I'm not dead yet! Si Hombre

In January everyone told me, "Wait, until March and April when it gets really hot! The Semana Santa is unbearable!" You guys all know me, you know that I love the snow and the cold with ever fiber of my being and that I think the only good thing about summer is that then we get to enjoy it getting cold again. Needless to say, I was terrified for April to come. March came and went and it was hot! But I overcame it. Now, I´m proud to say this week is the Semana Santa and I´m not dead yet! Woo hoo! Everyone exaggerated WAY too much. I was scared of the Honduran heat since I opened that letter from the travel department (not since I opened call ha ha My life is ridiculous), but it really hasn´t been that bad. It will start raining again in May and it will be smooth sailing until my last transfer when it gets hot again.

On Wednesday and Tuesday it was only 23 degrees Celsious. It hasn´t been that cold since January! I wore a cardigan! It was wonderful, but... it make me super baggy. All I wanted to do was come home from class, make some top rammon and watch a movie in my sweatpants. Oh, well. There´s time for that later. It was really great break from the heat, exactly what I needed to keep working.

So, there is the normal sized Preach My Gospel and the mini one. Clearly, the normal one is way too giant, but the mini is too small. Obviously, we need a medium sized PMG and then they can stop making the huge one. The problem is I don´t know who to talk about it to make this dream a reality, so everyone´s homework for this week is to write an apostle and tell them make it happen. Got it? Good.

On Tuesday I thought to myself, "In my email I´m going to write 'Put your hands up if you´ve been on the mission five months and you still don´t understand the subjunctive!'" But I´m pleased to say that I studied it everyday during language study this week and I´m starting to get it! I still think it´s stupid and useless and you could just as easily use the indicative, but I understand it now, so that rocks.

Chicken fighting isn´t illegal here, so one of my investigators showed us all his fighting chickens. He claims it is the sport of kings. Weird. It was pretty sad to know that these chickens are going to die for absolutely no reason. I kept thinking about that Signfeld episode (I can´t remember how to spell that to save my life.) "They´re gonna kill Little Jerry??"

Edgardo and Ramon didn´t get baptized on the 12. Their new goal is the 26. They are couple of 15 year old punk kids who think Church is boring and they don´t want to come. Silly punk kids, no one is too cool for Church. 

I didn´t know until Thursday that you don´t actually have to have two preisthood holders to give a blessing with oil. I suppose it´s a good thing I don´t hold the preisthood since apparently I don´t know the rules.

Baleadas to date: 128

Serving a mission is weird. Everyday is completely different and yet, they are all exactly the same. It is full of highs and lows. I´m learning so much. I'm learning all sorts of deep doctrine and things like that but more imprtantly I have a better understanding of how the gospel affects me personally in my everyday decisions. I know myself better than I ever have before. It´s weird.

I love you guys and I hope you are all doing well. Have a great week. 

Love,

Hermana Odekirk

 

Divisions, Conference and Painted Baby Chicks

• Savannah Odekirk
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• Savannah Odekirk
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From:	Savannah Odekirk (savannah.odekirk@myldsmail.net) This sender is in your contact list.
Sent:	Mon 4/07/14 4:40 PM
To:	Kris Odekirk (golfnkris@hotmail.com); Sierra Tracey (sierra.tracey@myldsmail.net); Mitchell Sailsbery (msailsbery@myldsmail.net); Cassidy Lloyd (cassidy.lloyd@myldsmail.net); Daniel Carter (danielc@myldsmail.net); Lindsey Turner (lindsey.turner@myldsmail.net); THOMAS KENDALL BUCHMILLER (thomas.buchmiller@utah.edu)

Hermana Hill and Tajiboy came to go on splits with us on Tuesday. It rocked like it always does. My first time with Hermana Hill I felt like a shmo, I got lost and hardly spoke spanish, but this time was great! I know this town like the back of my hand and everyone was home and I know enough spanish that I have no problem taking the lead now. I felt like a pro.

Even when the Lideres Entrenadoras are spending the night at your house, so there are four people who need to shower, you never have to worry about anyone taking all the hot water because they isn´t any hot water anyway.

We taught the Restoration to Louis and I was worried because he usually likes to have lots of evidence from the Bible, but it went really well. He really studied the pamflet before we got there so he basically taught us the lesson! The questions he had were becuase he legitimately had questions, not because he was trying to prove us wrong like most people, so that was nice. We left him a Libro de Mormón and he said he´ll read 3 Nefi 11. I´m really excited about this guy and his family.

