Christmas comes early here

Merry Christmas!  Since Halloween and Thanksgiving don´t really exist here, the Christmas decorations start going up in the end of October.  We went into the mall and they have this giant 60 foot tree up!  I started putting my Christmas decorations together and we got out all the decorations in the office and put up the tree! whoo!  haha.  We could´t wait, we are already listening to Christmas music. 

The other elders also showed us some neat spots up on the hill in our area.  The four of us went to have dinner at a member´s house and they have this tradition that they always give the missionaries super spicy peppers to eat and see our reactions. haha.  They had these super tiny red peppers (I don´t remember what they are called) that they wanted us to eat, but they didn't have any at the time.  So we started off with the ´´practice round´´ and he cut a huge jalapeño into four pieces and we each had to eat a piece.  The rules were that we have to chew the pepper for a whole minute without swallowing and then we had to wait another minute to drink anything.  I like spicy foods but eating a raw jalapeño with all the seeds inside it was pretty strong! haha.  We all had tears running down our faces.  But next week is the real challenge.  I´ll let you know how that goes.  :)   

Whelp!

- Elder Burnham

Finally a Long Letter

Hello!  I´ll try to respond more, because I´m on my lunch break! haha  I am basically working a full time office job without being paid! (I lied, I typed this over a few days).

I work with four elders in the office

Elder Bingham - Finance Secretary

Elder Olmedo - Materials Secretary

Elder Rivadeneira - Member Secretary 

Elder Burnham - General Secretary

There are also the assistants who come into the office every now and then to work as well.  But we are here Monday-Friday.  We technically have our P-Days on Saturdays, we don´t come to work in the office.

We all have our own specific jobs and responsibilities. I am basically in charge of the missionaries residency and arranging everything for those who go home.  I have a big safe that´s full of everyone´s passports and ID´s.  I work with a lawyer, Sandra, who works for the church and goes to the immigration offices here in Tegucigalpa and takes care of the residency.  I prepare legal documents and receipts for her to take to immigration.  Since immigration is really slow (but really the government wants to steal all our money haha) we can´t take out short term residencies very quickly so we have to pay for extensions on the 90-day period that you get when you enter the country with your passport.  These are called prórrogas and I have to make receipts and go to the bank and pay them (I go to the bank a lot).  And if you don´t pay those by the due date, you have pay fines.  You have to make sure to keep track of all these time frames to make sure you don´t have pay a ton of money in fines.  According to Sandra, we should be able to take out some of the missionaries residencies here pretty soon.  

I also coordinate everything for those who go home after their missions.  I work with church travel agents in Salt Lake and Guatemala to schedule the flights for the missionaries who go home.  I also work with Sandra to cancel the residencies of those who are leaving the country.  There is a big packet that I have to make for all the missionaries who go home that have letters for parents, bishops, and stake presidents, and other certificates and such.  

I have other random side jobs as well, such as scheduling missionary interviews with President Ferman, or the agendas when we have meetings, and take notes.  Lots of work to do!

In the late afternoon/evening we leave the office and go out and do normal missionary work.  We all live in the same house, and it is huge!  It is kinda of the mission hub.  We have extra rooms full of bunkbeds for when missionaries are coming or leaving the mission, or when missionaries have meetings in the city and live in areas really far away.  But normally it's just the four of us.  We practically have our own bathrooms and we have a washer AND dryer.  We are basically living in luxury haha.  We also have a mission truck.  We use that to drive to the office or to other places for errands and such.  We get to experience the joy of commuting during rush hour. haha.  I drove the truck a few days ago and it was so scary! 1, because driving in Tegucigalpa is soooo different.  The people drive super aggressively and lack some common traffic laws that we are used to. 2, because I have never driven a truck or car of that size so learning how to take turns and parking in a large vehicle is fun..  Our area is called Nuevo Loarque and is in a very residential part of Tegucigalpa. We have gated security in all the neighborhoods.  Its actually not too far from my last area Sorzales.  Up the hill in our area, we have a more normal neighborhood with semi dirt roads and pulperías.  So you kind of end up having the poorer and richer sides of the area.  But everyone in the ward is great, even though I am still trying to get to know everyone.

