Dog tastes like Chicken! And our first Baptism!

Yep, that's right.  I ate dog meat this week haha.  We had lunch over at this guys house the other day and we had this really good soup.  I thought the meat was chicken until I realized the bones were definitely NOT chicken bones. haha.  Elder Wendt asked him what the meat was and he said perro!  I am pretty sure he was not joking because his kids were taking pictures of us while we were eating.

We spent the first few days of this week getting our apartment clean because President Fortuna was coming over for interviews.  Since I didn't have much time in the field and not much to say, my interview was really short.  He told me to just keep speaking the language, and it will come little by little.  He also talked about even if people have a hard time understanding me, as long as I can teach with the spirit, they will still be able to understand in that sense.  

We got invited to so many family home evenings this week.  I think we had one every night this week except for Friday.  (which means free dinner (: haha).  It´s super awesome to go to all the members homes and meet everyone.

On Saturday, our investigator Andres was baptized by Elder Dial.  He is the nephew of a family that was baptized about a month ago.  We were able to continue teaching him when we came to this area.  He is only ten years old, but he is so awesome!  

Saturday was also the ¨birthday´ of Catacamas, so lots of people were setting off fireworks. (but it´s not fun when someone sets them off at 3 in the morning haha).  

This Wednesday, we have a multi-zone conference in Tegucigalpa, so that means another 4 hour bus ride.  It should be really good though,  Hopefully I will see some CCM missionaries.  

I hope everyone had a great week!

Adios

Elder Burnham     

 The Temple

Andres getting ready for his baptism

Our Bedroom... look at the great cabinets and closets... :-)

Our Kitchen

Our Bathroom

My First Full Week In Honduras

¡Hola!

Most of the time, I have to rely on my companion to know where we are going, because I still have no concept of direction here.  The streets are dirt and don´t have names.  House addresses are also non-existent here.  There are certain blobs of neighborhoods with certain names, but not perfect blocks.  If you ask someone their address, they will say "I live in the green colored house in barrio santa cruz across the street from Pulperia Sandi".  or something to that extent.  Fun stuff.  

Our whole district lives in Catacamas, there are 8 of us total.  There are two branches that meet at our church,  Rama Catacamas and Rama Guayape. Elder Torres and I are Guayape B and attend Rama Guayape at 10:00 on Sundays.

On Wednesday we went to the temple, which meant a four hour bus ride to Tegucigalpa.  On the way there we would stop and pick up other missionaries from other areas and eventually had a bus full of missionaries.  I didn't see anyone from the CCM.  The Temple is super pretty and up on a hill overlooking the city.  I am always so impressed by the detail and the workmanship put into the temples.  I was also able to get headphones and do the session in English (which meant I was the only one NOT watching the dubbed version).  It is so great to go to the temple because it is a huge reminder of my purpose as a missionary.  After the session, some of us ordered Little Caesar's and some guy on a motorcycle came and delivered it to the temple haha!  Super great day, but long bus rides.  

On Friday we had a zone meeting in Juticalpa (the next town over, about an hour on the bus). Its always fun meeting up with the other missionaries and we go out to lunch afterwards.  

Saturday the 6 elders in our district went a did a service project for a family that the hermanas were teaching.  We went down to the river and dug up sand and brought it back to their house so they could use it for cement or something like that.  Later that day we went to their baptism at the church. We also taught one of our investigators, Claudia, today.  While we were teaching her, one of her friends came over and ended up staying for the rest of lesson. (whoo a contact! haha).  

On Sunday we were supposed to meet with Claudia to show her the way to church, but no one was home when we arrived.  Kinda frustrating.  

Today, our zone met up in Catacamas and we went and played cage soccer (cancha).  It´s like a small soccer field that is all enclosed.  After that we all went out to lunch.  Fun first full p-day. 

We have other people that we are teaching, but I don't have too much time to write more about them.  

The language is coming along little by little.  I feel like I can speak alright, but when I don´t understand what other people are saying, I don´t speak too much. haha. It will get better with time.  

