2024 complete -La Ceiba Week Nineteen

CHRISTMAS RUN DOWN

-had district counsil

-had a lunch at a members house with all the elders in the district

-worked from 2-9

-yah that's it

 

Basically christmas was another day but I gotta call my family for 10 mins at night so chilll✊️

 

Christmas eve night they shoot a ton of fireworks off like new years so president gave us permission to stay up till 12:30am(kinda weird but okay) Only probable is we live on a main road and nobody was shooting of fireworks so rip🥲

 

One funny story was as we were walking to this lesson this drunk dude asked if he could come. I was gonna say nk but my comp was like sure! So we show up to this families house with a drunk dude and I don't think they were too happy. The drunk guy kept preaching and interrupting us and them and claiming we were at his mom's house so he had permission to do whatever he wanted. Eventually we just decided to leave but saw a pet racoon on the way out so WORHT ITTT

 

But long week with alot of work I feel cooked but also good at the end of the night for working so much. It's exhausting and waking up is BRUTAL totally fell asleep in church but thats aight I blame it on not understanding the talks

 

READ THIS MAYBE

K mission is still rough at times and I've been thinking a lot about the future recently. Stuff like dang life after the mission will be perfect, I'm so excited for college, so excited for this and that. I felt sometimes bad for not enjoying the mission in the moment like I was doing something wrong. But something I read this week was that this was how jesus lived his life. If he had focused on the moment how would he have been able to complete his life? Literally was the most perfect person yet treated so terribly. He had to look towards the future for some type of hope. 

 

Happy new years drink some martinelees for me🥲🙏🙏

 

Members Exist and Christmas-La Ceiba Week Eighteen

🎅Let me just say having members in your area is a total GAME CHANGER not only that but active members?!?! Waaaattttt

 

New area is pretty chill, the missionary who was here before me only had one more transfer than me so his spanish was terrible too, but apparently it was worse than mine so after I say my name and where Im from the members are like danggggg this guys spanish is pretty good. So yah getting compliments from old latina women is my driving factor rn🔥🔥 

 

New comp likes to work hard and is SUPER obedient which has made the transition from my last comp a little complicated. Like we were stopping at some members house for food and the member was playing 8ball on his phone and he's like oh take my phone and play for me and I'll go grab your food. And he hands it to my comp and bros like sorry we can't do that. So I grabbed that phone outta his hand so fast cause I need some screen time and shot that 8 ball straight into a pocket. Let's just say ive lost some skills in these 4 months.

 

We had christmas zone conference this week but that's the best of the christmas spirit we got out here in honduras. I asked my comp if we getta do anything special for christmas and he went "ya work" so dubsss extra blessings

 

That's it from me this week hope everyone has a chill christmas eve and christmas and go read some Luke 2 that stuff is so good

 

Greener Grass On The Other Side- Morazan Seventeen

 TRANSFERSSSS

Basically the only important thing that happened this week happened last night at 11:15pm when the ZLS called our phone and my best friend who I sadly had to say goodbye to cause he's going home in 2 days uttered the beautiful words "elder shanklin is going to MONTECRISTO" of course I had no idea what this meant and then i was told I have a comp who I knew nothing about but lets just say I pulled on this transfer

 

Montecristo facts

-on the coast

-next to La Cieba (huge city where we have zone conference)

-has a wendys🔥🔥🔥🔥

-has a port for cruise lines and boats and stuff

-HAS A CHURCH BUILDING WITH MEMBERS

-on the other side of this country

 

Hills of Honduras

Comp facts

-13 months in

-from guatemala city

-currently district leader

-got trained by my current ZL who says hes goated

-speaks perfect english

-is apparently a dope guy but also great missionary

 

I'm not going to lie this might be the most direct answer to a pray I've recieved in a really long time. And i know for sure it wasn't just my prayers so thanks everybody for that. I also think its interesting that the moment I received this answer was at a make or break point. The past 12 weeks have been HARD like i cant describe it. There have been countless nights of going to bed frustrated at mostly everything about mission life. Wondering why Spanish isn't coming quicker or other things. But I love what Elder Uchtdorf said last conference

 

"Faith is not faith if never tested"

 

having faith wont simply make our problems go away. Alot of the time (and it sucks to say) faith does just simply mean believing god knows what's best for you. If you never experience the bad, then how would you know the good?

 

Elder Shanklins artwork

next time itll be christmas eve🎅

Christmas Changos- Morazan Week Eighteen

 

This one a short one cause running out of pday time but not much happened anyways

Elder Shanklin  and his companion

A view of Rykers area

 I've seen other missionaries doing list and it looked smart so here yah go🔥

  -comp goes home in 9 days

-again did negative missionary work

-being playing qwixx every night with an elder and it's a w board game

-christmas devotional from first presidency was 10/10

-went to a BBQ place that was not bad and they didn't charge me for my drink so even better

 

But long story short having a dying missionary for second transfer in the field has been kinda brutal. My motivation has kinda plummeted but hopes are up with transfers and CHRISTMASSS so we chilling. Shootout to all the boys who are training guys out of training sounds rough haha. We've only got 3 sisters coming in this transfer so I guess I would train if I had too... 

 

Elder Shanklin and companion

ANYWAYS Christmas devotional was sick go watch it if you haven't. My favorite part was when (can't remember who) was explaining how Christmas makes everybody kinder, nicer, humbler, more forgiving, géneros, literally Christmas makes people better versiones of themselves. But they then say its not just christmas its because christmas representa christ. Literally christ has so much power and influence it can effect people around the world.

 

Have a good week out there

Elder shanklin

I'm in Europe??? - Morazan Week Seventeen

 Im not just to get that outta the way, i am still in honduras but this week i felt like i was teaching in Europe. Everyday was 8 hours of being told "im busy" or "oh come back later" or just nobody bring home. One day we contacted for like 6 hours and only 4 new people and none of them seemed interested but its alright honestly feels good to at least be out working cause my comp is DYING like so fast one day he at 2pm he was like I'm so tired and then just didn't do anything the rest of the day. But in the words of my mission president "keep going elder one thing that's always true is TRANSFERS END" yep got my president on my side rn.

 

This week was zone conference though which is always dope gotta see all the elders who came in with me. And it was also THANKSGIVINGG🔥🔥🦅🏈🇺🇸 so zone conference they had thanksgiving food. Ofc actually thanksgiving we spent all day teaching some dude we have on date for baptism↗️↗️ but the girl he is dating is a member so ill keep you updated on if he goes through with it. Thanksgiving night our penchanista bailed on us so had to fend for myself with food and thats not good so bought some martinelles and ramen and munched.

 

Thanksgiving dinner for Elder Shanklin

You'd think being in murder capital country id have more interesting stories but nothing really been going on recently so PLS send some prayers for something interesting to happen.

 

but you know what did happen MICHIGAN BABY GO BLUEEEEE🇺🇸🏈🤩

 

But yes highlights of my week thanks for all the emails and voice memos from everyone

 

Shoutout to nate tracey if he ever sees this (i know someome gonna screen shot this and send it to him) but he sent an email talking about how sometimes we are doing exactly what god wants and still life is terrible. That sometimes youve built a boat sailing to a distance land and your brothers tie you up and leave you in a storm. Nephi followed god and still suffered, what makes us think itll be different in our lives? Dont lose faith and again shoutout to nate🙏