Changes .............

Monday, December 2, 2013

Well, shoot, I got changed.

Sucks.

I am in the city in zona Tegucigalpa with Elder Fielding, from Idaho Falls. I am in La Reforma....and zl. but I have learned that means nothing.

Also, I am with..........

.drum roll..................

OVESON.

and Stephen.. 

 

(Editor's note.  Oveson is an Elder whose is from our Stake.  He and Zach met in the mission.  Stephen is Oveson's brother, who attends the ysa ward where Nelson serves.  Stephen got permission to spend the last month of his brother's mission with him.  He was kind enough to take Zach's bday and Christmas to him.  Who knew they would spend a month together.  I think Oveson and Zach are the tallest kids in the mission at 6'5" and 6'4".  Go giant elders!)

So yes, I got the backpack. We are in a foursome right now, so its super interesting. But I get to hang with Lars and Steve for 3 weeks, so its super fun. Our house is freaking tiny. Like, literally the size of my room at home. Maybe smaller. But like, without the closet, and the bathroom is smaller too. It's really crammed with four of us in there. More like an apartment than a house. But the ward is good. We get dinner every night, and lunch like some days of the week. So it's not bad. Its freaking FREEZING right now, though. I came from Cholu, which was like 95 daily. And here, its like in the 50`s. Everything is cold. And our hot water heater only works a little because the water is SO COLD that it can`t heat it up any more. So its like living in 50 degrees and showering with Camp Frontier Uintah water. Cold, to say the least. But doable. I bought a HUGE hammock, and can put it up on our roof, so it's chill. I spend some time there every day. It's super relaxing.

As for my last comp, Smith is training. So that is cool beans. Also, we made steak and potatoes last tuesday with a legit salad and ranch dressing. And welch`s sparkling soda. I would send pics, but there is nowhere to connect my camera or insert the card. So some other time. Also, I sat next to Justin all bus ride to Teguc, which was a ton of fun. We talked about old memories, and whatnot. about his ``bull`` cut. haha. bowl cut. and also, I am cold.

We have spent the weekend trying to get to know the new area and ward. Seem pretty pilas, and the food is good. We have some positives for this month, so it should go well.

I know there is nothing really interesting, but it's been a short week. I can`t play with fireworks or my slingshot anymore, so that's sad. And there is member in my area who got shot a few months ago, so he has some dope scars. And we are teaching a ------. But nothing really progessing there. He is nuts and his wife is full of apostasy, and they are really close minded. And the ----------------- never stops talking, which is kind of a problem.

That is pretty much it. Not much else to say.

Hope all are well....

Zach

SURVIVAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

So, this week was way, way overhyped. I couldn`t believe it. Literally nothing happened in Choluteca. We were locked inside for three days to sit and bake in our oven house. It was bad. Not one thing happened. Well....apart from the elections, a lady got murdered in our area. But nothing election related. I did a lot of nothing. We told the people in our ward that we wouldn`t be able to leave for three days, and they brought us food for three days straight. I also grew out my beard. I had to shave it this morning because it was too much to wear in public. After only a week. It rivaled Cody`s for a little bit. So there is a photo of that. We also cleaned the crap out of our house...it had stuff in it that had been there for over two years. It was pretty gross. We burned a lot of things. We also played with firecrackers. You can get like 20 for two limps....pretty great. And we also like read the scriptures and stuff...and laid and did nothing. Before that the week wasn`t super productive. We are still in search of new people to teach, and we are having little success. But it will get better. 

It's also almost Thanksgiving. Which is awesome, and sort of weird, because that means that my birthday and Christmas are right around the corner...and that means that 2014 is coming. Super weird. I can`t believe that the time is going this fast. It's too crazy to believe. And freaking colby and tally....holy cow. It seems like an eternity since I have seen them. 

 

This week is changes as well, so we will see what happens with me and my child, Smith. He has really been my favorite comp so far, and I have loved being with him, and would love to be another change with him. 

