TO THE FAM FROM HONDO

Dear Family,

How is everyone doing? Thank you all for your letters! The work is wonderful here in Honduras. We are tearing it up. This last week was go go go, running everywhere and doing everything. I don"t think I have sweated so much in my life as in these last couple of days. On Tuesday, after the district meeting, my companion and I, the AP´s and four other Zone Leaders from two other stakes here in San Pedro went to the main park in central San Pedro to do a "super contact" with all the Greenies that arrived from the MTC in Guatemala. We each took one new missionary each and went and contacted all around Central Park of San Pedro. I went with an Elder from Guatemala named Elder Barrios. I had flash backs of my first days in the mission and of when I trained Elder Carranza in Puerto Cortez. It was so fun. It was awesome to see and feel the spirit of so much excitement and energy that a new missionary has, and their desires to have success, and at the same time to feel and see the fear he had in his eyes. As we would contact people his hands would shake, his words would get mixed up, and he would get nervous, but we had the spirit of God with us and he would get so pumped when somebody would give us their address. I loved doing it. It felt like training all over again. The best part is to see them teach and contact in the same exact form that I would contact a person... Greenies imitate and say whatever their trainer does and says. It makes me want to cry to even think that my time is winding down. I feel like I just came to the mission yesterday. I still feel like there is so much more work to be done and not enough time to do it. Honduras is the greatest place in the world. The people here are absolutely awesome. I am so grateful for the eternal friends I have made here and for all of the wonderful experiences I have had. I truly feel like I am a Honduran. I don't ever remember what the United States looks like or how the people are there.  Anyways, this past Wednesday there were changes in my zone. I stayed here with my companion in the area as zone leaders, and we received 2 new district leaders (one is Elder Searle from Idaho who was in the MTC with me :=) We also received a Greenie in the Zone from Guatemala. We are really excited to get a new start on things and to baptize a ton here in San Pedro. I know there are so many families here ready to receive the Gospel, but they are really hard to find. We just need to humble ourselves before the Lord and trust more in him, and I know he will guide us to those people. My area and zone is the very first part of Honduras where the Gospel was taught. The first missionaries here started off in my area, and slowly, it became the first ward in Honduras, and then more missionaries came and started working around here, and then there was the first stake here in San Pedro. Almost every single person in my area has already received the missionaries about 4 or 5 times. And if they haven't received them it's because they are hard of heart and their pride won't let them learn more or receive us. But almost every person that gets baptized here in the zone was an investigator of the Church in the past. The Lord is really blessing us with success though. Saturday, we had 5 baptisms. We kind of had a small problem, but I know everything will work out in the end. On Saturday we married a family. They have been so awesome and have gone to church the last four Sundays, and finally accepted to get married and baptized. But after their wedding, on Saturday, the husband of the family (Melvin) said he didn't want to get baptized. He put up a whole bunch of excuses. His wife wanted to get baptized with or without him. So she and her kids, along with the children of the Family Amaya, got baptized on Saturday after the wedding. We are going to keep working hard to get Brother Melvin baptized. I know he will do it soon. He went to Church again on Sunday and is now excited to keep moving forward. He is a possibility for this next Saturday. I will send pictures of the wedding and of the baptism next week. Where I am at right now, I cannot download my pictures from my camera. Anyways, We are also working with a really special family. They are black and from Tela. Their names are Yanker and Ditza. They both lived in Belize for a long time and know English. They are so awesome. They have read so much of the Book of Mormon. Every time we visit them they hit us with about 100 questions from the book. The first time we visited them, while we were teaching, the sister stopped us in the middle of the lesson, and said, "Where I lived growing up in Tela, there was just a Catholic Church and another Christian Church."  She said, "They were always fighting and trying to be better than the other church." She then went on to say, that when she was 9 years old, she walked by a beautiful church. She read the sign on the outside that said The Church of Jesus Christ of Later-day Saints. She said she had never forgotten that church and what she had felt when she passed by. She said she knew from that day on that she was going to be a Mormon someday. She said that she had been praying for people to come to her house for years from that Church to teach her. She said, "I am a lot older now, but very thankful...God has finally answered my prayers. Thank you so much for finding my house!"  After the first visit we had with them, we just gave them a pamphlet of Lesson 1. When we went back to verify, she had all of the questions filled in, and then asked us, "How am I supposed to study without a Book of Mormon?" It was kind of a slap in the face, so we gave them a Book of Mormon, and marked 3 Nephi chapter 11 for them. When we went back on the next visit about two days later, she told us, "We read the Chapter 11 you assigned us, but we wanted to start from the beginning of the book." She then started asking us all kinds of questions about the introduction that she had read, about the witnesses, about the testimony of Joseph Smith and about the first ten chapters in 1 Nephi! They are so golden and are so ready to receive the restored Gospel. They do have a little trouble with their work though. Sometimes they have to work on Sundays. They work in a Banana Plant, working with bananas all day. This last Sunday, she had to work and didn't go to Church. Her husband had to take bananas to Guatemala and left on Thursday. I know they will get baptized though. They are awesome. Please pray for them so that they may find a way to be able to keep the Sabbath Day. Well, I have to get going. I will send some letters next weekend. Thank you so much for everything. For your letters, prayers, etc. Have a great week. Love you all. Love Much, Elder Lee Here are some photos:  1.Wedding of the Family Caceres 2. The Bishop's family.We had the Bishop's son baptize one of our investigators. 3-4. Baptism of the kids of the Amaya Family.They are awesome! 5. Birthday party. My companion and I bought the cake. 6. Everyone has these birds. 7.Some more pizza from Pizza Hut!