Halloween! No one here celebrates Halloween, maybe some of the stores have decorations, but that is about it.  For Halloween, we went and played paintball! haha  I had never gone before, so that was cool to go do that, in the mission! We went to some paintball place in Tegucigalpa with the assistants as well.  Paintballing kinda hurts, but it was fun.  

The office is in the upscale/business side of Tegucigalpa. There is a giant mall and a whole bunch of other businesses and buildings.  We always go in the mall, either to eat or go to the bank to do business stuff.  I am going to get fat this transfer because we go to the food court a lot!  

Last week we also had a conference with Elder Duncan (a seventy, president of the Central America area)  Like president Ferman, he focused on the importance of working with the the less active members.  Being in the office means that we also had to go set up for these devotionals.  We were at the chapel that is at the temple setting up the night before and ended up staying there really late.  Setting up tables and chairs and microphones. But everything turned out well for the meeting the next day.

My companion is really awesome.  Elder Rivadeneira is from Panamá.  He is kind of really insane, but in a good way.  He is also the youngest of three boys with no sisters. haha.  He has about four or five more months than me in the mission.  But being in the office, we are all kind of companions.  We are usually all four together.  I would say that Elder Bingham is more like my companion, because our desks are in the same office, and I work with him more than I do with any of the other secretaries.  I am always paying a lot of fees for residency stuff and I have to go to him to get checks made, then he gets them approved by President.

Tomorrow I will be going to Immigration to renew the residencies of five missionaries. fun stuff!

I am sorry that this email is kind of all over the place, I´ll get some pictures in soon too!  

Have a great week!

- Elder Burnham

 

Danny is a Secretary/11/02/15 and 11/09/15

We got 2 really short emails from Danny after he was transferred to the mission office to be a secretary. Hopefully we will hear more soon.......

From 11/02/15

So, as I mentioned last week, I had transfers on Tuesday.  So we made it to the transfers meeting all safe and sound and I´m just sitting in the meeting with all the other missionaries while one of the assistants is giving some announcements.

¨We would like to thank Elder Gonzalez for his service in the office and would like to call Elder Burnham as the new General Secretary.¨  

Yeah, I am the new general secretary for the mission and there were no phone calls before transfers to inform me of this. haha.  I have been pretty busy this week learning all of my responsibilities and working, I should have more time to write a general email this week, because now I have a desk with my own computer! 

Life has been pretty crazy and different especially now that I won´t be doing nearly as much normal proselyting missionary work.  Its been a little stressful, but I am getting the hang of things.  

I love you both so much, and I should be able to send more emails later this week.  

- Elder Burnham

ps, I did get the package.  I should have gotten it earlier, but the secretaries held it in the office because they knew that I was coming.

From 11/09/15

The finance secretary is Elder Bingham, we have really similar names so sometimes things get a little mixed up.  For example in the mission bulletin from April, it showed up as Elder Bingham having a birthday, when it should have said my name.  Today he got an email from his dad that said that his uncle served a mission in Japan (Elder Bingham as well) and that there was a sister Burnham (Aunt Kim served her mission in Japan right? in the 80´s?) He said that there was a mistake where she was receiving his money for the mission and he wasn't getting anything, haha.    I thought that was a funny story,

ahh I use a computer all day but I run out of time to write home. I'll try to get better at that and will try to get to all your questions.  

I love you guys! 

Yo me voy!

Yo me voy!  I have transfers, who knows where I will go or who will be my companion. 
Ugh the anticipation! haha.  It´s a little disappointing to leave, because I really liked this
area.  We opened this area with hardly anything, and now I feel like we are starting to
have a lot of progress and potential, and I am leaving. We had FIVE investigators in
 church on Sunday.  But it is also exciting to have change.

On Friday we had interviews with President Ferman.  What I liked was that he focused on
how we need to work with less active members and recent converts.  We can help
strengthen the ward and they will give us references.  He didn´t focus on tracting tracting
tracting, when some missionaries think that´s the only way to do missionary work and find
new people to teach.  Pretty much all of our investigators are references.  

