Honduras is not for the faint-hearted :) Traffic jams, protests, people burning tires in the street because the city won’t fix their sewer. Water flowing 2-3 feet deep down a main boulevard after 30 minutes of strong rain. A truck hauling propane tanks exploding and shutting down the freeway for 2 hours. A public transport bus with the engine catching on fire, everyone gets off safely, and a few minutes later the bus is just burning to the ground, flames 20 feet high, sitting there in the middle of the highway.
Driving is super dicey, as it’s very common for people to swerve across several lanes of traffic, never use a turn signal, and cut-off anyone in their path. While Hondurans in person are kind, compassionate and caring, once they are in a car, all bets are off. There is no such thing as merging patiently, letting one car go from one lane, and the next car from another, and just politely merging… If you let one car in, 5-10 cars will try to jump in. It’s very common for drivers to edge out into traffic so bad that they are blocking a good portion of the lane. There are also plenty of obstacles to watch out for on the road, the most common in the city is open sewer drains, with no cover, if your tire went down in one of those, it would probably break the axle. Out in the country, a lot of speed bumps are used. The problem is, at times in the dark and the rain, they aren’t painted very well, and we’ve hit them going 30mph, not fun.
On July 12th, we were invited to a Stake Primary “Missionary Preparation Day”. It was super impressive! The kids were so awesome! They all had “future missionary” tags, and the adults who taught wore their own missionary tags. I shared a little message about “How to be a missionary now” and how to prepare to be a missionary with each of the groups.
On July 15th, we had our first “Cambios” or “Transfers”. This is the crazy process, where every 6 weeks, some missionaries finish their term of service and go home, and other start their service and arrive. The missionaries here in the country also receive the news if they’ll be staying with their current companion in the same area, or if they will be either receiving a new companion, or a new companion and a new area! It’s quite the logistical feat, as we have roughly 170 missionaries, scattered across an area that takes up to 10 hours to traverse.
We start the “Cambios” process by creating “rough draft” transfer boards, and it’s total chaos, revelation, hard-work and praying, praying again, and usually praying again.
The day before Cambios, we have our last day with the outgoing missionaries, they take a tour of downtown San Pedro Sula, because even though we’re located in the city, our mission doesn’t cover the core “downtown” area, it’s in the other mission.
We have dinner with them, play games, have a final testimony meeting, and take pictures one last time with them before they leave back to normal life!
Dinner at Rosso’s (an Italian Restaurant)
Elder Wheeler, Larios, Hermana Gramajo, Elder Dayton, Maxia, Blatman, Peery, Mangum, Hermana Martinez and Elder Ovalle
The actual day of transfers is loving nick-named “Game Day” by our friends the Ostlers, the Mission Leaders before us… It’s brutal. The Assistants get up at 4am, and help with a bus that we charter that drives around urban SPS picking up everyone who is receiving a transfer, and either dropping them at their new area, still here in SPS, or taking them to a bus transfer point in Progresso to wait their multiple hour bus ride to somewhere else in the mission.
At mid-day we start making the trip to the airport to pick up the new, incoming missionaries. We normally get missionaries from Mexico, Peru and sometimes Brazil and Provo MTCs, so the missionaries can be on several different flights!
First Airport Pickup of Brand New Misionaries!
Elders Centeno, Gingras, Hermana Griffiths, Hermana Christensen, President Christensen, Elder Hansen
Usually there are training sessions for the new missionaries for several hours on Wednesday, they stay in the house with the Office Elders that night, and the next morning, Thursday, they meet their new trainers, get a little more training and then hit the road out to their new area!
Batch of Brand New Missionaries w/ Trainers
Back Row: Elders Rojers, Ross, Echols, Jaco, Zaldivar, Coleman
Second Row: Murrillo, Lopez, Centeno, Hansen, Wood, Gingras
First Row: Hermana Griffiths, Christensen, Presidente Christensen, Hermana Rios
A few days after transfers, we took a P-day break and drove to the ocean, to a town called “Tela”. We had a sister missionary there that was very sick, so we used it as an opportunity to see her in person and take all the missionaries in the town, 2 companionships, to breakfast.
