Last Change!!!

Hello dear family. You are curious to know where I am, right. Well, I will get to that. First I will start with Monday. That is where the real story begins. All of our district abandoned us, but a returned missionary from our area invited us to go eat fish in a cute little restaurant. It was pretty good. It still had its head and scales and eyes, but I am now used to that.

Then we went and explored a near by town that is still in our area, just a bit far. It was super pretty. It was so peaceful.

Tuesday I said goodbye to the sweet Talangeños. Adios! It was hard, but good.

Tuesday night I basically finished packing. I just had a cleanup to do in the morning.

Wednesday, at 2 in the morning, I woke up with diarhea and vomiting. It was awful. I was in the bathroom every 20 minutes. At about 5:30 I realized that I would have a hard time making it to the Transfer meeting. At 6 I called my district leader (who also had changes) and explained the situation. He called the ZLs and their advice was better late than never.

I was in quite the situation, because I was vomiting every 20 min, so I was not sure if I could make it the hour and a half trip to the meeting. And then if President sent me to somewhere 5 hours away, there was no way I would survive the bus. I decided it was time to go straight to the source of all knowledge. I called Mama Fortuna.

I explained the situation and said that I could get to Tegucigalpa (maybe) but if I was going to have to go on a bus for 5 hours, I would probably not leave my bed. She said she would talk to president.

Meanwhile, I got a priesthood blessing. It was such a powerful experience. Elder Rosales blessed me that I would begin to heal in that very moment becuase the Lord needed me in my new area. That from that very moment I had to get better because there was a greater work in store. he said a lot of other things. It was super powerful.

After the blessing, I went straight to the bathroom, and then to my bed. Hna. Fortuna called and said that President said that if I could make it to Tegucigalpa, I would have changes, but if not I would finish my mission there in Talanga. TRIAL OF FAITH!! The sisters there in the house begged me to stay. I couldn´t make a decision like that based on popular opinion. We all prayed personally. When we finished, we all knew that I was leaving.

I got things together, and got on the bus. I didn´t move the entire way, so that I wouldn´t throw up. As soon as I got to the chapel I was sick, but only had to leave the meeting once.

I am here in L. as a SLT. My companion has 3months in the area. It is the neighbor to Roble Oeste, but poorer. It is a great area.

I got to my area and went straight to bed. I decided to work at night and I vomited along the wayside. Nothing bonds a companionship like sickness. 

Friday we had a special leadership meeting. They took out a companionship of SLTs and gave some to us. We now have 8 companionships. But there are 2 trios. 18 sisters. It is pretty overwhelming. And my prayers have gotten a lot longer, as I pray for each by name.

We are also in charge of all of the training. We have about 6 days during a change where we do training, in addition to all of our divisions with our 18 sisters.  We train in zone conferences, the new missionaries, the trainers of the new missionaries, etc... So there will not be anytime to get bored this change. It is going to fly.

This morning we had a meeting with President and he bought us lunch after. We will see if I gain or lose weight this change.

Lastly, I HAVE HOT WATER. I am finishing the mission in style.

I love you all! Pray for me and all of my new responsibilities. Any game ideas or fun practice ideas are welcome. 

Love you!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Singing and singing a solo!!

We can't wait to hear from Michelle tomorrow to learn where she is spending the last six weeks of her mission!!

Michelle with her companion. I found this picture on her mission blog

Oh family, you are all so great. Thank you all for the pump up talk for the end of the mission. Don't worry. Until this point I have focused really well. I feel like I am accelerating instead of slowing down. It is a bit weird thinking that this is the last change, but what can you do? 

I forgot to tell you that I asked President in my interview if I was going to finish in Talanga and he just laughed and said no. So I have known for a week and a half that I am leaving. This morning I washed all of my clothes. By the end of today I should be ready. 

This week was a roller coaster. The A R family has put us through quite a journey. When president visited them, he committed them to getting married, then he warned them that Satan would do all he could to destroy their family, but they should remember that he warned them that it would happen.

