Transfer Week Once Again‏

Hey guys, it´s transfer week, so we have pday once again.

The lovely Hermana Alfaro had changes today so I came back to Tela with Hermana Cuc. She has almost ten months in the mission and is from Guate. Even though she is from Guatemala she didn´t know any spanish until she got to the mission because she grew up speaking one of the native Guatemalan indian languages, Kichin. (I have no idea how to spell Kichin) So hopefully I can learn a little bit of it! She seems really cool. I´ve heard good things about her.

Yesterday we were vivisting some less actives. We were sitting outside and all of a sudden I felt something on my arm and there was some sort of white and brown goop. I took a deep breath to stay calm and looked up. It was in that moment that I realized a gecko sitting on the roof overhang pooped on me. Only in Honduras

CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT ALEMANIA BEAT BRASIL 7-1???????????? I am in shock!! We got home from Progreso yesterday and were walking down the street and we heard a tv in someones house say it was 4-0 in only 25 minutes and I was like, WHAAAAAAA! Then we got to the casa de la familia Almendarez and the radio said it was 5-0. Then we were walking again and I heard this guy in his truck and the radio was saying GOOOOAAAAAAALLL, so I asked they guy "6-0?" and he said, "No! 7-0!! Usted es de Alemania." I then told Hermana Alfaro that I´m going to say I´m from Alemania for the reast of the day. Pobres brazilianos. An entire nation is crying. My heart goes out to them.

Also, this morning I read the tips for parents of young adults article and is was really good. Ya´ll should read it. I learned a ton about how to function as a yound adult.

The church is true.

Love,

Hermana Odekirk

Miracles, José Smich, and Partidos‏

Hey guys, what´s up?

So, our wonderfulconvert Horus can´t say the word Nefi. He always refers to the profet Nefis. Also, our investigator Marvin says José Smich instead of Smith. And the Relief Society president in Olanchito always said Family Che instead of family search. I´m getting some goos laughs in here in Honduras.

I finally found out what a Platano is in english!! (Sometimes people will tell you it´s banana and they are wrong). It´s Plantain!! I am so excited! When get home you had best bet I am going to be frying up some sliced plantain. Yuuuummmmmmm.

Costa Rica lost to Holland on Saturday. Hermana Alfaro was pretty upset and everyone keeps bringing it up haha. earlier in the week asked me "Podemos ver el partido en Sabado?" (Can we watch the game on saturday) but I heard "Jesucristo puede ver el partido en sabado?" I thought why on earth does she care if Christ can watch the game, but yeah I think he can watch it, so I replied, "Sí, yo pienso que todos los espiritus peudan ver el partido." and she was super confused, and then I was confused about why she was confused. Eventually we figured it all out and laughed for a good ten minutes.

Don´t tell this to anyone in Central America but I was secretly cheering for Holland on saturday. They totally deserved it more. They´ve been undefeated, not  to mention kicked Spain´s trash 5-0. Costa Rica barely made it into octavos. It would´ve been unjust for Holland to lose to Costa Rica. But remember we´re keeping this secret. 

People here don´t understand the purpose of setting an appointment. We´re all "Can we come back tuesday at 3:00?" and they always say "I have no idea if I´ll be home. I might be out running errands or something. I don´t really have a set schedule." Hello? That´s the point of making an appointment, so that you can decide to run errands at four instead of three.And then of course they aren´t home when we show up on Tuesday. I feel like Jerry Siegnfeild, "Anyone can just take a reservation, you have to HOLD the reservation!"

The senior missionaries arrived on Saturday, Elder y Hermana Webb. They speak absolutely no spanish but they are super excited to be here!! They are so cute. We are going to be working with them one day a week, introducing them to less actives and stuff, untill their spanish in good enough that they can work on their own. Then it´s only when they ask for something. I´m super excited to be working with them!

