🔥🙏LIVING ON A PRAYER🙏🔥-TOCOA Week Fifty Two

 

1 year, 12 months, 52 weeks, 365 days, or 3 and a half summer vacations🌊🔥. However you want to count it. ONE YEAR AS A MISSIONARY and lets just say time flies when your having fun and slows down when you ain't

 

President Christiansen and these amazing Elders

This years been goofy everything was so different then I imagined. Like whoever is spreading the lie that people are fluent after one year in the mission. LIES, if any spanish speakers understand the difference between "fue" and "era" pls send help and yes I know they are preterit and imperfect but that means NOTHING LITERALLY NOTHING

 

Sister Christiansen and some amazing Elders playing games

I sometimes feel like i haven't changed at all over this year but I know that can't be true I just don't know exactly how I've improved, guess we'll see in another year BUT missions dope highly recommend to everybody considering it. the beginning was so brutal like first 6 months was a fight but it's gotten alot better and im excited to see what happens in THE SECOND HALF YESSUR

 

He is half way.  See you next July

Shoutouts to the boys who have helped me this year

-ELDER BASHAM❤️❤️❤️

-Elder hiraldo

-Elder argueta👀

-Elder paredez

-Elder Jorgensen

-Elder Stout

-Elder Peery

-Elder Leavitt

-Elder Lyman

-Elder milla

-PRESIDENT/HERMANA OSTLER AND CHRISTENSON YEEEE

And literally so many more people from the mish and back at home. Every email sent has meant SO much

 

 

Dead dog=church attendance-TOCOA Week Fifty One

 

I'm dying

 

Probably got one of the worst fevers ive ever had yesterday after church and ofc its zone conference pday today and conference tomorrow so the travels have not helped but we up🔛🔝

 

Sporting some Binance Soccer Jerseys

This family we are teaching were the mom is super inactive started coming to church consistently over the last month and none of her kids are baptized so big miracles coming up. Lowkey super cool story cause at first the kids wanted nothing to do with us but we kept visiting and kept inviting and now whenever we visit they always super hyped to see us so cool to see the lord softening hearts

 

Also lots of USA🇺🇲🏈🔥 hate recently. Probably asked like 6 times my thoughts on trump recently and its hard to tell them I support him💀💀 nah i just stay quiet but its a tough subject for the hondurens right now. Everyone keeps saying they want to throw me out of their country because we re throwing them out of ours😁😁 

 

We also were about to put a fecha with this lady and her phone rang and someone told here that her friend died. Dont know if satan or god interrupted but we skirted outta there.

 

Lotsa contacts this week, we working hard but the area is kinda slowing down right now. This one lady who going to the envangelical church listened to a lesson from us and we invited her to church and she goes "you know what, I do want to go to your church. I like how you teach and I want you to teach all my family too."

 

Beautiful Honduran Sunset

OHHH craziest story

We go to this inactive families house that always talk to us and let us share messages. The 5 year old son opens the door and goes "our dogs dead" I was like "what??? It was alive last week" then the mom comes out and says "come in side ill tell you the story"

 

Keep in mind this is the nicest dog I had ever met

 

Here's what happened

 

-her neighbors (also inactive members) complained about her dog always leaving and biting people, they went over to her house to talk to her about it

-she defends her dog and for some reason these 2 neighbors start being her up

-they throw her to the ground and her dog now starts bitting them because his owner just got beat up

-the two neighbors leave and this lady calls the police (who do nothing because police here suck and are corrupt)

-then the next day she walks outside and her dog is dead on the side of the road(the neighbors killed it with drugs)

 

So yah crazy but plus side this family came to church on Sunday for the first time in like all my time here so thats dope

American Fork Caveman appearance in Honduras-TOCOA Week Fifty

 

Ya so maybe craziest story of the week is after district counsel I was walking and chatting with some missionaries when this dude in a motorcycle was driving towards me. I noticed his shirt and was like yo I know what that logo is, and then it got closer and closer and the dude passed and it was an American Fork high-school shirt. I stopped in place and processed what just happened for a sec.

 

I'm in a third world country and this random dude on a motorcycle passed by in my high school shirt. Crazy

 

Lowkey makes sense tho cause millions of those shirts probably get donated to desert industries and then get sent to these types of countries but still threw me for a loop. I was tempted to run after the moto and ask for a picture but I decided not to. Still crazy tho.