I love you all!

- Elder Burnham  

We got to go to the Temple in Tegucigalpa - 4 hour bus ride, totals worth it

The Temple in Tegucigalpa

main square of Juticalpa

One last photo from the Mexico CCM, the night we were all leaving to our different missions

I'm going to Honduras tomorrow & I made it to Honduras!

Jan 5th 2014 - I'm going to Honduras tomorrow

In less than 12 hours I will be on the plane to Honduras! Crazy!  I am so excited, and a little nervous.

Wednesday was the last day of 2014!  Still a normal schedule at the CCM.  In the evening we taught this teenage girl named Britini for TRC.  She was a member and she hopes to serve a mission when she is older, Really cool!  We didn't really stay up for new years, but I remember being half asleep´and hearing all the fireworks out my window.  

On Thursday we taught our last lesson with Gabriel.  He told us he had a date for his wedding, so we were able to schedule a date for his baptism!  We wanted to focus our last lesson with him on Enduring to the end, but then he had some questions about tithing.  We clarified that for him and tied it back into our lesson by saying that part of enduring to the end is obeying all of God´s commandments.  Later in the day we had to do some CCM evaluations on the computer and had to answer questions in Spanish into the microphone.  I guess they want to see how much we can speak directly from our heads.  

Friday we had a completely different schedule with classes getting us ready to go out into the field and focusing on the importance of working with members in the wards.  It kinda felt like being at a youth conference.  Also, they had to cut off the water at the CCM for some reason, and so we couldn't take showers for a while. Then Elder Linsenmann flushed the toilet and it made this really loud boom sound and the toilet filled up with black water.  It was kinda frightening, but it didn't make a mess and we were able to fix it pretty easily.  We were able to take hot showers that evening, but then I realized it might be one of my last hot showers for a while.  Another Elder was telling us about a friend he had who went to Honduras and didn't have running water for her first three transfers!  It is going to be an adventure!

Sunday was a really great day! We had our last sacrament meeting and all the testimonies from the missionaries in our zone were really powerful.  We also had a really great devotional from Elder Holland!  Sunday evening was a different story!  When we came back to our apartment, the electronic lock to our bedroom door deactivated!  We couldn't get into our room, and the guy at the reception office wasn't really able to help us, so we took the mattresses from the spare room and slept in the apartment next door with our district.  We were able to get it resolved in the morning and were able to do our laundry and start packing.  That is what we spent today doing, and now we are packed and ready to go tomorrow!  

I am super excited to go to Honduras, but it is a little bittersweet to leave the CCM.  We have a pretty big group of people riding the bus tomorrow at 2:30 am, so that should be fun.  

I love you all, and I am so grateful for the opportunity to serve the people of Honduras!  I know that this Gospel is True, and I can´t wait to share the joy and happiness that is brings!  This is going to be an incredible adventure!

- Elder Burnham 

 Random Sketch

Finally got a picture with Cybill

My District in the CCM, these are Great Elders and Sisters

Jan 12 2015 - I made it to Honduras!

I´m alive, No need to call the Mission President! haha!  Sorry if this email is choppy or incoherent.  And sorry for no pictures, I left my camera at the apartment, Last Tuesday was a crazy travel day.  We left the CCM at 2.30 in the morning and had a flight at the Mexico City Airport at 5.20 am.  BUT...there was apparently some bad weather, but it just looked like fog outside.  We had to sit on the plane for FOUR hours before it could take off and fly to our layover in El Salvador.  There were 10 of us flying to Honduras (6 going to Comayaguela Mission and 4 going to San Pedro). We were able to catch a later flight to Honduras in El Salvador.

When we got to Tegucigalpa, we met up with some other missionaries that took us to the church building. There we met the Mission President and our new companions.  We had a quick meeting and dinner, but then they sent us off to our new areas.  My area was on the other side of the country and we needed to take a 4 hour bus ride to get there. (lots of traveling that day). 