Well, it happened. They fought, she left the house. We were quite devastated. Then Friday we went with another family that is preparing to be baptized and they confessed that the husband had already been married to someone else and he has to get divorced so that they can get married. Divorces here take extremely long. It is ridiculous. So that baptismal date fell through and we were feeling pretty bad. Especially because another investigator that day had told us that he doesn't want anything to do with the church (that he is happy in his sins) So one by one the baptismal dates were falling through. We were a bit discouraged. But nobody has time to be discouraged in the mission because it diminishes our faith. We kept working. We decided to try our luck to go to the A family. 

It was such a sweet experience. Only the wife was home. Her heart had been softened during the week. We asked her if she remembered what president had told her. She remembered perfectly that he warned her that Satan would try to mess them up. They are now newly committed. 

Saturday night we had a White Night. We all tried to baptize someone that night. The goal was to each baptize a family. We were all good until about a week before. I already told you what happened with our family. In the end, only one family got baptized. But as a district we baptized 7 people. There were a ton of people in white. We baptized a girl named N. She is 15 and has a great testimony of the gospel. She is powerful. 

Sunday we had the district conference. The missionaries were part of a chorus. Honduras is helping me leave my comfort zone like none other. Holy cow. I sang How Firm a Foundation in a quartet. I was the melody. That was the prelude. People were still coming in, so they didn't pay too much attention. Then Hna. Clark and I sang Lead, Kindly Light together (duet) right before the last speaker, which was president Fortuna. That time everyone was paying attention. 448 people. And part of the song I sang a solo (one line). I have never been so nervous in my entire life. But it turned out really well. Really well. I had some heavenly help there. The spirit was so strong and there was a great peace there, when it had just been super irreverent with children screaming and crying and leaving to use the bathroom. It was great. And nerve-racking. We sang the first verse together, then I stayed melody and she did alto the second verse and high tenor the third verse. It was super good. 

We were disappointed because we didn't see the A family at church, but then President Fortuna went to find them in their house because he didn't see them either. Turns out they had gone, but left early. President chatted with him, and it made a huge difference. I am so grateful for a mission president who really cares. 

I love you all! Have a great week! 

Another long week complete with hospital visits!

Okay family, I am not sure if i will have time to write all the juicy details, but this letter should be a good one. It has been a long week and I am utterly exhausted in every way. 

So the week started out well with the activity for the sisters. We started out with a super hard work out video. The sisters loved it. And the lazy sisters just took pictures of the other sisters doing it. Then we did skits about women in the scriptures and the Christ like attributes they had. I wrote our skit. It was a mom telling her 2 daughters the story of Esther and next to it, a few sisters were acting out the story. Then it flashed 12 years later and one of the daughters went on a mission, wanted to go home, but then decided to be like Esther and do the hard thing. It was hard to incorporate 14 girls, but I did it.  And it all worked out in the end. And it was pretty funny. 

Tuesday we had mission council. President was a bit frustrated with the month that we had had, but motivated us for October and November. It was super good. 

Wednesday we had a really good day. We talked with everyone. And it was good that we worked so hard because Hna. C who lives with us was SUPER sick and I spent the rest of the week with her in Tegucigalpa. President wanted someone from each area to stay in our house to keep both areas going, so I went with her because I know Tegucigalpa better than anyone and I love Hna. C. And I was the only one that could carry her if she fainted. 

Thursday president came for interviews and visited a family with us. He helped them make the decision to get married. It was great. But then he told us to ask the husband why he went to jail. Turns out he killed someone. Anyway, President took Hna. C and I to the hospital. She was basically asleep the whole time in the car, so I had an hour and a half of quality time with the president. That was great. After the hospital, Hna C and I went out to eat (something simple) and celebrated our 16 month anniversary together. It was beautiful.

The next day president was going to pass by our area to go to interviews, so he picked us up to take us back to our area. This time sister Fortuna was with him. It was also his birthday. 

We got to talanga and Hna clark went to sleep. Then I went out with my companion and we came back to the apartment for lunch. Hna. C had a high fever again and was super sick and I called Hna. Fortuna, and she told us to go to the emergency room. We went and then the Fortunas came and picked us up at about 7:30 in the noche. Then presient offered to take us anywhere we wanted for dinner. They told us that they never offer that, so we had better take advantage. They offered Chillis, and a place that sells shrimp and a whole bunch of other stuff, but hna. C hadn't eaten in a week and chose pizza. They told us that we felt like their daughters. They definitly felt like our parents. Picked us up, took us out to eat... It was great. 

Times up. Love you