Hermana Whittle with the son of one of their investigators and the stuffed animal they gave him for his birthday. 

Hermana Whittle and her companion went to help a less active member who just had a baby.  How sweet is that? 

Hermana Whittle, Hermana Rodriguez, their DL and his new  companion. 

Hey everyone!!!

So for starters, it has been SO hot here lately. There was one night where I couldn't even sleep because it was so hot...oh Honduras...

I hope you all enjoyed conference as much as I did! I LOVED that they had people speak in their native languages...it was awesome to hear the speaker themself speak spanish and not the translator :) I hope they keep doing that!

I feel like I learned so much this conference and that the speakers were super inspired. I love how we can go to conference with a few questions and always find the answers...that is what I was able to do and I was able to receive the answers I needed :) I hope you all felt the same!

Its super weird having more than a year in the mission...on Thursday when I completed a year my district surprised me and sang to me and my DL made us lunch. It was fun :)

I also feel like the Lord has been helping us out a lot lately. This week we were able to receive a lot of references and find some less actives that we didn't know about. I am excited to see how things go with them!

I am super excited for this week because one of our investigators that we have been working with is going to get married and baptized and two more are going to get baptized as well. Please pray that everything goes well for them!

I love you all! Have a great week :)

Hna. Whittle

Hermana Whittle, Hermana Rodriguez, two other sister missionaries and a member. 

Una semana llena de adventura.....

August 18, 2014

Hey everyone!

SO this week was a little crazy. Last Monday night I was in my bed writing in my journal and I saw something leave our room into the kitchen so I got up to see what it was....it was a rat. Yeah, we totes had rats in our house. We knew that there were some living above us in the roof because we always heard them but this week was the first time they entered the house. So that night when I was trying to sleep I heard another one that knocked something over and then I saw it leave the bedroom...and I couldn't sleep. And then a few nights later my companion woke up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and she saw one crawling down the wall...and after that we couldn't sleep at all. And so we started sleeping with the lights on to keep them from entering. Needless to say I did not sleep all week. But the fumegator finally came on Saturday and put rat poison in our house and got rid of the ones that we had trapped under the sink...it was the worst. I couldn't stop thinking about the movie ratatouille all week....but everything is good now :)

Also this week was the fair here in Puerto Cortes! They did mini fairs in all the different communities. It was cool to see the street in front of our house full of little kiosks and stages and stuff. It also rained a TON this week and I think a lot of the activities were ruined because of it. But it was fun to have something different going on here.

So our investigator Maribel isn't going to be getting baptized soon :( She didn't go to church last Sunday because her husband didn't want her to. It makes me so sad when someone has the desire to accept the gospel and change and other people keep them from doing it...I know she will get baptized someday.

But on the other hand la familia Moncada is doing AWESOME! And we talked to them about their baptism and they wanted to change it to the 27th so that more of their family can come. They are so excited and so are we! Please pray that everything goes well with their baptism!!

Anyways, things are awesome here :) I love being a missionary here in Puerto Cortes, Honduras!! It is the best! I hope you are all doing well and that you have a great week!

Hermana Whittle

August 11, 2014

Hey everyone!

This week was good :) We were able to challenge some of our investigators to baptism, and now we have 3 that have a date this month! My companion and I are so excited!

Maribel is doing awesome. She is having so many problems with her family(dang Satan) but she knows that she wants to be a member of the church and she is staying strong! However, she didn't come to church yesterday and we don't know why...we will find out tomorrow.

We had our first appointment with the familia Moncada(the husband is a member but his wife and daughter aren't) and it went really well! And we challenged them to be baptized the 30th of this month and they accepted :) WHOOOOOOOO!

As far as investigators, we had to drop a ton this week, but we will keep searching. And we are still working a ton with less actives.

I'm just happy to be here :) This area has been really rough, but I was thinking about it the other day and even though its been hard(and way too hot), I love it so much here in Puerto Cortes and I don't want to leave!

I hope everyone is doing well! Have a great week!

Hermana Whittle

August 4, 2014

Hi everyone!

So I don't know if you have noticed, but for the past few weeks my companion and I have been a little discouraged in our area because our investigators have been having problems and we have felt a lot of pressure from the ward(and without any help from them). But this week has been great! We had a multi zone conference with other missionaries and President and it was super good :) And President took the time to talk to my companion and I because of the problems we were having. I love talking to him...he always encourages me and is so positive. So after talking to him we felt a lot better :) I am so lucky to have a mission president that is so awesome and Christlike!

My companion and I decided to fast for our area this week and to be able to have baptisms this month, and we have already been able to see the results! One of our investigators, Maribel, has been progressing SO much and she told us that she wanted to stay in this church and be baptized!!! We were SO happy! And despite having family members that are giving her problems, she feels strongly about the church and knows she wants to stay there :) We also have a less active and is wife, who isn't a member, who have been coming to church for about a month. Before she wasn't sure about taking the lessons and she wanted to talk to her husband about it. But yesterday we talked to them and we have an appointment with them this week to start teaching! My testimony of fasting has definitely grown this week!

One thing that was sad this week is that we went to go visit Carol, who is our investigator that was progressing a TON. But she told us that she didn't want us to visit her anymore and that she wants to stay in her church....I was so bummed. It hurts when someone is so close to accepting the gospel and others influence them and the reject it...

