Mason's Letter -- December 18, 2010

Hey familia.

Well about the Christmas call, the big news here is that we can now use Skype. So we have a webcam here in the office and also at the president's house. So I will have to talk to him to coordinate that. But that is if you even want to use Skype. If you'd like it better we can just talk on the phone. But either way it would be best probably in the morning on Saturday like at 9 am. I would imagine would be good for you guys, I dunno. Just let me know when is best for you guys, because I think we are eating dinner with the president, but not until the night. So I'm sure the whole morning will be free. So just send me an email and in this week I can check the email and give you guys a call to verify. I personally think that using Skype would be pretty cool.

And yes last Saturday I bought a camera. I bought a nice Samsung camera that has 14.2 megapixels and tons of zoom. I got it for really cheap here. I actually bought that camera and a memory card and a nice case for less than 150 dollars. So I think that's a pretty sweet deal. I'm pretty happy with the camera so far. And I'm grateful that I bought it because we did some traveling and stuff and we are gonna be able to take some cool pics pretty soon. I actually just barely got back from Copan...but we didn't have any time to do any sight seeing, so I only got a few pics. But next week the pres is gonna take us all to the ruins to see the stuff. I'm pretty excited about that.

So this week has been pretty crazy to say the least. On Sunday we went to our investigator's house to teach her. I dunno if I had told you but she was doing awesome and everything and then suddenly she told us she was in adultery. Well we went over on Sunday to try to see how she was doing and if she had decided to leave adultery. Well we were honestly thinking about the worst possibilities, but she just straight up told us that she had told the guy no more and that she was going to get baptized! Which was a huge sacrifice and leap of faith because she was still in a relationship with the father of her 2 children (who is married with another woman now). And he pays for the house and the food and basically everything...and he in return gets to stop by once in awhile to...well yeah haha. So she really risked her whole life. But she talked to him and told him straight up and he wasn't happy, but agreed to it and let them keep the house and stuff. So she will be getting baptized with her 2 kids tonight at 7. It was really awesome.

On Tuesday we started the multi zone conferences. Tuesday we had half the mission, then Wednesday the other half, and then Thursday we traveled to La Ceiba to do the last conference with the two zones out there. So it was really busy, but it turned out great. We gave really powerful talks and I think we really animated everyone. We showed them the bar graphs of our baptisms as of now and how we have really dropped. I think everyone saw that we need to do a lot better. Then we organized a talent show of the elders and sisters and it was actually really funny and good. Some things were a little out of control though, like one elder got up and started doing comedy and in the end he ended up ''roasting'' a bunch of missionaries. He even said a little joke about president. haha it turned out good thought because president is super chill. Then after that we watched the mission Christmas video. All the missionaries prepared a little video and sent it in to us and we made a movie out of them all and it was pretty funny. So I think the whole conference went well and really helped all the missionaries out. They all said how much they liked it.

So on Thursday after going to La Ceiba, we turned right back around and traveled to Copan the next day. The president had to give a talk over there and some interviews because it's just a District over there and still not a stake so he has to do temple interviews. So we went there and worked with some missionaries on Friday. Copan is really different from other parts of Honduras and really beautiful. There are a lot of pine trees and stuff and it's really cold. It reminded me a bit of being in the mountains in Utah. So then today we got up really early and had to travel to the Ruins of Copan to do more interviews. The city of Copan Ruins is really awesome and there are a ton of cool things there and a bunch of European tourists and stuff. I took a pic of the old church building, which is really old. But we really didn't have time to do much else because we had to get back here to SPS. So we just barely got back. All in all I've been sitting in the car for like 10 hours these past 2 days, traveling. It was fun to see everything though and to see all the missionaries.

Well that's all I've got time to write today. We gotta go prepare for our baptism and do some other chores that we need to do on p-day. I've got a feeling like I won't have a normal relaxing p-day for a while.

love Elder Mason Cardon