Letter from Elder Ahlborn

I have some bad news. I
only have a half hour to, in order, Read the letters from the
president, write him in Spanish, read your letters, and after write
you. I cant do the general letter anymore, you have to write it from
what i tell you. Sorry, I think president will give me a bit more time
I asked him in my letter.
Thanks for sending me stuff for Christmas and birthday, it means
alot out here. I hope your package gets to you all soon, I guess we
will find out.
So we baptized a mother and her son, Vanesa and Linardo Saturday. I
love this little family they are really special. Her two sons,
Linardo 10 and Jared 6 carry around there backpacks with there books
of Mormons and Bibles, like they are missionaries. It's cute. I like
being an example.
We were going to baptize her daughter Katharine but she has some
problems with the word of wisdom, we will baptize her soon. Just
little things right, she can overcome her addiction, its all possible.
I'm very grateful for the gift of repentance.
I will send the photos next week I'm outa time...
With mucho amor,
Elder Ahlborn

It's almost Christmas!!

Hey Everyone I hope that you all enjoyed your Thanksgiving! Mine was
pretty good, I didn't get to eat good food or be with family but I
still enjoyed it :)
So we had 3 baptisms planned for this last Saturday, but they fell
through. We were going to baptize a Single mother, Vanesa, and her two
kids, Katarine and Linardo. The stake invited Katarine to there Youth
conference so she wasn't home Saturday. We will Baptize them in a week
no worries :)
Our landlord sold our house to a lady that is going to move in
January. We have to find a house in a month and move, I'm not too
exctied about that haha. Maybe we will get a better house??
So this month has been pretty crazy with money and emergency
changes. I had to lend my companion Elder Beltran like 50 bucks at the
beginning of the month because he didn't have his credit card yet. The
office told me they would reimburse me like a week later. 5 weeks
later I finally got my money. On top of that I had to pay like 15
bucks (that's a lot of money here) for taxis because I had to change
areas suddenly. So I honestly don't have any money haha. Today we didn't
have enough money to pay a taxi to get to the Stake center. The taxi
is only 12 lempiras each person, or like 70 cents. My companion didn't
have anything and I had 20 lempiras. We live across the street from a
pawn shop so this morning to get money I tried to pawn my disc man.
The guy told us that he would only take a Digital Camera. So I told
him that we only needed 4 lempiras or like 5 cents for the taxi. He was
like "o no worries here take this" and handed us 4 lempiras hahaha. It
was kinda weird but here I am writing you all!
Life is still good, a bit stressful but I'm good. I'm excited for
Christmas, I have the goal to baptize two families by the end of the
year. Its the only thing I want for Christmas haha.
I love you all, thanks for the prayers!!!
Elder Ahlborn

hola de Honduras!

Hey Everyone! So my new area is great, Its really nice, like upper middle class of Honduras. Right now we have eight baptism dates for the 26th of this month. Happy Thanksgiving right haha. The sad part is that all of them are single mothers with there children. There just aren't many good Fathers here, but that's why I'm here as a missionary, to fix that right.
My companion Elder Rivas is great. We have about the same amount of time on the mission, and he is also the oldest child of the family, so we get along really well. He is from El Salvador. He is the only boy in his family and he has worked in his families bakery for pretty much his whole life. I feel like we will have a lot of success here together.
I love you all so much!!!
take care!!
Elder Ahlborn

Changes!!

So this week was pretty nuts. Tuesday I had changes with the zone
leaders. After one of the best days of work that I have ever had in
the Villeda Morales, the assistants called me that night at 10 and told
me that I was changing areas. I didn't do anything wrong haha no
worries, some elders got sent home for some things, and now I'm in one
of there areas. My new area is called Boulevard or Centro America
Oeste. Its in the same zone as my first area San Rafael. In Three
weeks I have been part of 2 emergency changes haha, what did I do to
deserve this?
Things here in Boulevard are good. The house is really nice with hot
water and running water. The ward here is really nice, and big. They
want to do a lot of baptizing which is good. Ill keep you posted on
the next few weeks, cause i only have 4 days in this area.
I am doing well, my Spanish is solid. I can understand almost
everything. I am a bit stressed, but what missionary isn't haha. Take
care!
Love Elder Ahlborn

Happy Halloween!!!

Hola everyone!! I hope you are having a wonderful halloween with a ton of candy and fun. What I wouldnt give to have some good american candy haha. Things here are good, the weather has been really cool, we have been having more rainstorms because of a hurricane in the gulf of mexico or something. Hopefully this all passes soon.
I had two baptisms saturday of Maria and her niece Isis. It was awesome, I was so happy to finally bring them both to baptism. It was a battle and it took a bit longer then I would have liked, but it was all worth it. Im not sure how november is looking with baptisms, but ill keep you all posted.
I am doing very well, I have been learning a lot here in La Villeda. I am able to do so much more from then when I came. My spanish isnt perfect but its getting better everyday. Im worried that im forgetting English. Its weird to speak english right now, like it doesnt sound right. I guess thats a good sign haha!!
I have to go, I love you all, take care and have fun today!
Elder Ahlborn

I got cold in Honduras!!

