No Christmas Present!

December 21, 2009
Hola y feliz navidad!

Okay so for your questions first calling you guys, I’m going to be calling you Wednesday to set up a time to call you guys for the longer time on Christmas, so be ready for the call Wednesday, I will be calling the house cause I don’t remember any numbers. Ha! Ha! Ha! Second, no I did not receive my package for Christmas………………(this Christmas I will not be opening any presents in the morning, but it’s all good!) I’m going to use the money you sent me to buy a gift for myself because buying those cases for my scriptures is just to hard right now, being so far away from the office. I’m going to buy some more memory for my camera. So be sure to be home ready for my call Wednesday at 1:00 or around 1. I don’t know the time difference I think it’s the same.

Okay, so for this last week, we will only be having one baptism on the 26th because the 4 other people haven’t attended church yet and they need to at least come 2 times, and I know that sounds weird that they are getting baptized but they haven’t been to church but they are ready. They read the scriptures and pray and follow the word of wisdom, they just have family problems and its hard for them to attend church, but we still have the one! No I haven’t been able to use your testimonies yet but I think I will the next time we teach their family. We did really have the best week, it was a hard one with a lot of traveling to and from Teguc and Juti which is the other pueblo in are zone. We had to go there for some meetings, but we did have a Christmas activity with the members………… and guess who was Santa Clause…………..ME! hahahaha! Ya, it was awesome, I was a pretty sweet Santa Clause, I bought a Santa suit for 100.00 limps which is like 5 bucks.

Not much has really happened around here. Oh, so it started raining last night around 8 and it hasn’t stopped yet!!! There is some big storm passing by I guess. We did a white elephant gift with all the missionaries in our zone and I got a my first Honduras fúútbol jersey, I am officially a Hondurano now, hahahaha! So something weird about here, they celebrate Christmas on Christmas eve?????? They really don’t do anything for Christmas day but we are suppose to be in our houses early on Christmas eve because all the people do here for Christmas is drink and drink and drink!!! And that’s about it, it doesn’t really feel like Christmas at all here. I have to keep reminding myself about it and the biggest thing I miss is the snow this time of year, I don’t like being cold but I would like to see snow for Christmas………… Oh, well, I guess I’m not going to change that.

Well that’s all I got for now, I’ll talk to you guys in a couple of days, tell everyone Merry Christmas for me, all the people that ask about me and that stuff. I miss you guys, hope all is well, hope you guys don’t miss me too much on Christmas, hahahaha! I love you guys.

Love, Elder Spencer F. Paulson ""The Hulk""

No Power for 2 days!

Hola Familia, December 7, 2009
Okay so I will fill in the questions below, but first last week the reason I didn’t write is that we didn’t have power for two days and elections were going on. Here in Catacamas it wasn’t that eventful, the army was all over the place so that is maybe why. We had the new missionary’s evaluation last week and I got two of the elders of my district from the MTC and the ones that are in Comayaguela said there were bombs going off everywhere and gun fighting in some places. Ha! Ha! I wish I was there. Also this week is transfers and I’m getting a new companion. His name is Elder Batres he is a Latino. I don’t know anything more about him right now though. More info when I meet him. Sorry for all the short letters. So I didn’t really even know that Thanksgiving happened, Ha! Ha! I asked the other gringo elder in our zone when Thanksgiving was and he was like "Elder is was 3 days ago" Ha! Ha! So, it doesn’t even feel like Christmas now its weird!!! Ha! Ha! But I think about you guys and Christmas a lot, that’s gonna be hard. I went and bought some lights and I’m going to buy a little Christmas tree to put my presents under, Ha! Ha! I’ll send pictures also, check your Shutterfly. I am going to try to send pictures to it. This week we are still working with that family and a lot more, no one is really progressing. We need to get them to come to church and they just won’t!!! Everyone in Catacamas belongs to a Evangelical (I have no idea how you spell it but it is the people that dance and sing and run up on the stage, talk in tongues and that crazy stuff). They are like Starbucks to Boston! They are every where and people just go to them because they live close to one and and if a new one is built closer to their house they will go to that one. Ha! Ha! So I will let you know when they progress. I am going to go so I can send pictures. I hope this was long enough. Tell Kaelen I am sorry for not saying goodbye, I was so busy packing and all that, tell him to keep working hard and that I love him and to learn as much of his language as possible. I wish I would have learned more. Well I love you all very much, I also sent you guys letters last week. I love you guys very much and miss you, the church is true, if it wasn’t I wouldn’t give two years of my life! Love You!!
Love, Elder Spencer F. Paulson THE HULK
Below are the questions and Spencer’s reply:
1. Your companion. Answer: Okay so Elder Tay is from Guatemala he’s got a pretty big family and he makes me laugh a lot, lets just say he would fit in with my group of friends perfectly well without a language barrier but that’s what makes him so funny sometimes. He helps my out a lot and he’s a really hard worker, I don’t have any complaints about him 2. The people, your church members, your church, what you do in your branch, etc. We found a picture of your building on the internet, it looks pretty nice. Answer: So there’s two little branches here because there is two different areas, I really like a our branch all the members are really nice and always try to help me out with my Spanish, the missionaries kinda run the church in these little pueblos. Our area president is awesome, he’s over both branches, he is always talking to me and helping me with Spanish, this week we are working on the Christmas activity that is going to be fun, guess who is going to be Santa?...... ME!!!! hahahaha 3. The city where you are. Answer: Okay so Catacamas is in the middle of the state of Olancho it is also the capital city in Olancho. It is very small for the capital city, there is about 8 blocks of concrete streets in each direction then dirt or cobblestone roads. I don’t know about the rest of Honduras yet but people here in Catacamas are just little bit crazy, its just part of who they are, it always keeps you on your toes, Ha! Ha! Most everyone is nice here, I haven’t been robbed yet. Ha! Ha! 4. Where do you send your emails from. Answer: We go to a little internet cafe a few streets up from our apartment, the internet just sucks here. I don’t think it is any problem on your end its just bad internet here. 5. How is the teaching going, can we do anything to help you besides pray. Answer: The teaching is alright, we have a lot of new investigators. The Elders before us were not really that good so we have had to do a lot of make up for their slacking! Not right now, but I’ll let you know, I just need to find out what works for the people here, how I can get to there hearts. Is the Spanish going okay, now? Spanish is coming, it’s just time and practice I need and studying, but it is a lot better since the MTC.