 

Elder Shanklins district out for lunch

Other than that lots of contacting this week. Contacting is always brutal for me cause my whole mission I've never had a contacting success story. Other missionaries always share this miracle lady that got baptized 2 weeks after getting contacted but I have never once had someone progress to baptism from a contact. Part of the learning process, gotta keep going and having the faith even if its never happened before.

 

We got bible bashed twice this week and they both used the same argument: praying while standing.

I didn't think that it was a big cause for debate but some people find it disrespectful here so best believe I offered to say a closing prayer and stood up for it. Nah I'm jk we kneeled.

 

Always get a peek at the beach whenever he can

 

One thing I've realized is that people have a tough time accepting the mercifulness of good. People really do not like the idea of baptisms for the dead and the spirit world. And this has made me realize how grateful I am for a loving and merciful God and savior. Who gave us the chance not just to repent in this life, but in every moment until the second coming of Christ. The parable of the prodigal son is real. No matter how late you come back home, God is watching and welcoming you with open arms. But at the same time there will always be a brother who doesn't believe the father should be so merciful. Always go back to God guys, he wants you back.

 

 

-e shank

TOCOA-WEEK Forty Nine

I'm alive

Sushi boat pt2 

Pray for Yessica and Mario pls

 Love you guys

Begging for baptism🌊🙏🫂-TOCOA Week Forty Eight

 

Chill week

 

Highlights

-transfers and im staying in my area finishing training🔥🔥

-some lady stopped us in the road asking to get baptized(look farther down)

-my zone became a gringo zone with transfers

-elder stout staying in my zone

-we have 4 baptisms for next sunday🌊🌊🌊

-FISHING ON PDAYYY🐟🐠

-caught my first fish ever in my life in honduras(not a proud stat)

-gotta see elder jorgensen and all the office boys for 5 semanas(meeting for new missionaries and trainers)

-11 months in mish

 

Lows

-so much traveling

-5 semanas

-buses without air conditioning

-fricking elder peery going home#keep shooting🏀

NO SE VAYA PEERY😭😭😭

-houses without air-conditioning

-People not wanting to go to church

 

So yah this week was 5 weeks and we had to travel 8 hours to San pedro sula on Tuesday and then 8 hours back on Wednesday. Worth it cause gotta see elder jorgensen(goat) and then gotta chat with all the other office elders. The bus back to was full so we stood for 4 hours👁👄👁

 

MIRACLEEEE

k so one day all our plans fell(normal) and I got the feeling to visit this member. I lowkey didn't want to cause hes a yapper but I was like alright we got nothing else to do. Well on the way some lady waves us down her motorcycle. She calls us over and goes "Hermanos! I want to get baptized, what do I need to do?" And before we can answer first off my mind exploded but then she goes "and my husband wants to get baptized and we want to get married" my brain then exploded again and I had to process what she said for 10 seconds before saying "uhh we can help with that" okay so maybe I fumbled the response but we got her number and have visited her and her husband twice. Super nice fam and they didn't go to church cause they already had a trapped plan but please pray for Yaneth and Mario. I wanna marry a couple so bad on the mission and they are so nice and would benefit from the gospel🙏🙏🙏

 

Us after the lady stopped us to ask for baptism

MARIO AND YANETH🙏🙏

That's it

 

If you wanna see the huge fish i caught join my photos

Red but mostly WHITE AND BLUE🇭🇳🇭🇳-TOCOA Week Forty Seven

 What's up guys welcome to July and the 2nd half of the black out year time is currently cooking rn so thats always good, missing 4th of July however not good. I never cared for the holiday before the mission but now WOOOOO might cut the mission short just to make the next one

 

Nah but after 2 years outside the states I will never disrespect the states again that place fr is holy ground

 

ALSO shoutout to the new mission presidents the Christensens. Apparently president has read every single email I've sent out so thats kinda scary so WHATSUP PRESY if you reading this. I wouldn't mind elder jorgensen as my comp

 

But speaking of president reading my emails we worked SO hard this week i cant even describe. Obedience also🆙️🆙️🆙️🆙️ my son has never been trained so good

 

Elder Shanklin & Companion

But fr we had some miracles this week. Lots of family's appearing and a random grandson spawning in who wanted to get baptized. He's now on date for the 20th so hype.

