Hello Goodwin Family
I am now starting my creation. My weekly e-mail. I know I write a lot sometimes, but so many things come to my mind while I'm writing and I want to try and report all I can and tell you all I can. I love this mission. It's hard. It's tough. But it's also rewarding. It's also a good learning experience. It's nice to have my testimony strengthened and help others strengthen or find theirs. I know God is with me. He's got my back and will always have it. He never fails us. If we obey, there are the blessings. Here you go. He says. Life is hard at times, but look at all the helps we have. Conference, prophets, apostles, the church, the scriptures, prayer, fasting, lds.org, seminary, institue, families, etc, etc, etc. The list goes on. God has not nor ever will abandon us.
How goes it? Are you still battlin? Como esta la lucha? How's the fight goin? That's a pretty common phrase in spanish that I think is pretty cool. You still battlin life? Bein strong? I really like saying it. Anyways, I am still pretty amazed at the amazing capability that this new e-mail server has. It is really quite neat and probably the coolest thing I've ever seen technologically in my mission.
Let me just make something clear, Jeffrey R. Holland is the man. I loved his talk. It was sooooooooo sweet. He dominated with the use of the English language and the spirit. "You shouldn't invite evil thoughts in, serve them tea and crumpets and then show them where the silverware is.....you shouldn't have tea anyways!" Wow. I really loved his talk. I thought it was so awesome. Made us think, laugh, and feel the spirit. All those men are so sincere and loving when they're talking. Really hard NOT to feel the spirit.
I thought some other themes in the Conference that I needed here were patience, learning to wait for things, receiving PERSONAL guidance from the Lord and trusting in Him, looking at the glass half full, counting our blessings, ALWAYS realizing that the Savior is with us and our best friend, having a good outlook on life, not worrying about what will happen because that's out of our control, but worrying about how we will react and who we will trust in. Basically I got the message from all that God loves us and He knows what He's doing. He has us here for a purpose and if we have His son Jesus Christ and the Gospel at the center of our life, what else matters? What can take us down? Nothing.
Haha, my son has been making me laugh this week. Someone just told us they were a Jehova's Witness and my companion blurted out, "No, we are not Jehova's Witnesses. We are from a different church" And someone told us they live by the Jehova's Witness church and he said the same thing, "No, we are not Jehova's Witnesses." Haha. It was pretty funny. Those people just looked at me all confused.
He's learning the spanish really fast and at times beats himself up and is really hard on himself. I can relate to that and I've been helping him pat himself on the back when he does something good, looking at what he's doing good, being patient with himself and telling him to just be constant and dilligent and he'll learn line upon line precept upon precept.
Our investigators are having a bit of a struggie wug right now. The first lady said she'd come to church and when the members went by her house to pick her up, she just wasn't home. So she had a baptismal date for this weekend. The 10th. But now, she can't be baptized. We'll see what's up with her.
Another lady told us this week that she likes the Catholic church and feels confused and cannot continue receiving visits from us. We left a lot of chapters from the BOM, references from the Bible, and told her not to take our word for it but to ask God, that is the most important thing and He will resolve the confusion, and whatever she needed, let us know.
The men we're teaching doesn't want to come to church. They both have friends in the church but we're going to see what's up with that.
We had 2 new investigators that came to church at Conference. It was sweet.
I definitely would not reccommend to any of you finding a new chapel. It is not a very exciting or fun job. I have been calling the leaders and stuff about the deposit and where we're going to get the money but everyone keeps telling me to call someone else because they're not in charge of it. I am just getting thrown from one person to the other. It is kind of frustrating. But we have the new chapel found and the lady told us don't worry about paying her in a rush, just pay her. She knows she can trust us. So it's all reserved and stuff, we just don't know what the mission is going to do to pay for it. I can't call president Cruz directly, there isn't permission so I am just going to have to wait for the interviews I guess...
So let me tell you our Conference story. It was pretty sick. Anyways, about 3 days ago, the bishop lets us know that there is no bus to take the members of Mezapa to Progreso where the Satellite is. So me and my companion had to frantically run around trying to find a bus to rent and get that all situated so they could watch Conference. We got one specifically designated for all the members. Done. Then we took off and had to run after our OWN bus waiving our hands in the air and sprinting to go to Progreso because we were going to sleep over night with some other Elders there.