That is sort of it. Get it ReAL!!!! That is what I am talking about...so sick. SALT LAKE TILL I DIE. Tell me what time the game starts so I can sing the fight song with everyone.....

and I will see if I have any pics for the Christmas card....

Okay that is literally the only decent pic I have. It will have to do. All my old ones got erased....so yeah. Oh wait. Do the temple one. That would be sick.

 And I send the last one just to see who turns their head upside down to see it. hahahahahaha.

I LOVE YOU ALL

Zach

 

And I send the last one just to see who turns their head upside down to see it. hahahahahaha.

Three days on "lockdown" and he thinks his "beard" is "sick."

 

Week done ......

Monday, November 18, 2013

Editor's note.  Please forgive me for the delay.  Sometimes Zach writes things that I need translation help with so I don't get his letters uploaded as quickly.  The translation near the end is well worth the wait...  haha.

Wow. Weeks keep flying by. I can`t believe all those guys are home....holy cow. (Referencing Tally Wilsher and Colby Oliverson) I remember when they all left. That is too nuts...sounds like all is well and normal at home. Mom, I would love to help you with that book, but...uh.....squirrel. haha. No. I live in an adhd world here too. Except here it is everywhere. Not just three or four. Everyone here has adhdhdhdh. I sort of lose control with the dh combo. 

Normal week here. We are doing a lot of finding with members help. We go to the members house and tell them to take us to their friends houses...and it is working. We have to invite ourselves to meetings still, and do all of that stuff. But we found a sister who is from Teguc who actually gets it...and isn`t full of apostasy like a lot people are. I realized that a lot of ..... here almost get excommunicated...most of them actually. It's sort of sad, but nobody here as access to the manuals of the church, which are super SUPER important. And she gets it, along with her husband. She is the first Honduran member that I have met that doesn`t buy on Sundays....yeah. 

We dropped all of our other investigators, and are teaching a fair few of new ones. 

I also was asked to play the piano for the Saturday sessions of stake conference, and it went fairly well. Honduras played Brazil during the priesthood session Saturday night....there were 32 men there. Wow....Would a man sell his soul for a soccer game?? As much as I love it, I have learned here that the church and callings and responsibility take first place in my life. Smart men learn from their mistakes, and wise men learn from the mistakes of others. Wise moment on my part. 

Speaking of soccer, Pres gave us permission to play again. So we did. And I am sore all over. It was hot, and long, and I am dead, but it was tons of fun. 

And also, one of the elders that lives close to me played for byu football. I know...it was byu. But he is super cool. Anyways...he has me sort of working out. Like 50 pushups a day. And he says two things constantly. 1. I am the hardest person to motivate he has ever seen. And 2. I have no muscle. Big surprises....really shockers. Anyway...I spend time doing as many as I can, and then he lifts me up and down for the last like 20. Sort of ashaming. But whateves. Get swoll. hahahaha. That will never happen to me. 

Okay. pay attention to this next part.

This next week, I will not be able to email on Monday. We are going to be experiencing Honduran elections, and we have to be inside Saturday to Monday. I will email Tuesday. PLEASE DON´T FREAK OUT MOM. Everything is fine. Just precautions. Being careful. So I will email TUESDAY. And I am sending a Christmas package soon. So be looking. It might get there after Christmas. But it is for Christmas. It brings gifts. 

and Dad....I found these in the supermarket here. Pensé en ti, entonces los tuve que comprar. y despues me los comì. fueron ricos. hay con blue cheese, y creo que los voy a comprar tambien. (I thought of you so I had to buy them and afterwards I ate them.  They were good.  There are some with bleu cheese and I think I am gonna buy those too.)

Spiritual experience and funny moment for the week.

