09.14.09

A few of you mentioned my interesting jungle experience in your email. Don't worry about the details. Basically we got lost and didn't have water for a couple hours. No biggie. I was trained by coach Hart which is like being trained by Chuck Norris, so seriously don't ever worry about my health. Ever. I know that you will all have nervous breakdowns and freak out if anything does happen to me and I am sure the Lord is mindful of this. He'll protect me.

I will answer all of your questions first. I don't know if there is any more than 1 ward in my area. As far as I know, there is only 1 that E. Rivera and I are in charge of, but once again, everything is in spanish so I don't know for sure. We only go to 1 ward every week.

I can talk like a lot better when I'm in lessons and stuff. I usually have to think really hard about the conjugation and take a while to speak but in lessons it just comes out. It's pretty cool.

My health is really good. Always. As far as you all are concerned, I'm never sick and never have any parasites, got it? :) I really do have a ton, ton more energy and am still waking up at 6. I take my vitamins every week. I'm not sure if the weather will cool down, but I guess it rains a ton, which I welcome. Freak. It's so blasted hot here always and I sweat profusely sometimes. Hot, humid, dusty. I love it though. But every time we start our day, I look up at the sun and say, hola mi mejor amigo el sol. (hello, my best friend the sun.) I am not phased by it.

About 50-70 come to Sacrament. Last week, a guy came up to me and motor mouthed something in spanish. I got that he wanted to learn piano or something. I asked him if he had any money and he just laughed. I'll teach a little when I learn fluent spanish but I think the notes are different in spanish. The names. That's what I heard.

Keep up the training, father. Watch Rocky if you ever feel tired or discouraged. The Best 2 Years is a sweet show. I know exactly how E. Calhoun felt firsthand when he wanted to contact someone and he goes, what if he says something back? Haha. A whole different feeling when you're surrounded by a completely different language, culture.

The address system in Honduras is soooooooooo ghetto. There's a bunch of "pulperia's" (little street stores) with pop, water, milk, etc on a lot of the streets and they have different names painted on the wall. You ask for someones address and they're like, "yeah, it's close to the Pulperia Grua, my house is the red one," it's way ghetto but that's seriously all that exists. Or they just point to the general direction where they live and we try to find it. Ridiculous.

The priesthood really is so awesome. It's amazing that we have the same power that Jesus used to perform miracles that HE got directly from our Heavenly Father.

Honduras is just a bunch of streets and the streets are compacted dirt. Each house has a locked gate and sometimes a fence. When there's a fence, there's barbed wire on top. A robber will get his come uppins if he tries anything. My house is one of these that has walls and barbed wire, but I've been thinking of tearing it down. I kind of want to experience a hostage situation and see if I can outwit the robber/murderer. Just to see what it's like. I don't know what else to say, but it's really green and there's banana trees all over.

My apartment is pretty modest and small but it's one of the best one's in the mission. It's got 4 rooms, a room room, a sleeping room, a bathroom, and a study/eat room. It's home. I like it.

A mile? Whats that? Is it like kilometers or something? Haha jk. But yeah, they use metric system here. I bet we walk about at least 5 or 6 miles a day AT LEAST. Sometimes I'm sure we've walked like 10+ though.

My church has air conditioning but we don't use it. I've been meaning to ask why. Thanks for reminding me. Now I just have to figure out how to say, why are we suffering in the heat without air conditioning in spanish:)

I looooooooove the people. They're so awesome and down to earth. They're very humble too. Yeah, I can buy everything that I need too so don't worry. There's ghetto super markets here that have the necessities like soap and stuff.

The food really isn't weird. It's just repetitive. Rice, beans, meat, and sometimes bananas. Actually, bananas are very common here so I best be getting use to them. However, I did eat something weird this week. This lady baked the heck out of a chicken and every kind of meat here still has bones on it and you just have to find them and spit them out. Anyways, this chicken that the lady cooked had bones, but they were too soft to feel in your mouth so I would be chewing and would feel a crunch every once in a while. I would stop chewing and think, did I really just eat a bone? But the more I did that, the more I wanted to gag, so I just tried eating without thinking. Crunch, crunch, crunch... Ewk!

I played Canon the first night at Pres. Cruz house. There aren't any guitars around. They're not very common. I have been told I can't buy a guitar in Honduras during my mission:(. I don't have a maid, but I have a lady who washes my clothes. I only have to pay her like 8 bucks a month. Plus me trying to wash it wouldn't do anything. I have no idea how to scrub them clean with a pila. They are really white after she scrubs them though, it is pretty effective.

I learned from XC that when we don't think we can give anymore, then we can't and we are right. If we always believe that there is more left and keep pushing, then there is more left and the body will respond if you push it. Never ever give up, even when you feel like it and when you feel tired or sore, or panicked. Sweet life lessons.