The members were able to get to Progreso the next day on Sunday and everyone came. Some less actives too. We were watching the last session and then at about 2:45 we just heard a way loud explosion and all the power went out. A part called the transformer blew up and we had no electricity. But luckily, the church had a generator and we got it up and running in like 10 minutes. Way sick. It was during Elder Martino's talk and he is assigned to this mission. We actually heard him talk about a month ago here in Honduras.
So we were all bummed because it went out during Elder Martino's talk but I just realized how the church is very organized and prepared and has to be true. I learned another lesson by observing the bishop there. We were all worried if WE were going to see the message so that WE could learn. Thinking about ourselves. Being frantic and trying to get it back on. This isn't necessarily a bad thing at all, but let me explain what happened next. But we got the power back on and everyone hurried back into their rooms to continue watching it. Instead of sitting down again and watching the rest of the Conference like the rest of us, the bishop was walking around tending to all the rooms, making sure they had power and were comfortable when he could've just got the power on and hurried and sat down too. But he was concerned and worried about the rest of US listening to Conference more than himself. Even though we didn't hear Elder Martino's whole talk, I think that I learned a great lesson just from watching the bishop.
We got to watch the talk in English again. There's a ton of Gringos in this zone. We all just got a room and a TV and were good to go. Like that Taco Bell commercial. Man, I miss Taco Bell.......:P.
I ate Wendy's Saturday. Holy cow, such greatness. Wow. The food was perfectly cooked in the grease and basically slid down my throat with ease.
I ordered a ring that says my name and HLJ "Choose the Right" in spanish. It is going to be pretty sweet. Pure silver. And it says June 2009- June 2011 Honduras San Pedro Sula on the inside. I'm excited for that. I have abandoned my desire to make my rings out of duct tape because they don't last long.
So someone left a message on our phone saying that she is very sincere and looking for a Christian husband and heard that we are Christian's......I ended up talking with her and kindly let her know that we are not in the market to become someones husband. Thank you for your call though. You are invited to church. Haha. I was gonna have my companion call her and talk to her but I didn't. There's all sorts of crazy, different people here. I like it like that. You never know what's gonna come your way, you just know you have the guidance of the Lord on your side.
Conference was AMAZING. They all have such a strong spirit and if someone didn't learn anything from what they said (which would be EXTREMELY difficult), they had to have learned something from what they felt. All I have to say is Jeffrey R. Holland is my favorite speaker. I am understanding slower and better the significance and miracle of the Atonement in my mission. All the persecutions and things he had to go through and how we can apply that in our own life when we have difficulties and persecutions. Here are some scriptures that I really like that have helped me A LOT: Alma 7:11-13, Alma 9:26, Alma 34:8-10, 2 Nephi 19:16, Moroni 10:32-33, Moroni 7;33, D&C 19:16-18. Those are scriptures I REALLY love that talk about Jesus Christs love and care and sacrifice. I have a scripture chain for Atonement references, they're really helpful. You don't have to use them, those are just scriptures I wanted to share that I really love. I learned a lot about that last Conference, one thing I think I always realize by watching them speak and how they are with people is that we NEED to have love and charity in our lives. Love others. Be patient with them, but love with your deeds and actions. I think it's neat how we all watch the same Conference, but we all get different things out of it. The spirit teaches us all. I thought of that too how if family members are involved in re-activations, how much more easier it is. And I'm going to be working with family members of less actives a lot more to get them active. I will be praying for you.
Like I have said, Honduras rains sometimes and its sunny at other times. They say there is supposedly a rainy season, but I've just seen rain or sun. That's all. Off and on. I had to find a new chapel because A, president Cruz wanted us to, B, because all the members don't fit in where we're at, and C, because we need privacy in our house. Yeah, we'll live in the same place still. Yeah, almost everyone here goes to school. It's pretty cool. There's a lot of jobs here. Bus driver, bus charger, construction, working at a pulperia (mini store), engineer, wood cutter, masheti chopper, etc. I don't know. It's not too different or crazy jobs. The power of the priesthood really is neat, huh? We can call down the powers of our Heavenly Father. What a tragedy is that people think that He no longer hears us and that He no longer is here with us because that all stopped when the apostles died. Some people tell me that here. He still loves us and wants to guide us. I will call you again. There is a possibility that I won't be in my area anymore. I'll let you know.
All I know is that it was impossible NOT to learn SOMETHING at that conference. We all heard what we needed to and were uplifted. That's a good thing to be thankful of. The Gospel.
I love you all and know with all my heart the church is true. Please help each other and do all you can to keep each other there. We were raised by great parents and we have a great support system. We are blessed, we know where to turn. Lets move forward with faith and with our heads up.
