It's summer!!!

Hey everyone! How has the summer been so far? I hope you are all
busy with something fun. Here in Honduras it's always summer. The
people here say they have a winter because it gets down to seventy or
sixty, but seriously that's summer in Utah haha.
I am doing very well. Its amazing because everything that President
Smith blessed me with has happened. My feet and legs are perfect, my
stomach is good too. The only thing that really bugs me is the heat
haha which isn't to bad. When it rains our investigators always worry,
they ask if I need a towel or a bag or an umbrella. I always say
there's no use, because I'm always soaking wet from the rain or sweat
hahah. They always laugh. I think I get laughed at a lot. For example
the other day I asked Hermana Sousa what the name of her cactus was.
she said she didn't know so I was like o I know it's dolor, which in
Spanish means pain, ouch, or hurt hahaha.
We are so so close to baptism with 5 people. One of which is a
single mother named Carolina. She is 25 with two kids, Baby angel, 1
years old and Tracy, 3 years old. I love the little family. She has
had a hard live. She told us that Tracy's father left her for her
sister, then she moved on to Angels father, which is the brother to
Tracy's father. He left her too. When she was telling us this she was
crying, I think she realized that wickedness was never happiness. It's
weird because not only are Tracy and Angel half siblings, they are
cousins. They all live in a one room apartment, made completely out of
cement. She works for a member and is trying to find a better place.
I think she will be baptised.

Nothing too crazy this week. Sunday a bunch of drunk guys
surrounded me. One of them wanted me to exchange his one US dollar for
100 US dollars. Doesn't make sense right? It was a bit scary, so I
pulled the "no entiendo"card which in English means I don't understand
haha. He was like o sorry and his other drunk friend got mad at him
and was like " hey leave them alone they have God on their side or
something like that"

The food is amazing here. It usually consists of rice, plantains,
red beans, and like this cream yogurt stuff, its not sweet but I like
it. And always always you have tortillas.
Also another thing I love is the "pulpurias" People just sell
stuff like candy, chips, soda, and other snacks out of their house.
The funny part is pulpuria literally means, Octopus store, like they
sell octopus for food haha. I have no clue where that came from, it's
just the name.
This last week I went on exchanges with Elder Jenkins one of my
zone leaders. He is from Nevada, and he lives by and knows my friend
from Snow College, Lydia Ogeles. He likes all the same stuff as me,
just in general a cool kid. He also speaks English which was nice for
a change. But I missed my companion Elder Sian.
I think Elder Sian will be changing areas this next week, but I'm not
sure. I guess we will find out!
Things are just amazing. I miss and love you all. The time is flying
by, already 3 months, an eighth of the way. In an eternal
perspective, 2 years is nothing. Be safe, remember who you are and
what you stand for! haha
Elder Nathan Ahlborn

Already 3 months!

Hey everyone! How are all you doing? Mi vida es buena! This week was good, a ton of rain, but awesome. I am doing very well physically, mentally and spiritually, so no worries!
This week nothing too crazy happened. The only thing I can think of happened on Wednesday. We were contacting, and we encountered this woman with a beard. Like really a beard, probably one better then I could grow hahaha. We talked to her and she agreed to meet with us later. Later that day one of our investigator friends told us not to visit her because she is a pastor for an Evangelical Church. It was funny because she said " Don´t talk to the lady with the beard" haha how sad is it to be known as a the bearded lady pastor.
Spiritually this week was awesome. Tuesday we had zone conference. I probably understood 30%, There were some things that were easier to understand than others. My two favorite parts of it were about the Book Of Mormon and when we watched a talk given by Elder Holland this last January in the MTC.
This last week I had been studying in chapter 5 of Preach My Gospel, it's about the Book Of Mormon. I prayed to have a confirmation of the importance of it. Then on Tuesday I got my answer. The Book of Mormon is everything to our church. If it's true, and it is without a doubt, then Joseph Smith was a Prophet, the true Church of Christ was restored through him, and our church has the only true Priesthood authority on the earth. My favorite part of the day is when I get to read in the Book of Mormon in the mornings. I just love it!
The talk by Elder Holland was amazing. It was similar to the talk Drew gave me. All the North Americans got to watch it in English, which helped a ton haha. It's just a good talk. Elder Holland talks about how important his mission is to him, how important Preach My Gospel is, and how very important it is to use the Book Of Mormon. Elder Holland is a powerful speaker.
Zone conference was about 9 or 10 hours long, but it was so good. I can´t wait for when I can understand what all the speakers are saying during it haha.