BUGSSSSSSS!

Dear Familia, November 23, 2009
Okay, I don’t have much time again, we went to Juticalpa today to hang with the other district and it’s about an hour away and on the way back they had a problem with bus. To make a long story short I don’t have much time. First I’ll tell you how I’m doing and if I can I’ll answer the questions. I’m doing good, my stomach has been a little crazy but it’s just getting use to the different bacteria I guess, oh well, it’s gotten a lot better lately. The Spanish is coming along way good, it’s still difficult for me to understand people but I can talk a lot better. The people say they have a hard time understanding me because of my accent, but I guess that will come with time. The bugsssss, Ha! Ha! Ha! Okay so you know those pictures you see of moths that are bigger then birds, ya they live here!!! and the spiders!!! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! The other night we were walking in the street and this giant black thing ran into the middle of the street!!! You know those tarantulas you buy in the pet stores, well those are your common house spider here!! Ha! Ha! Ha! I’ll send you pictures ( not this week no time). So the family we have been working with.....well they don’t want to be together anymore but we are still working with them. We found two huge families yesterday that we are going to be working with, one with 11 people and the other with 8, they were very interested!!! Dude, Kel your letter was awesome, I haven’t had a laugh like that forever!!!! I have to go I love you guys very much. I promise the letter next week will be much better.
Love, Elder Paulson

Elder Paulson - 2nd week in Catacamas

November 9, 2009

Hola! Okay so for this week!!!! We have a couple of families we are working with right now. The number one with baptism in sight is familia Santos, they live in a one room apartment thing and they have two little kids. There is no bathroom and they use a little gas burning stove to cook, but I think they use old motor oil, and they are some of the nicest people I know! When they know we are coming over they clean their house up as much as they can, and right now I’m teaching the dad. His name is Hector English (we will see how that goes). We got the mom and the two kids to church this Sunday, the dad had to work. I think he works 7 days a week. They are not married so that is a problem, but we are shooting to have a baptismal date before December, so keep them in your prayers. Speaking of December I don’t really know what you guys should send me....I was thinking you guys could put more money in my account because there is a lady here that makes sweet leather scripture cases and I would like to get some for all my scriptures and my Peach My Gospel, but it would still be nice to have something to open on Christmas, but don’t know what you should send, you guys know what I like. Today for p-day we went to these sweet caves out here in our area, and I got to pick some fresh coffee beans, I am going try to dry them out and stuff and see if it works, hahahaha! The food here is so good they have these things called baleadas which is just a tortilla, refried beans, eggs and this cream butter stuff, they are so good!!!! There are so many different kinds of fruit out here, one of the members owns a fruit stand and gives us stuff all the time. The bathrooms aren’t that bad out here, granted I haven’t had a hot shower since I got here but we do have a shower and running water. Si, there is a hurricane and no we haven’t had a lot of rain yet but.... we are going to, it’s gonna hit here when it’s way bigger and we are right in the middle of it’s path, I can’t wait! It’s gonna be awesome!!!! Well I have to write my letter to the president now. I love you guys and miss you but I am here doing a great work and can’t come down, hahahah! love Elder Paulson ¨ "THE HULK" P.s.s Tell chance that they have the best milk I have ever had, its sooo good!!!!

November 2, 2009

Hola!

So where to begin......... Oh ya I’m so freaken sorry grandma and grandpa I didn’t even get a chance to call you guys when we got in to Miami, we had to trek all the way across to the other side of the airport and go through security and customs then when we got to our gate which was a brand new part of the airport they didn’t have any phones near by and after we went through customs and picked up our bags in Teguc the President and the AP´s were already there waiting for us so I didn’ have anytime there. So I am so sorry, I have been feeling bad ever since I got here because of it. I hope you guys aren’t to bummed out (losiento).

