Another Average Week

Hey guys, so nothing super awesome happened this week... except that Aaron is getting baptized this saturday!! I am so pumped! We met him our first sunday here in Las Colinas when his cousin brought him to church. Last week I asked him why he wants to get baptized and he said, "Because I´m trying to repent and I want to follow Christ." Well if there ain´t no better reason thatn that. hahah

The word for heart attack in spanish in infarto. InFARTo. I know I´m 20 years old but I can´t hear that word without laughing. I`m laughing right now just thinking about it. It´s like that time Sierra and i were in seminary that girl said do do in her talk and we couldn´t stop laughing. ahahahahah

We had interviews with Presidente Klein this week. I asked if I´m going to die here in Las Colinas and he said he´s not sure. buh. There is a small chance he is going to close my area but probably not. We´ll see.

Sometimes I read in 1 Nephi and notice all the times Nephi says, "i´m not going to go into detail because my father Lehi wrote that"   stinkin´ 116 lost pages.

Sometimes people think the missionaries are their personal marriage counselors... and it gets a little awkward. Dude, I´m 20 and I´ve never been married. All I am going to is tell you to read The Family: a Proclamation to the World and apply the gosple of Jesus Christ in your life. I don´t have any answers for you.

I really really the story of the Prodigal Son. It shows true human actions and feelings. a young punk kid who blows all his money and has to go back, a resentful older brother. It´s beautiful.

This week´s is short. Have a great week!!

Love,

Hermana Odekirk

Do you guys even understand how much time I have in the mission?? This is how much: this week an office elder called me to ask which airport I want to fly home to!!!!!!! And then today I got my itinerary in my email! bah Scary.

I did divisions with Hermana Haight this week. At one point when we were home at night I went to put socks on because I was cold, but she only has a couple months and still hasn´t adjusted to the heat so she said I was crazy. When we got in bed I took my socks off and said her, "Hermana I´m taking my socks off because I´m not cold anymore." She just said, "you were never cold!!" ha ha We´ll see if she feels cold next Janurary!

We also did divisions in... Olanchito!! I love Olanchito so much, I can´t even describe it. And I got to dothe divisions with my hija HERMANA DIAZ!  I love her. We just laughed whole day. The last time we were in Olanchito I mentioned to the Hermanas about a part member we had been teaching a year ago, they went and looked them up and now they are going to church again. Diaz and I visited them this week and it was so great to them again. I really hope it sticks and Erika gets baptized.

When I was in Olanchito we baptized a guy named Manuel. I had heard that he moved to Sonaguerra a few months back, but in Olanchito Presidente Gomez told me he talked to Manuel last week and he is still going to church in Sonaguerra!! Then when we got back to Ceiba I asked Elder Clouse who just came from Sonaguerra if he knows him (I thought it was long shot) and he told me yes!! Manuel takes the bus to church every week and he bought the Elders a bag of lichas!! It made me whole day! I feel like I did what I came here to do.

I used to be really irritated that sisters can´t zone leaders and stuff like that because I thought I would enjoy it, but now I know that zone leaders are ALWAYS on the phone. They always have some problem to solve because some other elder is being an idiot. I´m so grateful to my Heavenly Father that women do not hold the priesthood and I can´t be ZL or Bishop or any other position that is super super hard. (Not that being ZL is as hard a being a bishop... you know what I¨m saying)

Sometimes we do language study at night, but I´m tired and I still want to write in my journal so I just write in my journal in spanish so I can count it as language study. My kids will have to google translate a few pages. hah

We went  to visit this woman in our ward who has been a little less active these last few months. We really love this family, they are super great, so us and the elders have been worried about them. We went to see them and that day their 1 year old son got out of the hospital. We taught the mom a lesson and she shared an experience with us. She said she was walking down the street crying because she didn´t have money to pay the hospital and the bank was going to close and she didn´t even have money to take a taxi to get to the bank before it closed, but then this random taxit driver pulled over and said he would take her for free. He explained that he offered to take her because he believes it is the christian thing to do. She cried as she told that in that moment she knew God loved her and is always mindful of her and her family. We felt the spirit so strongly I didn´t even want to speak when she finished, I just asked if we could finish with a pray. There was nothing any of the four of us could say to add to spirit in the room. 

I love Honduras. It´s a really crappy country but I love it with all of my heart. This morning we walked to the beach and tried to fly homemade kites but there wasn´t any wind. Then Zamora and I went to the centro and went shopping and I just loved it. I love that the streets are dirty and there´s way too many power lines. I love walking throught the park central and seeing the big catholic church and all the buses and people are always selling things, everywhere you go. I love this place.

Have a great week! Eat Church´s Chicken. Fly a Kite.

Love,

Hermana Odekirk 

408,409, & 410

Guess what happened this week!!! We were helping the elders sell pastelitos to raise money so their investigators can get married but we ran out of chicken so we made baleadas and the  member was all "hey do you guys want baleadas for breakfast?" I was all "yeah!" but then I shouted that I didn´t have my camera because I realized that I was about to eat baleadas number 408, 409 and 410!!!!! I did it! I did it!  Idid it! I did it! My goal was 409 and I did it! Woo hoo!!