Spiritual experience for the day was yesterday. We have a pilas guy who is the stake exec sec. Jonatan. He is an rm, served in Guatemala, speaks English, super cool. He brought me a kid name Eleazar, and said that he has been going to church, mission prep, and that he wants to be baptized because he prayed and got an answer that he needs to be. So I got super stoked. It would be my first baptism since May. Then they told me where he lives...in the other elders area. 

It was sort of sucky, knowing that I am pretty obedient, and work hard, and try my best, and can`t baptize like freaking anybody, and the baptism that falls literally from heaven goes to someone else. But God has something for me to learn in all this, and whatever it is i gotta learn it. It was a definite blessing from God, even though it wasn`t for me. 

Funny experience. 

We went to find a reference from this same Jonatan. We went to the apartments, and saw a lady and her five year old outside. So we went to talk to them just to ask if they knew which apartment they lived in. The mom sat where we couldn`t see her, and made her kid straight up lie to us. What five year old is going to be home alone with soap operas on and fresh laundry hanging on the line?? Never in a million years. So he just keeps telling us that nobody is home, but you could here his mom telling him to tell us. Then his dad pulled up on a bike and looked at us like what up with the Mormons....walks in the house and looks at his wife and asks her Por que estas alli?? (Why are you there?) and the kid says mami se escondio por que vinieron los mormones y and then the dad says callàte no sabès que estan afuera?? (Mom hid herself because she saw that the Mormons are here.) It was super funny. 

And I love Brandon Estrada. super good kid. Love him to death. Tell him hi for me. 

Love you all

Zach

Zach's purchase that made him think of his dad.

TEMPLE!!!!!!

Monday, November 11, 2013

SO THIS WEEK WAS DOPE. I WENT TO THE TEMPLE WITH CARLOS AND KARLA. No big. To be honest, apart from that, it was not a great week. We can`t find our investigators, and need to get new ones. All the zone is struggling. And so we are all sort of screwed right now. It's a tough month. We are sort of scraping the bottom right now.  I have been going with the hermanas in my district to help them, and with the other elders to do divisions alot, but with the temple this week it made it very short. And we had a very funny experience with the hermanas. Super funny. And it was a super short week.

 

So, the temple. Super cool. We had to leave at 3 in the morning to get there by 6, and we did. Early day. We waited at the temple for the paperwork until like 10 for the session. Then we went to the sealing, where I got to be a witness. I watched the true priesthood of God seal these people for time and all eternity. What an incredible experience. I hugged Carlos when we were leaving the sealing room,...and he hugged me and as we were both crying, stuttered out...

 

Mejor dia de mi vida.

 

I would have to agree. One of the best days of my life.

 

We got back super late at like 7. And then I was asleep at like 8. I was super dead, but worth every minute of it. So here are some pics.

 

Then on Saturday I went with the hermanas to one of their appointments to teach a family that they have that wasn`t there. Well, the dad wasn`t there. So we talked with his wife and her mom. And the lesson that we tried to have was going nowhere...so we started talking and it just kept going nowhere.  Then she said that the only true church can be the catholic one, because it was the first one. Not totally true. So then I mentioned the whole name of the church thing....and she said we believed in jose smithchsohsf. That is literally how they pronounce Joseph Smith's name. So I will put the rest of conversation in spanish, cuz it aint funny in english. not the same.

 

Entonces, hermana, usted mencionò que creemos en Jose Smith. Eso, de hecho, nos trae a algo interesante. Si nosotros creyéramos en Josè Smith, la iglesia seria la iglesia de jose Smith. Pero, es la Iglesia de Jesucristo, entonces es de Jesucristo. Entonces la iglesia de moises es de moises, y de Elder glassett es de Elder glassett. Ahora, hermana, le hago una pregunta??

 

Translation:  So, sister, you mentioned that we believe in Joseph Smith.  That brings us to something very interesting.  If we believe in Joseph Smith, it would be the church of Joseph Smith.  But we believe in Jesus Christ.  So it belongs to Jesus Christ.  So the church of Moses is the church of Moses and Elder Glassett's is Elder Glassett's. So, sister, let me ask you a question.  