We were walking back home to do language study and we saw this guy on the side of the road with a bunch of spray painted baby chicks! They were bright green, pink, and orange! I thought, "Is this for easter or something?" But Hermana Zamora told me that they sell them year around and people buy them fot their kids to play with. Then once they grow and get all ugly they eat it. I really wanted to buy one but the Maual Misional says no pets...

The power went out four times this week.

Friday we got home at four and stayed there the rest of the night, because Zamora got one of her wisdom teeth pulled. So, I did what any bored missionary does after they´ve read their scripture, Jesus the Christ, and a confernce talk, and written in their journal: I watched The District.
I was watching it and I was so grateful I´m here. I really wish I could explain the feeling. I just felt so happy that I still have another year left so that I can become a better missionary. I´m grateful for all the frustration and the heat and the rejection because they build character. They gave the determination that after Edgardo wasn´t home and the familia Cambar wasn´t home and Loudis wasn´t home and it is 95 degrees and I´m hot and I´m dirty, I can take a deep breath, look at Hermana Zamora and say, "Esta bien. Vamos a contactar esa casa."

BTW Holdaway got a DearElder letter that was addressed to the Mexico CCM!! We only left Mexico about four months ago. Esta Bien.

It was a party in the gringo room during conference!! A very reverent party, but a party nontheless. We had nine of us crammed into a closet of a room, it was great! I´ll try to narrow my list of conrence thoughts.

    1. Holland: "Christ like love is the greatest need we have on this planet." I´ve been thinking that for months.

    3. Reeves: "The best filter is a strong tesitmony." You have to stay for from the line, not right up next to it.

    4. Anderson: "You are infinitely more prcious to God than a tree." Thanks, Elder Anderson, I did not know that.

    5. Anderson: "The feeling of the temple is a pattern for how you want to feel in life." Truth. I can´t wait to go to the temple again.

    6. We can´t be neutral about the godpel. You have to be active in brining it into your life.

    7. Uchtdorf: "Commandments are opportunities to exercise out agency and receive blessings." I loved this talk.

    8. Ballard learned to follow up and be persistant on his mission, that´s how he got his wife. You can bet there was latin finger snapping at that point.

    9. Elder Stevens talked all about the Olympics but I didn´t see any of that... awkward. It was stil a realy good talk though. The time is now!

    10. I LOVE BEDNAR!!!!!! All you need is spiritual traction, who knew?

    11. I used to think it was crazy that my entire senior class left on missions! But then Packer told me that his whole senior class left to fight WW2. You win, Packer. "Some lessons cannot be taught, but can be learned."

The gospel is true. Period. Sorry this one was super long. Hope you all had  great conference. I´d love to know what you learned. Have a great week!

Love,

Hermana Odekirk

Christmas Cards. Locksmiths and Awesomeness!

Lot´s of excitement happened this week! First of all, I got a Christmas card from the Beehives back home! And a Valentine´s card from Sister Stark. And it´s only March!

Also, yesterday was my five month mark! Sí, hombre-e!!

Natalia was supposed to get baptized on the 29, but on friday she said that she prayed about it and her answer was no, she shouldn´t get baptized... How do you tell an 11 year-old girl that you think her personal revelation wasn´t revelation? I don´t, I´m just going to love her and keep working with her and ask her to pray again...

Edgardo and Ramon are still on track to get baprized on April 12. Pray for them. 

Jesus the Christ is my new favorite book. My mind gets blown every day.

We were teaching this lady in her living room and her mother was sitting in a chair by the wall when all of a sudden the mom hauked up (halked up? hawked up? hocked up?) the biggest spit I´ve ever heard and spit right the wall six inches from her chair!! It was gross. I appreciate a good spit, but inside, at the wall!

Spanish is hard to learn because we all speak english incorrectly. Por ejemplo: if I want to ask what a scripture is about I ask "Sobre qué es esta escritura?" Which directly translates into "About what is this scripture?" not, "What is this scripture about?" You´re never supposed to end a sentence with a preposition or a participle and all that stuff, but we have all been doing it for so long that we don´t even notice it is incorrect anymore!  Oh well.

I accidentally locked our key in the apartment on friday night, so we went and got the locksmith. He came to our house, but instead of bringing a lockpicking kit or something of that regard he brought brought a laminated piece of paper!! He pulled out this piece of paper and proceeded to try and open it the way you would do with your credit card. And that didn´t work so he took out his wallet and pulled out one of his other laminated papers and tried some more. He just sat there giggling the door with this piece of paper in the door crack for about five minutes. Then the door opened, but only an inch, which makes no sense. So I took a closer look and realized he didn´t actually unlock the door he just broke our door frame! Oh, Honduras... He was really nice about it though, he came back and nailed the door frame back together but then the door wouldn´t close! So he asked us if we had a knife and he proceeded to whittle away our door frame with our kitchen knife. When all was said and done our door works better than it ever did before, so that rocks.