My new companion is Elder Torres from Guatemala.  He can speak a tiny bit of English, but not much.  We can communicate enough though.  This just means that I will be able to learn Spanish faster.  But he is really great.

Catacamas, our new area is crazy!  There are dirt roads and dogs, chickens, rabbits, cows everywhere.  Most of the houses are cement with tin roofs.  Our apartment is pretty nice and spacious though.  But we don´t have hot water. haha.  

Even though I cannot communicate very well, the people here are so great! The Spanish is so hard to understand sometimes.  The people here slur all their words and the letter ´S´ is sometimes just nonexistent.  For example, the word seis is just sei, or the phrase ´mas o menos´ is ´mah o meno´ 

The members are so awesome. We usually have someone come with us for part of the day.  Every butchers my name though.  But it´s okay.  Some of the little kids sometimes refer to me as Elder ¨Ban nan¨or Jokingly Elder "Batman", which I just think is hilarious.  

The chapel is in the more ´downtown´ area and is really small.  The chapel is basically 5 classrooms with accordion doors that open up into a larger room.  Its really awesome though.

We only get a partial P-day today to just write emails and buy groceries because on Wednesday we get to go to the Temple.  Which will be a four hour bus ride back to Teguc.  I am excited.  I will hopefully take lots of pictures and send them next week.  

I feel like there is so much more I could write, but I can´t remember every detail and don't have much more time to write.  

I love you all. I love Honduras. I don't necessarily love the Spanish Language. It is getting better little by little.  Have a great week! 

- Elder Burnham

1 Week Left!

1 Week Left! (actually Danny is leaving for Honduras this Tuesday Jan 6th at 2:30AM in the morning)

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!  I leave the CCM next week!  Tomorrow is the last day of 2014! Wow!

On Wednesday (Christmas eve day) Hermano Hurtado came back!  He took some time off because he just got married.  For TRC we taught district 5C instead.  The focus of the lesson was to teach about the Book of Mormon, but I threw a little Christmas twist into it and shared about the birth of Jesus Christ.  There is a really good scripture in Alma 7 about Jesus´s birth and the atonement.  In the evening we had our Christmas concert.  All the missionaries sang in groups of two zones. At the end, the CCM choir sang Oh Holy Night (La Santa Noche).

Thursday was Christmas!  Before breakfast we had our secret Santa gift exchange, which mainly consisted of candy, cookies and ties.  We also had a service project where we made blankets to donate to a local men´s shelter.  We got to call home too!  There was some technical difficulties with my computer so the first three calls didn't quite go through.  I could hear my parents, but they could not hear me.  We eventually got it to work!  It was really nice to talk with my family even if it was only for 30 minutes.  We had lots of devotionals and they also let us watch Meet the Mormons in the evening.

The day after Christmas was pretty normal.  It was kinda hard getting back into the normal schedule after Christmas.  Saturday was also another routine day.  When we were teaching Enya, she asked us about the ten commandments and referred to ¨thou shalt not kill¨and then asked us about why Nephi kills Laban in the book of Mormon.  That was fun trying to answer in Spanish, but I think we did a pretty good job. haha.

I actually gave a talk on Sunday!  This was our last regular sacrament meeting, so it was my last chance to speak.  I wrote my talk on prayer, more specifically on the commandment to pray often.  Elder Linsenmann and I also got to bless the sacrament, which was fun since I haven´t really done that since I was a priest in my home ward.  The rest of the day were more devotionals and movies.

Today is our last P-day at the CCM.  We got our itinerary for our missions.  We have to leave the CCM next Tuesday at 2:30 am and our flight is at 5:40. we then have a layover in El Salvador.  I have been designated as Travel Leader and have to make sure all six of us flying to Honduras make it there in one piece.  It´s crazy! We only have one more week here. Time is going by so fast.

I love you all so much and hope you had a wonderful holiday season!

- Elder Burnham

All in Purple

Our District

Falling out of the tree...

It's a bird, it's a plane... Oh,  it's a volleyball.

Our Christmas Tree....

Christmas is in TWO DAYS!

¡Hola!