On Friday we went to visit Hermana Daisy, one of our recent converts, and I almost cried. We were talking about if they´ve been holding family home evening and how her scripture reading is going, and she started to tell us how they have noticed a differnce in their home since they joined the Church. They´ve noticed the ways the our Heavenly Father has blessed their family. That´s it. That´s why I decided to serve a mission, so that families can change their lives and start to see more blessings in their lives. I am so amazed by the things that I´ve seen here in my mission. and I am so happy to be able to see the influence God has in the lives of His children.

Well, that´s all for now folks. Have a great week. Peace out.

Love,

Hermana Odekirk

 

I forgot to write about the miracle!!!! Six weeks ago Elder Lopez was on his way to transfer meeting and her accidentally left his suit coat in a taxi! It had his wallet, his temple recommend, his id from Nicaragua, everything!!! Super sad. 

He and Elder Nichols were walking around Tela on friday and all of a sudden this guys starts yelling to them. At first they thought he was just some crazy guy, but he started talking to them, and found out that he was the taxi driver! He told them that he still had Elder Lopez´s suit coat in his car and it still had all his money and everything in it!! IT WAS A FOURTH OF JULY MIRACLE!!! 

Also, one of the members let us have a fourth of July dinner at her house. We grilled steak and ate water melon and Elder Nichols and I sang the Start Bangled Banner,and there was fireworks. It was almost like home. I´ve never been more greatful for the United States of America in my whole life. 

Let the Holy Spirit Guide

 

 
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Horus was baptized this Saturday!! I am so happy for him. He is going to do such great things for the branch. It is so great to see how happy he is!

This week I've really been reminded about how important it is to follow the Spirit. and sometimes when you're not sure if it's the Spirit or your thought you just have think "why not?" and roll with it. 

When we found Horus we it was only because we were walking down the street and we passed a house that we had contacted the week before and I thought why not visit that lady again. The lady wasn't home but Horus was and Hermana Alfaro thought, why not share a message with this guy. 

Also, when we were planning on Tuesday night I though to visit an investigator name Doris. I didn't really think she will progress, but thought why not visit her? So we went Doris on Wednesday and she wasn't home but then we ran into her neighbor. We shared a message with her and she and her family came to the branch activity that night and they came to church yesterday. The Spirit didn't want us to visit Doris, he prompted me so that we could find this family. It's amazing.

Remember that guys a few weeks ago who had us put our hands in the air while we prayed and tired to convert us to the Rebano, Walter? Well this new family goes to his church right now, and everytime we go to visit them he shows up and starts asking them if they are going to the meeting at the Rebano that night and all that jazz. Sometimes it's kind of awkward. And I feel really bad because someone from another showed up at my recent convert's house and tried to get them to go another church I would probably be doing the exact same things that Walter is doing.

We had a run in with this Catholic lady who REALLY does not like The Book of Mormon. She was telling us all about how God is perfect and will never contradict himself (which is true) and so why would he contradict himself by revealing the Book of Mormon. We tried to explain to her that if she read the book she would find that The Book of Mormon doesn't contradict the Bible in any way, she only needs to read, ponder and pray, but she wasn't having any of it. It was a big testimony building moment.

We went to visit this less active family, Garcia. They are pretty receptive, and always say they want to come back to church but then they never do. They even were sealed about twenty years ago. We started asking them about the temple, and even though they could remember much I could see it in their faces that they remembered how wonderful and beautiful and peaceful it is. I almost started crying. The temple truly is the house of God. Slowly but surely I thinki Hermano y Hermana Garcia are remembering why they joined the church.

Horus' aunt came from Minesota to visit and she is a faithful member of the church. She is who introduced him to the church in the first place 13 years ago. She invited us to dinner after the baptism and I got really excited because I realized she might make something other than beans and rice or baleadas. We got there and she fed me lasagna!! Tomatoe sauce and noodles!! Whooy, was it good! AND  she is originally from Olanchito! Needless to say, I like Linda Diaz a lot.

