This is Week 12!!!

So today starts my twelth week in Honduras. I´ve been thinking all week about how it´s been really fast but now saying week 12 sounds like a really short time.

Next week on the 5th are transfers. We are going to wake up at two in the morning and take an eight our bus ride to Progresso and then I´ll take an eight hour bus ride back to Olanchito with my new compañera. Super exciting! This transfer went by crazy fast. Before I know it I´ll be going home.

The conference last tuesday was really good. At one point he made a cool comparison to how finding a spouse is like finding investigators. You find them, then you teach each other, then you set a fecha, and you have to endure to the end. It was really cool, but it didn´t make me super baggy or anything (sarcasm hand (shout out to Sierra and Rachel)).He also talked about how all the latin missionaries need to learn english. Especially as a member of the church because conference talks and stuff like that just aren´t as good after you translate it. How are you supposed to feel the power in Elder Holland´s voice when you´re listening the translater? I´m so gratefull I speak english.

The bus ride back to Olanchito was super rough. The driver was just really stop and go. We were all feeling realy sick. The good news none of us puked. The bad news is I don´t have a super funny story about that time 18 mssionaries threw up on the bus...

Hermana Calpa and I went and got all the paper work ready for Selvin and Elizabeth to get married! The are getting married on friday and they are geting baptzed on saturday. I am so excited for them!!

We also have two other baptisms scheduled for this saturday. Natlalia, she is nine and she is awesome. and Manuel, he rocks too.

We are teaching a 17 year old girl named Victoria. She is so smart and has a thrist for learning. I think she is great. She didn´t comet to church this week, but she is so excited about the gospel!

At one point she was telling us about how she wants to travel to spain and learn to play piano and learn english and how she has all these dreams. I thought how refreshing it is to meet a young person who still has all these hopes and dreams. But then I realized, I´m a young person! I should still have hopes and dreams. Why don´t I still have hopes and dreams?? But then I realized I´m living mine. When I was in high school I wanted to go to Utah State, go on a mission, get married. So far I´ve done all that. Sure, I´d love to travel to europe or teach english in Asia, but then I realized (It was a long process of realizations) that if I spend some time traveling it will be wonderful but it won´t really bring me lasting happiness, only temporary pleasure. The things in this life that are going to bring me life long happiness are things like the gospel and getting marries and having a family some day. It´s not that I don´t have any hopes and dreams they´re just a lot more simple then they used to be. Life rocks.

1 Thessalonians 4:1-2 are really great. As a member f the church you know what you should and shouldn´t do, it´s just about making the choice that you already know is right. 

God bless carpet. Gd bless the U.S. postal service,  Wendy´s, Teva sandals, running water and correct translation. God bless the United States of America.

I am so grateful for the opportunity to be here. I know that this gospel changes lives and that it makes a wonderful impact on my life everyday. I can´t tell you enough how much I love this gospel. I hope you all have a great week.

Love,

Hermana Odekirk

I Miss Olanchito

Today I am writing you guys from the beautiful city of La Ceiba! We have a multi-zone conference here tomorrow, so we are spending the night here. Oh, and all the internet and phone signals aren´t working in the center of Olanchito so we came to Ceiba a little early so we could email. You know you´re in Honduras when: you just haven´t had a phone for the last four days.

I am super excited to be here in Ceiba! I love getting to see the differences in all the cities in Honduras. It is right on the beach. We went to the grocery store with some Hermanas and I mentioned that this is way nicer than the nicest strore we have in Olanchito and Hermana Thacker said this isn´t even the nicest store. And I went to the mall today!!! They have stores that aren´t just things sent here from the Good Will. And this city is big enough that we took a bus from the store to their apartment. We don´t have short distance buses in Olanchito. It is crazy! And yet I kind of miss my cute little, quiet Olanchito. IT will be nice to go back home tomorrow. 

Things I Haven´t Found Answers To:

1.Who wrote the Book of Acts?

2.Who gave John the Baptist the Arronic Preisthood? An Angel?

