Comayagua, Honduras

What is up family!!!

Honduras is crazy!! I am in the city of Comayagua with my comp, Elder Bingham, who is from Salt Lake City. He just got done being trained, and now he is training me. 

Wow! The trip was crazy! I slept on the plane ride here, and landing in Tegucigalpa was nuts. Mission presiedent picked us up and then we had orientation for a few hours, and then we took pics, and then me and elder bingham went to catch a bus to Comayagua, which was a about two hours and half from Teguz. There are pine trees here!! but then I fell asleep, and then we got to our apartment and we unpacked. It is so dang hot here haha. 

So we have the west side of Comayagua, and we share it with two hermanas, (one is actually from Bakersfield!! she went to Mira Monte) so it is pretty safe here in Comaygaua, and the hermanas just can't go certain places at night. So,on Wednesday, we went and visited a bunch of members and menos activos, and I have no idea what the crap they are saying, they speak so fasst cool thing,we visited a reference, and I challenged her and the son to baptism!! She accepted! But... she is not married to her husband, so we have to pay for a marriage for Mayra y Adan. We are trying to figure out how to do a marriage. 

We also did some contacting in the Zarcitas, which is a poor side  of Comayagua, it was crazy, all those people straight up have dirt floors. The next day, which was Friday, we visited Mayra, and she asked for a blessing on the house, because she was telling us stories about evil spirits or something, so Bingham gave a prayer, which I think made them fell better. 

There were two more elders here in Comayagua, but they left, so we are picking up on their old investigators, so we visited this lady Lourdes, who is pregnant. We were teaching outside, and I gave her a Book of Mormon, and she seemed really interested and stuff, but then her husband walked up and he told us he didn't want us teaching her, which is sad. 

Sunday was really interesting, but sadly only two of our investigators came, and they all need 3 church visits before they can be baptized. The field esta ya para la siega, aqui, and we walk and walk all day, so I instantly fall asleep when I sit down for longer than 20 minutes haha.

 

Some areas there are so many dogs!!! I took Elder Harding's advice, and they are super scared of rocks, but there are so many! One came up to me and bit me on the leg, but it wasn't that bad, it didn't break skin. But yeah, dogs. I hate them. And there are so many cats too! 

Food: the food is great, but I sure hate beans. They have these things called balleadas, Holy crap those are good. But yeah we have dinner appointments every night, and we pretty much just get tortillas, rice beans and eggs, and maybe chicken if they've got money. 

Weather: Hot. I sweat ALL of the time, but it is a blessing because I never go to the bathrooom during the day, so that is nice. And I guess the hot months are coming up. Luckily we have a fan in our room at night, but I still sweat so much haha. Oh yeah our apartment has hot water so that's cool 

I only have 40 minutes to write, so next week I'll go into detail more on our investigators. The people here are awesome! I'm understanding a lot more now than a week ago, and I can teach in the lessons, and I am getting better at conversations.

 

The church is true! I love y'all, and I am doing great here!

Love, 

Elder Wagner

 Elder Bingham and Elder Wagner

Elder Wagner

Comayaguela, Honduras!

 Elder Wagner with President and Sister Fortuna!

 Elder Wagner and Elder Bingham

All the greenies (nickname for brand new missionaries)

with President and Sister Fortuna!

He has arrived!  We look forward to hearing from him soon!

CCM- Final Week

Dear Mom and Family,

I am almost out of here!!!! Pretty much I have everything packed, which is real nice, I have no idea how we are supposed to sleep tonight.  I am flying to Salvador and then Honduras!

This week really crawled by, and it was quite hard to find the motivation to study, especialmente for some people in my district. 

Also, valentines day was pretty cool here, because it is not only love here, but friendship too! Amistad! 

In Priesthood, we watched this Hilarious video on a dog and a dolphin who were really great friends. I highly suggest that y'all go and look it up on Youtube, I was laughing a lot. Oh, and then on Sunday, we watched this sickkkk talk by Elder Bednar about the character of Christ. It was such a great talk- holy crap. Oh and then in sacrament mtg our topic was on chastity, so we got to hear some interesting talks haha. Also, i'm down to 180 pounds, so I really think that gym time here, where we play soccer, has really helped me lose a bunch of weight, but now some of my pants are pretty loose.