On Saturday we had a ward baptism for Jonatan, an 8 year old boy, from a member family. 
His parents basically asked us to organize everything, so we had been focusing on getting
that all ready this week.  It was a really great, simple service, and we had 2 investigators there.
whoo!

There is a youth, Victor, in the ward. He is 15 and will turn 16 in November.  No one in his
family are members, but his mom, Jackie, came to church on Sunday (last week) and really
liked it.  She appears to be really positive.  We had a really powerful lesson with her on Saturday. 
She went to the Catholic church when she was really little, but then never went to any church for
the rest of her life.  We invited her to pray at the end of the lesson, and then she started crying
because the spirit was so strong, and because she had never really prayed before in her life. 
She really wanted to, but didn´t know how.  Then her son came over and sat next to her and
guided her through and taught her to pray.  It was so amazing.  Victor is going to turn 16 and
we made a goal with him, that if she wants to continue with us that he should be the one to
baptize her.

We had a really good week here in Sorzales and I am a little sad to be leaving, but Elder Gomez
will be able to take care of everything.  It's crazy how fast this time went by, and I already finished
training Elder Gomez.  He is such a great missionary, and I feel like I have learned so much more
from him, than he from me. haha.  I love you all so much, have a great week.

- Elder Burnham  

Getting Lost in Tegucigalpa

The weeks are just flying by too fast, we only have a week left in this transfer and it's a 90% chance that I´m leaving, and I am not sure how I feel about that quite yet, haha.  I felt like I just started training Elder Gomez and now we are in the last week of training. woah!

We finally had Emily´s confirmation!  After her baptism like three weeks ago.  The weekend after her baptism was General Conference, and the week after that, her father´s friend passed away, so he was gone and we could´t have the confirmation yet.  But yesterday we had her confirmation.  Her dad, grandma, and her 94 year-old great grandma were in the sacrament meeting!  It was so great.  We also had Ortencia, one of our investigators, in sacrament meeting!  This was the first time she had come to church with us!  Hopefully she will want to keep coming back!  

On Wednesday, we had the second new missionary/training meeting.  We decided to take the bus and got really lost! haha.  We basically got on the wrong bus and ended up on the complete other side of Tegucigalpa.  (I think we even went out of mission boundaries, but shhhhh it was an accident). So we took a taxi and were only 5 minutes late. haha.  But, we did get to see a new side of the city.  It's where all the rich people live with the giant houses, and we also passed by Suyapa, which is this really giant, old Catholic cathedral.  We can see it from our area, but it's reallllly far away, so it was interesting to pass right by it.  We got to the meeting and it was really good.  The usual stuff on how we need to be obedient to the rules especially the mission schedule, and how we need to love and serve our companions.  

We have been teaching Bryan and his sisters Carol and Vanessa.  Bryan one day decided that he was not interested anymore, so he kind of dropped us, but his sisters still want us to visit them.  So we are still teaching them, and we talk to Bryan whenever we can.  We are still friends, but at this moment he is just not interested in the religious parts of our visits.  

For p-day today, we basically just had a little barbeque with the zone.  We cooked chuleta (pork) and had rice, beans, guacamole, and tortillas, super delicious.  We just kind of ate and hung out in the church. haha.  

Ahh just one more week in this transfer, we've got to work hard and end this transfer really well.  

I love you all, have a great week!

Elder Burnham

rough week/fun week

This was kind of a difficult week, but we ended it today with a really fun p-day.

So last week, my companion learned that his dad had an accident at work and basically fell off a building and broke his clavicle into three parts. He needed to have a surgery on Tuesday to fix everything up.  So my comp was a little preoccupied with that.  But then on Tuesday morning, his mom calls us.  On our mission phone.  We don´t know how she got our number.  He answers the phone, and then passes it immediately to me.  So I talked with his mom for a little while.  She said that everything went well with the surgery and that his dad is fine. He just needs to stay at home and rest for a while, and won´t be able to go back to work for a while.   My comp was really glad that everything went well, but was really mad that his mom called us.  He was really frustrated because we basically broke a really big rule.  That's why he passed it to me because he didn't want to talk to her.  So that was a weird story that we had this week.  