3. (and most important) What on earth is the difference between when you use an indirect object pronoun, a direct object pronoun, and personal A?? And people throw reflexive pronouns on the end of verbs that aren´t reflexive!! What is the difference between "vamos a ir" and "vamos a irnos" No entiendo. I´ve asked latins, gringos, todas and no one actually has an answer. I asked Hermana Calpa and I realized that I have a better understanding of spanish grammer than she does. I NEED HELP!! Please and thank you.

Your homework for this week is to use the word "coquette." Also, read Acts 20:9-11. Paul talked so long a man died!! Well, Paul brought him back, but still... Am I the only one that laughed when they read this?

I realized a few days ago how many miracles I´ve already seen on my mission. Like how even though Selvin Palacio wasn´t interested in our message, because of teaching him we found Selvin and Elizabeth! and they came to church yesterday and are preparing to be baptized on the first. Also, we hadn´t seen José for a week and half because he has school and work all day and he doesn´t have a phone so he is hard to find. On Friday night I specifically prayed that we would be able to find Jose on saturday even if it was just long enough to remind him about church, and on saturday we found him!! He was just leaving the house when we walked up!! Miracle! AND I found a bag of peanut M&Ms at the store! I made it last about three days and everytime I ate one it was like a little piece of heaven in my mouth. No one can convince me that our Father in heaven isn´t looking out for me.

In the song I am a Child of God, the part where it says lead me, guide me, walk beside me, I always thought was refering to God. I want God to lead me and walk beside me. But in the spanish version all the comands are in ustedes form, not usted. It´s plural, and I realized that it isn´t just God who needs to help lead children back to Him, it´s all of us. I need my parents, and my sisters, and my friends and my leaders to walk beside me through my life too, not just God. It means so much more to me now.

I hope you guys all have a great week! Watch the Olympics for me. 

Love,

Hermana Odekirk

I've been out over a hundred days!

So... later in the day last week I realized that captify actually is a word... Que verguenza!

One of our investagators gave us un Libro de Mormon this week... I think I´m doing missionary work backwards.

Elizabeth came to church yesterday!! She thought it was great and we are teaching her and Selvin again tomorrow. We found out that he wasn´t actually baptized, so we´ve made a goal for both of them to be baptized on the 1 of marzo. I am so excited! I really think they can make it.

On wednesday we went on splits. And it went really well. We taught Ariel and it was amazing. The Spirit was there and he was actually paying atention. We talked more about the Book of Mormon. Hermana Calpa and I went back the next day and read 3 Nefi 11 with him. I really think he felt the Spirit. But then our next lesson with him he was back to not paying atention and joking around the whole time. I don´t know how to work with this guy. Vamos a ver.

Also, while I was waiting for Hermana Calpa to come back from splits I chatted with a member for like half an hour!! In America this would be insignificant, but we chatted for a half an hour  IN SPANISH!! I can totally do this.

Olanchito is surrounded by mountains. The other day I glanced out a window and for a moment the mountains looked like Utah. It was super happy.

At District meeting all the Latins were debating which one of their countries is better, then all the North Americans just looked at each other and agreed that clearly they were debating over second best because the United States of America is better than any of their countries. I´ve never been more patriotic than in the last three months.

Also, thursday was my 100th day of my mission!! Woo hoo! We got ice cream to celebrate.

If you would like to experience part of my life google the song Loco by Enrique Iglesias or the song Darte un Beso by Prince Royce. The members and other people around town listen to those songs all the day long. Also the Le Gusta la Banana song.

I love Honduras, I truly do... but sometimes people ask me if I´m going to marry a Honduran and live here forever and I feel like someone just asked me why I have Bumpers number, "um........ uh...... uh........" 

So there is an article in the Liahona this month about how to have good communication with your spouse. Even though I´m a missionary and clearly I´m not getting married anytime soon I read it. Then I realized that every other missionary read it too. Que baggy! 

But anyway, there is a part where it talks about how you should schedule a time regulary to talk how you communicate and your other problems, basically you need to have weekly Companionship Inventory!! Just the missionaries do every week during weekly planning. I would just like to point out that no matter who you are the principles in Preach My Gospel will help you. 

The gospel is true. Change is real. More importantly the Atonement is real. Have a great week.

Love,

Hermana Odekirk

You know you're living in Honduras when.......