Elder Goodwin
I am now starting my creation. My weekly e-mail. I know I write a lot sometimes, but so many things come to my mind while I'm writing and I want to try and report all I can and tell you all I can. I love this mission. It's hard. It's tough. But it's also rewarding. It's also a good learning experience. It's nice to have my testimony strengthened and help others strengthen or find theirs. I know God is with me. He's got my back and will always have it. He never fails us. If we obey, there are the blessings. Here you go. He says. Life is hard at times, but look at all the helps we have. Conference, prophets, apostles, the church, the scriptures, prayer, fasting, lds.org, seminary, institue, families, etc, etc, etc. The list goes on. God has not nor ever will abandon us.
How goes it? Are you still battlin? Como esta la lucha? How's the fight goin? That's a pretty common phrase in spanish that I think is pretty cool. You still battlin life? Bein strong? I really like saying it. Anyways, I am still pretty amazed at the amazing capability that this new e-mail server has. It is really quite neat and probably the coolest thing I've ever seen technologically in my mission.
Let me just make something clear, Jeffrey R. Holland is the man. I loved his talk. It was sooooooooo sweet. He dominated with the use of the English language and the spirit. "You shouldn't invite evil thoughts in, serve them tea and crumpets and then show them where the silverware is.....you shouldn't have tea anyways!" Wow. I really loved his talk. I thought it was so awesome. Made us think, laugh, and feel the spirit. All those men are so sincere and loving when they're talking. Really hard NOT to feel the spirit.
I thought some other themes in the Conference that I needed here were patience, learning to wait for things, receiving PERSONAL guidance from the Lord and trusting in Him, looking at the glass half full, counting our blessings, ALWAYS realizing that the Savior is with us and our best friend, having a good outlook on life, not worrying about what will happen because that's out of our control, but worrying about how we will react and who we will trust in. Basically I got the message from all that God loves us and He knows what He's doing. He has us here for a purpose and if we have His son Jesus Christ and the Gospel at the center of our life, what else matters? What can take us down? Nothing.
Haha, my son has been making me laugh this week. Someone just told us they were a Jehova's Witness and my companion blurted out, "No, we are not Jehova's Witnesses. We are from a different church" And someone told us they live by the Jehova's Witness church and he said the same thing, "No, we are not Jehova's Witnesses." Haha. It was pretty funny. Those people just looked at me all confused.
He's learning the spanish really fast and at times beats himself up and is really hard on himself. I can relate to that and I've been helping him pat himself on the back when he does something good, looking at what he's doing good, being patient with himself and telling him to just be constant and dilligent and he'll learn line upon line precept upon precept.
Our investigators are having a bit of a struggie wug right now. The first lady said she'd come to church and when the members went by her house to pick her up, she just wasn't home. So she had a baptismal date for this weekend. The 10th. But now, she can't be baptized. We'll see what's up with her.
Another lady told us this week that she likes the Catholic church and feels confused and cannot continue receiving visits from us. We left a lot of chapters from the BOM, references from the Bible, and told her not to take our word for it but to ask God, that is the most important thing and He will resolve the confusion, and whatever she needed, let us know.
The men we're teaching doesn't want to come to church. They both have friends in the church but we're going to see what's up with that.
We had 2 new investigators that came to church at Conference. It was sweet.
I definitely would not reccommend to any of you finding a new chapel. It is not a very exciting or fun job. I have been calling the leaders and stuff about the deposit and where we're going to get the money but everyone keeps telling me to call someone else because they're not in charge of it. I am just getting thrown from one person to the other. It is kind of frustrating. But we have the new chapel found and the lady told us don't worry about paying her in a rush, just pay her. She knows she can trust us. So it's all reserved and stuff, we just don't know what the mission is going to do to pay for it. I can't call president Cruz directly, there isn't permission so I am just going to have to wait for the interviews I guess...
So let me tell you our Conference story. It was pretty sick. Anyways, about 3 days ago, the bishop lets us know that there is no bus to take the members of Mezapa to Progreso where the Satellite is. So me and my companion had to frantically run around trying to find a bus to rent and get that all situated so they could watch Conference. We got one specifically designated for all the members. Done. Then we took off and had to run after our OWN bus waiving our hands in the air and sprinting to go to Progreso because we were going to sleep over night with some other Elders there.
The members were able to get to Progreso the next day on Sunday and everyone came. Some less actives too. We were watching the last session and then at about 2:45 we just heard a way loud explosion and all the power went out. A part called the transformer blew up and we had no electricity. But luckily, the church had a generator and we got it up and running in like 10 minutes. Way sick. It was during Elder Martino's talk and he is assigned to this mission. We actually heard him talk about a month ago here in Honduras.