 

Through all of this, she isn`t really lending me attention. and so she was just saying, si, si , si , si...

 

Si, digame hermano??

 

Quien fue esa mujer que se llamaba católica, y porque dio a la iglesia el nombre de ella, se era de Cristo?? A saber, va??

 

Translation:  Yes, ask me brother.  Zach continues, Who was the lady called Catholic and why did she give her name to the church if it was Christ's church?

 

and she just kept saying. si, si, si, si,...

 

the hermanas are dying laughing at this point, and nobody else is really listening. So then we left. Had to be there sort of....but still funny.

 

That was pretty much it. We celebrated this hermanas birthday today, and bought a huge box of ice cream, two of them. And made cake. I am officially lactose intolerant. Wow. So much. And we didn`t finish it all. We made her a rap. You will have to wait to hear it till I get you the memory card, but I held the boombox. Iit was dope.

 

That was pretty much it. so until next time...

 

love.

SKELETOR phantom glassett. 

 

Halloween

November 4, 2013

So, this week was a lot of fun. We had Halloween. Actually, we didn`t, because here they don`t celebrate. But president told us that we had to be in the house early. So we had to be inside at 6:30 on Thursday. But we made good food. And it was good!!! We had pork chops and Idahoan mashed rehydrated potatoes. Pretty good. And then today we made pancake sandwiches. Also good. 

I had a good week. We are having a baptism on the 17, which should be fun. It is a 12 year old named Anna. She is super cool. Her mom is an inactive. So we are going to baptize her.

I also got to see an old investigator, Noly, who we had dropped because we could literally NEVER find her. And when she did, it was because she was leaving her house and couldn`t talk. So we stopped going by. Well, we found her on Friday or Saturday waiting for a bus that never came, which was taking her to church...haha. How convenient. She is waiting to go to church, and the bus never comes, and the missionaries appear. I hadn`t thought of that before. I just smiled. haha. ennywaay. She explained about how she has been super busy fixing a problem from her younger sisters school. the school was new two years, and when they enrolled, the school never enrolled the students in the department of education. So the two years that they did practically don`t count. I took that as a HUGE opportunity to teach her that that's how it is if you don`t go to the Mormon church. in practically those exact words. Told her about how important to make all the efforts with the right authority. It's good that she wants to go to church, but the right one. Pick the RIGHT one. She is sort of coming around, I think. We have a cita with her this week. 

I also made chimichurri. SO GOOD!!!!!!. I can`t wait to eat it. I let the hermanas borrow it. Hopefully I get some back haha they love it. They both told me. And i might not get some of it back. But it's okay. I can make more. 

This week we are going to be finding a lot of people, hopefully, so I am super stoked....and it should go well. My kid is pilas, super cool, good missionary.  Dad and Cody and Erin, congrats on the half marathon and mom and Mas, good job on the five k. mas....SQUIRREL!!!!!!! haha. 

I didnt go to the temple this week. It will be in a week and a halfish. so it should be super good!!! And mom and dad, happy anniversary. Congrats. I feel old at almost 21. 

Tell courtney congrats!!!! I am going to have to get to know some people when I get back. Yikes. Everybody is getting married. haha....I don't have to stand in wedding photos. EXITO!!! I hate wedding photos....

Love you all!!! Have a good one!!

Zach's Chimichurri

Pancake Sandwich?

ELDER OCHOA

Monday, October 28, 2013

SO THIS WEEK WAS SICK. We had Elder Adriàn Ochoa, of the 70 and our area presidency, tour the mission. It was really good. It complicated the week, because we had  him do a mission tour, and we got to listen to him speak and shake his hand. He truly is a special witness of Jesus Christ. He bore such powerful testimony and gave such great instruction to us. One thing that he mentioned that I have since put into practice is that we literally represent Jesus Christ, and we need the people that we teach to know that. They need to know that we are literally there in his place. That we represent him, and that gives us the power to make the challenges and commitments that we do. NOBODY ELSE HAS THAT. Incredible. We also had a question and answer session which was fun. I learned a lot. Lots of good stuff. 