President, Hermana Tucker, Echegaray, Elder Murrillo, Rogers and Hermana Christensen
Senior missionaries don’t have the same activity rules as the younger missionaries, so we try to get some time in the water in, when we can 🙂
Beach at Tela
Cold coconut water, freshly opened, with a straw
Beach in Tela, Honduras
Transfer Day, “Cambios” or “Game Day” is super stressful on the Office Elders, as they plan food, meetings, logistics or getting missionaries rotated around the mission, as well as coordinating incoming missionaries with their itineraries and visas and paperwork, as well as the outgoing. We do it every six weeks, and it is just constant, prepping and planning for the next one!
We usually take the Office Elders out to a nice meal to celebrate and to thank them for their service, which really goes above and beyond during that time!
“Fancy” Dinner at Dennys!
Starting on the left side and going clock-wise:
Elders Paredes (AP), Tosca (Membership), Choc (Immigration), Sister Christensen, President Christensen, Elder Jorgen (General Secretary), Elder Dick (Referral Secretary), Milla (AP), Hammer (Acting Referal Secretary), Carreto (Referal Secretary), Leland (Finance)
The Ostlers were so incredibly kind and planned out our first 6 weeks in the country, complete with suggested meeting dates, travel schedule, the works! It was a good thing, since for the first 2-3 weeks we felt like we were in a fog of exhaustion, overload and newness. So, on July 23rd, after being in the country for about a month, it was time to meet and host a dinner with the local Stake Presidents and our local Area Seventy!
We have 8 Stakes inside our mission, 3 of them are pretty distant, so they couldn’t attend, and one other one had a conflict, so we had 4 Stake Presidents and wives, and our Area Seventy Elder Palomo and Sister Palomo, and my 2 Counselors and their wives.
President Gavarrete (Satelite), wife Claudia, President Meza (Palermo) wife Claudia, Area Seventy Elder Palomo, wife Basilia, Brother Medina (Mission Counselor) wife Desire, Presidente Christensen, Brother Zavala (Mission Counselor) his wife Martha Julia, President Enamarado (Progresso) wife Amada
Shortly after the Dinner Party, it was time for our first visit to Roatán! Roatán has 2 branches, which are directly under the mission, they don’t have a Stake or a District, so all of the Stake Responsibilities, callings and training fall to the Mission Presidency. My counselors have schedules to visit every month, and they rotate, and I have scheduled to visit every 6 weeks, more of less.
We fly to Roatán, usually on smaller prop planes, but not too bad :) We do walk out on the runway to get on, lol.
Roatán Chapel Being Remodeled
Harbor on Roatán
We made it back in time on Monday for a Birthday Celebration of our “Most Senior” AP, Elder Milla. From Emily’s writings:
“Elder Milla turned 20 today. It is hard to have your birthday on the mission, but the missionaries take good care of each other and try and make the day special for each other. Elder Paredes had a great day full of activities for Elder Milla. Thankfully his birthday was on a p-day, and even a p-day before the MLC, so there were lots of missionaries at the church to celebrate with him. He had a piñata and a cake. Elder Milla about took Elder Paredes head off with the 1st swing he took at the piñata. “
After that, we’re at the end of our first full month, in country, July! Which means it’s time for another “Mission Leadership Council”! Those are held with our Assistants, Zone Leaders, and Sister Training Leaders once a month, while almost every other meeting in the mission is held on a 6 weeks cycle, so it gets confusing at times.
At the Temple, Day of July MLC
Our first time around at the Mission Leadership Council, we didn’t speak or give training, we just observed and took note of mission culture, and processes, and tried to get a more in-depth understanding of each of our leaders.
In the second one, we got into the business of the Mission, and Emily wrote up this summary:
“We had our 2nd MLC conference. We went to the temple with the MLC in the morning and then had our conference in the afternoon. It was a great conference. The spirit that was there was so strong. We have great leaders in our mission. We talked about having some mission wide devotionals. A quick devotional the Saturday of before fast Sunday to start the fast off with a mission wide prayer. Another devotional on the 2nd Sunday of the month to do preach my gospel teaching by the president. And a 3rd on the 4th Sunday of the month to share mission miracles with all of the members in our area and our family back home. We talked about the 12 week program we have for new missionaries and how we could improve it. I gave a thought on how to be a good leader and Kirt gave a training on how to improve our weekly goals and planning. Elder Milla, on our AP's shared an experience he had in the temple today about how he received an impression that our mission is going to accomplishing great things and we need to start preparing.”
We love the mission, the missionaries and the members and people being taught here in Honduras. It’s also difficult, stressful, hot and humid! We’re taking it all in!
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