Nov 12, 2012 Langue 13 Month!

This week was a fun letter.  He had some neat experiences this week.  Spencer was one of the last boys to go out his age, so his friends are now starting to return home.  We went to Stake Conference last week an ran into one of his friends that went out first.  We couldn't believe that Craig was home already.  But when we started doing the math, it made sense that he was home.  Wow does time fly when you are a missionary!  Enjoy his letter.  

Hey mom and everyone, 

This week was a little bit better. Ya I can’t freaking believe that it has already been 13 months only 11 more to go. And ya Craig Stevenson went out about a year before I did.  He is older than us but just barely missed the

school dead line with is bday so that’s why he went out so much earlier than us. 

So about Dani and Lani it’s really hard to get over to them cuz they like about 30 35 minutes away walking and so it’s hard to try to get to them. We haven’t been there in about 2 weeks and they don’t come to church. Danny’s mom came yesterday so well see if we end up going out to visit in the next few days. And I still haven’t found a lawyer. It’s kind of difficult to try to get all that done and stayed focused on other investigators. 

We are working with a few people but nothing too big right now. We just started teaching this family the other day. We were coming home from down by the boarder of el Salvador and we had to get off the bus. We took a taxi and we got to talking to one of the passengers and found out his was a member. They moved to Langue at the begin of the year from el Progresso which is a city next to San Pedro and his wife isn’t a member, but she has a bunch of family that are members. But she is pregnant and there is an unwritten rule in Honduras that women after having a baby they don’t leave the house for 40 day and she already doesn’t like to leave the house so we will see where this goes. But we went over and talked with her on Friday and I talked about temple marriage and how families can be together forever and she really liked it. So hopefully this all works out. And one great thing is that they are already married. That never happens in this country. 

So here is one of the coolest things that have ever happened to me. So we are working with this guy named Carlos. He is like 35 and loves to drink. So for about a week we have been trying to show him a video about the WOW (word of wisdom) and whenever we go over the energy goes out. So this is like the 3rd time we have tried to show this video. So we got everything set up and we were watching the video and we were getting to the point to finish up the video and the light goes out in all of Langue. So we told him we would come over in the afternoon the next day and we would finish the video. And so he asked me to say the closing prayer. So I was saying it and I felt like I needed to ask for the light to come back so we could teach everyone in Langue and the moment I asked for the light... literally in that moment it came back. I almost busted out laughing in the prayer. It was unreal. 

But I’m doing great. I’m excited to see what this new change brings. So you know how last week you told me that the missionaries stayed at the house last week cuz they didn’t have appointments. Well you should tell them anytime they just need a place to relax for an hour or so... let them cuz man some days just suck and to have a for sure house where you know you can chill for a moment and think about what to do instead of doing it in the hot street really helps the life of the missionary. 

Hey I put something else on my wish list of things for Christmas. Do you remember the gel I used to use back home its call short and sexy hair. It’s a blue gel you can find it in Wal-Mart. I would love it if you sent 2 bottles of that. I figure that 2 would be perfect. But make sure you tape the tops shut so they don’t explode on the way down here haha. 

I love you guys so much. Tell mike I say hi back and that he looks like a Honduran man with his shirt off like that hahaha

Elder Spencer Olsen 

 This is a little girl in my branch named alma she is a little chucker haha really funny

 We had to cut our own path to an investigators house

(Funny story about this picture.  Even before Spencer got his call he would say that he always wanted to go to a place where he had to buy a Machete and cut his way to an investigators house.  His dream came true.)

 It's corn season in Honduras

(boy doesn't Elder Olsen look great!)

Nov 5, 2012 Langue.....It's Hot!

Hey mom and everyone,

This was a very baggy week haha. I have to remind myself that there are still 11 months left in my mission haha but it going by quick. It feels like just last week that I burned my shirt but that was a month ago already. It’s been kind of hard in my area lately. It’s been really hot lately. By like 10am in our ¨house¨ it is like 95 degrees. It’s unbearable sometimes I go out and I study in one of the hammocks that the landlady  has hung up outside.

