10s: Colonia Esperanza, Tegus- Pictures finally!

one of my favorite views in my area

So we haven’t had water for a week now. We get water from the calle every 3 days so we have to fill up the pila when it comes and hope we don’t miss it. It’s not just us, its the entire Colonia Esperanza. so we have heard this excuse a lot, ohhh sorry I didn’t read the Libro de Mormón or go to church cause I was waiting for the water. Yeaaah alright.

THE PILA

We shower with the water in the pila, we wash our dishes with the water in the pila, do our laundry, flush the dang toilet......... errythang. It’s kinda fun actually until you run out of water like we did this morning. that wasnt very fun. but the water from the street came this afternoon so yay we have water now!

hand washing laundry.............

Hey fun facts:

·Happy Anniversary parents!!

·I had divisions with the sister training leaders (where she goes out with other missionaries that aren’t her regular companion), and while I was in their area I saw two men with Blazers jerseys! (I thought my wonderful cousin Stephanie would appreciate that ;))

·I FOUND AN AMERICAN and of course he was super evangelical and really anti-mormon but it was suuuper fun to talk to him. nice guy. He’s been living here 12 years with his sons. Not a really good place to raise a family but hey, maybe he thinks so.

·There is a little boy in my ward who is literally the Latino version of little Quinton Dalling. Seriously they are the same, except this little guy has brown hair. He is so cute :D

·MY COMPANION WATCHES SCROOGE EVERY YEAR TOO!! so we sing the songs sometimes :D

We went to the Tegucigalpa temple this week and it was so beautiful. so peaceful. we went with our investigators and our zone. I LOVE MY ZONE!! They are so fun. On the way there (about a 45 minute bus ride) I and one of the office elders taught Elder Tapia Navas and Elder Camey, both latinos, some English tongue twisters. It was so fun. Our investigators that went to the temple, <L> and her children and her mom, all loved it. Oh also yesterday <L> recounted the ENTIRE story of Moroni coming to Joseph Smith and how the Book of Mormon came to be. She read it all on her own. She told it with more detail than I could. SHE IS SO PILAS I LOVE HER. I wish that she and <J> were married already so she could be baptized. she is going a little crazy right now because she wants to be baptized so badly but she can’t yet. but with time.

girl in striped shirt is 12 and she was baptized with the other hermanas before us in March, next to her is her grandma, and next to me is L  our suuuper pilas investigator

I went on divisions with the sister training leaders. I went with Hermana Carias, who actually took me out on my first morning here!! she is an amazing hermana. I love her so much. she taught me lots and renewed my fire. Hermana Groll and I have been a little down lately but we are super positive right now and just mainly working on trying to find people to teach who have really been prepared.

our friends (investigators)

I GAVE A TALK IN SACRAMENT. When did I find out about it? When I got to church. so it was scary. but I did it. I think I did okay. My President says that I am doing very well with my Spanish for how long I’ve been here. WELL THATS NOT GOOD ENOUGH but really I’ve gotten a lot better lately at speaking. But still lots of room to improve. my ward loves us.

Honduras

Shoot no more time

I love you all

send me dear elders (there’s a website called dearelder.com that you can type in a letter and they send it for FREE)

love h.steele

me and President and hermana Hernandez on March 31st, the night I arrived in Honduras

the view from one of our windows

our first baptism

Honduras at night

our main room in the house

our kitchen and our mop

bedroom

trying to kill the cockroach (see it by the pink cup heh heh)

the sun sets here are always GORGEOUS #pollution

this is me and Natalie and DAKOTAAAA I LOVE DAKOTAAAAAA my puppy

us and Ana and Yasin

us and Alexey

CUCARACHAAA

more Honduras

selfie

TEGUS TEMPLE so beautiful

so pretty. love it. it’s on a big hill

me and elder flores and elder brinkerhoff, they’re the greatest (CCM todavia)

hermana cole and I with our friends Hermana Richins and Hermana Terranova (ccm)

9S: C. Esperanza, Tegus: Gringas

Cucaracha count: 5

Chased down the street by a drunk man count: 1

Okay first mom’s questions....

Food: We don’t get fed by members. which makes me sad, but my companion (a gringa, remember haha) has introduced me to a few different things. We eat a lot of eggs potatoes and beans. One of my favorite things to eat (/drink) is a drink with avena. It’s like this oat stuff. You just put it in a cup with cold water and sugar. It’s delicious. We also eat a lot of rice with milk and cinnamon (canela). Our ward mission leader I think is going to work on getting dinner with members so we can try new things, because we eat the same things all the time and I haven’t been exposed to many new foods. Lots of new fruits though!!! Green mangoes (you put chile, lime, and a chicken bullion cube on them after you peel and cut them, its goooood), siduelas (no idea how to spell that but the Spanish spell check says that’s right) and mora. MOOORA. MORA. It’s so GOOD. It’s like a mix between a strawberry and a raspberry. Sounds too good to be true? It isn’t. I eat it. ahhh.

