Mason's Letter -- July 11, 2011

Hey familia,

Well sorry I wasn't able to write on Saturday. I think I told you last week that we were going on another little trip. We had the interviews with the president in Colon and Ceiba...so we wanted to take advantage of that and head up a few days earlier than pres to go work with them. So we headed up on Monday and caught a bus that afternoon to Tocoa, Colon.

It was a looooonnng 6 hour bus ride. We left at 3 pm and got there after 9. So that was really boring, but I got to read a bit and stuff like that, and the bus was really nice with hardly anybody on it. So we stayed the night with the zone leaders, and had to wake up early to go to the district meeting in Olanchito, another 2 hours away in bus. So we got there in the morning for the meeting. It went well and then we went on divisions. I went to an area called Coyoles...another hour away in bus hahaha. We got there just after lunch and went to work. I really wanted to work there because it was one of the only areas in the mission that I don't know yet, and because it's the only area that uses bikes. It's just a big spread out rural town of Honduras.

The people of Coyoles are fairly poor and all of them are farmers. Most of the houses are made of adobe bricks and palm tree leaves. It was a great experience. It's also one of the "hardest areas". Of course we wanted to prove that it really isn't that hard. So I worked for 2 days there and we had a lot of success. The elders there are working really good and have found some great people. We challenged a bunch of people for baptism and had 3 people accept. So this month they could finish with 5 baptisms. That's unheard of there. My comp meanwhile stayed in Olanchito with an elder that goes home with me and is baggie (or trunky).

So then on Thursday we went to the interviews in Olanchito and Tocoa with President Veirs. That afternoon we got back to Ceiba and went with the ZL's for a few days until Saturday. On Saturday we did some service. We were going to make adobe blocks for a member to build a house with. But on the way there we saw a lady that was cutting a huge area of tall weeds with a machete (that's how they cut grass here). So the ZL and I decided to stay behind and help her while the others went on to do the service. We asked some neighbors for some other machetes and we got at it. It was ridiculously hard. The grass and weeds were up to our waist and obviously they had been throwing trash there for years. So we kept cutting into pieces of wood and metal and garbage. It was a dirty job and should have made it on that show dirty jobs. But we went at that for a good 3 hours until we had to go home. Our hands afterwards were covered in blisters. haha at one moment I started chopping like crazy and my hands were sweaty and the machete just flew out of my hands haha. Luckily it went flying into the air and down the hill. But I could have killed someone. Too bad I didn't kill one of the elders that helped us, because he was doing absolutely nothing. He would just stab at the ground every once in a while! It was fun though.

Then that afternoon we came back in the bus...another long ride of 3 1/2 hours. It was good though because the bus was full, so we took advantage and did a little bit of preaching on the bus. We asked the driver if we could take a few minutes and share a message with the bus...so we got in front and preached like evangelic pastors haha. Then we passed out pamphlets to everyone. It was fun, and we got a few interesting conversations going on afterwards about the gospel. It's funny because here a lot of pastors will get on buses and preach as well. But they just yell scriptures and talk for forever about non important things. Then afterwards they hand out "donation slips" where you can give your donation to him right on the bus. HOW CORRUPT!!!. I don't think that's right at all. So I like it when we preach on a bus. At first the people think we want money, but we really don't. And they can see that we never even mention that, we just want to spread the gospel and the joy it brings us to everyone. I hope some people can see and feel the difference between the two.

Well we got back that night and had enough time to head over to the stake center where the distribution center from Tegucigalpa was selling church stuff way way way cheap. They were selling all kinds of movies and books for like 50 cents each. So I bought all my temple ceremonial clothes including pants for 15 bucks and some awesome white shoes for 5 bucks. What a steal. I was happy with that.

Well I hope you all have great weeks. We are still working hard and feeling really happy with the work. I love missionary work so much and can't believe how fast time goes.

Love you all. Elder Mason Cardon