Another week has gone by! Christmas is this Thursday! I only have two weeks left in the CCM!

On Wednesday we taught our new investigator ¨Joana¨.  I was a little nervous about teaching her because according to her bio, she is an easily angered Atheist who doesn't tolerate her extremely Catholic family.  The lesson went a lot better than I thought.  She was nice to us and she was already familiar with the church because her sister is a member.  When teaching new people, we tend to put our focus on the importance of families and prayer.

We also got new roommates  this week.  One of them (Elder Barros) is from Brazil and he said he had been to California before. He went to Anaheim, so I assume he went to Disneyland.

We then had our second TRC in the evening.  This lady that we taught was really nice and kept asking us where we were going on our missions, along with the rest of our district.  During  gym time, our zone usually plays volleyball.  It's fun to have bare feet on the sand, but it also makes me miss the beach, haha!

Thursday night some elders had a tie trade.  Everyone brings their ties and swaps with each other.  So I brought my two least favorite ties and ended up with some ones that I liked better. Yup.

On Friday we taught Joana again and focused this time on the importance of faith and how to develop her faith.  The Internet was down on Friday so we didn´t have to do TALL.  We also got to meet the new district in our zone.  Lots of them are going on missions in California, and I think at least two are going to San Jose.

On Saturday we had a really good district study in Alma 32. So much good information on faith.

I still didn't get called on to speak on Sunday, but its okay because the MTC president and a member of the area seventy came to our meeting along with their families.  That means I will probably have to speak next week.  We had two great devotionals and watched the restoration movie as well.  We have a big music performance on Christmas Eve.  Our zone and zone 7 are singing two songs, and I am also in the CCM choir and we are going to sing O Holy Night (in Spanish). Fun stuff!

Monday we taught Joana for the last time, but after the lesson Hermana Arno (Joana) gave us some good information on how to better improve our teaching, she also told us that we were the strongest companionship in the district when it comes to teaching.  (But who knows if she said that to the other companionships in our district). In the afternoon, we played Red Light Green Light (Luz Rojo Luz Verde) and those who got sent back to the line had to say a sentence in the Imperfect tense.  Hermana Velazquez likes making our lessons a little more exciting because she told us her experience in the CCM was really boring.

For Christmas, our district is having a secret Santa, so we all exchanged names. There isn't much selection for gifts since we can only shop at the CCM tienda.  So we will probably end up with a lot of junk food and ties.  It´s also kinda tricky shopping for Christmas presents for your companion. haha.  Christmas day should be fun since we won´t have any classes. Instead we will have devotionals and movies all day.

I got the package!  But I won´t open it until Christmas.  :)  I hope that everyone back home has a wonderful Christmas!

- Elder Burnham

Photos and Stuff:
One of my sketches based on a picture from one of the pamphlets

I live in the apartments, but these are the Casas where some of the other missionaries live.  It looks like a little neighborhood.

The colorful houses outside the walls

The giant lego hands (I seriously don´t know what these are).

More pictures from our temple trip

Our Zone (from a few weeks ago).  Half of them are already out in the field.

Half Way Done! Email #3

I only have three more weeks at the CCM! Time flies!

On Wednesday we taught a lot of lessons.  We taught our investigator Gabriel in the morning and then in the afternoon we had TRC´s, so we had to teach two random people for 20 minutes each.  It was pretty fun.  One of the guys we taught was one of the workers at our dormitorio so we already knew him.  In the lesson we asked him what he knew about our church, and jokingly he said, ¨you have lots of wives and your church has lots of money¨,  so that was fun to try to respond to that in Spanish.  Since my companion is not quite as comfortable in the language as I am, I end up doing a lot of the talking in the lessons.

So, Friday was Dia de la Virgen Guadalupe (or something like that), so on Thursday and Friday, there were A LOT of fireworks going off throughout the day and music playing.  It was pretty cool, but very loud!