Housing: (I thought I already talked about this. mom.) We live in a dang nice house for Honduras. It has orange tile floors, I think they’re clay. We have a pila (font) that we fill up when we get water from the street every few days, and we use that water to wash our hands and clothes. We have running water too, but the water from the calle (street) we don’t have to pay for. So that's nice. We don’t have a kitchen. We have a room with a sink and a table with a portable stove on it. and a microwave. But yeah, we live in a really nice house for Honduras. None of the other houses I live in are going to be like this, says my companion. We’re lucky right now. Our showers are freezing but at least we have running water.

I meet with my zone every Thursday in a chapel just outside my area. My district is actually us, the office elders, and the AP (assistants to the president) elders. Kinda cool. I’ve only met the AP’s once though haha. and the office elders (and APs) don’t come to zone meetings, so we just hang out with the other district the whole time. They’re really cool. There’s 5 (north) Americans in our zone of 14.

Pday (“preparation day” like a day to do errands/chores/email/fun stuff).... well our Pdays are really boring. There’s nothing really to do in our area. I’m enjoying relaxing but I want to do something interesting. D:

Investigators! OH MY GOSH. So. Follow your promptings. We were on our way to an appointment on the 14th and I saw a street that I swear I had never seen before. I was like "Hermana, when did that street get there? We’ve never gone down it, we have to tomorrow." So we did. We went down the street and saw some jovenes (youth) playing in a pool. We said hi. They invited us in. We taught their family the gospel of Christ. They loved it, but no one soaked up as much as <Ja>, the 17 year old son. We visited him again Saturday and taught him the Restoration. He loved it. He’s getting baptized on the 10th, if everything goes well. We went yesterday and taught him the Plan of Salvation. Before we started, we asked why it was important to be baptized into our church. He’s like "well it’s because it is the church of Christ and it has the authority of God" BOOM. HE IS SO PILAS. and then he understood everything we taught him. I can’t even describe how awesome this kid is. how humble. how ready for the gospel. On Saturday he was joking about there being food at his baptism. My companion picked up on it and asked if they had anything to eat. He said no. We went and bought the family eggs, beans and flour to make tortillas. They were very grateful.

Our area is interesting. We live in not too poor of an area, but up the hill (SO MANY HILLS), is an area with some pretty extreme poverty. And then down the street a while the other way is a super well-off neighborhood called Las Lomas. So right now I’m seeing all types of people. But remember, I am right in the city, so there’s houses everywhere. No pretty mountains yet. Maybe when I serve in the South.

<L> and <J> got back together and hopefully will be married on the 10th and baptized the same day if <J> can quit smoking. He has gone for 3 days!!!

We brought an investigator, Freddi, to church, but he was drunk. He made great friends with our mission president though. it. was. wonderful. just. wonderful. our. mission. president. our. drunk. investigator. aiwuealiwebaweag;kwe3jn;

We’re going to the temple Thursday with our investigators. So we obviously can’t go inside but at least I, and they, will get to see it!!!!!

<B's> baptism was postponed to this Saturday because she drank coffee dangit. But she is super pilas. So is <L>. They are so ready for baptism.

Latinos are fun :)

I still can’t believe my companion and I were chased down the street by a drunk man. Well I guess I can. It was only a matter of time. Don’t worry he was super slow so we just walked really fast. But he wanted to embrace us. AHH SO NASTY.  I may have been yelling my frustrations in English as we ran away. . But it’s okay because no one could understand me. There is also a mute man around who literally drops everything he’s doing when we walk by and he just stares. WHY DO I HAVE TO BE WHITE

I am really lucky right now. Sometimes I eat dinner at the mission president’s house if Hermana Hernandez (his wife) goes to appointments with us. How cool to have this relationship with the mission president the first weeks of my mission!!! Although they go home and we get a new president right after I’ll leave this area, of course lol

Here is my Easter message:

http://easter.mormon.org/

Share it. Happy Easter. I love you all.

I hit 2 months this past Saturday!

love, h.steele

sorry no pictures yet

WRITE ME. dear elders work too!!

8S Colonia Esperanza, Tegus: Cucaracha count: 3

They’re like as big as the ones in the movies. The first two were in the shower... third on the mini fridge.