 

Last friday we had like 10 thousand meetings that lasted all day about the mission field, it was reallyyyy long and boring, because we just sat there. it was pretty rough. haha. 

Oh, and our night teacher, Hermano Sainz, went to guatemala on his mission. He told us this amazazing story on one of his companions, elder Josh Burton, who later died in a tragic car accident. His story gave us so much inspiration and power to be as hardworking missionaries as we possibly coould. You could look up josh burton, we were showed a cool video on his amazing piano skills.

 

I'm going to miss the people in my district who are going to San Pedro sula west, especially elder wight, who is from Australia. it is so funny-- he does not understand why ¨´america is a free country´´ haha, but I will see a couple of these guys at BYU,

The church is true! Thanks for all of your prayers!! I cannot wait to get to the field, but I have learned SO much here, its amazing. 

Love, 

Elder Wagner

CCM Week 5

So this has been an exciting week, we got our flight information and we are leaving the CCM next Tuesday at 2:30 in the morning. Our flight leaves to El salvador at 5:20am and then we fly to Tegucigalpa. So yeah, it's pretty dang early in the morning haha. (I could call you mom, if you want to talk at the buttcrack of dawn) oh and i think we will get to email once more either Saturday or Monday.

So cage soccer this week some fat white guy kicked my jammed toe real hard, so now my left foot has gotten amazing.

Also, there has been annoying drama lately, some elders in the district have been calling out others for being lazy, not being obedient blah blah blah, which just leads to the ones being called out naming the weaknesses in the others. Haha, so I have just figured out the best way to do this is to lead by example by being obedient and studying diligently, haha I cant wait until I/m in Honduras.

The other day we got churros!! Our night teacher bought some from outside (even though he´s not supposed to bring food for us from the outside), and they were so good! 

My comp got this weird intestinal thingy so I got a lot of free time for a couple of days, so I read a bunch of the Book of Mormon, and I have memorized even more scriptures. In total,  I think I have about 23 verses committed to memory right now. Also, a bunch of other guys have been sick with like strep throat and stuff, luckily I haven't gotten sick again. We finished all of the grammar stuff the other day, ending with past subjunctive, so now I just have to keep practicing speaking Spanish.

So on Sunday, we learned how to do all of the ordinances in Spanish, which was good practice and cool. I was finally called on to give a talk, which was on the ley de diezmo. I think I did prettty good on it, plus I recited like 3 scriptures while I was speaking. Then, we watched a recorded devotional by Richard G Scott, and then we watched Meet the Mormons, which cool and relaxing. Also, for dinner that day, I had some of the worst fish sticks of my life.

And then, Tuesday, we heard a devotional from a guy from the area presidency, and he talked in Spanish while a guy translated every sentence to English, so it kind of was the longest devotional ever haha, but it was cool because I could understand  most of the Spanish. 

That's sweet that yall went to the BYU game! And on TV! but that sucks that they lost:( The living room looks great mom, good job!  I haven't weighed myself since last time, but I still feel like my pants are getting looser haha.

 

Any-whoo, I MIGHT get to email on Saturday/Monday, idk yet. But yeah things are winding down, we have a day completely filled with meetings Friday, we can almost taste Honduras now. I'm so pumped. This work is so true, and I cannot wait to help change others peoples lives. It is so amazing to feel the Spirit every day, He teaches you so much through the Holy ghost. I have also been blessed with increased concentration here at the CCM. I started the Book of Mormon day one here, and I have been reading it for an hour every day, and I am already at 3 Nephi. 

Life is good!! I cant wait to get to Honduras!!! Thanks for alll of your prayers!!

Love, Elder Wagner

CCM Week 4

What's up family and friends!?

This past week has been quite the productive one, I memorized Doctrine and Covenants chapter 4, the first vision, Moroni's promise, and I have been reading a chapter in the Book of Mormon en Espanol everyday. Our district tried to do solo Espanol, haha but it only lasted a day. 

Gym time has sucked the past two days, because the cool district in our zone just left for Philly,so cage soccer has been kinda boring. And our really really cool teacher Hermano Martinez isn't teaching us in the mornings anymore, he was really awesome. And for teaching investigators, now we just make our own profile, and teach each other. Yeah, so pretty much we are all kind of getting antsy in here, we cannot wait to go to Honduras. 