And we had an investigator that ended up in rehab...and he is out now. He shouldn`t be. We talked yesterday before church, and this is one of the times in my mission where I have felt the evil more present than ever before. Literally, it was palpable. Like one of the apostles once said, we don`t talk much about the adversary, but we acknowledge that he exists. And I feel like I have really experienced that once or twice now. This was definitely one of them. It's amazing, almost, to see somebody so closed and so dark. It is a pretty haunting feeling. Very empty. I remember one time how dad told me that death row inmates have nothing in their eyes, no light, no spark...nothing. Seen that. Very unsettling. 

On a better note, we are having some success. An elder who is going on a mission soon is having us teach his family. They are very catholic, so we will see how that goes. And we have a 12 year old, ANA, who is so close. Her mom is an inactive. She is very close to baptism. 

And erin mentioned that cody rolled a car. . . .ummm.....please inform about that. I would like to know. Good luck in the marathon...that's a long way to run. And my favorite food here this week....shrimp soup. But with whole shrimp. So GOOD. Heads and all. You gotta pick them out, but its okay.

And love to all! pics of me and Justin Elnicky. Enjoy.

Love,

The abnormal one....

 

Zach and Justin played soccer together when they were 10.  This is the second time they have been in the same area together.

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No subject .....

Monday, October 21, 2013

Well...this week. Interesting. We did a lot, but with little time. We had to go to Teguc on Wednesday, so I got to see some old comps, but it was long. We left at 5 am, so it made for a long day. My buddy Elggren is my ZL, the one who went home for breaking his foot. He got back a little while ago, and is currently zl in our zone. We did divisions of course. Absolutely love him. Our zone stayed almost the same, but the new people that got here are cool. Both are in my group...which means we got to the mission together. 

We are having a lot of progress with Luz and Edwin. They committed to marriage and baptism. Hopefully they will go through. We also had a member give us like two baptisms for very soon, but one is leaving to go work, and will be there every 15 days. So more difficult. Then we had 4 young men give testimonies that go on Wed to the MTC...in various countries. One brought his whole family...none of whom are members. His mom looked so distraught... I can imagine how she felt...not being sure why her son is going to Argentina...for two years. We have a cita with them on Thursday. 

It's been a super slow week. I am super tired all the time now and don`t know why.....oh wait. It's 16 hour days...in this heat. It's bad. 

We have Elder Adrian Ochoa, from the area presidency coming to zone conference on Thursday....and then I have to go to another conference for all zls and dls afterwards. That should be fun. 

I did get my suit. It is SICK!!! I love it. It's gray or grey. I don`t know which one it is. And dad....a cane?!?!? hijole cuate. viejo. andas cojo eh?? jaja. no. Mom...dad will play until the doctor threatens to amputate. 

So this week was sort of slow. No, dad...I am not invited to ward council. I had to invite myself. and I couldn`t give a blessing in English if my life depended on it. Erin...stop making cupcakes. Or make me cupcakes when I get back.

Thats really it for right now. I can`t think of anything else to include.

Fun fact. We saw part of the parent trap...the newer one, last night. Talk about making me feel old. And having kid flashbacks. And then we got soaked by a killer huge storm. It will probably be one of the last ones that I see, for I will be home for the next winter here....16. 8 left. thanks and love you all.

Zach

Fun Facts:  Zach is back in the hotter part of Honduras.  I checked the temperature there on October 22.  It is supposed to be 90 degrees.  What's he complaining about, right?  The humidity level is 89%.  Add that together and you get a temperature of .... wait for it. ...... 122 degrees!  

"The cold season lasts from September 20 to October 31 with an average daily high temperature below 91°F. The coldest day of the year is November 1, with an average low of 73°F and high of 91°F"