Mason's Letter -- November, 8, 2010

Hey family,

That's great that you got my package. Sorry it wasn't very much, but apparently it cost me a lot of money haha. I now am more grateful for the packages that you send to me all the time. Thanks.

This week went really good with the baptisms and stuff. All 7 people got baptized and confirmed so it was great. I got a little sick yesterday and Saturday, but other than that it was good. So first we went and did the baptisms of the 3 little kids in the branch here in the afternoon. It was fun, except for one of the little boys of 11 years dove back into the font after his baptism and wanted to swim around a little bit. haha so that was a little bit embarassing, but I pulled him out quickly.

So we then changed our clothes and went right over to Choloma to do the baptisms there. We had some problems with the baptismal clothes of one of the sisters (she's a little bit fat) so we had to run over to a used clothes store and buy some white shorts. The baptism was scheduled for 5 pm, but nobody showed up until 6 including our mission leader who was going to do one of the baptisms. So that was annoying, but I'm so used it now that I don't even care haha. So my comp did the baptisms of the 2 ladies (they were both a bit bigger so I was glad that they chose my companion to do the baptism) then I did the baptism of one of the boys of the lady and the ward mission leader did the other baptisms of the other boy of the lady.

Overall it was really great. until after the baptism when everyone left except for us and a few leaders and the bishop. Well they started talking to one of the sisters that got baptized (the sister without the kids) and somehow they found out that she had lied to us about her name and about who she really was. Well it turns out that she was born in Nicaragua and came to Honduras. Well she didn't have any papers to be able to work or anything, so a friend that was going to live in the states for the rest of her life gave her her papers. So they took a pic of the lady and pasted in on top of the other pic on the papers. So for a few years she has been living under the name of her friend that now lives in the states. So we finally got her real info and stuff and we baptized her again under her real name after everyone had left. It was weird. But then I thought back to when I was asking her about her info to fill out the baptismal register and she had troubles writing her name. She wrote her name on a paper 3 times in 3 different ways. So I thought that was weird but I just thought that maybe she didn't know how to read very well. haha but I guess she had a hard time because that wasn't even her real name. But everything still worked out alright. haha only in Honduras....

So far everything is going fine being a ZL. It's just that now I have to listen to all the missionaries complain and cry about everything. On Tuesday we had a council of ZLs (or the Jedi council as it's called here in the mission) haha. We just all got together and went over the statistics in the mission and we talked about what we need to change and do better in the mission to baptize more. The goal is always 300 baptisms every month in the mission. We still haven't hit it with President Veirs, but in October we got close. I think that this month we will do it. So Tuesday was a good day. It was fun seeing all the other ZLs and stuff. Most of them have a lot of time in the mission except for me and another Elder who came with me. So I feel young sometimes but it's still good.

Then that Tuesday in the night we had to go with Pres Veirs to Puerto Cortes (the city on the beach here in the zone about an hour away from Choloma) to a meeting with the stake presidency. It was a good meeting. Then afterwards I tricked Pres Veirs into buying us some Burger King haha. He's just like dad. I just made a joke about how hungry we were and he offered to buy us some burgers hahaha.

So that was my week. It was pretty full of meetings and just getting ready for these baptisms. I hope everyone had great weeks over there. I'll be looking for my package. Thanks for everything.

Love you all. Elder Mason Cardon