Apparently there was some weird Catholic holiday February 2nd, so there was a bunch of fireworks, which was pretty cool to see. Oh, and Sunday was pretty chill as usual, we watched the Joseph Smith Restoration video, and we had a couple of devotionals. On Tuesdays, we get to do service around the CCM, so we get to talk in Spanish to the workers here. Pretty much all of them drive two hours to get here, it's pretty crazy, but all the workers here are members. There´s lots of construction going too right now.

Any-hoo, CONGRATS ANDREA! it sounded like you guys did amazing in We The People! I wish I could have been there. Rissa, congrats on being an adult and not watching the Super Bowl! Man that game sounded nuts, we were trying to ask our teachers, they say they like turn it on, but they didn´t finish it because football is boring to them. And like all of Monday the consensus in the CCM was that the Seahawks had won, someone spread that rumor around! hahaha. 

Sorry to hear about Pam Smoot, I will start praying for her.

Haha thats really cool that you are taking photography classes mom! I cant wait to see what the gender of the baby is! 

Today we played like 4 hours of soccer it was really awesome. I am doing well with my companion, this past week we had a lot of fun with our district. (did i tell you that my comps ex girlfriend of a year and a half is here? haha the district and I have had a lot of fun with that)

Also, there is this group of Hermanas, we call them the Hermanas Satanas, because ALL they do is flirt with elders. Its so annoying. 

We have met a bunch of elders from Comayaguela, and they say that there are a bunch of members in the Comayaguela part, and they always give you a lot of food. Speaking of food, I have lost 11 pounds so far here. Crazy right? haha 

Welp, the weeks are flying by, I can't believe it is already February!

Thanks for all of your prayers!

Love, 

Elder Wagner

 Elder Wagner!

 Elder Wagner pondering!

 The Elders in the district get a little distracted sometimes.  haha

Elder Wagner post hair cut.  

He said you sit down, the lady doesn't talk to you, she just gives every missionary

the exact same cut!!  

CCM Week 3

Hola familia!!

This week flew by, and it took me another day to recover from my horrific night haha. 

Unfortunately, we couldn't go to the temple, there was only room for the two hermanas in our district, one who is going to Ecuador as a nurse missionary, which is pretty cool. The other hermana is going to comayaguela as well. Thanks for the sport update dad, I have no idea who to root for in the super bowl. I'm feeling Seahawks. That sucks about your calf muscle!! I jammed my toe Monday playing soccer during gym time (we have just been playing soccer now, which is pretty sweet), yeah, so with my toe I've been walking on my little toes and now my whole foot hurts. I kicked the ball and in my follow through i kicked this guys knee.

I love Sundays here, they are so chill.  I also did not half to give a talk in sacrament meeting, so i just now have 3 talks prepared in Spanish, so now i'm ready if i get called on in the field. We got to hear from our new MTC president, Octavanio Tenorio, and he showed us his general conference talk, it was really cool to watch it, and to hear his description of the inner machinations of General Conference. During our night class, I team taught with our teacher, and I did really well teaching the plan of salvation, The Spirit put words into my mouth, it´s really cool how He does that. A yoohoo in my district was doing who knows what while we were doing TALL (its like Spanish grammar on the computer), so now we only have an hour on the computer to email.

On Saturdays we get to do TRC, where volunteers come and we teach them, some are members and some aren't. Ours was, and she spoke so fast! But I understood her, the people here have crazy stories about being converted to the church. On Tuesday we got to hear from the Area President of Mexico, he spoke in English, it was pretty cool. Every night we have to teach our teacher, who is our investigator, now he is Jorge. I bore really strong testimony to him that he will receive an answer if he prayed, because he didn't know if there was a God. It was so cool to see the power and authority as I spoke to him. I also finished Our heritage and Our search for happiness while i was sick, those are really cool books.

The security here is nuts, there are thermal sensors and cameras everywhere. And sometimes, there's this stupid airplane that flies around broadcasting the same exact 15 second advertisement, we don't understand it at all. 

Also: the juice machine was out for a couple of days. those were hard days. 

And every morning I put the team on my back and turn the light on, the blessing of being obedient and waking up at 6:30 has helped me not have the desire to take naps, which is pretty cool. 

Well, I hope everything goes well back at the home front! I'm doing great!

Love, 

Elder Wagner

Elder Wagner's casa

Bottom bunk on the left is his

Elder Wagner!