This last week nothing really happened it’s just been really hot. I’m really trying to think about what happened this week. Oh I got a really cool fact for you. From when the prophet announced the age change for the missionaries the application rate sky rocketed a whopping 470% more from where it was before. That was pretty crazy when they told us that on Thursday.

So nothing really happened this week. I'll try to have something happen this week hahaha. So I’ll try right now to send like 10 photos

 

 We watched this pig get killed and then butchered

 I’m the king of Danli

 This is the stake secretary in Danli his name is Hemmerson. He was one of Noah Cook’s comps in El Salvador.

He is a real cool kid.

 Here is me hanging up the dead pig hahah

 And this is the pig after it  was butchered 

 This is my best niño friend in Danli his name is Selvin

 This is Nilda. She was my cook lady in Danli  she is my Honduran mom

 My Zone in San Lorenzo

This is what I see when I walk out of my house

Oct 29, 2012 Langue Pictures YES!!

 Hey mom and everyone, 

This week was ok. The big thing is that it’s hard to figure out where to work. This area is a little difficult. My comp is a little interesting. He is a typical Latino lol. So it’s just a little difficult to deal with him at some times. But I’m trying to be patient with him cuz I know that I have things that I always have to work on as well, so I just try to do my best. 

So let me tell you a little bit about the people in my branch. So the President, he is an interesting guy. He has been a member for what they tell me is quite a few years.  The secretary is way cool his name is Kenfor. He helps us a lot.  He is probably the best member that we have. 

This week was normal. We did find a new family yesterday at the very end of the day. So what had happened was that we were coming home from a place outside of Langue near the border of el Salvador. and we were in a bus and a drunk guy started to talk to us and he said the he wanted to change his life and he asked if we could help him. So he gave us his address, and we tried going over there like 2 times and only found his wife. So yesterday we were like ok last time. We went over and like 20 minutes earlier he had gotten back from work. and I could also see that he was a little drunk, so we just told him that we were there to help and that we were willing to do whatever he was willing to do. So I think that this might turn out to be pretty good. 

So the big highlight of the week is that we had ribs for dinner on Saturday night. So when I got there that guy Kenfor told me that his sister made really good ribs. So what we did is he put up the meat and we put up all the extras. It turned out sooo good. But nothing like yours. hahaha. But it was a great night. But I love you guys I hope everything is going good I’m doing great don’t worry too much haha. 

 honduran rib plate

  me and my comp elder de leon

 this is all the space we have plus a small bathroom

 us watching conference

 the one year burn

making tamales to go to the temple

Oct 22, 2012 Langue INFO

Ok everyone, I did some research on Langue.  Langue is in the district of San Lorenzo.  It is in the north part of his area with Valle, Nacaome, and San Lorenzo in is area also.  There are 25,000 people that live in the surrounding areas.  It is on the border of El Salvador and is a regional Hammock making center.  The town is made up of sharecroppers and day laborers.  Wikipedia says there are usually Mormon missionaries and Peace Corps volunteers in the city.  There are a lot of cattle.  The town has been in a drought for quite some time.  The main town has a large sized market that gets bigger on Sundays when the villagers come to town to sell their crops and goods.  It's a hub for many cities so the transportation around the area is good.  You can get to Tegucigalpa, Choluteca, and El Savador  very easily from there.  Here is his letter from this week.  The last question I asked his that he refers to at the end is if he knew that it is Hammock Capital of the world.  Enjoy    

Hey mom and everyone

Well my week didn’t go that great. We really only had like 3 days of work. So what had happened was that I’m in a town that is not as developed as Monjaras. But that not to say that Monjaras is even that developed haha. So we didn’t have energy for like 3 days this week and when the sun goes down and there is no light we have to be in the house cuz it just gets unbelievably dark. And then on Thursday we had interviews with President and he showed up like 4 hours late and when he got here he had to do temple recommend interviews for some of the district members of the county. So we didn’t get interviews started till like 630 at night, so we lost that day of work. But they understood why all our numbers just really sucked. But this week we got some good plans to get some new people to teach. The area is the south of the mission. It’s hot and humid.  The big majority of the people can’t read or write. So you know the people are a little simpler then Danli. So I have to adapt to that again. But I love the south it’s so much more fun then Danli. My comp is cool. But like everyone he has his things that bug me but nothing that doesn’t try my patience too much so it should be a good time with my comp.