Investigatorssssssss:

<L> She was living with her boyfriend <J> and her two children <A> (who was baptized by the previous hermanas in this area, shes 12) and <J> (he's 4 but he can’t talk). They were planning on getting married on May 3rd and baptized that night, if <J> could quit smoking. Well <J> did something really awful that I am not going to talk about. <L> and <A> still came to church yesterday, and after the service, told us that she was leaving <J> and taking the kids and they were going to wander around and find a place to live. She doesn’t have a phone right now so we are super worried about her. But I have faith that she is in the Lord's hands. She let us know that baptism is her priority right now. ay.

<B>. <B> is the mom of <A>, a 17 year old who was baptized in August. <B> is getting baptized THIS SATURDAY!! woo!! She is a silly woman. real small. real loud. She likes that I can’t understand everything and she likes to laugh at me, hahaha, man Latinos are blunt. I hear all the time "you're twenty?? NO LO CREO!!!" "what?! you look 15!!" and they also call each other fat if they are fat. I wish it was like this in the states. It’s fun. even though I don’t like getting called 15. Oh, <B>,  yeah she’s great. She has lots of faith. She had a LOT of doubts this last week but we helped resolve them. She was going off the other day about how she doesn’t think she will have time for the gospel after she is baptized so I bore a pretty strong testimony in Spanish about making time. Anyway, she's solid. She loved church this week.

We have others but those are the two with solid fechas (dates- for baptism). This week is Semana Santa and lots of people have school and work off and so there aren’t many people around. It will be interesting to see how the work goes this week.

The children love me and my companion because we sing to them and they just adore it. It’s so cute. There is this family of 5 children under 13 and the oldest brother is 18 (named <R>) that we met the other day. <R's> friend <C> was at the house (he is 24). we taught all of them about the restoration. They loved it. <C> actually went to the LDS church for 8 years. 8. YEARS. He went to SEMINARY. He went to DANCES. He believes Joseph Smith was a prophet. R8A734GQI3TzhE. He was never baptized because he couldn’t give up the things of the world. We are going to change that, dangit.

My trainer is great, my Spanish isn’t;  but it’s getting a little better. I mean I’ve only been here what a week and a half now or something. almost 2. I think. I’ve been here since the 1st. okay yeah I think that’s two weeks. What day is it? oh the 14th. yep 2 weeks. (I try to edit her writing,  but sometimes it’s just.too.much. lol)

Oh spiritual thought. Read Alma 7:11-16. But don’t just read it. Mark it. Mark in yellow what Christ did for us. Mark in orange why He did it. Mark in green what we must do. Mark in blue why we have to do it. Finally, mark in red our reward: eternal life. I did this the other day to help an alcoholic investigator we have (who sadly isn’t progressing. Pretty sure it’s because he’s drunk every time we teach him) but it ended up helping me waaaaayyy more. It will help you understand the Atonement and put into perspective what Christ did for us.

Sorry I cant send pictures still.

Be persistent and diligent always

2 Timothy 4:7

Love h.steele

ps my ADDREEEESSSSSSSS is the SIGNATURE to all my emails. write me something. you have no excuse. ;)

___________________________________________

Here's some more info from a note she wrote me:

 I live in the colonia Esperanza. I dont have an address.  I live next to a mechanic. There is a Chinese restaurant across from this internet cafe. OH. I live down the street from a big TIGO building. Its the major cell phone company here or something.  And yeah I was right by that Dunkin Donuts today (the one by the Honduran President's house- she lives near it). We went to Wendys to get frostys and read our letters. I got two of yours, the one with the pictures and the one with the letters from Chase and Josh. I also got a letter from Chase :D 

Yep, its Semana Santa.  Weve seen two weird parade things so far with people singing and dressed in funny clothes waving plants. There is hardly anyone in the streets. it will be interesting to see how it affects our work this week. I have a feeling no one is going to be home.

7S- Tegucigalpa Honduras! First area: Esperanza

I can’t figure out how to send pictures since the computer is in Spanish. Maybe later.

Well my trip here was good. I got here Monday night (Mar 30) and Tuesday morning I went walking around and teaching people with some sisters from a nearby area to the mission home.  Tuesday the other new missionaries got here.  I’m the only sister that doesn’t speak Spanish and there were 6 of us. One was from the states but she’s Mexican. I felt pretty dumb all day.  Still feel that way.

We had some training stuff and then Wednesday we went to the stake center and met with a bunch of missionaries for changes.  My companion’s name is Laryssa Groll from Virginia AND SHE SPEAKS ENGLISH haha I love Americans a lot right now. Her and I are the only (North) Americans around.  

Oh right my area. I am in... TEGUCIGALPA. Right in the city.  Literally I’m serving in my Mission President’s ward. His wife comes with us to teach sometimes, which is really cool, especially since I am kinda a bum companion right now since I can’t do anything. My area, stake, and ward are called Esperanza, which means hope. Which I need a lot of.  

