Week 70:"Don't count the days make the days count"

Hello family!

Here we are, taking every day on the mission one day at a time. This week I heard one of the most exciting news as I was on divisions with our Hermana Training leaders. The hermana leader I was with (also named Hermana Bernal, she´s from Mexico) told me about a couple that I had taught in Graneros, an area in the South, named Alma and Eric. I wrote to you guys about the experience when Alma (the mom) told us she has read the pamphlet and thought that out of all that she read the greatest part was when she felt the reality of how ¨God is our Heavenly Father, he loves us, and has prepared a plan for us to return back to him¨. We continued to work with Alma and Eric for my whole transfer because their daughter Tatiana was going to church by herself but Alma and Eric had never made it on Sunday and had many doubts about marriage and baptism. I worked a lot on my patience with them, because in the time that I was there, they never went to church all together as a family. BUT.... this week Hermana Bernal told me that they are getting married on the 1st of April and baptized the week after!!!!!!!

 
That whole day I was just going crazy happy and thought about my purpose as a missionary- We are here to invite others to Christ and receive the restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and his Atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. Throughout my mission, I have focused on this as being my personal motivation to get up everyday and keep going. This week I realized that with many, maybe my part in their progress is just to help them have faith. Maybe for others I will help them make changes in their life through repentance, maybe to others I will lead them to the step of baptism and receiving the Holy Ghost, and to many others just enduring to the end. It is interesting how when we plant a seed, God makes something so small, so unexpecting, into something much bigger and grander than we could imagine, even a tree. My excitement was not contained to hear that a seed that I had helped plant in the lives of Alma and Eric was soon turning into a tree.

Cerro Grande is seriously the most supportive branch I have ever been in. We do three Family Home Evenings a week, that are not just for individual families, but families will literally voluntary their homes to host FHEs for the whole branch! They are all so active it is awesome! Throughout my whole mission I have prayed for priesthood to find and baptized, the church being very young in Honduras is in need of worthy priesthood holders. God has blessed us so much with 3 future priesthood holders all found in these past two weeks. It is just unbelievable how much God is making this last transfer literally heaven for me.


I´m excited to see you all in a couple weeks, but don´t any of you think I feel ready to go home because my time is still not up. An old fellow once told me, ¨don´t count the days, make the days count¨ (Connor Bernal) hehe


I LOVE YOU!

Hermana Bernal

Week 69: Cerro Grande!

HI!

Cerro Grande is so much fun, like I mentioned the area is HUGE so we spend a lot of time walking. This week was funny because after spending so much money on mototaxis to save time between appointments (mototaxis are like gocarts that are commonly used for transportation, so fun) we were seriously running into a financial crisis and at night we saw how God answered our prayers and left 40 lempiras left on the ground on our walk home! 

My companion continues to amaze me with her humility. This week one time we were really hungry and all we had packed for lunch (we didn`t buy food for the same reason) was a little sandwich one for each of us, and as we were eating a little girl came up to us and started talking. My companion then parted her sandwich, giving her basically a whole half of it, and knowing how hungry she was and how hungry I was, my jaw literally just dropped and I just said to her, "you are one Christ-like soul." She laughed, a little uncomfortable that I had pointed out something so kind that she did, but I was seriously just amazed.

Enjoy the photos! Love you all
Hermana Bernal

 

 

Week 68: I got bit by a scorpion!

Hello!!

Ohh my goodness. This week was such a breath of fresh air, my new companion is Hermana Fifita, her family is from Tonga and I have not laughed as hard as I have had with her for way too long. Our area is called "Cerro Grande", and yes, it is quite grande. To get from one appointment to the next we walk a minimum of 30 minutes, it is a huge adjustment from being in the city! I also got bit by a scorpion in the middle of the night my second day, at 3 am I wake up to what I thought was a cockroach or something yanking off my finger and as I turn on the lights, there I find the creature in my blanket. Luckily scorpions here are not poisonous, but it HURT. I decided to have charity towards the creature, and so using a cup I threw it outside. Stupid scorpion.

My favorite experience from this week was helping a recent convert build her kitchen. From the street to her house on the side of the mountain 20 minutes away we (my companion and other members) carried bags of bricks and blocks of mud. It was pretty intense, and it was so cool to see so many people so freely offering their service with nothing in return.

My companion has had one transfer in the mission and started the mission out knowing zero of spanish. She reminds me so much of me when I started out, the awkward laughs when you don`t know what`s going on, getting frustrated with communication issues, wishing you could express yourself better, the beginning of the mission is hard. But the one thing that I have loved is seeing how in lessons, she says everything so passionately. Although she may not speak very much for now, the little that she says is often exactly what investigators need to hear, nothing more and nothing less. My goal for this transfer is to build her confidence because unfortunately her first trainer was a little impatient... the good thing is the mistakes that are made don`t phase me, a huge part of the mission for me has been learning to continually forgive and forget in companionship and only serve.

Have a great week!
Hermana Bernal