Ok, now for my wonderful experiences this week:
I don't know if you all realized, but Wednesday was the 9th day of the 9th month of the year 2009. I took a picture with my camera at 9:09 09. It was definitely a day I will remember.

That girl who stomps up and leaves when I speak English is teaching me spanish phrases that help your tongue get use to it right now. She says something and has me repeat it and laughs her face off at it. Then I do the same in English. Three, tree, free. It's so hilarious listening to latinos say that because, you really can't tell a difference between the 3 words. Tree, tree, tree is what it sounds like. That is helping my spanish. She gave me a list to study.

On Wednesday, there was a soccer game with Mexico and I had a grand old time walking around chanting Mexico, Mexico, Mexico to the kids in the church. They got fired up and I just laughed at them. The funny thing is that Mexico won. Soccer games are life here. Everyone watches them and we can't work when there is one. When we're in our apartment during games, we'll just here the whole country scream every once in a while. They do every time Honduras scores. Some people even have guns and just fire them off when they score and then you'll hear a dog yelp once in a while too. It's insane.

We're teaching a girl right now. She's like 14 and works at a restaurant diner type thing. This is where we go to teach her. It's awesome. She's coming along and keeping commitments. We challenged her for baptism for the 19th and she said yes.

On Saturday, I woke up and was about to study and I noticed that there was a thing on our floor all curled up. It looked like a scorpion or something but it was all curled up. It looked dead, so I kicked it and it started menacingly moving around and intimidating me. Elder Rivera came in and saw it when he heard my shreaks and just stepped on it and kicked it out. It looks exactly like a scorpion but it is called an Alacran. I taped it in my journal of course, and called it Larry.

The only problem is that it stank really bad and I let it air out last night actually and I woke up and the bag I put it in was eaten through and Larry was no more. He had been an iguanas breakfast. I had a moment of silence for him. I tape all sorts of random bugs in my journal. But the scorpion would've been the coolest to have.

There are Jehova's Witnesses here in Honduras. They actually came to our house this week during comp study and we went out and talked with them. They believe in such weird things. Eleven apostles and Jehova is not the Savior. They gave us a pamphlet and I had a BOM in my hand but I chickened out to give it to them. The guy had a really good heart I could tell, he just doesn't have the truth.

The people here are so funny. We went to one of our recent converts named Sanchez. (I wasn't there for him) and said Buenas outside of his house. We waited for like 2 minutes and he came out dripping wet without a shirt and had just slipped on some shorts. He just hopped out of the shower and came to the door.

The baptism went smooth. Her sweet little daughter (2) let out a shriek when she saw her mom entering the font. There's a light in the font and we turn off the room lights when the baptism happens and [the daughter] was scared for her mom. I bore my testimony afterwards, and my tongue was loosed like it is in lessons. It's a miracle, when I rely on the Lord and the spirit to say what's in my heart or to say what He would say, I can say the verb in a conjugated form without thinking too much about it.

On Saturday, we got a call from a crying girl to ask if we could come to her house right now. We hurried and got ready (comp study was just wrapping up) and went there. They yelled for a bit more and each cried some more. It is not good for a Goodwin to see someone else crying. I seriously had to hold back tears like 10 times and I didn't even know what was going on. I had no idea what they were saying but I read a scripture on charity and E. Rivera spoke all calm like and got them to calm down. He told them to have a nice talk every night. And I challenged them to make a list of good qualities they each have. Andrea and Monica are the ones teaching me more spanish and are scheduled for baptism this Saturday 19. So we said a prayer then left.

We had a first lesson with a family this week and at the beginning the Incredibles was playing in spanish and tempting me. I was hypnotized for a while. It was just playing while we were waiting for the mom to finish washing something. I don't know. I didn't understand:) But that lesson took almost 2 hours and they had a ton of questions. The time flew by. But we were able to testify and commit them to reading 3 Nephi 11 and to pray to find out for themselves. Then we asked when we could come back and the dad's like 3 weeks. Err. Haha. We made another appointment for tomorrow.

We taught a guy this week who has been to church a few times. His family is Catholic but he decided to go to our church one week because some members invited him. He said it's a very different feeling. He asked us a bunch of questions about the Book of Mormon and during the lesson after Joseph Smith, he goes, "and the bom?" Well, now that you ask, let me tell you. He is a golden investigator.

I love you all. The spanish is coming more and more every day and I feel the blessings of the Lord, I'm on his time and I'm receiving His blessings. I know He's blessing me because He can see that I'm willing and am doing my best every day. God speed family. Each and every one of you individually is in my prayers.

Elder Goodwin