So I’ll start from the beginning.... Everything went fine at the airports no problems anywhere, the flight in to Teguc once we got above the land was crazy. We got to see a lot of the landscape which is all way freaken green, we flew over Roatan the big tourist island and a couple of other smaller islands. When it came to landing time we were definitely in a third world country. I swear we weren’t more then a good 100 ft off the ground flying right over the tops of houses and barely missing power lines, the airport itself is right at the bottom of a mountain so the pilot had to barely clear the top of the mountain then dive bomb it on a turn to land the plane. The ends of the wings were barely missing parts of the mountain they had cut away so the airplane could land, but we did land fine. As we were getting off the plane we saw some missionaries that were headed home and we talked to them for a minute. They told us that they wished they were in our position just getting off the plane, not about to get on. So then we went through customs and when we went to pick up our bags it was all there except for Elder Woudens so we stood there for a while not knowing what to do. Then we went out of the bag claim area and went to meet our President, they were there with the Aps. When the president shook my hand I didn’t really know it was him cause he was so short, the top of his head barely comes halfway up my chest same with his wife. Oh, I forgot right as we walked out some dude tried to grab my bags! I told him no but he didn’t listen but he took them and just set them by the President and didn’t even say a word to me then he wanted me to pay him! It was crazy.... anyway so half of us went with the president and half went with the Aps, I went with the president. We got in the car which is a way freaken nice van and then took off..... now let me tell you driving in Teguc is unlike any driving in the states anywhere, there are no lines in the roads so no lanes. People don’t even pay attention to the street lights, there are school buses everywhere that people take and use like normal buses and they deck them out and put big stacks on the back for the extra stuff, they are all cromed out and crazy rims and the drivers are the craziest and best drivers ever! It crazy!!! I’m actually scared to drive here but I kinda hope I get to! So after the crazy car ride we got to the mission office which is a building the church owns. It is a big office building and we were going to have lunch and guess what my first lunch was in Honduras..... Chinese food hahaha and it was actually way good. So after lunch we had are welcome meeting with the APs and all the missionaries in the office and the President’s wife, and while we were having the meeting the President would take us out one at a time in to his office and have our interviews, let me just say President Florez is a stud he is so awesome! We talked for like an hour and he showed me my area which is called Catacamas (I’ll go more in to detail about my area later). Then after the meeting we did a few technical things, exchange money (by the way 1$ American = 19 limps which is the currency they use here), we got our debit cards for our money from the church that stuff, then we went to the President’s house and had dinner which was way freaken good. Then we went to the APs house to sleep. Their house is huge but there are also 8 missionaries living there but it was sweet, there was like 14 missionaries sleeping there at once. The next day we went to the President’s house and had breakfast ( we had beans and pancakes and this way good cheese they have here and fried bananas) then we had another meeting and met our trainers. My trainer is Elder Tay as you already know, he is fromGuatemala he is so awesome he helps me out so much, he is also only like 5 ´5 and a 110 lbs hahahaha. So we meet our trainers then head back to the office to get our bags and then head out to our areas! Well since you know where my area is you may also know that it is 210 miles away from Teguc so I thought we were going to have to take a bus all the way out there but the APs needed to take some stuff out there for our new casa so we got to ride out there with them which was nice, but we had so much crap in that car!! hahaha and we didn’t get to leave till like 5 and we didn’t get there till like 10:00. Well Elder Bourne was one of the elders that drove us out there, we stayed in a house the missionaries had been living in but the lady that owned it wanted to move back in so the next day we moved all our stuff out and went to our new casa. Well I don’t have much time but I’m in the city of Catacamas , it is so awesome it’s some little cowboy town in the middle of the jungle. There is a small branch out here with about 86 members, they are all way awesome. I love it out here, the people are so nice. I will send some pics next week and I’ll try to get a letter off with more stuff about the area. The language is so hard I don’t understand anything but I know that it will come with time. I haven’t seen much with the political stuff going on here. Like I said I love it here. I’m so tired at night I barely get through planning and getting ready for bed at night before I’m out cold. There are roosters everywhere here, I think they are all broken too cause they like to make that horrible sound whenever they feel like in even at 3 in the morning and they don’t ever stop. There is a banana tree in our backyard and the person that lives behind us has a parrot that thinks it’s a rooster and it likes to talk. Well I’m out of time. I love and miss you guys so much, pray for me, I need it right now but I’m okay here. Like I said again I love you so much this work is true the church is true. May the Lord pore out all his blessings on you.

Love Elder Paulson

This is a view of the area that Elder Paulson is serving it. The town is called Catacamas and his new companions name is Elder Tay. This town is about 90 miles from Tegucigalpa.

Elder Spencer Paulson at the airport on the way to Honduras. He was so excited to be on his way.