Also, I´ve been studying Jacob 5 this week and I am basiclly an expert now. ha ha  It might be one of my new favorite chapters of scripture. Jacob 5:41 

This week really has been great! I´ve just been realizing how many people here I truly love and how much I am learning. We all know that some days are easier than others but I am grateful I´m here. Love you all.

Love,

Hermana Odekirk

This week was pretty boring. And I don´t just mean that nothing exciting happened, I mean that I was super bored all week. We had a bunch of appointments that just weren´t home when we showed up and our contacting wasn´t as fruitful as it normally is. It was one of those weeks where we spent all day walking around in the hot sun not really getting to teach very much. But we all have those weeks though, right?

Luckily, though, we had some appointments on Saturday that made it all worth it. Marbel had tons of questions and was super receptive. AND she and her husband are already married, so that takes away half the battle of trying to get people baptized. We have another appointment with her this week and I am super excited about it. 

We also had a really great lesson with la familia Martinez! We taught the plan of salvation and I think it really made sense to them. Unfortunately, though, Louis kept asking to see sctiptures from the Bible so when we try to teach him the Restoration this week it might be a bit more difficult.

I have eaten 116 baleadas.

I have a love hate relationship with the shower. I dread showering everyday, because sometimes the water is so cold my head starts to hurt while I rinse the shampoo. But I also really love my shower because everyday I come home and I am so covered in dirt it´s like I just finished the pioneer treck.

Shout out to my sister Cory who turns 28 today. Feliz Cumpleaños! Ya queremos pastel!

Things I´ve Almost Stepped on This Week:

1. A snake slithering across the road

2. A dead mouse sitting in the road

3. A passedout drunk guy sleeping in the road.

4. The passedout drunk guy´s passed out drunk friend sleeping in the road

Mom´s here don´t pack there kids into the minivan to go to the store. I once saw Hermana Vega riding home on her motorcycle with her three kids on there too. I don´t know how they do it.

By the way, the temple on the cover of the Liahona for March is the Tegucigalpa Temple. Sí hombre-e!

I hope you all have an awesome week!!

Love,

Hermana Odekirk

Honduras Gets Better and Better

WHO´S EXCITED FOR CONFERENCE???????? This girl is!! 10 hours of listening to the word of God! 10 hours of listening to the word of God in English! I can´t wait! 

The power in this internet cafe just went out... Oh Honduras.  But at least it´s back on now

In the CCM I usually just skimmed over the apostasy, but now that Im in the field I know that it is one of the most important things you can teach, especially when I´m dealing with a bunch of evangelicals. If people don´t understand the apostasy they aren´t going to understnad the need for the Restoration and that we are the only church with the correct authority. I am learing so much.

Teaching in Honduras is just like teaching in the south in the Bible belt with all the evangelicals and the baptists... It´s just further south and we´re speaking spanish.

We went  contacting and I got rejected for the very first time. "We´re catholics."

I told Hermana Zamora my middle name, Fay. And she said how cool that my middle name means faith. And at first I was confused but then I realized that although it is spelled differently (Fay and fe), my name means faith in spanish. Super cool, huh?

Hermana Zamora has really good english, but she does´t like to talk to the other gringos in english because she doesn´t like that she "doesn´t always understand."  So naturally, I said, "Bienvenida a mi vida!!!" I can´t even imagine what it must be like to not understand what the people around me are saying, wow, that must be rough. ;) 

Morning here smells different.

The sunsets here aren´t very cool, but I have woken up in the madrugada to take a bus somewhere enough times that I know for sure that the sunrises are maravillosas!!

I spent all week thinking "What is significant about March 14? I swear there is something!" Then Holdaway called and said Happy Pie Day!! Whew, so glad I figured it out.

For three months I have been saying, "Nada iglesia en ese tiempo fue la iglesia verdadera de Jusucristo." AND NO ONE CORRECTED ME!!! Finally a few days ago Zamora reminded me that it is Ninguna iglesia... She is so wonderful.

We have two baptisms set for the 29. Edgardo and Natalia. I am really excited. They are great kids.

We went to Tacoa for District conference on Saturday. The chapel there has two floors so I love the few from the second floor. You can see all the crappy tins roofs. I love Honduras.

On Sunday the conference was a broadcast to all the Central America. Elder Oaks and Elder Scott spoke. Oaks was translated, but Scott speaks fluent spanish so he just spoke. IT was an interesting thing to see. 