Friday morning was not a fun time.  I think my stomach decided not to agree with my breakfast, so I ended throwing up and missing part of our morning classes.  I pretty much felt better immediately after, but we went to the enfermeria and the doctor gave me some Dramamine and crackers.  I never needed it, but I guess it´ll be nice to have if I ever get sick again.  The rest of the day I was fine.

Saturday night we had an awesome program!  A local dancing group came and performed a Christmas program for the missionaries.  They were all wearing the traditional outfits and dresses.  There were some really little kids dancing too and they were so cute. At the end of the show they even had fireworks on the stage. I was surprised that the CCM allowed that!  haha   It was awesome to have some sort of cultural experience, since we don´t ever step foot into the city.

I prepared a talk for Sunday and didn't get called on again.  Our sacrament meeting topic was on Christlike attributes.  It´s almost disappointing when you prepare a talk and then don´t even get to share it. haha

On Monday I realized that there are only ten more days till Christmas. It doesn't feel like Christmas here even though there are decorations everywhere and we have been singing Christmas songs for the last two weeks.  But I am excited!

We will have a sub for a week in place of Hermano Hurtado, because he is getting married.  Since the Mexico City temple is closed, they have to travel a few hours away to the next temple.

We do our service projects on Mondays, and we had the glorious job of cleaning toilets!  Fun stuff!  In the evening, we had FHE (Family Home Evening, or Noche de Hogar) with our zone.  There are now only two districts in our zone.  We ended up playing pictionary on the whiteboard in our classroom.

Today, we are getting new roommates in our apartment.  Our other roommates left last week, so we had the apartment to ourselves, but now we will have to share again. haha

Over all a pretty good week!  Lots to do!  Lots to learn!

Love you guys!

- Elder Burnham

CCM Palm trees

Christmas Creche

 Christmas Lights

Mexico City Temple - Email #2

Another good week here at the CCM.  Our "Investigator" turned out to be one of our teachers.  Hermana Velasques.  Apparently at the CCM, the first person you teach is revealed to be your teacher in the afternoon.  We were so surprised when she came into our classroom and told us she was our new teacher.  So in the mornings we have Hermano Hurtado and in the afternoons we have Hermana Velasques.  And now both of them are going to be new "investigators" that we have to teach. But now we only have to teach 20 minute lesson instead of 40 minutes.

On Friday, Elder Linsenmann and I got to lead our Book of Mormon discussion in class.  We chose 2 Nephi 32 and 33, which focuses on the importance of the Holy Spirit and the power that it can give us. These chapters also talked about the importance of praying for others. I also realized that when you are on your mission, Fridays lose their excitement.  Now Sundays and P-days are the "weekends".

Saturday we had a stress management class that mostly consisted of going outside and doing random exercises and coloring pictures with our names and missions to put on our classroom door. haha.  But we also talked about making sure not do be too hard on yourself and making sure you get enough food and sleep.

Random side note:  At the CCM there are lots of palm trees and those little green parrots flying around and I think that it´s really cool! And sometimes the hills catch on fire, but they are usually small and burn themselves out.

I think that Sundays are my favorite day at the CCM.  We had a testimony meeting and I was able to bear my testimony in Spanish!  (even if I had a little note card).  I also had the opportunity to teach the lesson in District meeting.  I focused on scriptures that talked about having a foundation in Christ.  Pretty much the rest of the day are devotionals.  I think we had three of them.  We got to watch the First Presidency Christmas Devotional broadcast.  But I think that my favorite part of the day was hearing all the testimonies of my district members in the evening.  They are all such amazing people.

For P-Day, we got to go on a field trip to the Mexico City Temple. It was awesome to ride the bus through the city since we don´t really see much of it while inside the CCM.  Since the temple was closed, we got to take a tour of the visitor's center and walk around the grounds. They also have a neat little gift shop.  It´s a really big temple and they have a really nice visitors center.  The Missionaries that serve at the visitors center gave us the tour.  I hope that I can visit the inside of the temple sometime after the remodeling and construction is done.

Some things are difficult, but everything is great!

Have a great week!

- Elder Burnham

Photos: