¡Feliz Nuevo Año!

Hermana Whittle and Hermana Bahr at the home of the Gonzales family.  They feed them every Wednesday! 

Hey everyone! I hope you all had a great Christmas because I did! The only thing that stunk was that we had to be back in our apartment by 6 both the 24th and the 25th, so we couldn't really have dinner with the members. But we still got a LOT of food. On Christmas Eve, the member that we were going to eat with for dinner gave us lunch

Hermana Bahr and Hermana Whittle at their Christmas Eve feast.

instead and holy cow, we basically had a feast. We had a ton of food only for the two of us. It was great and it was almost like being in the states :) But yeah, we got a LOT of food. And also, here Christmas is considered to be on the 24th because everyone celebrates the night before Christmas. People were setting off fireworks all day( just like in the streets) and at midnight, everyone and their dog was setting off fireworks and they didn't stop for an hour or so. Hermana Bahr and I felt like we were in WWll. And then Christmas morning, we opened packages, made tortillas and watched a movie, and then we got to talk with our families which was great!! We just spent both days helping people getting ready for Christmas. 

We also took a couple days this week to get to know the members in our ward and talk about missionary work. Seriously, without the members we have nothing here...members are key! In Stake Conference a couple weeks ago, someone said that missionary work is the job of the members; we are only here to help. But yesterday the bishop gave a lesson about missionary work and so I really hope that we can get the members more involved and find the people here in Fesitranh that are ready for the gospel :)

As for investigators...we have like no one that is actually progressing except for Marcario. He has definitely been prepared by the Lord! He has so much faith and wants to do all he can to do to follow the Savior. We talked with him about the priesthood and how he will eventually be able to receive it, and he told us he was going to work to be ready. He is so awesome! I really hope that he comes to church again this Sunday so that we can still have his baptism next week :)

Hermana Bahr and Hermana Whittle at the end of a wonderful day in Honduras!

Anyways, I hope you all have a fantastic new year! I can't believe it is almost 2014...I
will be spending the entire year in Honduras!

Love you guys!

Hna. Whittle

Their "healthy" Christmas breakfast---tortillas, nutella and peanut butter!  Yum! 

¡Feliz Navidad!

Merry Christmas everyone!! Honestly, I am super excited to spend Christmas here...I love the area and I love my companion, so I think I'll be okay :) The only thing that stinks is that on the 24th and 25th we have to be in our apartment at 6 for safety...I have no idea what we are going to do, but we'll find out! Apparently here in Honduras, the real celebration of Christmas is the night of Christmas Eve. And everyone here makes tamales and torrejas for Christmas...I have a feeling I will be eating a lot of those in the next couple days. 

Well to be honest, this past week was not so great as far as the week! Seriously, we had multiple days where ALL of our appointments fell through (including dinner). And one of those days it was raining all day and our umbrellas are broken so we were wet and cold...but we still managed to be happy. Thats the great thing about being a missionary :)

And as for investigators...One of our investigators that was doing great told us that she didn't want the lessons anymore, so that was a bummer. But we have others that are doing awesome! For example, on Monday, both of our appointments fell through and we weren't feeling very happy. And then when we were walking home, someone called out to us and asked if we were mormons. Apparently, she had had the lessons with missionaries before, but she was living with her boyfriend and they didn't want to get married. And now they are separated and seriously, she is so ready. We went to go teach her and her aunt about the Restoration and seriously, she helped us teach the lesson. The Lord is always preparing people and it is amazing!!

Anyways, I hope you all have a great Christmas!! 

Feliz Navidad, prospero año y felizidad :)

Hna. Whittle

Hermana Whittle, her companion Hermana Bahr, the elders in her district and the daughters of a member all stuffed in the back of his car.

Hermana Whittle and Hermana Bahr with their bishop's wife. Their ward was having a "Night in Bethlehem" party. 

SURVIVED MY FIRST TRANSFER! :)

Hey everyone! Wow...I can't believe I already have one transfer in Honduras. It was only four weeks because of Christmas but still! So we had transfers last week and my companion got transferred. It was crazy....we weren't expecting it since I am still in training. And I was SO scared because I only have a month here and I barely know the area and the people...it was really hard to have faith and trust that this was what the Lord wanted. But I know that the Lord knows me better than I do, because I am so glad that we had transfers! My new companion, Hermana Bahr, is awesome! She is also from Arizona and only has 4 months in the mission, but she is part Mexican so she is basically already fluent in Spanish. I am super excited...I am going to learn so much in the next two months! Really, I'm excited. 

Hermana Whittle with her new companion, Hermana Bahr, who is also from AZ!

In other news, the work here has been rough. We don't have very many investigators and the ones we do have are having problems...no one ever wants to come to church! We had a baptismal date with our investigator Ligia, but now not so much. She is super busy and still hasn't come to church yet, and the last lesson we had with her wasn't so great. We read 2 Nephi 29 with her(We have a bible and we don't need anything else!) with her and even after that, she still has her doubts about the Book of Mormon. But she doesn't even read it, which is a problem....yeah its frustrating. But on the bright side, we found a couple that is interested in the gospel! Our dinner appointment fell through so we ate at a little restaurant here and when we were leaving they started talking to us and actually asked us to give them a two minute summary of our religion. YEAH! So we will see how things go with them.

Thats about all I got for this week...just remember to always trust in the Lord and accept His will as your own, even if it isn't what you want at the moment, because I promise it will be the best thing in the end :) Have a good week!

MOO-ve over cows! Here come the missionaries! :)

McKenzie has been practicing her tortilla making skills!

ALMOST 3 WEEKS IN HONDURAS!

Hola everyone! A crazy thing happened this week...the sun went away! It was actually kind of funny. We were traveling to a chapel for our district meeting this week and it started raining super hard! And guess who forgot their umbrella...yeah, me. It was crazy! Over there where we went the roads are all dirt and they were literally like rivers...it was a serious adventure to get to the church! And I was soaked. But since then the whole rest of the week has been a lot cooler. During the day it is just over cast and a little drizzly  but in the night it is a little chilly, which I never thought I would experience here! One of the people here said that the weather is like this during December and January and then it goes back to being hot again...but who knows!

Church yesterday was kind of crazy too...there was a guy who got his mission call and he opened it and read it in sacrament meeting, which was weird. And we got a new bishop! I didn´t really know the other one super well, but it was still crazy! It will be interesting to see how things are now with the missionaries and the ward, because before they weren´t so great. So we will see! I also had my first experience yesterday with having hopes for lots of investigators to show up and not a single one coming...come on people! Maybe this week...we´ll see! 

We had a huge problem with people being gone this week...we had a full schedule and back up schedule of people and only end up teaching a couple of them because everyone else isn´t home...but such is life! We also did a lot of searching for less actives this week...we didn´t find many, but we did a lot of contacting from asking where casas were at! So thats basically how things are going here. We still don´t have many investigators...but we found this one family that seemed really interested so hopefully things will go well with them! Also, funny story. We were visiting this family for the first time and her step son was here visiting and he asked us where we were from and then he started speaking English...with a Southern accent. Apparently he is from Texas and is just visiting. But never in my life did I think I would hear that here! It was super weird!

Thats all I´ve got this week...keep a positive attitude always! It makes life much better :) Adios!

Hna. Whittle