So we were all bummed because it went out during Elder Martino's talk but I just realized how the church is very organized and prepared and has to be true. I learned another lesson by observing the bishop there. We were all worried if WE were going to see the message so that WE could learn. Thinking about ourselves. Being frantic and trying to get it back on. This isn't necessarily a bad thing at all, but let me explain what happened next. But we got the power back on and everyone hurried back into their rooms to continue watching it. Instead of sitting down again and watching the rest of the Conference like the rest of us, the bishop was walking around tending to all the rooms, making sure they had power and were comfortable when he could've just got the power on and hurried and sat down too. But he was concerned and worried about the rest of US listening to Conference more than himself. Even though we didn't hear Elder Martino's whole talk, I think that I learned a great lesson just from watching the bishop.
We got to watch the talk in English again. There's a ton of Gringos in this zone. We all just got a room and a TV and were good to go. Like that Taco Bell commercial. Man, I miss Taco Bell.......:P.
I ate Wendy's Saturday. Holy cow, such greatness. Wow. The food was perfectly cooked in the grease and basically slid down my throat with ease.
I ordered a ring that says my name and HLJ "Choose the Right" in spanish. It is going to be pretty sweet. Pure silver. And it says June 2009- June 2011 Honduras San Pedro Sula on the inside. I'm excited for that. I have abandoned my desire to make my rings out of duct tape because they don't last long.
So someone left a message on our phone saying that she is very sincere and looking for a Christian husband and heard that we are Christian's......I ended up talking with her and kindly let her know that we are not in the market to become someones husband. Thank you for your call though. You are invited to church. Haha. I was gonna have my companion call her and talk to her but I didn't. There's all sorts of crazy, different people here. I like it like that. You never know what's gonna come your way, you just know you have the guidance of the Lord on your side.
Conference was AMAZING. They all have such a strong spirit and if someone didn't learn anything from what they said (which would be EXTREMELY difficult), they had to have learned something from what they felt. All I have to say is Jeffrey R. Holland is my favorite speaker. I am understanding slower and better the significance and miracle of the Atonement in my mission. All the persecutions and things he had to go through and how we can apply that in our own life when we have difficulties and persecutions. Here are some scriptures that I really like that have helped me A LOT: Alma 7:11-13, Alma 9:26, Alma 34:8-10, 2 Nephi 19:16, Moroni 10:32-33, Moroni 7;33, D&C 19:16-18. Those are scriptures I REALLY love that talk about Jesus Christs love and care and sacrifice. I have a scripture chain for Atonement references, they're really helpful. You don't have to use them, those are just scriptures I wanted to share that I really love. I learned a lot about that last Conference, one thing I think I always realize by watching them speak and how they are with people is that we NEED to have love and charity in our lives. Love others. Be patient with them, but love with your deeds and actions. I think it's neat how we all watch the same Conference, but we all get different things out of it. The spirit teaches us all. I thought of that too how if family members are involved in re-activations, how much more easier it is. And I'm going to be working with family members of less actives a lot more to get them active. I will be praying for you.
Like I have said, Honduras rains sometimes and its sunny at other times. They say there is supposedly a rainy season, but I've just seen rain or sun. That's all. Off and on. I had to find a new chapel because A, president Cruz wanted us to, B, because all the members don't fit in where we're at, and C, because we need privacy in our house. Yeah, we'll live in the same place still. Yeah, almost everyone here goes to school. It's pretty cool. There's a lot of jobs here. Bus driver, bus charger, construction, working at a pulperia (mini store), engineer, wood cutter, masheti chopper, etc. I don't know. It's not too different or crazy jobs. The power of the priesthood really is neat, huh? We can call down the powers of our Heavenly Father. What a tragedy is that people think that He no longer hears us and that He no longer is here with us because that all stopped when the apostles died. Some people tell me that here. He still loves us and wants to guide us. I will call you again. There is a possibility that I won't be in my area anymore. I'll let you know.
All I know is that it was impossible NOT to learn SOMETHING at that conference. We all heard what we needed to and were uplifted. That's a good thing to be thankful of. The Gospel.
I love you all and know with all my heart the church is true. Please help each other and do all you can to keep each other there. We were raised by great parents and we have a great support system. We are blessed, we know where to turn. Lets move forward with faith and with our heads up.
Elder Goodwin
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