I was studying the Restoration in PMG and I found the following sentence:

 "Joseph Smith lived in the United States, which was probably the only country to enjoy religious freedom at the time." Put your hands up if you love America!!!

We contacted this guy on the street and he turned out to be one of those crazy evangelicals. Normally crazy evangelicals (evangelists? I don't know the word in english) are all sorts of full of apostasy but I actually learned something really cool from this. He pointed out that both Adam and Christ at some point were laying down and had a rib broken (Adam, when Eve was created, and Christ when he was stabbed with a javelin). He said to me "from Adam, Eve was born. Who was born when when Christ's rib was broken?" I said that through this we all have the opportunity to be born again and become better people through repentance and baptism. He said I was wrong that Christ's church was born in that moment. You are free to interpret it as you choose. 

Today I complete eight months in the mission. Weird.

Love you all!! Have a great week!!

Love,

Hermana Odekirk

Too Lazy for a Title

 

 
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From:	savannah.odekirk@myldsmail.net)
Sent:	Mon 6/23/14 5:03 PM
To:

This week we passed June 18. That means it has now been over a year since I received the letter from the Travel Department that said I was going to Honduras. A whole year.

I just got an email from Sister Tracey in Ohio that has picture of her companion eating Mudd Pie at Red Robbin. Sometimes I forget that missionaries can do things like that. If I want to go out to eat I can eat baleadas or pupusas. Maybe some day I´ll serve in La Ceiba and I can go to Pizza Hut.

Natalia Sosa is the six year old daughter of our recent converts. She was born in the United States and then the familia Sosa moved back to Honduras about three years ago. Entonces the following occurred:

   1. It was the day of the first Honduras wold cup game and was teasing her about how she wasn´t wearing her Honduras jearsy the whole day and she said to me, "I don´t need to where my Honduras jearsy because I´m not Honduran, I¨m from the United States."

   2. We were teaching the Plan of Salvation so I asked Where did we live before we were born and Natalia said "I know! I know! En Los Estados Unidos!!"

I was reading Spainsh for Missionaries during language study the other day and I read the following sentence:  "Isaiah taught that are sin can become white as snow" This book was clearly written by people from Utah since it says "are" not "our"  Que triste.

I went to San Pedro for the first time this week. I had to go to the immigration office.  I really like San Pedro because it has mountains to one side, just like home.  and we got to ride in the truck that the secretaries use, but they didn´t let me drive it. Not even just around the parking lot.

I saw Elder Monterosa again since he is the immigration secretary now and it really showed me how far I´ve come in my mission because I met him about my fifth day in the mission and he tried to teach me to do the finger snappy thing. And I not only can do it now but I can do it lefty too!!

We were teaching a lesson in the front yeard of one of our investigators and it was during the second Honduras game. We  were sitting there and all of sudden everyone inside started screaming and everyone in all the houses in the whole neighborhood started screaming and light off fire works becasue Honduras made a goal. I´ve never heard anything like it. It was so cool. 

Horus is still all set to get baptized this Saturday. Woo hoo!!! People are prepared. 

Yestereday the U.S. played against Portugal. We showed up at Marvins house to teach him and his mom and his brother and they had the game on the tv. They put it on mute but I didn´t have the will power to ask them to turn it off. At this point the game was 1-1 so I was nervous. I said I can´t watch this. Let´s sing a hymn, but the tv still wasn´t turned off. So we are singing, "Deja que-el espiritu.." but then Hermana Alfaro and I saw that the U.S. made a goal so it was more like "Deja que-el espirituosjnfgvuaiohñ!!!!" It was super funny... but we clearly didn´t have the Spirit during that lesson. oops. 

On Saturday night the power went off, so we went home for the night at seven. Something was wrong with my ipod so Hermana Alfaro and I were working on fixing it. Once we got it all fixed I said, "oh I should charge my ipod" so I went and got the charger and plugged it in. About half an hour later I came out of the bathroom and Hermana Alfaro says to me, "You think you´re going to charge your ipod with the power out?" "Why didn´t you say anything when you watched me plug it in??" "Because I didn´t think about it either!" We laughed for a while.