Preparation days are fun. Usually we study until 10:30 then we go and do a district or zone activity, usually soccer, or as it is called here, futbol. All the gringos are awful at soccer, including me, but the Latinos are teaching us how to play the right way hahaha. It's fun to run around for an hour. Today (Monday) I'm getting a hair cut, I'm a bit nervous cause I don't know much hair vocab. Hopefully I don't get some crazy Latino cut, I'm sure Elder Sian will help me out on this hahah


I´m not sure if you all know, but EVERYONE can email me, and I can email back, once I have written my Mission President and my family, so send me some emails people!


The time is flying by. It actually makes me kinda sad how fast it's going, because if you think about it I only have two years out here, then that's it. No redos. I do miss my family and friends, but they will be there when I get back. With my family, what's two years compared to eternity right?

I love you all and hope all is well in the States. I think graduation is this week? Congratulations Steve! I hope you all enjoy your summers. Alan and Geana, you need to keep me posted about the river this year, no worries it wont be a distraction =) be safe, pray often, make good choices, remember who you are, and all that good stuff hahaha

Con todo mi Corazon,
Elder Nathan Lynn Ahlborn

This place is nuts!! but I'm loving it!

Hey everybody!! life here is just awesome. I got to call home on Monday because our zone leaders forgot to tell us to call. I miss the fam, but no worries it's not a distraction. I'm loving it here. Its super hard work, physically, mentally and spiritually, but every single life experience I have had up to this point has prepared me for this mission. I love doing something and thinking " I can do this because two years ago on the river I did this" or this isn't so bad, remember that one time on trek, tons of things like that, I reflect on and it gives me confidence.
K now for the good stuff, so on Monday it rained. But this was rain on steroids. It dumped for a half hour straight. I have never never seen anything like it in my life, Storms on the river, or that big one on trek looked like nothing compared to this. The stream that runs through the bottom of the little valley of San Rafael went from being a stream smaller than hobble creek to a class 5 plus river. No exaggeration. It was intense. O ya I guess this type of thing happens a lot hahaha.
So Saturday was literally one of the weirdest craziest funnest days of my life. 3 experiences. The first, around the morning like noonish coming back from a service project,chopping pieces of pine in half with machetes in a white shirt and tie. Me and elder Sian were walking when this woman jumped out of no where. She was screaming hermanos hermanos, or brothers brothers in English. She either wanted money or to shake our hands, probably money because I'm pretty sure she was drunk or under the influence of something. Me and elder Sian immediately looked right at the ground and started speed jogging because this woman was just wearing bottoms. Ya crazy right, never would happen in Utah. Elder Sian said that this type of stuff only happens in Honduras.
Second experience, while teaching this single mother with two kids, her nephew or some random kid, about 7 or 8 came in, then walked out of the house, which is tiny, and right at the open door way 6 feet from all of us started peeing in the rain gutter. hahah what the heck right? the kid just ripped down his pants to his ankles and peed right in the middle of our lesson. I couldn't help but laugh, what could I do? The mother and elder Sian laughed too and so did the kid. The funniest part was the mother's little girl who is about 3 got super offended.
Last experience. Me and Elder Sian are teaching the Cabellero family. Amazing family, the mother has amazing faith, but she also belongs to another church. On Saturday our appointments got mixed up and when we came at seven the missionaries from her church were already there. But she had us sit down with them all. I could tell from the beginning that this was not good. Me and elder Sian sat there for an hour. I had no clue what they were saying, but this man and woman missionaries just went on and on. I was frustrated, and I could tell that what they were saying was bothering elder Sian. Once they left elder Sian told me they just sat there and indirectly, because the guy wouldn't even look at us, bible bashed and dissed the true church. After their lesson they wanted to pray, or really blasphimize. They all stood up held hands and this guy literally yelled a prayer. Me and Elder Sian stood for respect, but did not participate. The feeling in the room was not good, and during thier apostatize prayer I sat there and prayed my heart and soul out for this family. Elder Sian did the same and the Lord answers prayers.
After the other missionaries left, the dad who we had just barely got to participate came out and apologized to us. He told us that those missionaries were no good, they would only visit and be your friend when they paid the equivalent of tithing at church. He said that they didn't have the same spirit as we did. Then his wife came out with mango juice, which she didn't give to the other missionaries :) So hopefully not to much damage was done.
I feel the spirit all the time. I love it here. It's different, but good, just simpler. We are teaching this one family, Family Nunez Moncada. Their 8 year old boy loves us. He wants us to come over every day. I think they will be baptized!
I hope all is well in the states, love and miss you all!
Elder Nathan Ahlborn