So with Dani and Lani... so I talked with the place that holds our records for Langue to see if everything got done with. So I asked and they told me that they knew Lani and that we needed a paper from the lawyer that said that she was divorced. So on Thursday I talked with the lawyer that we were using in Monjaras and what he told me was that Lani had lied about not having a kid with her 1st husband. Apparently when the judge asked her about it she lied and when it got discovered that she did have a little son with the guy the judge got mad and threw her case out, and so if we want to get her divorced we have to start it all over and we can’t do it in Choluteca because they won’t accept her case. So I have to do it in a place called Nacaome which is the city right next to where I live. But the thing about it is that we have to find a new lawyer. And the thing about it is that we got a huge discount when we did it in Choluteca with only the lawyer charged us 3000 limps but the average that I have heard is about 8000 limps. So I talked to Sis Hernandez the wife of my president and she said that I should start over and just ask the office for the money to get this all started. So right now I’m looking for a lawyer that will help us out and try to get him for as cheap as possible.

The hotel room is an oven, really small concrete box with one window that almost doesn’t open up haha. But its ok it not the worst house I have seen in the mission. Were trying to convince the land lady to put ac in the room right now. We will see how that works out haha. And no there is no maid service but there is a little worker lady that makes us lunch every day. No we don’t have a kitchen we have a fridge a table and a little 2 side hot plates to cook on, it’s sad hahah. No the land lady she only cooks us lunch. What I do for dinner is this. I buy an egg and you can buy already cooked beans in places called pulparias. They are little convenient stores that sell drinks chips and all kinds of stuff. So I warm up some beans an egg with a few tortillas and that’s dinner and breakfast hahah. Ok for laundry. I have to do it by hand. So there are these things called pilas that are little water tanks and next to them built out of concrete is a wash board. So I have to wash my clothes by hand like twice a week so that I always have clothes. And I also have to iron my own clothes. And the crappy part about this whole thing is the land lady has a washing machine but she won’t let us use it. So when I have a little more trust with her I’m going to see if we can raise the rent because I imagine that’s the reason she doesn’t want us to use up the electricity by using it all the time. So I figure we raise the rent a little bit that should compensate for the money she will lose by letting us use the machine.

The shirt burning was fun. It went by really quick like 2 minutes but it was a good feeling to know that this date next year I will be in the house. The area is in the middle of nowhere it has nothing as in the words of food. And if it does it’s always going to be really expensive. We start to talk expensive when something cost more than 80 limps. So if you do the math on that that is only a 4 dollar meal. Life here is a lot different like when things cost about 5 dollars 100 limps those things for me start to get expensive. Life here is really, really, really different.

Ya in my mission I think I have only written in the church building twice and we aren’t allowed to write on members computers when they have them so we always have to use internet cafes or cybers as they are called down here.

And to you last question yes I did.  It’s unreal how they make them. There is a family in my branch that makes them for a living. And while we are on the subject... I was wondering if you could round up some money so that I can but one or two of them while I’m down here. A cheap good one cost like 500 limps like 25 bucks. And I have talked with some people and started looking how I can get the best deal so I’ll let you know.

But the big thing is that my area is big and I don’t know where to start but I’m trying to listen to the spirit, and I think I have found where im going to start working  

So this is my wish list for Christmas cause if you want to get it to me on time you need to send it by like November mid November 

Arizona Flag

New hat but it hast to be a new era fitted something to do with Arizona 

a new back pack, jansport simple the one I would like it the one that has the leather on the bottom of it and what I would like you to do to the back pack is put an Arizona flag patch one it 

Caramels 

Puppy chow 

Ties 

Oh what I forgot to tell you so if you can somehow pull this off I also want a Santa Cruz t shirt large 

And if you can somehow get me something from each of the sports teams dbacks suns and cards 

That is what I want and if you want to throw in a few surprises that would be awesome 

I love you guys I’m doing great. The weeks go faster and faster each week. I’m doing my best 

Love you all 

Elder Spencer Olsen  

Camera just died. Swear I will send pics next week hahaha