 

Elders are having a good time

Coolest story might be that in the mission we are ALWAYS told the work always matters cause we are planting seeds. Maybe someone rejects us but in 2 or 3 years they remember the encounter and talk to the missionaries. Basically its just to motivate us to always keep working. We'll about 2 months ago in the same area I'm in we visited a family that was inactive and not even on the map. Just a random contact. The mom however had not been baptized. She loved the church and had assisted for 5 years in the states before coming back to honduras

 She said the church had different vibes here and didn't want anything to do with it. Well this week I had the feeling to stop be her house for the first time in 2 and a half months. I sent my comp and DL over cause we were doing divisions and they told me she was so open to the church and wanted to come on Sunday and get baptized. We visited her on Saturday night and it was alot more enthusiasm then when I had visited her 2 months ago. Turns out the mission president's right. People always change. Womp womp tho she didn't come to church but I got hopes still, all her kids are already baptized and they want to start coming to church too. Anyways pretty dope.

 

That's the week so far. Transfers coming up but I bet im staying

 

-elder shank

"Yooo are you guys a couple?" TOCOA Week Forty Five

Welp my email streak is over sorry mom for missing last week🤫🧏 I dont remember what happened 2 weeks ago we just gonna go into THIS WEEK

 

Lowkey flew by as a week which was a shocker, I read smth that when you get in a schedule the time goes by faster cause there's less big moments or memories you remember and lowkey thats what this week feels like cause nothing crazy happened we just grinded

 

I think spanish may actually be smth I understand now cause this week we would spend maybe an average of an hour in every lesson and I'd be talking the whole time and just FLIES by🆙️🆙️

#giftoftonguesreal

President and Sister Ostler with Elder Shanklin
Going home after three years as mission leaders

 

Yah but heres the highlights

 

our penchinista left us to go to the usa🇺🇸🏈🦅so we needed to find someone to make us food, that night we were teaching a lesson to a member who has 3 kids and tons of stuff have happened recently that have made her not able to work. I was sharing a scripture about god being with us in all times and then I got the thought to ask her to be our penchinista and she was THRILLED, she apparently studied how to cook and now has a way to earn money, so dope to see god looking our for his children through other people. AND WE GOT FOOOD✅️🆙️🔛🔝

 

Missionaries≠Gay

So me and my comp were flying through contacts one day when I was like I want a popsicle🍦 so we went and got a popsicle and my comp got one too. So there we were two missionaries eating popsicles walking down a honduras road and I had the thought "this feels kinda gay right now" and then right after that thought a dude in fluent english yells "YOO ARE YOU GUYS A COUPLE" caught off guard so im like "WHAT?" and then he repeats his question and starts talking about how Trump doesnt like gays and he was warning us that in honduras they aren't welcome either. I was so confused so I explained we weren't gay and then i just started talking about Jesus and then I had an hour conversation with this dude about the trinity and then he said he would come to church(spirit) but yah kinda weird interaction but if he comes to church I'll take being called gay.

 

The guy who was worried about us being gay

So we returned to visit that dude and had a 2 hour lesson(rare for hard working missions idk bout you state side guys(tyler)) and bro was 100% like he's going to church(update he didn't but high hopes next week)

 

GRATEFUL FOR 0 ASSISTENCIAS 

So we had like 8 people confirmed coming to church... 0 came but lowkey a blessing cause maybe one of the worse church experiences I've had. It was stake conference and they transmitted the video to our chapel but whole bunch of technology problems and 7 people showed up in total: 6 inactives and 1 member. Yes I've listened to uchdorfts last conference talk but yah lowkey was kinda glad our investigators didn't come lol🔥🛶🌊

 

That's my week we at the ocean right now fishing with
some other misioneros for pday so dubsss, my mission pres and his wife go home in 3 days so we'll see if my new president pulls a "better that one man perish than a whole nation" and sends all the disobedient elders home. Mom you might be seeing me soon

 

Have a W week

-elder shanklin 

Temporary Office Elder-TOCOA Week Forty Three

 

This was probably the hypest week of my missionary life. SO LETS GET INTO IT🧃🧃🔥🔥🏢🏢

 

TRANSFERR WEEK

SOO basically this whole week happened because of transfers and some W luck so shout it to God for the luck. Imma do a day by day run down cause I just loved everything bout this week.