This week was changes. andddddddd I´M A GRANDMA!! Hermana Andújar is training over in Tela so I have a granddaughter now. beh. I´m so proud. Andddddd Hermana Diaz is in OLANCHITO! Now both of my daughters are in my old areas. haha I told her our whole time together that someday she would serve in Olanchito and now she is there visiting Edgardo and Monchito and eating free food from Presdente Gomez´s pulperia.

Friday we went to Leadership council in La Lima. It was good like always. We were planning on traveling home with the elders but we didn´t realize they had already left. I called them to see where they were and they said they were in Maheco. MAEHCO!! That´s in San Pedro, the opposite direction. They went there because it is easier to find a bus in San Pedro. They said jump on a rapidito and come to maheco and we´ll wait for you guys here. I then reminded the elder that they had to be where we could easily find them because we didn´t have a cell phone (that´s another story). We hopped on a bus and when we got to maheco... we couldn´t find the elders. I didn´t know that maheco isn´t just a bus terminal, it´s a huge market that covers about eight blocks. We were two sisters ALONE in Maheco without a phone. I didn´t feel safe walking the streets of Han Pedro looking for the elders so we hopped on the first rapidito we saw and took it straight to the terminal  We got on the bus and the Elders from Tocoa were there. They asked us, "weren´t you guys meeting the elders from Ceiba in maheco?" I then asked him if he could call them and tell them we were on the bus to Ceiba. The poor elders had been waiting in Maheco for about an hour, but it´s their own fault bacuae they weren´t where we could find them.

It´s very common here to see pictures of Christ on a bus. On this bus to Ceiba i not only saw a picture of Christ, I saw the picture from page 6 and Evangelio de Jesucrist pamphlet!!!! It was taped to the wall. I´m happy he had it but sad that the guy ripped up a pamphlet to put it there.

Preidente Klein told us that he got an email from the 70 saying we are going to have a multi-mission confernce with San Pedro Sula West. He asked if Olanchito and Tocoa can come (because we didn´t get to go Elder Soares came) and the answer was "Yes, when an apostle comes everyone can come." Yes, that´s right, an apostle of the Lord is coming talk to us in han Pedro!! I´m so excited I want to cry! WOOO

Hna Zamora taught me a phrase they use in Costa Rica and I really like it. When you see someone who is a little prideful and they think they´re all that. Instead of, they think they´re "all that" you can say "They think they´re the last coke in the desert." ha ha Spread the word. And keep spreading turning the pig.

That´s all for this week. Have a great week!

Love,

Hermana Odekirk

15 months, 400 baleadas, and 10 lempiras‏

This week was the first full week we had working in our area in two months. It was hard. We are doing so much contacting and no one wants to listen to us, but we are just getting more creative.

I have eaten 400 baleadas! 409 here I come.

Last week Sierra wrote about the first questions she asks when she gets to an area, so I figured I would share mine too.

    1. How long is the bus ride to our area?

    2. Does our house have running water?

    3. Are the roads paved?

    4. Are there decent grocery stores or just the Dispense Familiar?

    5. What´s sacrament meeting attendence like?

    6. How much time do you have?

This week I hit fifteen months and had a missin first that day: I got robbed. We were walking down the street and this drunk guy was walking toward us. He walked up to us and had a newspaper in front of him. He said he had a 9mm shot gun behind the newspaper and was going to shot if I didn´t give 10 lempiras (which is basically nothing ha ha). I new he didn´t have a big shot gun behind that newspaper but he might have something so I started pulling 10 limps and i aksed him if he remebered us, because he is the brother of a member and we had met him before. He said no and i give him the 10 limps and Hermana Zamora and I laughed really hard when we walked away.

I was reading "Make the Exercise of Faith Your First Priority" by Elder Scott and it totally reinforced my belief that everything we do in this church, pray, scripture study, FHE are there for one reason and one reason only- to strengthen our faith in Jesus Christ and His atonement. Sometimes we forget the purpose. We get so cuaght up in planning YW activities and FHE that we forget that the purpose of the gospel of Jesus Christ is to help us develop faith Jesus Christ and His Atonement, REPENT, be baptized, receive the gift of the Holy Ghost and endure to the end. Everything should help us do these five things.

Also, EVERYONE IN THE WORLD HAS TIME FOR DAILY SCRIPTURE STUDY. As a missionary I ask people if they read and they say they had to work or they study. Boo hoo. If you really had a desire to read you could find ten minutes out of your day to read a little. I understand that you work all day and your tired but you can still do it. It´s a commandment.

I emailed my sister a copy of the draft of my resume that I made half an hour ago and this is what she said, "your english is pretty terrible so dad or I should just make a resume for you" Puchika.

My ward mission leader´s name is Juan Fernando. His son´s name is Fernando Daniel and the other son´s name is Erik Fernando. It´s a little confusing, but when in doubt just say Fernando.

a YW leader once said to me that it never rained before Noah and the Flood. Check BD Rain.

Cheque, that´s all for this week folks. The church is true. Christ is our Savior.

Love,

Hermana Odekirk