LIFE IN HONDO

Dearest Family,

Well, everyone must be really busy, because the only letter I got was from Mark Lathim. It’s really true that for the first 6 months being in the mission, all the family, best friends, and even casual friends write you. After 1 year, you may still be getting letters from some of your good friends and your parents. At about 1 year and a half, the letters are just from your parents. And at about 2 years everyone just forgets about you...but you may still receive random letters from people who have never written the whole mission! This week it was Mark Lathim who wrote me. So it was good to hear how he was doing. Anyways, the weeks are flying by. This past Saturday we had another baptism. We baptized a lady named Patty. I had her with a baptismal date my first change here (3 1/2 months ago). But she had a boyfriend then who had his own family. In other words she was helping him commit adultery. We tried to help her but she wasn’t progressing. So we stopped visiting her. We went back to her house about a week and a half ago to invite her to the stake conference. She went with her little sister that is 7 years old. She is 26. She loved the conference and said she could feel the spirit really strong. On Tuesday we went and visited her for the first time since the time we had her with a baptismal date. We read a little bit in the Book of Mormon again to get her to feel the Spirit. The Spirit was really strong and we invited her to get baptized on Saturday. She was so ready and didn’t even hesitate to answer. She said yes! We committed her to the Law of Chastity and to the Word of Wisdom and she didn’t have any problems. We talked about her old boyfriend that she had problems with…she said she had dropped him about a month ago, because she said there wasn’t a future with him. I baptized her on Saturday night at about 9:00 p.m.  We had to have the baptism so late because she works all day then goes to the University to study. We had only a little bit of member support at the baptism, but it turned out really great. It really is amazing how the Lord works. During these past 3 months that we have stopped visiting her, we always passed by her house walking to other appointments about every day (my area is really small, we usually pass by every house once a day). We never saw her or her sister outside. But about 3 and half weeks ago, we started always seeing her       7-year-old little sister outside in front of the house every day. She would always ask us "when are you going to visit us again" and we would always tell her, another day, shake her little hand and just keep walking…every day for about a week and a half, and then one day, we passed by and the little girl was outside and said, "My mom is home! Are you going to visit her? (she calls her sister mom because she has raised her)" So my companion said to me, let’s invite her to the conference on Sunday. So we just said “Hi” to Patty and invited her to the conference. To our surprise, she showed up to the conference, and even an hour early for the new members’ session. After that, we visited her on Tuesday and on Tuesday…wait I already told you what happened on Tuesday. So yea, that’s the story of our old investigator and new convert Patty. It really was a special experience. This second time around she was so pilas and ready to receive the Gospel. We are also going to baptize her brother here in a couple of weeks that is named Marco. He is 17 years old and is also prepared to receive the Gospel. But yea, oh and another awesome announcement, the Caceres Family that we married and baptized about 2 months ago here in my area, their father, Brother Melvin Caceres was sustained in stake conference and was given the Melchizedek Priesthood and ordained an Elder by Elder Dwarty (the 70) after conference. Yesterday we did divisions with him. Melvin and I went and visited families while my companion went with another member. This family is doing so awesome! Every Sunday they are in church really early to find a good seat and to fill out there tithing slip (Melvin and his 8 year old son with their white shirts and ties). The Lord really is blessing them. Sister Caseres washes clothes by hand all day and earns about 5 dollars. Melvin tries to find paints for a company but right now they aren’t using him and there isn’t work. And when there is work he earns about 15-20 dollars a week. Last night when I was on divisions with him, the Lord blessed him with more work. It was funny though how it happened. It was pouring rain outside and we were all soaking wet going to an appointment, and he said "for being out here in the rain with you, God is going to bless me" In our next appointment, we went and visited a pretty wealthy lady named Maricruz. She is 56 and her son Dennis 33. As we were talking to them they were telling us about their house and how they are looking for someone to paint all of it on the inside and paint a bunch of stuff on the outside. Really quickly Melvin started talking to her about what he does, and how he would paint her house. Maricruz offered him the job. Melvin was so happy and couldn’t stop smiling. So Melvin is going to start Wednesday on her house and she is going to pay him good :). After the visit with them, when we were again outside, Melvin told me laughing "I told you God was going to bless me!"  I am so excited for this family. They have progressed so much. They have so much more light in there house and in their faces. They really have done a 360 degree turnaround. It really has been a miracle to see the family change. So everything is going excellent here in San Pedro.  Oh, and another great announcement: My first baptism that I had in Colon (Miguel Angel) is now the Executive Secretary of the branch and goes out to visit with the missionaries there about 3-4 times a week. Well, I need to get running. Today I have to read about 3 hours in the Book of Mormon. We put a zone goal about 2 weeks ago to finish the whole Book of Mormon in 4 weeks and I am a little bit behind in my reading. Oh, and this last Wednesday, we had interviews with President Cruz. It was short, sweet, and spiritual. President Cruz really is a special man. He is a lot different than President Ochoa, but they are both awesome in there different ways. Well I need to get running. Thanks for all your letters. I am loving it here in Honduras. It really has been the best experience of my life. Time really does fly when you’re having a good time. The mission is exactly like a football game. The 48 minutes of a high school football game feel like 5 minutes. And just like in football, you gotta give your all tell the final whistle blows. Satan won’t get me this time like he did in the final seconds at Lampson stadium about 2 years ago. I am givin’ it all tell the end. Thank you all for your prayers and letters. Keep them letters comin’. Love you all and have a great week. Love, Elder Lee
P.S. Mom, I just got your letter. Thank you!! Oh, and don’t sell the Cadillac to Becca. I want to buy it.