So, I was in Personal Study on saturday and I was reminded once again that if there is anything I´ve learned in the last few years of my life it´s that sometimes Satan works by making me feel Spiritually strong.  Sometimes I know I´m putting myself into a situation full of temptation but I think, "It´s okay, because I´m super strong and I´m better than that, so I´m not going to act on the temptation." but then sometimes I´m not as strong as I think am. Satan is a smart cookie, but that´s why we have the gospel! :)

Here´s to another beautiful week in Tela! Love you guys.

Love,

Hermana Odekirk

Happy second week of June

Happy second week of June!!

When we have Zone Conference right after changes everyone has to introduce themselves. This time we had to come up with a wierd question for another person to answer and the following conversation occurred:

Elder I-can´t-remember-quien: "Si va al baño y no se encuentra papel que hace?" If you go to the bathroom and don´t find toilet paper, what do you do?

Elder Tax: "Pues, esto as la razón siempre tenemos nuestras agendas, verdad? Los páginas atras." Well, this is the reason we always have our planners, true? Those pages in back.

I laughed so hard I cried! 

Everytime someone tells me some super wierd doctrine that sounds a little blasphemous and I ask them where they heard that they tell me they read it in the book "Doctrine of Salvation" by Joseph Feilding Smith. Which brings us to the question, is the book Doctrine of Salvation recongnized as Church doctrine by the Church?

Happy Birthday to my sister Katie!!

Horus is still working toward his baptism. He asked us if we could push his date back until the 28. I was totally happy to do it, because his aunt who is a member is coming to town on the 25 and wants to see his baptism!! 

Daisy Sosa, one of the people who got baptized last month, is now working on doing her visiting teaching and she is super excited about it and her duaghter, Nahomy, is working on her Personal Progress! I am so proud of them!

Friday night I woke up at four in the morning to what sounded like gun shots. I looked at Hermana Alfaro and she looked really scared. I crept and peaked out the window but I couldn´t see anything. Then I heard all the abulance and police sirens and more gun shots. I got away from the window and sat on the floor. "This is real." I thought, "I´m in Honduras and my neighbor just got killed." But then. Then I heard the music and saw the fireworks. Turns out that a carnival started that day so all the punk kids were driving around town announcing the carnival. Only in Honduras is it legal to shoot fireworks our of your moving car, and blast your music super loud at four in the morning AND the police are going to help you do it!!!!!!!!!! I went back to bed BIEN ENOJADA!!! 

I listened to Christmas music this morning. I feel no shame.

Have a great week!! Do something awesome.

Love,

Hermana Odekirk

Transfer 6??‏

Two words: Horus George.  This man is a milagro like I have never seen before!!!! Here's the story... of a lovely lady... not really this is story of Horus (if you didn't catch the Brady Bunch reference I am severely disappointed in you). We contacted this lady sitting in front of her house and made a return appointment. We went back for our appointment but she was occupied. We were walking passed her house two weeks later and I thought "I'm sick forgetting to go back and visit people when they can't make the return appointment." So we went back to that house right then and asked if Edis was home, she wasn't, but her brother in law Horus was home! We asked if we could share something with him instead and he said sure pasen adelante. Turns out he has cousins en Los Estados que son miembros and he went to church with them off and on for a year when he lived there but was never baptized because no one in Minnesota said Hey, wanna get baptized. He has a date for June 14 and I am so excited!! 

The best part is this week he told us that the night after our first lesson with him he had a dream that he was wearing all white and he got baptized!! Whaat?? (I had to push three different buttons to get those question marks because these stickers don't match the software) I had been asking him for weeks how he is expecting to get an answer when he asks Heavenly Father if he should get baptized and he kept mentioning dreams. I was really worried because most people don't get answers in dreams, and then he told us about his dream and just thought "Boy, was I wrong?" He has come to church all three weeks we've been teaching him. He was perfectly prepared to meet the missionaries, I have done nothing to get him to this point.