It’s been really hard here the past week.  Hermana Groll and I opened a new area, which means we were both new to the area, not that there has never been missionaries here before.  Our house was a mess. It was disgusting.  We cleaned it today.

So you know how a missionaries first day, they’re always like "well, I thought that my first day with my trainer was going to be so easy, and we were gonna just chill and unpack and maybe walk around a bit, but NOOO we went right to work and I was so tired!!"

...well my first day was like that.  But in a bad way haha. We had a weird situation our first two days.  The hermana that had been in this area before has something wrong with her pelvis and can’t walk and had to go home. So we had to stay home with her all day Wednesday and Thursday morning. It sort of killed my spirit a bit. I was so happy when she left. And thennn we found out what a mess they had made of this area.

But it’s okay because we’re fixing it.  The members love us, even me (I hope), and there really are some wonderful people in the ward.  This is apparently a really hard area, so we will see what happens. I have faith that we can change peoples’ lives here. I really need to learn Spanish though.  Life is hard.

We actually have 4 baptismal dates.  A 12 year old girl named <A> was baptized a few weeks ago, and her parents are set for the first weekend of May, but first they have to get married. And <J> (the dad) needs to stop smoking. This will be an adventure for sure. Another is a 10 year old girl with an inactive mom who we are trying to get to come to church.  The last one is the mom <B.> of our friend <AS> (17years) who was also baptized a few weeks ago.  <B> had a dream that she told us where she saw Jesus, and <AS> was with him, and she was pleading with him to be forgiven of her sins. And then she woke up from the dream to <A> telling her the missionaries were on their way.  I am grateful to Heavenly Father for preparing <B> for us!!!

Its been really hard to start fresh in this area but were working on it.

We sing a lot. The kids especially love it.

My trainer is wonderful and she has so much patience with me.  I can understand the general idea of what is going on in Spanish but I get confused a lot. Like when <B> first started talking about her dream I thought she was saying she actually "saw" Jesus and I got really freaked out but then by my companion’s reaction and me finally remembering what "soñar" means I figured it out haha.

People laugh at me a lot. I feel like a little child.  Oh, and also everyone here thinks I look 15.  Which maybe I do.

Oops right. My house. Its like super nice for the area.  My area is HUUUUGEEE and it has lots of poor areas, but also a pretty wealthy area which is far away from where we live, so we haven’t worked there a lot yet. Apparently our house is the nicest missionary house in the mission.  Which is nice. We still have to clean more but it will look great. I’ll send pictures sometime.  And also by nice house.... I mean nice by Hondureño standards. I love it though.

I spent an hour and a half washing my clothes by hand today.  Im going to wash a little bit every day now cause that was awful.   My hands are really clean.

Mom and dad, Elder Ballard’s talk was awesome. It was about ‘Preach My Gospel’.  If you didn’t have the chance to hear it or didn’t really pay attention go listen to it AGAIN and get everyone a ‘Preach My Gospel’.  They are wonderful.  I was able to listen to the Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning sessions in English, only.

Okay now mom and dad I’ll answer your questions.:

The Honduran Spanish is alright to understand.  I get the big picture of things.

I walk everywhere.  If it’s far away we take a taxi (like to the other side of our area, to <B's> house). Taxis are hard for us because we are two American women so they jack the price up way high. It’s dumb.

There are dogs everywhere. EVERYWHERE. And they aren’t as gross as I thought they would be.  Some are super cute.  And I want to pet them so bad. But I don’t, because they’re still gross.

I’m healthy! woo!

Some streets are dirt, but since I am in the city, most are paved or stones. THERE ARE SO MANY HILLS. so. many.

I have a working toilet and a shower. Two of each, actually. Only cold water though. Some areas I will have to shower in a bucket, but not yet!

I dont know about packages yet

We get whistled at a lot.

OH I ALMOST DIED YESTERDAY I almost got hit by one of those like mini semi trucks. It stopped 6 inches from me. It was really scary. Totally not my fault btw.

The driving here is crazy. Seriously I feel like Im going to die when I get in the car with Hermana Hernandez (mission presidents wife).

I became very acquainted with the word "peligroso" really quickly. I don’t like walking around at dark. We’re in by 8 every night but I wish it was sooner.

If there’s something you’re dying to know that I didn’t talk about then ask me and I’ll write about it in my next letter.

Adiooooossss.

It’s hot here and I have lots of mosquito bites., but don’t worry:

i don’t think they carry anything.

love h.steele

Here are some photos from when she was still in Mexico. Unfortunately, as she said, no Honduras photos yet!