I hope you are all doing well! Remember that when we are discouraged, it weakens our faith. So always have faith in the Lord and don't be discouraged! I love you all!

Hermana Whittle

HONDURAS IS AWESOME!

Hey everyone!

Well my companion and I didn't have transfers! I am happy to have 6 more weeks here in Puerto Cortes :)

This week has been a little crazy. We went to go visit Maribel, one of our investigators that is doing awesome. We were teaching her about the Book of mormon and reading the introduction with her when all of a sudden her brother came running to the door and told her that their sister had overdosed on some pills and was in really bad condition so she took off with him and totes left us with her 3 year old daugher and 9 month old baby...it was a little crazy haha. The baby was tired so he was crying a ton so my companion was trying to sing and do crazy things to help him stop crying...he finally just fell asleep. She was only gone for about 20 minutes though and her sister is doing okay so thats good. Gotta love awkward experiences. But she is doing awesome! She came to church this Sunday and she has even been talking to her family members about the church :)

We went to go visit a less active family for the first time and they live sooooo far....we had to walk a TON. But it was awesome because we got to know a part of our area that we didnt know existed and it is super pretty there. Honduras is awesome!

I hope you all have a good week!

Hermana Whittle

Another week in Paradise!

Hi everyone!!!

Elder West, Hermana Whittle's DL, photo bombing the picture.
He is the only other gringo in their district.

The first counselor in the Stake Presidency lives in the ward Hermana Whittle
 is currently serving in.  He took all the missionaries serving in her district
to lunch at this beautiful restaurant in Omoa.

Hi everyone, 

This week has had its ups and downs, just like every week in the mission :) Things have been really difficult here....our investigators are having problems and aren't progressing much. And the members frustrate us sometimes. But we had a super awesome experience on Sunday. One of our investigators told us she could come to church with us and so we were super excited and we went to her house Sunday morning to bring her with us and she had left with her mom. I was SO bummed. But yet somehow, we were able to have 4 investigators in church and meet the mission goal, all from non members that had come with less actives. I felt so happy and so blessed! I know that the Lord loves us...He just wants to try our patience and faith a little :)

This Sunday we also had a super awesome sacrament meeting that we put together about missionary work. One of the elders put together a choir of missionaries, future missionaries and returned missionaries and some of us spoke(myself included). It went super well and everyone loved the choir.

There are transfers this week, but I think I am going to stay here in Puerto for another transfer. I hope so at least. It is super hard here, but I love it! I will find out tonight.

I hope you are all doing well and that you have an awesome week!

Hermana Whittle

July 7, 2014

Hi everyone! I hope you all had an awesome 4th of July...I was feeling a little homesick. But I'll be there next year :)

This week has been alright. We got a ton of rain this week and because of the rain these weird bugs came out and they were EVERYWHERE. It was weird.

There is a talk that Elder Holland gave to missionaries where he talks about how missions aren't easy for us because it was never easy for Christ. As missionaries, we are getting a little taste of what Christ went through...joy of teaching and bringing people to the gospel, but also pain when people have problems or when they don't want to listen to us. As I have been working with the less actives here in this area, I feel like I have felt that a lot, and even more this week. They are starting to have trust in us, and they have told us about the hard things that have happened to them and the problems they are going through and why it is hard for them to go to church...and it hurts me! All I want to do is help them and sometimes there is nothing I can do...but I am trying! And I know that Christ is there waiting to be able to help them in their lives. He is ready to help all of us :)

We found out this week that our mission has had problems with baptisms recently...we are the lowest baptizing mission in Central America. So this weekend we had a mission wide fast to know how we can have more baptisms. So my companion and I are working on getting ideas. 

On the bright side, our investigator, Carol, came to church for the first time this week! She has been wanting to come for a while but was having problems. She loved it and she is excited to return!

Have a great week!

Hermana Whittle

Oooohhhh we're halfway there...:)

Hermana Whittle and Hermana Cardona after the mission conference.

Hey everyone!! First off....I cannot believe I have already completed half of my mission. It has gone by so fast...and I know the other half is going to go even faster. Nooooooooo....

This week was pretty normal. Lots of sun, lots of walking, and lots of fallen appointments. But I'm enjoying myself and I love Honduras :)

On Wednesday we had a conference with all of the mission and Elder Ochoa from the 70 came and spoke to us. He talked a ton about faith and what we can do to help the people we are teaching to have more of it. It was good :) And it was awesome to see my old companions and friends from my old zones :)

On Saturday I was feeling a little discouraged because our two investigators that are doing awesome and progressing had to cancel on us and weren't able to come to church on Sunday. So I was a little down. Our ward had an activity for the Primary that afternoon and it came to my mind that we should go and invite two girls that we have been teaching. So the whole time we were walking over there I was just praying and praying that they would be able to come to the activity with us. And they did :) It went well...I know that God answers prayers!

I tried a new food this week...yucca con chicharron. It was not my favorite...afterward I just wanted to throw up and I could barely walk because there was so much yucca in my stomach. I do not recommend that to anyone...

I hope you all are doing well and that you have a great week!

Hermana Whittle

This is the infamous scorpion they found in their apartment last week.  Hermana Whittle said it was about the size of her hand! 

Hermana Whittle, Hermana Cardona and another Hermana at their mission conference.

Hermana Whittle was happy to see Hermana Marroquin again, as well as Hermana  Grondel and Hermana Bahr!