 

Elder Shanklin (Dad) and his kid (new missionary)

TUESDAY

K so last day for my comp to say bye bye🤫🧏 to all the members before leaving. Turns out no one likes him cause they werent home but we had to go to the ZLs house to spend the night so we took the last bus there. Since this zone is so big all the elders get together before transfers so everyone can have a comp. Basically just a giant boys night it was dope, we yapped till 1am and then freaking elder coleman(love this guy) plays guitar like a beast and was just taking song request all night it was magical. He plays this one song thats always on instagram reels and stuff (or was 9 months ago) and its just so fire🔥🔥 but yah we got on the bus at 1am to head to the office, I had to go with my bro elder stout cause we both training. Basically we became comps for the week which was SICK cause we got like the same personality

 

TUESDAYYY🔟💯🍹🍹

K this day was just nuts, we got to the office at like 8 am but before that I gotta see like all the mission bros at the bus stop doing transfers. But we when got to the office all the elders about to go home we're still there😭 SHOUTOUT ELDER BASHAM AND ELDER BROWN🫂🤝 but yah after they all left me and elder stout got assigned to "work" in the office all day. Here's what we did

-played piano

-opened birthday presents

-spent an hour getting juice that noone drank📉

-did references with the office elders(shoutout elder carreto I love you)

-got kicked out of references by the stake president

-got reenvited to do references by the APs

-went on a joyride in the office car listening to funky popcorn poping

-and then finally went to the office elders house and slept with all the boys 

ALL DAY we were hiding cause we weren't allowed to see the new missionaries so we were getting moved around the office and stuff buy such a W day gotta see all the dawgs of the mission.

 

Office life with elder Carreto😘

WEDNESDAY👨‍🍼

Alrightttt so today we went back to the office and did MORE REFERENCES and by that I mean we chilled in the room where we should be doing references and just yapped. Putting more than 2 elders together is a problem but nah we did work still. Eventually the time came to get our kids and.... mine and elder stouts missed their flight in Panama. So we had to wait till 6 pm to get our kids and so MORE REFERENCES except at that point the office elders just weren't working so we just talked to them lol. Eventually we got our children and my bros from Ecuador shout out annie Barton if she reads this. He is so hyped to be here and believes everything we tell him. We trolled him pretty hard but bro where's a 2 peice pajama of dog prints so he's pretty hype💀💯🐕 our areas 8 hours away from the office home so we had to stay the night again which I was complaining, always good vibes in the office house.

 

Elder Shanklin and Elder BASHAMMMM

Alright I'm stopping there the rest of the week just was working, my comp has SO MUCH enthusiasm. Like bro in church saw it was empty and with 100% seriousness goes "next week these rows will all be full theres too many people who need our help" lowkey can't talk to him without getting a pep talk it's nuts but he chill. His names chucuiano so thats cool.

 

Anyways thats it for my week hope lifes good for all you guys✌️

 

-e shanklin

 

(I love you basham🫶 go get married)

Father and Son-TOCA Week Forty

 

If you understand the title hit me back and I'll give you praise

 

BUT YESS I am going to be a father and have a child, whether it will be a latino child or gringo child we don't know stay tuned till next week to find out. That's all for transfer news I'm staying here in Tocoa. Now onto the week

 

5 DAY DIVISIONS YUHHH

sooo my DL is a smart guy, too smart I think, he like takes dreams very seriously and I've found him praying at 2am because he had a bad dream so rant anyways, he planned to come to pday then do divisions with us the next day, then we were going to have Zone council on wednesday. Butttt the ZLs got stuck in the office or smth and had to change the date of zone council to Thursday so we did divisions again on Wednesday cause with how far our areas are away it just made sense. Literally they got to our house sunday night and left Thursday morning lol.

 

Elder Shanklin & his companion

DIOSSS

on exchanges I was with my boy elder Ross and this dude calls at us from a distance we go over and bro looks a little cooked, I think weed, but he starts asking us for money. I hit him with the good old "sorry we can't give money but heres a pamphlet" but he was having none of it, he wanted our money bad. He said if it's God's will we can give him money... welp literally as he said that a motorcycle drove by and the passenger was putting smth in his pocket and a $20 lempira fell out ($1USD) and landed right next to the dude. He was so high he didn't see it so I go "hey hermano there it is" pointing to the money. He looks and immediately starts going "DIOS DIOS DIOS" snatched the money then readily took a pamphlet lol. What are the odds💯💯💀 He also said that he was coming to church🔥🔥(update didn't come)

 

Elder Shanklin & Elder Brown

Rest of the week was chill, we had zone council and I had to say goodbye to the absolute dawg elder brown🐐🐐. Shoutout to him cause he on the email list now. 

