Hermana Jessica Hogge's Honduras Adventures!: "But I am a Princess Here"

I may not look like a princess after a four-hour bus ride and lots of wind, and after getting up at 3 something in the morning to get there, but it is still Our Father´s House and, therefore, I am a princess here.

Well, this last week, I´ve been taking in the moments I have here, and one blessing that we have is that we do really have a good ward. The bishop broke his foot but still goes to church, and we´ve been able to take some young women out with us to visit people. Our ward mission leader, Hermano Luis Felipe, is great. He´s like a grandpa to us, and I´m finallly starting to understand what he´s saying.

We try to talk to people in the streets and outside their houses, and most people are pretty open to talking to us. There´s this area called Barrio (neighboorhood) Los Fuertes (the strong). It is well named, it´s a bit tougher. There aren´t many people in the streets, hardly any members, and people aren´t as receptive. We went to talk to one woman outside her house and introduced ourselves as missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. She bluntly said she already attended her church and wasn´t interested, but quickly pointed out another woman on her street that could use our message. We can get references like that sometimes.

We talked to the woman that lived there and she said we could come back, but we haven´t been able to have a lesson yet. hopeufully we will soon. Shortly after we talked to her, we also talked to some people that were preparing to cook a large lizard to eat. We invited them to church, but they didn´t come. . .

Sometimes it seems that our investigators are progressing slowly. The good news is that Melissa has a baptismal date for next saturday, and we were able to talk about baptism with her grandmother there. She´s really awesome and I´m praying that all will go well.

We also have a newer investigator named Yuri. When we went to talked to her outside her work, she grabbed a couple of chairs and invited us to talk to her. She has gone to church, she just has some questions about baptism. Because she´s already been baptised twice. But all will be well when she gains her own testimony that this is true!

One of the greatest blessings of this last week was being able to go to the temple! It was so beautiful! And the trip was well worth it. It was interesting in Spanish. I needed some help, but everything worked out fine and I was able to feel a special, encouraging Spirit there. That´s a blessing I want for everyone.

We had a very good zone meeting, but we realized that we need to work harder and be more united as a zone. So, we have some ideas and one is that, every day, at five oclock in the afternoon, everyone in the zone says a prayer. It doesn´t matter where we are or what we´re doing. In fact we´ve done it in the middle of a lesson a few times. But at this time, we pray together for the missionary work here in Choluteca. It would be awesome if you could pray with us, whenever it´s possible. You can set an alarm - i think it would be six for you - and say a prayer in your heart. I know that acts of faith and obedience bring miracles. The other day, we were visiting some less active members, (Hermana Lesmi y Hno Mailor) but their house was unusually dark and quiet. Then the couple that lived there just happened to be passing by at the moment we arrived. They moved to a different house, still close, but we wouldn´t have known otherwise. We gave them a big calendar that we´d made that has scriptures and prayer as a family to remind them every day. I believe we were meant to be there.