We had a zone meeting this week, that was really good.  But the best part was that we ended it with a cake and piñata! whooo! haha.  The cake and piñata where made my ward members.  The piñata was a giant missionary name tag that had our zone name in the front. haha.  

Well, my comp got sick again this week.  He is still sick.  On Saturday and Sunday we had divisions with members so he could stay in the house and I could go out and work.  He basically has a big cold and coughs and aches.  It's a little hard because he is allergic to some medications, so he can´t take ibuprofen or others that are similar, yep.  Then the week ended with investigators that aren't progressing and no one came to church, meh.  But it's all good.  Just one step at a time.  It's a new week and my comp's health is the priority right now.

My comp stayed home with a member so I could go to the p-day activity with the zone.  We went to Picacho!  It's a national park up in the mountains outside of Tegucigalpa.  There is a zoo and gardens and a big statue of Christ, kind of like the one in Rio, Brasil.  It was really fun, and I feel a little bad that my companion couldn't go, but he didn't want me to miss out.  He will have a lot more opportunities to go in the future because he is from Honduras, haha.  

I hope you all have a great week!

- Elder Burnham

Conference! New House! Rain! (Oct 6)

This week went by really fast, but at the same time I felt like we didn't get much done haha.  We keep having crazy rain storms like every other day.  But whooooo we live in the new apartment!  It is so much bigger and brighter and better!  There are these glass block skylights in the ceiling so we have so much natural light, and it's so quiet.  It is basically the opposite of our last apartment.  We walked by our old apartment today and noticed that the landlord sent people to rip up the floor and put new tiles in.  I guess after YEARS of elders living in the apartment, they have to update it to LIVABLE standards if she wants to rent it out again. haha.  I´ll get some pictures of the new house later.  We moved on Wednesday morning at the same time as the hermanas.  They moved all their stuff to their new apartment and we moved into their house.

On Tuesday we had interchanges with the Zone Leaders and I went with Elder Peña in his area.  He has been studying English so we basically spoke in English all day when we were not in lessons.  He can actually speak pretty well.  He makes a lot of mistakes, but I can understand what he is saying.  We even made a contact in English. We knocked on a door and this woman knew English because she works at a Bilingual school, so they both wanted to practice their English and we made the contact and had a small lesson and scheduled a return appointment all in English.  I don´t get to do that very often here. haha

On the last day of September we were walking in the street and heard the song by Green Day ¨Wake me up when September ends¨  haha.

Yesterday was my half birthday! Whoo! My comp was like, ¨Eso no tiene sentido...¨  (That does not make any sense) haha.  

On Friday I got some Christmas cards........that were sent TEN months ago.  They had the Mexico MTC address and then reassigned to Honduras, and probably were sitting around in the office forever. haha, But it was a good surprise.  

On Friday we helped Hermana Daisy move (the same who we made pupusas with) and it began to POUR rain.  Basically there were rivers in the streets and all her furniture was getting wet when we were loading it into the truck, and it was kind of a big mess. The power went out for a little bit, but then came back on. The next day more members came and helped to finish up.  You can never really count on the weather here this time of year.  

General Conference was really great!  During the Saturday afternoon session the power went out, then followed by a huge BOOM of thunder and rain.  It came back on in five minutes and we were able to continue. We watched all the sessions in Spanish except for the priesthood session.  We had to go to another chapel to watch and they set up a TV in English for the gringo missionaries and those who wanted to practice their English.  Elder Gomez and Elder Peña stayed with us for the English. 

Some of my favorite highlights from Conference: 

Uchtdorf: The gospel can function for anyone, we just need to focus on our love for God and he will bless us in our paths.  Then his ´´flamed´´ jokes in the priesthood session.  Our spiritual experiences may be difficult to explain in ´´worldly´´ terms, but that doesn't mean they´re not real.  Wanting to believe is the necessary first step in faith.

Larry R Lawrence: The spirit doesn't expect us to make big changes all at once, but works with us little by little.  The atonement is for everyone, saints and sinners.

Holland:  Mothers!  The love that a mother has for her child is divine and similar to the love Christ has for all of us.

I hope that you all enjoyed this wonderful General Conference and have a great week!

- Elder Burnham