 

Some highlights

-had a member get mad at us for baptizing people that go inactive and we were like uhhh sorry we just here to gather people God does the sorting🐑🐐

-IT RAINEDD🌊🌊🌊 first time in a month, but besides that this week was straight 113 degrees Fahrenheit so cool

 

Bad stuff

-all the gringos are going home😭 like legit all the homies who had a year in the mission when I started are going home rip hope all get married fast(basham)

-all the people we were teaching just decided that everything we taught them doesn't matter and aren't progressing👍👍

 

Spiritual thought (getting official here)

 

Matthew 5:14

 

14 Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid

 

I shared this scripture at a family night this week and I loved it because even tho Jesus is the Light of the world, during the sermon on the mount he says WE are the light of the world. Jesus Christ and God trust us enough to be on this earth and bring light to those around us. We are always instruments in the lords hands. This brings me back to the quote that says, "God loves us and watches over us but it is usually through another person that he meets our needs"

 

-elder shanklin

 

Star Gazing Gone Wrong-TOCA Week Thirty Nine

 

Welcome back go week 41 (its actually week 38), im hoping that's right. I just took elder walkers email title and subtracted 1. BUT LETS GET INTO IT

 

We gonna do bullet points this week

-saw three dead puppies on the side of the road with guts spilling out and it was just so not awesome🥺

-our fechas mom keeps telling us her daughters room is possessed or her daughter is and im like uhhh sorry? Tried offering them a blessing but they said the house had already been blessed.

-dope divisions with elder mangum(ZL) and his comp, stayed up till 12:30 talking with those dudes they both go home in 2 months so lotsa girl talk from them lol

-BAPTISSMMMM our boy Alex got baptized and bro has been fighting for 2 years to stop smoking so lets GOOOO🔥🔥

-RAINNNN we had a full day where the sun didn't come out and it was beautiful

 

Elder Shanklin, Alex & Elder

Besides all that amaziigness one night our DL called us and was like uhhh you guys got like 20 mins for a story? Then he started talking about how they were on their way to a lesson and started star gazing for like 10 mins when all of the sudden 2 dudes on a motorcycle pulled up and started searching them and yelling "GIVE US YOUR PHONE"  and within 10 seconds they had left and the missionaries were phoneless lol. After telling the story my DL goes, after getting robbed I was so excited that I finally had a story to tell, but then I realized that I now don't have a phone💀 

 Super fast week ngl just working hard. Been studying this week in revelations the last book in the bible, super hard to understand but I've been reading it with the institute study manual and holy cow it's so good. Literally just prophesies of the coming of Christ and all the signs and tells exactly what's gonna happen. Everyone should read it it's so dope.

 

-e shanklin

Lost In The Boonies-TOCOA Week Thirty Eight

 What's up guys totally forgot about this but can't ruin the streak

 

Pretty chill week just out here grinding, found ourselves in the middle of nowhere trying to find a reference so that was highlight of the week

 

Elder Shanklin & his companion

-elder shank

So Whats The Purpose of This Visit?? TOCOA Week Thirty Seven

 

SHOUTOUT TO MY MOMMM HAPPY MOTHERS DAYYY literally the best mom ever love her so much🔛🔝

 

LOVE YA MOM!

Now to the week

 

We had 2 BAPTISMAL DATES YESSSIRRR and they weren't even planned so thats dope.

 

Our ZLs this week were like give us a list of all the people you can put fechas with and we were like uhhh nobody. Welp then we ended the week with 2 so lets see what happened.

 

Beautiful Beaches in Honduras

First lady we learned on sunday in ward council that she has a son who is 9 and isnt baptized and they both are super active members. Like they both always come to church and activity but the son was just never baptized. So we message her and are like yo can we visit and she goes sure. Me and my comp planned to not talk about baptising her son first visit and get to know them. We walk inside and she gives us some pineapple juice(goated) and the first thing she says is "what's the purpose of your visit" me being prepared I go "oh we just want to get to know you" she than responds kind of laughing "Oh! Cause I really want you to baptize my son" we were like uhh yep we can do that too. So we grabbed the 3 pamphlets, a book of mormon, and baptismal interview, threw them at her son and left. Nah jk we taught him the plan of salvation and put him on date but the mom and son are both so nice and im so grateful to get to help the family make this happen.