So this week was chilly, ya that's right, cold, cold in Honduras. No worries I lived haha. It rained for like 2 and a half weeks straight, and its just finally stopping. I didn't see the sun for a while, and I think that's why it was so cold. The sun couldn't break through the cloud cover. I had to use a jacket like all the other people here, I felt so weird, like the Utah part of me died like 4 months ago haha.
This week we should have two baptisms, but I am so so so worried about them. The baptisms are a aunt and her niece, Maria and Isis. They are family of a family of recent converts. They know the church is true and they are reading the Book of Mormon everyday, but they are going to move sometime this week, and there baptism is Saturday. I'm scared that if I baptize them, they'll move and never attend church here the Villeda or there other ward, ever again. I will let you all know what happened next letter.
We have been struggling to find new people to teach. We had a baby die in our branch this last week, and everyone in the ward and the community has been doing things to help the family ,Everyone has just been really busy, including us. I hope that this week things will calm down a bit. Who knows maybe with the death of this baby more people will want to know about the church and what we believe about death. I'm Just being positive!!

I gave a 17 min talk in church yesterday about the talk from Elder Perry called, Raising the Bar. I hope that it made an impact on the young men in our branch. They all need to serve missions, that cant even imagine what the mission can do for them. I also taught the Sunday school class for the recent converts, with my companion. It was on the Millennium, The talk and the class went well. I feel pretty good about my Spanish now, I think people can actually understand me haha.

So the last thing I want to share with you is some of the weird customs here that I have learned. The first is called something weird in Spanish, I don't remember exactly, but its when you eat a meal but in the incorrect hour, they say that your stomach is all messed up and that someone has to massage your stomach with oil to fix it, ya weird. I don't want anyone rubbing my stomach with oil.

The other is with babies. Here they believe if you stare at a baby to long, it will get sick, so to protect against this they put a bracelet on the baby's wrist. This Bracelet has like a Giant seed on it and supposedly this protects the baby. Literally every new born has this.

And the last one is how they propose engagement. The man has to go gather wood, like a bunch of sticks, the more the better, and place them in front of the door of the brides house. If the father approves of the wedding, he will take the sticks in and use them for fuel, if not he will just leave them in front of the door until the poor wannabe groom figures out that he isn't getting married. These are all things that most of the people believe in, with all there hearts they think its true. Its quirky but I like it, it makes them unique.

Anyways I gotta go eat some good food, I love you all so much, thank you for the prayers and support. I am so glad to be a missionary our here in Honduras. Take care, be safe, make good choices!!!
With love from Honduras,
Elder Nathan Lynn Ahlborn

No worries!! All is well with me!

Hey everyone thanks for all your "get well soon" emails. I think they worked cause I am doing much better! So I have a lot to write this week, because things are crazy here haha.
So last Monday after me and Elder Muñoz returned home around 5. We had a message from the assistantes. They called again and said that we needed to wait in the house until they arrive. What!! In 10 minutes we cleaned the whole house haha. The assistants arrived at the house with a new elder. They told elder Munoz to pack his bags because this new elder was going to be my companion. My first Emergency change!! So my new companion is Elder Beltran. He is from Santa Ana, El Salvador. He started his mission in February of 2010 in The Montevideo mission in Uruguay. Something happened with other missionaries of something problems, its none of my business, but he went home to El Salvador for a bit until returning to the field here in Honduras. He is a good Elder, a bit weird but what missionary isn't haha. I feel a bit stressed because I have to do everything, it should be better this week because he is getting back into the swing of things. We had some good things happen this week.
We placed a baptism date with a girl here. She is the neighbor of a member and she was been attending church for the last two months. She had an accident when she was younger and is a bit slower then the average bear, but she wants to be baptized. We have the challenge now of teaching her as simply as possible. Her date is for the 5 of November.
We still have two dates for this month, the 29. I am a bit worried that once Maria and Isis are baptized that they wont attend church again. We are going to talk, but I have confidence that the Lord will guide me in what I should do. I will tell you all it all turns out, but no worries =) I just don't want to baptize anyone else into inactivity.
We are teaching the sister of Maria, Santa. She is very smart, loves reading the bible and the Book of Mormon, and of recently has worries about what lies ahead of this life. She is building a testimony slowly but surely. The only problem we have right now is coffee. She drinks coffee like 10 times a day. She even told us that she bleeds coffee. This last week after teaching the Plan of Salvation she expressed to us that she needs to stop drinking coffee, that she needs to be baptize and accept Christ in her life. She attended Conference and loved the talk of the Young women's president about how fathers should love there mothers to be an example for their girls. I am very confident that she will over come her challenges, she knows what is right.
We talked with a less active member Sunday. My heart broke a little. Her husband has a strong testimony of the Gospel, he shared the Gospel with his family and they were baptized in February. She was baptized by the missionaries a year ago without a testimony of the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith, I don't know how its possible but it happened. Now she doesn't come to church because we don't use the bible as much as she would like. Her mother was Jehovah Witness and her beliefs reflect the beliefs of the Jehovah witnesses. She only believes in the Bible and doesn't want to accept that Jesus Christ is Jehovah. We talked for a long time and built her trust. I left her with two of my favorite scriptures, one in 2 Nephi about how if you believe in Christ you will believe in the Book of Mormon, and that it is possible to have more scripture than just the bible. We have another meeting with her Wednesday, we challenged her to read and pray. We will see what happens, but I am just hoping and praying that she will be able to gain a testimony for herself.
So I really haven't seen the sun in two weeks. There has been a tropical storm or something close to us and it has been raining for the last two weeks every day. I talked to President and I can use my jacket, so no worries I shouldn't get sick again haha. Its crazy though, living in Utah my whole life, I didn't know that it was possible to have so so much rain.
I love being out here serving. It is hard there is no doubt about that but I love it!! I love the people, my companion and my Savior. I hope you are all doing well in school and in work or whatever it is that you are doing. Take care!!
With much love from Honduras,
Elder Ahlborn