Gyrobos and Posos

This week I did two things I thought I would never do in my entire life. I ate a reptile and I dug a well.

This week was a good week. We actually had to do a lot of traveling. We went to Zone Conference in Choluteca and then the next day to Taller de Zona in San Lorenzo. That alone is about 7 hours of traveling. It's rough being out in the middle of nowhere sometime, but I love it. 

We've been doing a lot of work with the menos activos here. There are so many. We go contacting and more than half of the people we contact have already been baptized. But it's fine! We still share the gospel. Whether it's new or they've already heard it, it's still the truth. 

We have one investigator de oro called Sarah. She's 17 and she's amazing. She always reads what we leave her and she's gone to every activity and church meeting for the past two weeks. She is super excited for her baptism on the 9th of May! She's the only investigator that is progressing right now. That's a little rough, but we hope that our other investigators will start progressing this week. We only have to travel to Nacaome once this week, so we have a lot of time to focus on the work.

So after church on Sunday, we went to our cocinera's house and started eating. I was super hungry, so the meat didn't even phase me. It was a dark brown and it was weird because there were so many little bones in it. About halfway through, my companion told me it was a gyrobo. They're like iguanas. It tasted super good! But the texture was a little weird. Anyway. That was the reptile. Then after we planned for the week, we went to our ward mission leader's house to prestar service. He didn't tell us to change into street clothes, so we showed up in our church clothes. He told us we were going (limpiar un poso. Clean a well.) Well, we had no clue what that meant so we went in blind. We went behind his house onto a dry riverbed. We came to this big puddle of green/black water, and he handed us a bucket. We thought he was joking. But he was not joking...This had to be the nastiest water ever. It was full of human waste, garbage, little fish, and a fan. We went ahead and started pulling out everything. After about an hour and a half, we found the well. Then we started digging. He told us he was going to pull out crystal clear water from it. We didn't believe him again. After about another hour, we finished. Lo and behold....crystal clear water. It was a pretty cool experience!

Anyway. That's all I have this week. I hope your week was just as entertaining and hot. I love you all.

Love, Elder Carter

Langue

We had changes last week and they sent me down to the south. So now I'm down here in a pueblo called Langue. It's in San Lorenzo. We're about an hour and a half bus ride from San Lorenzo, 3 and a half hours from Teguc. It's a pretty cool place though. I already love the south more than the city. It is so hot though. I don't know what we would do if we didn't have AC in the house. I'm here with Elder Fernandez. He was the assistant to the president when I first came here to Honduras. He's a stud. He works very hard and I have so much to learn from him. Our area is pretty big too. We live in Centro, but to get to the 3 other parts of our area, we walk an hour to each of them.

We have Zone Conference tomorrow at 9 am. That means that we have to take a bus at 6 am for 3 hours until we make it to Choluteca. It's going to be pretty rough, but it'll be nice to be with the other missionaries down here in the south. The work down here is a little different. On Sunday we had a total of 33 people in church. I gave a talk and then helped teach Sunday school.

The elders about 5 years ago had much success and baptized so many people, the problem is, not a single one stayed in the church. We work a lot with menos activos and the few active members. But we do have a healthy pool of investigators. We challenged a girl name sara to baptism yesterday and she accepted! She actually started to tear up when we asked her to share her feeling on having the opportunity to cleanse herself from sin. She has a strong testimony of the things we've taught her already. She accompanied us to church on Sunday and stayed for all 3 hours. It was super amazing to see her there and see the members welcome her with open arms.

I didn't get to write yesterday because right when I got on, the internet in the pueblo went out. We had to take time to write today. But that's about all that I have so far! It's always nice to be in a new area. It's kind of a fresh start. The people here don't call me Workmancito which I would say it's a good thing. They just call me John Carter de Langue. haha anyway. Thank you all for the love and letters! Until next week.

Love, Elder Carter

PS. Thank you all for the love and prayers you've given to my mom. She's doing great now. She said that she could physically feel the prayers help her through the operation. Now if as many people as possible can go to my house and give her a big hug for me. Oh and milk chocolate See's candy. That's her favorite. 

La Semana Santa is over!!

Hey everyone! I hope your Semana Santa was everything you could have dreamed of. Mine was not! Like I said, nobody was home! But we found ways to help out the community of La Honduras! We gave service a few times which was pretty cool. We helped dig a trench and this wall for the bishop of another barrio. That was pretty rough. They dropped the rocks on the wrong street, so we had to carry them first around to the back street and then helped set the rocks. I'm pretty sure that doesn't make sense because I don't even know what we were making. Anyway! The other big service we did was carry a bunch of water from a well to la Hermana Lauris's house! That was super cool. She was so grateful! That took a while because we filled up her two giant barrels! The only bad part of that experience was the owner of the well came out and talked to us after we finished. He hadn't charged Hermama Lauris before for the water, but he doesn't like Mormons (And he let us know that a few times) But he started charging her for taking out the water. And that really sucks because honestly, she has no money....Now she has to change wells. And the other well is super far from her house....

On a little better note, Conference. Wow. Let's chat about that for a little bit! I absolutely loved Elder Soares's talk on the prodigal son. That was super powerful because in our church, we receive a special blessing that contains promises of our life according to our obedience to the commandments and his talk was hand in hand with my blessing! It was very special to hear. I also caught that subtle message about marriage and how important that is after the mission. Okay just kidding, it was so subtle. But yes. I know that's important and I'm honestly stoked for that after, because face it, I'm going to be the best husband and father this world has seen, but we're focusing on saving souls right now. 

I want to in this last part of the letter to bear my testimony on the Savior. As I say in lessons all the time...Jesucristo is everything. He really is. We owe our lives to him. And gracias a El that we have the opportunity to repent and become clean once more. Only by the grace of Him are we saved. He is the perfect example for us, because he lived a perfect life. He not only healed the sick and raised the dead, but more than anything he loved. He wept with those that wept. The compassion He had for every single person that crossed His path is just beautiful. We all have our faults, but as it says in Mathew chapter 11:

 28 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.

 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

He is our brother. And through him, ALL things are possible. But we also need to remember what He said in the heavens before this life "Father, thy will be done, and the glory be thine forever." 

Thank you all for the love and support you have given me. Let us all remember our Redeemer and our Father in Heaven always.

Love, Elder Carter