 

Lunch with fish, plantains an salad

SECOND STORY

So this girl named Camilla is 12 and her whole family is baptized besides her younger sister. And the missionaries have always visited her but she's like no I'm not getting baptized till me sister turns 8. Me and my comp thought the sister was 5 so we were like welp not for us. Well we visited the family on saturday and baptism came up. We asked when the younger daughter turns 8 and the mom goes "in june this year!" So me and my comp were like wait wut. Boom bop bam fecha put. Camilla actually is scared of baptism cause she doesn't feel ready. She thinks she needs to be perfect to be baptized but we told her the secret that if she ever wants to actually become more perfect she gotta get baptized. She still scared but we got some time to help her

 

Elder Shanklin with Camilla (in the back)

Longer email this week but crazy cause we've been working hard in the HEAT its so hot here I wanna die. Its step outside and your completely soaked and dead inside and out but anyways we've been working hard with little success. Even tho these weren't random people on the street, it was awesome to see that we've been here to help motivate people. I know god recognizes effort and something I like to tell people is the blessing always come after the trials of faith. Work hard, then you can play hard after.

 

HAVE A GOOD WEEK happy mothers days to all the mothers out there your awesome

 

Another One Down-TOCOA Week Thirty Six

 

Elder Shanklin gettin some coconuts

Another week out here in tocoa and the travel is AWFULLL I did divisions in the area of my district leader and the next morning we had to wake up at 4 am to get to zone council on the other side of the zone. It started at 10:30 and we were STILL late. The bus broke down but it's pretty insane how far these areas are from each other.

 

Besides that the area interesting. Missionaries have run through this place and everybody either knows the missionaries or is an inactive member. We focused so much on member points this week and a few people were like yah we wanna come back none of them came to church😐 but nah chill area but the heat has picked up this week and they are all dirt roads so there's so much dust in the air

 

Elder Shanklin with his Zone

Multizone pday is so dope love being with all the boys from the mish. We got conference tomorrow and it's tbe last one before our president leaves so he boutta drop some bars

 

That's all I got not much else love you guys.

 

Got Termites In My Smile????-TOCOA Week Thirty Five

 

what's up guys this week went really slow idk why but anyways it was a chillish week pdays literally over right now but can't ruin my streak so here's some good stuff from the week

 

Elder Shanklin & Elder Salanic enjoying Little Ceasars

-had Popeyes, pizza hut, and little Caesars new area is goated🐐

-had a baptism even tho I didn't do anything but add it to the stats

-all the people the past elders where teaching are not progressing we starting from ground 0 YESSIRRR

-gotta head up to the beach for pday today and it was so beautiful love the beach so much

 

Pday in Trujillo

K story time

At the baptism we were helping get stuff ready and I hand a pair of baptismal pants to the dude that's gonna do the baptism. I turn and start walking away and he goes "hey elder shanklin come back" so I go back and at this point there's another dude, two 35ish year old fat latinos and when i come up to them one of them goes "yo doesn't elder shankling look like somebody from a movie?" and I was like YESSS they about say I look like Ryan Reynolds or smth, but the other dude answers and goes " yahhhh.... he kind of looks like..." And at the exact same time both of them go "THE GRINCH" and they both just start freaking dying. I wasnt having any of it cause how can you not take offense to that so I hit them with the animated or live action grinch and bro doubles down and goes "oh for sure Jim carrery". So yep found out who the ward trolls are out here and im plotting something for revenge.

 

Womp Womp

Elder Shanklin & Elder Salanic in Tocoa

But yuh chill week out here, been reading currently in Alma and man the second half or basically the book of mormon after 2nd nephi is pretty awesome I encourage everyone to read it and skip Isiah if you need to

 

-elder shanklin

Chapter Three: Tocoa-La Ceiba Week Thirty Four

 

Alright we recieved those transfer news this week and Im leaving my area to a part even farther in the mission about the 2nd farthest area from the mission office WOOOOOO rn I'm about 4 hours from the office and its another 3ish hours so if theres any emergencias that'll be fun. But the areas called Tocoa for all those people that wanna learn more about Honduras cities🤝🤝

 

TOCOA

-the city is split in 2 areas, and we share it with SISTERS first time being close to sisters and I'm scared

- all of my district is latinos so thats chill

-apparently its a richer area so there's less success... as of now🌊✅️

-pizza hut, mall, burger King, we got all the goods

 

Lowkey might sound like a not bad area but I've been warned by some people that elders tend to die there. Apparently there is a member that just makes people get lost in the purpose. He's got like a ps5 or smth so dangit

 

THIS WEEK

baptism of my guy Juan Jose. Only thing you gotta know is dudes like 70 and cant bend so we basically just turned him perpendicular and shoved him under the water but hey it works. Me and my comp had to get in the font to help him but he was so excited. 