Yesterday I had to teach Principios del Evangelio with about five minutes notice, so I picked an easy lesson, Prayer. The lesson went well enough. After the lesson I felt really awesome because I remembered the very frist time I taught principios del evangelio and my lesson was about ten minutes long and I was so frustrated that I couldn't teach on the fly in spanish, but now I can do it. That's progress.

Elder Lopez sang this song once and now I have it stuck in my head todos los dias!! Hermana Alfaro and I sing it to each other all the time.

"Te accomañaré en cualquiera lugar en la juventud en la Pepsi pepsi pepsi en la Cola cola cola. Pepsi Cola."

Remember back in January when I was studying the tribes of Israel and the abrahamic covenant and all that? I was reading the Isaiah chapters in 2 Nefi the other day and I realized that now that I understand the scattering and the gathering and all that, the Isaiah chapters make so much sense!! This has completely changed the way I read the Book of Mormon

We don't eat a lot of different kinds of fruit in the States. Have you ever pulled a mango straight from the tree and eaten it? Do you know what a water apple is? Have you fried up some mazapan? I've come to decision that we only certain fruits in the US because we only eat the good fruit. 

THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF THIS EMAIL!!! I have now had this discussion with two of my companions. In Luke 24 Christ as a resurrected being said "Have you any meat?" and then they gave him food and he ate it. Hermana Alfaro is insistent that this means that Christ was hungry, but I was always taught that a perfected resurrected being doesn't need food or sleep, so there must be another reason besides hunger that he ate food, right? I read the bible dictionary under Resurrection and found no answers. I need help! If you have any answers let me know.

Well, that all for now folks. Have a great week!!

Love,

Hermana Odekirk

 

 

 

No time in Trujillo, but a lot in Progreso‏

I know just wrote on Monday but it´s pday again today so why not?

Alfaro and I had pday again today because neither of us had combios, but we wanted to go to the reunion de cambios anyway because we knew all our friends would be there. Last night we called Presidente Klein to ask if he would let us go and after taking half an hour to think about it he called us back and said, ¨Hermanas, I´m grateful for your baptisms last week and for all your work. I am also grateful that you called to ask permission instead of just going.¨ At this point I thought he was going to say no, but then he said we could go! It was a really small and yet really huge example that obedience pays off.

Reunion de cambios was super great because all the hermanas that arrived the same cambio as me were all there! I also got to see everyone from Olanchito. 

Remember how I told Presidente Klein that dibs opening Trujillo for the Hermanas? Well today Turjillo was opened for the Hermanas and I obviously was not one of the ones going. Ha ha He did send Hermana Trujillo though! I was a little jealous, but then I remembered that they are going to have a ten hour bus ride and I´m going to get back to my area in time to enjoy the rest of my pday. ha ha I´m make it back to Trujillo some day. There must be a really specific for these two hermanas to be in Turjillo because they both only had one transfer in their areas anteriores.

I´ve eaten a cheeseburger at Burger King twice in the last two days. Being in an area where you have to got to Progreso every few weeks is super awesome! It is not very often I get a nice burger. 

Also, at the transfer meeting I bought a new bag from El Señor de los Anillos (the Lord of the Rings (he also says CTR rings)) and I´m really excited about it because it has hip straps so my shoulders won´t hurt anymore. It´s really just a glorified fanny pack. It´s funny because he told me it would be 475 limps. and at first thought ¨que?? That´s a ton, but then I did the math in my head and realized that´s not even 20 bucks. Sometimes it´s really awesome to buy things in Honduras. 

Alma 26:22

Love ya´ll tons!

Love,

Hermana Odekirk

P.S. Sometimes typing is really hard because these computers are really inconsistent about whether they have the spanish keyboard software or the english. and lot's of times the stickers on the keyboard don't match what they actually do. Someday I'll figure it out...