DEAR FAMILY

Dear Family,

How is everything in Connell? Sounds like everything and everybody are doing great. Vacation in Seaside, Jr. Miss coming up, going to D.C to visit Grandma, David and Kira in Washington, Seahawks in the Super Bowl!!...Wow, you guys sound spoiled. Well, things are going great in Honduras. I didn't email last weeks because we didn't have time...my Companion had to pack up because he was getting transferred. On Wednesday, I received a new companion. His name is Elder Ventura from Guatemala. He doesn't speak any English except for "son of a gun".  He's really awesome. He is so funny. He makes me laugh all day. Everybody loves him. He tells me that I have picked up Spanish fast. I don't know if he's just trying to be nice or if he is serious. My Companion goes around telling everybody that we are here in Tela to serve and help them. He tells them we wash clothes for free, clean houses, wash cars, etc...then he tells them that I am a cook. The other day we helped one of our investigators build a house... it was really fun. Sometimes, he´ll look at me and say "You want to run?" Then on the count of 3, we run to our next appointment. And every night, on our way home, about the last 50 yards, we run a home stretch, which is about a 50-yard sprint. It is really fun. Well, lately we have been eating pretty good. I really like beans and rice now with tortillas. A meal without beans isn't a meal. We eat a lot of baleadas all week. They are a tortilla with beans and this cream...if they have a little bit of money, they throw some eggs in there. I love them. Right before changes, my old companion and I went from house to house eating baleadas. I felt sick when we got back to our house at night. Now, with my new Companion, the first day, I told him, "we don't have a cook". He looked at me and then said, "We're finding a cook". So the next day, we found a cook. We get paid 1,800 limps each for food...we are paying her 1,200 limps each for 2 meals a day. And so, we have 600 limps for breakfasts for the month. It is about 19 limps to the dollar, so we don't get that much money per month. I haven't eaten anything too strange yet. Although, they do have all different kinds of bananas here. They cook this one kind of banana, and it tastes like cooked potatoes. Every now and then, we eat at Burger King in Progresso. The other day, when we were eating there, we talked to this American that was there with his new wife. Just two years ago, he served in Teguisigalpa Honduras mission. He was here visiting...going around seeing his investigators that he had baptized. He said it was so awesome to see how many lives he had changed. He said seven that he had baptized were now serving missions. It was really fun talking to him. Well, we don't have any baptismal dates right now set for anybody. We have about 10 investigators progressing. We are going to probably baptize this one family of 4, but they have to get married first. So it's going to take a couple of weeks. I don't think anyone is married here except the members. Our members are so awesome. They love me. They think it's so funny that I love their food. They always ask me if I want more after they feed me, and I tell them no, and they still bring me more food. As for the critters...it is not too bad here in Tela. Although, I did kill one in our house yesterday that was pretty big, and I had no clue what it was. But, I hear in other areas, there are all kinds of crazy little things running around, and Big spiders. As for sending stuff, I haven't heard from anyone of anything getting stolen. I have heard about and seen packages that have little crosses and pictures of Mary on them, cuz when the mail people see these they don't open or touch them. Well I don't have much time here on the internet...I am not the fastest typist. I will write a hand-written letter with my experiences in there. Thank you all for your letters. Oh, and yes I got the check from Grandma, and I will write her a Thank You letter. Thank you so much for all your letters. I wrote Chris a letter the other day, so it should get there in a while. Thank you so much for everything. Hope everything is going great. 

Love, Elder Lee