Countdown

I love you family! 

Today is the completion of week 25 and marks only 26 DAYS UNTIL CHRISTMAS PHONE CALL!

Santa in a store in the capital city Tegucigalpa

So as you are all painfully aware, today is not Monday, but in fact Tuesday! Yesterday we went to Tegucigalpa because our zone (along with 2 others) won a competition that the mission had going for the month of noviembre.  The three zones baptized and found the most families so Presidente brought us to his house for the day to eat a great Thanksgiving lunch! It was awesome. We did spend 10.5 hours traveling so we got authorized to use email today! I am grateful to be a part of a zone that mostly did its job! I don't really pay much attention to the cute competitions because I just keep doing my normal hard work and also I have to rely on the zone to win. They always do average points per compañerismo so it is great that we won! 

It has been an insane week.  Again we were out of the are the majority of the week. Here we go.

Tuesday (last week) we had diviones and our DL, Elder Wilkinson, and I went to Marcovia about an hour of travel to get our marriage papers all taken care of.  We chose the Alcaldía of Marcovia because they require only 2 days advance notice and very few documents. Other alcaldías require much more time and tests and papers! You may remember that last week's letter included the RNP to get the partidas con nota de soletería.  We this alcaldía only needs those and copies of the national identity card of the people to be married and the two testigos that have to be there! So it was a miraculously painless experience. The only inconvenience asisde from being out of the area was the L.1000 that we had to pay to get it taken care of.  Basically we had very little time to proselite Tuesday.

Wednesday, after being advised on noon Tuesday, we went to Teguc, taking the 05:00 bus to get there for a capacitación for trainers and trainees. It was all good because we got to hang out with Presidente and there was free food. Win, win. Presidente told us that writing him a letter every week shows him how obedient that we are. I am glad that I got into that habit from the MTC.  He really cares and wants to know what is up with us! We reviewed 3Ne27:27 and D&C 121:34-46.  But wait, there's more. We got back to our area and went to visit the couple to be married and we had a trauma.  The testigos that were originally going to to it backed down! So gratefully we found two new ones after about an hour of tortuous waiting.

Thursday was the trial of our faith and the Lord blessed us!  I was just sure that something would go wrong, but the Lord took care of everything. We started the day with an early district meeting.  Then we went to recoger the people to be married and meet up with our testigos. Since the govt required the info of the testigos beforehand and we just changed them up I had the revelation to have them impersonate the oringal testigos! It worked! We got the couple married and quickly left! As the the names of the testigos were called Elder Tarver and I just smiled.  But all went well! We then went to the church and Elder Tarver baptized Angel to complete the family.  We confirmed him the same day because it was Stake Conference this weekend! We got back to the area extremely happy and surprised that nothing horrible went wrong! I love the blessings of the Lord! We met Angel and 12 days later he was married and baptized. The Lord prepares people for me!

Angel Baptism

Family together in Christ

Friday and Saturday were finally full days for us in the area! Elder Tarver and I have decided to be more strict on who we teach. One mal uso de tiempo is spening too much time with people that aren't progressing and who aren't likely going to progress in the near future. Our new strategy  is to find the chosen people who receive us. It means more contacting and less overall investigators.  We don't want to waste time with someone who will not progress while there are people waiting to be found who will progress.  So in the past couple of weeks we've been shifting our lesson strategies away from convincing and evidence more toward the spirit and testifying and prayer and now our time will be spent finding the chosen people that the Lord has prepared for us. 

Sunday was stake conference which rocked because Presidente and Hermana Hernández spoke to us! Rather, they spoke to everyone, but it was still awesome. I also appreciated the Stake President's talk. He frannkly addressed the congregation and told them to stop whining about their humble circumstances, lack of a job, lack of whatever, and to get up, get out and better their lives! He said if you don't have a job your job is to find  yourself a job. Elder Tarver and I are frustrated with the terrible plague of laziness that strikes our area. People too frequently ask us for money or other things and complain about their poverty, yet they do nothing to help themselves! Learn to read to start. There are too many illiterate people! No excuse! Everyone has a child in school or a neighbor kid or even a spouse who can read. We have even offerred to teach people to read and have been rejected. What is happening?! Possibly that rant was too long. 

Monday! TEGUC! HOORAY! We got free food, time with Presidente and a trip out of Choluteca. The travel was rough and tiring but it was a great day. I really know that Presidente Hernández has the keys and the inspiration to direct the missionary work here. He challenged us to find 6 new families a week and have 2 of those families in church on Sunday.  That is tough. Elder Tarver and I spent Friday, Saturday, Sunday looking for new people to teach, especially families. But we have decided to, like Nephi, have the faith that the Lord will help us complete with this challenge from Presidente. We know that if he tells us to do something that it is possible. We may not be perfect at it iin the beginning but we are going to give it our best effort.  I love spending time with Presidente.

Missionary Santa moment-Elder Clay is looking pretty silly

Thanksgiving dinner Elder Clay and his zone enjoyed courtesy of President Hernandez

Thanks to all who are helping out the missionaries this Christmas.  There are many who don't have loving families like I do.  I am super blessed and want to help out the other missionaries because I can. Thank you for making this possible. 

I saw Elder J.A. Gonzalez on Wednesday. HE IS TRAINING TOO! It was great to see him. He had a rough first companion but he rocks and is now training.  Great to see him again. He is still here in the south so I should continue to see him, hopefully these next two P-days that I have down here. He had a miracle. They were going to have a baptism but the girl couldn't walk because of some injury. They gave her a blessing and commanded her to get up and walk.  Según her faith, she was healed. I love my MTC comp! 

One thing that we are focusing on now is our DTR with the investigators that we have (define the relationship) if they understand why we are here from the beginning we will quickly find out who is ready and who is not! Finding people is hard work! We really want it to be easy but we have had to work hard at it and haven't had too much success yet. Hopefully this week will be better. We should be in our area more. 

I had an epic G-pa moment yesterday. After the party at Presidente's house we wanted to run to a few stores to look around. We had a very limited amount of time and I was being the time carrier. I would periodically shout out "It's 4:03" or "14 minutes until we need to leave." I felt like a boss. 

Time is passing. I opened a new stick of deoderant a few weeks ago and just finished my first tube of toothpaste. Nannie, I am now usuing the WICKED WATERMELON flavored toothpaste you sent me. EPIC. 

Got letters from Mommy and Dannee. Mom I love the Texas card theme that you have going on. Keep it up! 

Question for Mom - If you mylar bag sealed baked goods would those last in a package to me?

I love you lots family. 

Thanks for all that you do for me, all the love and support. I don't think that we can mention enough times that ONLY 26 DAYS UNTIL WE GET TO TALK! 

Elder Clay loves you!

only 6 more days until the next email! Hooray!

S'mores