Let the Holy Spirit Guide

 

 
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  Savannah Odekirk
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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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  Savannah Odekirk
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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...

Igaunas, Baptisms, and Flooding‏

Brace yourselves, this is a long one.

Firday (in order of apperance): In the afternoon I watched a man kill an iguana by sawing off it's head with a machete. Even after it was decapitated it kept moving and twitching. It was gross.

     That night we had baptisms!!! Familia Sosa, Angel y Zulma, two investigators of the elderes: Elida and Henry. It was the most amazing night! There were smiles all around. The Spirit was so strong. It was so amazing to see these people make the decision to follow Christ. I can't even imagine the blessings and happiness that are going to come to these people if they remain firm in the faith. And the branch was so supportive. I think these baptisms were just the kind thing to get the members excited about missionary work and reactivation. It was a perfect night.

     Later that night we came home to flooded apartment. That morning one of us must have checked to see if there was water in the shower and forgot to turn it off when there wasn't any water, so then when the water came it poured out for hours while we weren't home, and our shower doen't drain very well so apartment was flooded! And our downstairs neighbor got all her clothes wet that she hung ourside to dry. oops. It turned our all right though. Nothing was ruined. Even the flooding couln't ruin our good moods after the baptisms.

Until this week only the APs, ZLs and the Lideres Entrenadoras had cell phones, but then on wednesday at multi zone confernce they put a cell phone in my hand. Now all the missionaries in the mission have cell phones. I sent a text to my DL on thursday and it felt super wierd to be texting. This is totally going to change the way we work. Instead of waiting for half an hour to see if a member is actually to meet us at the church we can just call and ask them if they are going to come. I'm excited about it. 

Also, on wednesday I heard Presidente Klein telling Hermana Trujillo that she has to go to Trujillo before she leaves. I marched right up to him and reminded him that I called dibs on going to Tujillo months ago. I mean I know I'm supposed to align my will the God's and all that but... I called dibs! Doesn't that mean anything to anyone these days??? I told him he should send Hermana Turjillo and I to Trujillo together. 

Yesterday a woman picked her nose and then shook my hand with the same hand. 

On saturday the elderes were walking down the calle about seventy yards ahead of us when all of the a sudden this vicious dog (Toby is his name) came out of no where! He was barking and running straight for the elderes. I'll never forget the sight of Elder Burwell taking of his backpack so he could use it as weapon if need be. I've never seen anyone quitar there backpack so quickly! Luckily Toby's owner called him back and the elderes were unharmed. Hermana Alfaro and I stood there laughing for a good five minutes. Then we serious and picked up some rocks in preparation to walk passed Toby, but luckily his owner had him tied up by then.

Apparently every year in some town in Yoro there is a day where is rains fish. People tell me that fish literally fall from the sky. I'm in the process of further investigation.  

The Church is true. Period.

Love, 

Hermana Odekirk

Hay demasiado a decir!‏

You know how when I hear some thing super exciting and awesome I start punchinig the air and flaling my arms like crazy person? There's been a lot of that going on in this week.

So, remember Edgardo y Ramon? The two punk kids in Olanchito who were going to get baptized in April but then never did? Well, just a few minutes ago I read an email from Hermana Zamora (my companion from back in Olanchito) and she told me that they both got baptized this saturday!!! I AM SO EXCITED FOR THEM I CAN'T STAND IT!!!!! I love those kids! And she says they are going to seminary everyday. I'm so proud of them.

Angel and Zulma are getting baptized this friday! I am so happy to see how excited they are about the gospel. Also, we have plans for la familia Sosa to be baptized this friday, but Hermano Walter might have to go out town for work. We are praying his trip gets canceled. Tengo fe.

The Elders also have two baptisms so that means the ward will have SEVEN baptisms this week. Presidente Klein is coming and everything. It's a pretty big deal.

Hermana Klein has a blog called themissionpresidentswife.blogspot.com and she has post on there where she copy and pasted a bunch stuff from the blogs of the missionaries in our mission. She talked about how some of them are super funny and some of them are spiritual and you can see miracles. I read them and realized that there were a bunch of spiritual quotes and only two funny ones... and both of the funny ones were mine. Si hombre!! I made her blog twice because I'm hilarious.

I have a lot of these air punching moments during emailing, like when I found out katie Kershaw got engaged! Or when Sierra Tracey says something super hilarious. Every week Sierra says something funny to me and I start laughing and everyone asks Que paso? but I can't explain it because it won't be funny to anyone else. "You're supposed to say hola!!" It's awkward.

Sometimes we plan when we are going to visit specific investigadores based on the fact that we know that they always give us food so we should go at 3:00 not right before dinner. 

We gave a family a Libro de Mormon and we were going to leave them Enos to read. Hermana Alfaro was taking forever to find Enos and I was thinking, "Why is she taking so long? Doesn't she know where Enos is?" So I took the Libro de Mormon to find it but... it went straight from Jacob to Mosiah... It was missing about 30 pages! ha ha Problems in the BYU printing department.

When invited Hermana Vicky the relief society president to come with us to teach la familia Sosa and it was amazing!! She bore her testimony about Joseph Smith. She was also super straight forward with Walter. She talked about how she married a Catholic guy and he doesn't have the priesthood and how she knows her children are missing out on the blessings of having a priesthood holder in their home. She told Walter that he has the opportunity right now to be baptized and to provide the blessings of the priesthood to his wife and daughters. I almost cried. The spirit was so strong. 

When we got home that night I couldn't stop thinking about how grateful I am that I was raised in a home with a worthy priesthood holder and how blessed I am to have such a great dad. And how  Vicky re enforced my determination to marry a worthy priesthood holder some day.  

My mom sent me Jelly Beans and I realized that a pack of Jelly beans is terrifying! I don't know if I'm about to eat a mango flavored one or a popcorn flavored one. Unfortunately, I accidentally left the bag open on my desk over night and woke up to a bunch of ants in my Jelly beans... oh well. They were good while they lasted. 

Sometimes I worry I'm the third missionary.

I saw a Honduran man cook this week. Pedro Pablo made us scrambled eggs and beans. I've never seen a Honduran man cook before. 

I saw a crab climbing a tree yesterday... It was weird. 

We won Zona Celestial last month, so our zone got a pday on the beach with Presidente y Hermana Klein today. It was super awesome. Hermana Saylin and I fulfilled our dream of playing volleyball on the beach on pday. It started pouring rain half way through the day, but I enjoyed the rain. 

I just spilled a bunch of nacho cheese all over this key board in the church... oops...

Well, that's all for this week folks. Sorry to all my missionary friends who don't have time to read my super long emails.

Love you all! Pray Walter's trip gets cancelled por favor.

Love,

Hermana Odekirk