at one point we got all separated and our guide was gone and we lost the trail and ended up just hiking straight up the side of the mountain. We did everything you´re nor supposed to do on a hike. It was impossible to get people to stay together. Nonetheless, I enjoyed myself.

Also, at lunch today Hermana Duarte showed us what was on the news: a police oficer was killed in Olanchito... in my area! I think we´ll be staying clear of that part of our area for a while.

I´ve been trying a lot harder this week to have more focus in my studying. I´m conviced every missionary should read chapter 2 of pmg occasionally. IT´s great. I feel the Spirit so much more and receive so much more revelation when my study has structure and a purpose.

That´s it for now. Love you all. Have a great week!

Love,

Hermana Odekirk

I volunteer as Tribute

Shout out to Hollie Odekirk who turns 24 (I think it´s 24) on Saturday!! Love you!

Every year my mom asks me what knid of cake I want for my birthday and I never remember that I like Pineapple upsidedown cake. Also, I´ve found out that I like tres leches. So, when my birthday 2015 rolls around let us all keep this in mind.

Currently the city of Trujio doesn´t have any sister missionaries in it because it is dangerous, but today our zone went there to go hang out at the beach and if Presidente Klein ever opens it to sisters then I volunteer as tribute. Me encanta Trujio. It is so beautiful. It was three hour bus ride there. It was so great to able to get to know more of Honduras. We couldn´t go swimming or anything but we stuck our feet in the water, played volleyball, collected sea shells and such. Seeing the ocean is simple thing, but it is so calming and rejuvinating and wonderful. It was really great day!! (Forgive me if I spelled rejuvinating incorrectly. I don´t know how to spell it and this spanish software has little red squiggles under all of my words)

I know I´m late, but it´s new years. I remember thinking two years ago that 2012 was going to be this amazing year full of change and firsts in my life. And it was! I graduated and moved to college. It was amazing but 2013 was even better!! I learned more about myself, my goals, my relationship with my Heavenly Father, and how to use the Atonement than I ever expected. This year was full of firsts and so many things that have changed who I am. There were a lot of unexpected difficutlies in my life this year, but I know that I came out of them a better person. I know I´m not the same person I was a year ago. 

A year ago I wasn´t expecting to be in Honduras in a year but here I am!! I´ve learned so much about the way we interact with people and how we need to christlike love in the simple ways we interct with people. It isn´t always about doing tons of charity work or giving to the poor. Sometimes it is just about having a smile on your face, or showing interest in what someone is telling you. I hope that 2014 will bring even more change. I hope to change the lives of people in Honduras. I hope all of you have good changes in your lives. And I hope that I change so that I can go home a better person than I came. I can´t wait for the adventures that 2014 has in store for me.

On Thursday I went on splits with Hermana Hill, my lider entrenadora. It was an amazing day. I learned a lot of things that Hermana Calpa and I aren´t doing correctly and I also learned things that we are doing well. It´s hard to know if Hermana Calpa and I are doing a good job when I have nothing to compare it to. It´s also hard to work together in unison when I don´t speak spanish. We had a little tension of tension of Friday night over how we should be setting our daily goals, but it has gotten better. Hopefully the change will help our work improve. 

Also, we met these kids on the street who were walking around with a gecko... on a leash. It was awesome. I touched it. I know I´m hardcore.

Love you all. I hope you can all can make some wonderful changes this year and keep Christ in your mind as you do it. Take action. Make something happen. ... "I love you. Jesus loves you. Let´s change lives today." Seriously though, do something great.

Love,

Hermana Odekirk

La Navidad, Sickness, and a Burger

Well, guys, it has been quite a week. I had a bit of melt down last monday, sorry about that. I´m a lot better now, I just needed a moment. It has so great to know that I have so many people supporting me. 

Tuesday was Christmas Eve. I finished The Book of Mormon for the sixth time. I´m pretty excited about it. It was so great to be able to talk to my family that day. That night Elder Kessler, Elder Reyes,  Hermana Calpa, and I did a little Chirstmas carroling to some of our members and investigators. It was super fun and a reminder of how quickly singing a hymn can bring the Spirit. 

On Christmas I ate: a bunch of crackers, a chicken sandwich, three pieces of cake and a tomale. Then we went to lunch where I ate rice and beans like always, and another tomale. Then I ate another piece of cake another tomale, another tomale, some sort of snack thing, and another piece of cake. And about of six cups of soda through out the day. Needless to say I was sick on Thursday.

Have you ever seen a chicken climb a twenty foot tree? I hadn´t until thursday and it was pretty awesome.

On Saturday morning we took an hour and a half bus ride over to Tacoa for a devotional for our zone with Presidente Klein. It was nice to see Tacoa and all the other missionaries in my zone. Presidente Klein gave a great devotional about 3 Nefi. We need to strengthen our stakes which means strengthening our people, the individuals.

After the devotional Presidente Klein took the four hermanas out to lunch at the Wndey´s in Tacoa (we don´t have anything that fancy out in Olanchito) and it was the most beautiful thing I´ve ever eaten. presidente knew exactly what Hermana Holdaway and I needed for a pick me up.It was absolutely amazing!!

On Thursday I got pretty sick and didn´t stop until Sunday. More unmentionable things happened in the bathroom. I was struggling. On Saturday night I asked my zone leaders to give me a blessing and then on Sunday morning I felt way better. The Preisthood is real guys. 

We are teaching this guy named Dany and his mother is the sweetest lady! She is a christian woman and loves to sing hymns with us. On Saturday we happened to metion that I was sick and walked down to the pulperia to get me some alcacetzer. And when it was time for the closing prayer she reminded her husband to pray for me. It felt so great to be so love by a woman I barely know. It is the kind Christlike love that we all need in our lives.

Also, on Saturday night Hermana Holdaway and Hermana Alejandro got mugged near our chapple. It´s pretty scary. Just another reason I am trying to be an obedient missionary.

la familia Soto came to Sacrament meeting yesterday!! He is a less active member and she isn´t a member. They are the cutest family, I was so excited when I saw them walk in. Also, on the boys we baptized last week, Carlos Gutierrez, passed the Sacrament! I was so proud of him.

I just realized that sometimes I forget I have a first name. ha ha Oh the life of a missionary.

Also, Sister Tracey put this in her last email: Shout out to Sister Stark who is the coolest person ever! She is wonderful and I may or may not have forgotten to put her on the emailing list...my bad..

I want everyone, including Kate Stark to know that she is not on this email list because she can go look at my blog anytime she wants, just like evveryone else. I didn´t want to accidentally have to fear the rath of Kate Stark.

Thanks for all the love and support. I hope you all have a wonderful New Year. Sing the national anthem for me. ;) God loves you.

Love,

Hermana Odekirk

One good thing about Honduras is that you never have worry about finding a trash can, you can just throw your trash on the ground. There are piles of trash everywhere!

We had four baptisms this week! The Gutierrez kids were baptized. It was great to see how happy they all were. It was interesting to see how different it was than a baptism in Utah. None of the kids white clothes fit them and the water in the font was full of dead bugs. The Spirit was there and that`s the important part, right? 

This week has been kind of rough for me. I miss America. I miss feeling clean. I miss having control over what I eat. I miss warm showers. Most of all I miss having a desk that doesn`t have ants crawling all over it. I still son`t feel like I`m contributing to the work and I cant even tell my companion about concerns because I dont speak spanish. This is one of those moments where I wish I was serving stateside. Oh well, missions aren`t supposed to be easy, right?

I hope you all have a Merry Christmas. Love you.

Love, Hermana Odekirk