And finally, You know you´re in Honduras when: Elder Marsh says "That´s a nice tie." and Elder Passey says, "Thanks. I got it in my christmas package... last week."

Well, that´s all folks. Have a great week. Love you!

Love,

Hermana Odekirk

Ch ch Changes

 

We had changes this week. My new companion is Hermana Zamora and she is super awesome!! Exactly what I need right now. I would send a picture but this computer doesn´t have a USB port... She is from Costa Rica. At first she was pretty shy and I was kind of worried, but then we went to teach a family and she was super chatty, it is great. We only wroked together Wednesday night through Sunday and we stil taught 32 lessons!! We´ve done so much contacting this week it´s ridiculous! We´ve found some awesome people.

I almost got robbed on thursday. We were talking to some people on the side of the road, trying to fin the locksmith (our key broke it´s a whole other story) and these two eight year old on a bike rode up and tried to take my bag but I had it across my chest so it didn´t come off. The awkard part was the boy lost control of the bike and ran into the side of truck that was passing by. The guy is the truck, the little boys, the people we were talking and us all just kind of stood there awkwardly...The little boys didn´t seem hurt so the guy in the truck drove away, and wasn´t mad so the little boys just walked away. If it weren´t sad that those feel the need to steal from me it would be a super funny story.

I ate cow liver on Tuesday. It kind of feels like ground beef, but certainly does not taste the same.

My branch president asked me where I bought my pen and I told him I bought it at wal-mart in the U.S. and he didn´t know what Wal-mart is!!! We are not in Kansas anymore. Also, I had to explain what Harry Potter is to Hermana Calpa. 

Selvin and Elizabeth still didn´t get married this week. There are more things than I thought getting in the way of them being baptized. It just sucks because I know they both have really strong testimonies. Pray for them.

Hope you all have a great week!

Love, Hermana Odekirk

Week 13

We had baptisms on Saturday! Our investigator Manuel for baptized and two of the investigators of the Elders. IT was really great! It is so great to know all the blessings that they are gong to receive.

Unfortunately, Selvin and Elizabeth didn´t get baptized because they didn´t get married on friday. Elizabeth´s dad couldn´t come sign the paper giving permission for her to get married because he had to work that day and he lives two hours away. We are going to try again this week. Pray for a miracle.

I had my first real power outages this week. The power has gone out before but only while we´re asleep or in the middle of the day so it´s never been a problem, but this week the power went out at about six o´clock and the rule is we have to go home when the power goes out, so lit some candles and sat around in the dark. That happened twice. The good news is we were all told the power was going to go out staurday at six so we were super strassed about how to do our baptisms since we had them planned for six, but then the power never went out that day. Tender Mercy.

We still don´t have a phone. Most of the people in town haven´t had a cell signal in almost three weeks. It makes missionary work a wee bit more difficult.

La familia Castallón are some of my favorite people in Olanchito. The grandpa is ninety something and the grandma is seventy something. They are the sweetest people. ha ha Hermana Castallón told me that if I want to find a husband I have to go to La Ceiba because the men are better looking there than in Olanchito. They have two grown children and their son has 11 kids and they all live in the same house. I love it when we go to the Castallón´s house.

I have offically gained an inch around my waist. Now I actually have to start paying attention to what I eat and exercise in the morning and all that junk. Oh, well.

I am surrounded by people relaxing in hammocks all day long, but I never get to sit in one.

On Wednesday we had an acitivity for all the investigators of the missionaries in our ward and for the members, so they could get to know people and we could gain some references. We played soccer at the church and I realized that I love sports! All sports, soccer, pingpong, whatever, I´ll watch it. I sat on the grass (or the closest thing they have to grass) and watched and it was so fun. Also, it´s funny because even the latin guys who don´t really like soccer are still really good at it because they´ve been forced to play they´re whole lives.

The sister training leaders came on friday and we had no idea they were coming because we don´t have a phone. I went out with Hermana Hill again. It was really great. I learned a ton of stuff that I can do better. But I also gained a lot of confidence since I had to take the lead in all of the lessons we taught. It was a really awesome day.

Elder Real was going to perform the baptisms on Saturday so he was standing there in his all white clothes and his companion Elder Passey walked by and said "Daaang, girl." I laughed so hard I cried. The next time you see the missionaries remember that, yes, we are representatives of Christ, but we´re still just a bunch of punk kids.

Also, I learned the correct way to cut a tomatoe. The mission is making me a better person in so many different ways.

Have a great week!

Love,

Hermana Odekirk