Mother's Day phone call

Nathan called us tonight! We were able to talk to him for about 45 minutes and he sounded really good. He says it is the "bomb" to be there. He really likes his companion Elder Sion who is very patient with him and his Spanish speaking abilities. Elder Sion is a very optimistic guy and reminds him of a Hispanic Uncle Alan. Elder Sion is a convert and has a great testimony. I guess they only get running water 2 days a week, usually on Tues. and Wed. They fill up this big cement tub which they use as their washing machine and they hand wash their clothes and hang them to dry. He says in the big city, Tegucigalpa they have a lot of the same American amenities such as Little Caesars, McDonalds, Walmart etc. He has to go into the city on P-day to get to a computer to e-mail us. He says they walk everywhere and that if they had bikes they would probably be stolen. The San Rafeal area is very hilly and not very flat so they have to climb to people's houses. He says he loves the people who seem to be fascinated with his white skin and "beautiful" hair a little girl told him today. He says that his branch will be made into a ward this June at their Stake Conference and that he will be able to attend the Honduran temple dedication because it is close. He loves the view from his apartment.

For those of you who write him on DEARELDER.COM it takes about 9 days to get to him. One week to get to the mission home and then on Tuesdays at Zone/district meetings it is passed onto him.

He was very positive and sounded great!

Week 2!!!!

Hey Everyone how is it in the States? How was your mothers day? Everything here is just perfect, I love this place! I love the people, and more importantly I love serving the lord.
This week has been super busy, which I love, it gives me no time to think about anything else, and the days fly by. Me and Elder Sian have been working on baptism, but still nothing, this week we will get some though, dates anyways. We have three families that are close, Carmen and Esaida, Family Nuñez and family Nuñez Moncada. I will keep you all posted.
So I thought I would lose weight out here, and I think I am, but members feed us all the time. Yesterday for mothers day, everyone buys cake for their mother. I had so much cake and soda i almost threw up haha. My favorite though is when people make us "Baleadas", all it is is a small tortilla, red refried beans and possible egg, meat or sour cream. Holy cow they are good. The best part is that they are so so easy and fast to make and they are also filling. Whats even better is making the Tortillas from scratch. They taste better then store bought. The fun part is smashing the dough into tortillas. I always help the women prepare them. You get the dough and put it on a board, then with another board you smash it by putting all your weight on it. I'm good at it cause I have a good 40 or 50 pounds on everyone. O ya I think I forgot to mention, I am tall here!
One funny meal I got consisted of all this, Tomatoes, mangoes, rice and beans. For those of you that know me well enough, you would know those are the foods I hate most in the world, but I ate them all. Whats cool is that the people here eat all of that all the time so they know how to make it super good. The rice and beans are amazing. They only have red beans here, kinda weird, but they are so good. The mangoes are sweeter here, but I'm still kinda iffy about them, and for the tomatoes, well I still won't touch them hahah I gave them to elder Sian he loves them.
Enough about the food. This week me and elder Sian were walking down the street when I saw a bunch of girls doing double dutch, so naturally I had to try haha. It was fun and everybody, like everybody came out to watch the white boy jump rope. They all loved it and now I get invited every day to come and jump rope haha.
When I first got here I just stuck out. People looked at me so funny, but now I am fitting in, people know of me and what I do, its cool. And no worries mom I am perfectly safe.
Another awesome experience. Everyone always trys to speak English to me, needless to say they are not good at all haha, but I always talk back anyways. On Thursday a group of little boys stopped me because they wanted to know some English, so I said the alphabet and numbers for them, then when I was saying all their names pronounced in English, which most of them have English names like Jennie, Anderson, Alexander, etc. But the best part was, an older guy like 60 or 70 we had passed wanted to talk to us, and he would have never caught up to us if those kids didnt stop me to talk, we got his info and will be teaching this week. Pretty sweet right?

I can really feel the spirit, even though I can't understand everything I can feel it. The spirit is truly a universal language. My Spanish is getting decently better. I actually have improved a ton since I got here, even Elder Sian says so, but I think he is just being nice.

So this week me and elder Sian gave three or four blessing. I have to do the oil part, because I don't know enough to say what I want. The hardest part is the names. Hispanics have four names, which most of the time I can't even say right. I'm getting better though. I bought sticky notes today, and I'm going to stick one in my white handbook so I can write the name down haha.