 

Elder Shanklin on divisions and enjoying some ice cream

PDAY TODAY

We woke up at 4:30am to watch the sunset then played soccer for two hours and then did errands for like 3 hours im so cooked rn and I gotta get all packed to get on a bus at 2am on wednesday😭 but hey that be the mission life #straight grind

 

Sunrise at the beach

Easter was lit because of jesus and the purpose otherwise we legit did nothing to celebrate lol but love the holiday and all the purpose behind it. Everything we teach out here is centered on jesus life and what he did and theres nothing better than easter to remember the resurrection. Jesus lives and nothing better than that.

 

Monopoly Deal for Pday

Zone picture at the beach for the sunrise

-e shank

La Punta......-La Ceiba Week Thirty Three

 

WOOOO we in that holy week let's gooooo. 

Elder Shanklin and his companion

Something crazy here is people either become super religious or super demonic during holy week. So some people called "jews" (idk why) dress up in Halloween masks and hoods and go around either fake robbing people with water guns or legit robbing them so thats cool. Hasn't happened to me yet but I throw a picture down below of my district leader with some of them.

 

Other than that pretty chill week out here. Did some divisions with the ZLs and bro toys his nest but I think hes dying lol. Sat in the house for like 2 hours after dinner so rip. But still learn alot from them and it's nice to get outta the area.

 

People update is it's been kinda rough recently with finding. Lots of people receive us and then the next time want nothing or never wanna go to church. Still on that grind tho but man I'm so burnt outta my area idk how people do more than 3 transfers that's insane.

 

Just a fire on the street???

Not much else happened this week just a chiller see you guys on easter✌️🐣

 

-e shank

 

Dangit almost forgot the whole title thing. So there's this dance here called "la punta" basicallyyyy it's just twerking lol but it's cultural so I guess it's okay💀💀. But we got invited to a birthday party and they had la punta on the tv and everybody like EVERYBODY was watching it. Kids, girls, guys, married couples, grandparents. I was ofc weirded out cause it was like 7 girls just twerking on the tv but hey honduras is honduras what can you do. My comp after was like "it's not that weird it's like Hawaiian hula dancing" and I was like ummm I dunno bout that lol 

Double Dates and CONFERENCE - La Ceiba Week Thirty Two

 

This week was no joke so long but i think it was cause I was so hypped for conference that time showed down lol BUT got 2 baptismal dates outta it so thats pretty dope.

 

Elder Shanklin on divisions

First one was this dude we eat with every day for lunch. The missionaries had been there for like a year so we imagined he just didn't want much with the church. Welp literally we taught him the restauration and then we're like yo wanna get baptized and he was like sure sounds good. Dude is a little older tho and kinda outta it so that was on our side but his wife was so excited that she could get sealed in the temple which is what we here for🤝

 

This is the husband and wife in the story above

Second date was this gray point and it was a 17 year old  girl that im pretty sure is just in love with the missionaries cause she has 6 months of teaching without progress but hey I was on divisions and my comp for the day went for that fecha so I respect it. We than had a lessons about tbe book of mormon and she was glazing it before I even started she just spammed ever compliment ever. Like "I love the book of mormon" " I've already prayed and read it and know it's true" so that was kinda cool lol we still taught her about it but she ended up having dance practice and couldn't come to general conference.

 

Elder Shanklin and his companion

But oh boy do I love general conference

 

10 HOURS IN AN AIR CONDITIONED CHURCH

 

Gotta love that but also some awesome talks from people. I really liked kearons talk about gift giving and uchdortfs about the representation of the church and how we are really there just to worship God

 

God's promise....a RAINBOW

Nothing super crazy happened this week but we did get a baptism so dubs🌊🌊🌊🌊

 

-elder shanklin