Sorry guys, this is a long one. Prepare yourselves

You know you´re living in Honduras when:

1. you and the other missionaries buy a 63 year old woman an axe for her birthday.

2. the horses eat from garbage cans on the side of road in the center of town.
3. your investigator says, "Sientanse." and you look aroud for a chair and all you see are a stump and a cinder block.

4. the lady at the panederia gives you a spoon with your donought.

5. you see a woman walking down the street in heals, talking on her cell phone with one hand and holding a live chicken with the other.

7. for dinner they fry a fish whole: scales, eyes, everything, and then give it you.

8. Elder Curtis says just now, "Is captify a word?" and Hermana Holdaway says "Yeah, that´s a word." Non of us remember how to speak english.

This week went by super fast. And I totally feel like Sister Harris when she gives the lesson every month in Relief Society, "Where did the month go?" We´re already in febrero!!

Let´s talk about Alejandro. We were teaching a bunch of guys sitting outside their house. We were teaching about baptism and all of a sudden this 60 year old guy´s eyes get really wide and he says, "I wasn´t baptized! Will you baptize me??" uh, Yeah!! It´s great, but I worry that he´ll just go inactive after a week if we baptize him. We certainly need to teach him more. He doen´t really have an understanding of the gospel yet. I just need to remember that my purpose is to bring others unto Christ and strengthen people´s testimonies, not to baptize people.

Now let´s talk about Selvin. On friday we were walking down the street and this guy rode up to us on  his bike and asked us to teach the godpel to his wife. I don´t even need to go contacting invesigators come to me! I´m such a great missionary!! ha ha JK  His wife overheard us giving a lesson to their neighbor and she liked what she heard. She tried to come over and talk to us but we left too quickly so Selvin was really excited that he saw us walking down the street. Turns out that Selvin was a member when he was kid. He told that he was baptized, but he brought us the certificate that he has it was actually for a receiving a name and a blessing when he was six. We are looking into if he was actually baptized or not. We have to wait a little bit before we can baptize Elizabeth because the two of them aren´t legally married yet, and they can´t get married until Elizabeth turns 18. yes, you read that right. She is 17 and he is 30 and they´ve been living together for 3 years. whatever floats their boat. They didn´t come to church yesterday so I am really excited to go talk to them tomorrow.

Jose didn´t come to church yesterday, but othe than that he is solid. We told him to read 2 Nefi 31 and he not only did it but he read all the way to Jacob 1! and had tons of questions for us! Super pilas!! I¨m hoping he´ll get baptized on the 22. He is such a sweet kid.

ALSO!!!!!! I just learned where the boundry of my area actually stops!! It is right by my house! Not a billion cuadros north like I thought!  We´ve been super stressed about where to eat lunch. Most missionaries study at their house for an hour after lunch because it´s hot, but we can´t do that if we´re working a half a hour away from our house. If we could work closer to our house in the morning, find a family closer to feed us, study for an hour, then go up and work in La Conquista my life we be so much better!! I talked to Hermana Calpa about it and we are going to go cantacting Libertad Sur tomorrow morning. I really hope this can bring a solution to our problem.

The Denny´s wrote me a letter entirely in Spanish and I understood the whole thing!! Aha, chiqui! Also, thanks to them for keeping me posted on USU´s win at the Poinsetta Bowl. Go Aggies!!!

Apparently my mission has reached it´s limit of sisters, so we aren´t getting any more anytime soon. This means it could be like eight months before I¨m senior companion or a trainer. Que triste. Oh well.

Chapter 6 of PME is amazing. I´ve been reading a lot about having Christlike love this week. I´ve never been the type of person that instantly loves people. I´m really picky about who I spend my time with. If you bug me then I don´t want to be around you, it´s that simple. You can´t do that on the mission. I think this is one of the biggest ways I¨m supposed to change while I´m out here. I need to learn to love other people. Everyone needs to read 1 Peter 4:8 (make sure to read the footnote) When you have Christ like love for others and for yourself it prevents sin.

Well, that´s it for this week. Sorry I wrote a novel. Love you all. Hope you have a great week. Find something to smile about today.

Love,

Hermana Odekirk

 

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