I love you all, and pray for you always.
Sincerely Elder AHlborn

Preaching in honduras!!

I finally made it!! Safely too.After a nine hour flight, and almost having to land in El Salvador or San Pedro Sula, I made it to Honduras! I love it here, dont get me wrong this place is a little nuts, and its no america but I love it. The first day here I spent in the mission office. There was a total of 9 new elders, 6 natives and 3 from the states. The A.P´s, the Mission presidents wife and the Mission president instructed us on some basic things. It was good, except that we had to sit there for a few hours after we had just got done sitting on a plane. That night we had dinner with the mission president. I´m pretty sure he has a nicer house than we do hahaha. It was good, we had this green drink that looked pretty nasty, but it tasted awesome, like apple juice or something. That night after dinner the president flores got a call from a stake center saying they needed help unloading these huge trucks with humanitarian supplies, that was pretty sweet, service on the first day. After that, all the new missionaries spent the night at the mission home.
The next day all the missionaries in the mission met together and thats where we found out who our new companions were .My new companions name is Elder Miguel Sian. I love the little guy! He is a convert of 3 years from Guatamala city. I couldnt ask for a better trainger. I wish I could speak more spanish. Its frusturating to have so much to say but you cant cause you dont know how. O well I will learn.

My first area is called Tortagua. My companion and I cover the San Rafeal area. It´s pretty small area, with a ton of people in a ton of little houses everywhere. There is a ton of hills here too. Most have stairs to get around, but some of the more poor areas dont, so I litterally have to hike up to some places. On Friday we helped a member with hauling sand, easy right? Nope, this kid lived up on one of these little hiking trails. We had to haul sand from the bottom up about 300 feet up a cliff by bag. Back breaking work litterally.
I always get these funny looks, I thinks its because im the only white person in san rafeal. people always try to speak english to me, I get a lot of, "goodnights" or "how you" or "americano" The kids in the branch always ask me how to say words in english, and even one family wanted me to pray fast in english hahaha. There english sounds funny, but my spanish probably sounds the exact same haha.
Our apartment is one of the nicest buildings in all of san rafael. It´s huge and my companion and I have our own bathrooms. We have a shower that only has cold, which I have no problem with cause it is stinking hot here. We also have flushing toilets with toilet paper. Not to bad right?
Our little branch is the best. I love our members, they are funny good people. It´s funny, they have the hardest time saying my name, everyone does, In spanish the R and the N together make a diffrent noise. The closest people get to is Elder "Arbol" or tree haha I dont mind. I bore my testimony this sunday, My companion said it made sense too :)
So im pretty sure every toyota car my family has owned, including my truck has ended up in honduras. Also for being a 3rd world country, people drive really nice cars, kinda funny. When they drive though they drive like maniacs. There is no such thing as defensive driving here. You just go and hope the person you cut in front of stops. President Flores is way good at driving here, its just so crazy, you litterally think you are going to die. No stop lights no traffic cops. The AP´s car has all this dents in it haha most cars do though. its just insane, but kinda fun.
The coolest thing that has happend to me happend the first time Me and my comp went out. We visited the Ramierz family, We were sitting with the dad who was wearing this sweet hounduras soccer jersey, when I said in spanish " I need a shirt like that" He instantley took it off and said if it fits its yours. I try to deny but Elder Sian told me to take it. It´s seriously probably the sweetest jersey in the world. It just goes to show that there are still people in the world that are willing to give you the shirt off there back. That goes for all the people here. they dont have much, but what they do have they will give to you freely. I have been fed 4 or 5 times just in the last 6 days. It was all the foods I have too, rice, beans, soup, mangos and mystery meat. I dont know how the people here do it, but they make it taste so dang good. The beans here are red, no other kind. The refried beans are the best with torrtillas. also the rice here actually has a taste and its good. I dont know how they do it. Also and this one is the most suprings of all, I ate a whole mango bymyself. crazy right? This member handed me a cup of fruit and I just started eating it, it was super sweet and good, It wasn´t until half way that I realized that it was a mango. The mangos here taste so much better and different then the ones in the states. this place is the best.
So I think yesterday was mothers day, and I think you might have been expecting a call mom. I get to call Wednsday I think because thats when mothers day here is. Bottom line, you will get a call, I just dont know when.
I love you all, you are in my prayers. I am doing amazing no worries, I will talk to you all next week!