Monday, February 20, 2012

Through the Fire and the Flames

Dude this week was crazy!  Honduras is totally going to the dogs!  This week there was a couple of crazy fires in the city.  Probably Taylor Adams went down in one of them.  But one of them was a prison.  It burned down and like 350 people died in it I think.  I heard there was just pictures of it in the newspaper and that it was awful.  There´s a rumor that the government started it so they wouldn´t have to keep supporting all of the people in the prison.  I don´t know if I believe that though.  Also there was another fire! Some gas thing exploded, and all of these little stores burned down.  I think it was like the place we went to in Peru where they had the black market, and all those stores were selling different things you know?  So yeah, that one was also in the city.  We could see the smoke from our area.  It was loco.  Just a TON of black smoke.  Also I heard that someone got killed a couple blocks from my house.  So hopefully they don´t find my companion and I as well.  So yeah, I don´t know what´s going down here.  All I can say is signs of the times, signs of the times.  The second coming is nearly upon us.

I finished my first change in Honduras!  Only like.. not that many more to go!  Man it´s crazy, I´mma be home in no time!  My comp and I got better for a little while.  We saw some members from his first area, and I think it sort of reminded him of his excitement he had to be a missionary when he first got here.  So that was good.  But I´m still working my hardest to love him more and more!  As humans were so weak and just so naturally bad that´s it´s hard to get out of it.  But also, we´re children of God.  So that means we have the strength, the divine heritage, to be able to overcome any challenge, and be perfect one day in the far off future.  So I´m just working at being better always!  And thanks for all the advice that you all gave me.  You all said different things, but it was the perfect combo of help that I needed.  You guys rock.  I totally took you guys for granted before, but I love you all more than ever now!

So I was remembering how you guys have 1000 boxes of cereal in our house..  And I was wondering if you´ve even eaten any cereal since i´ve left.  You guys better get to work on that!  Haha if not then you better at least just start gifting it to everyone you see.  Oh you guys could take it with you in the car and give it to homeless people!  I just barely had that idea.  Sweet.

Oh yeah, my companion LOVES cars.  haha so mom could you send me some pics of your car, especially the controls on the inside.  He wanted to see that.  Thanks a lot! That new set up in the living room is nuts!  That´s way better than before.  Holy cow you guys have some sweet stuff.  I wish I had a couch :(  haha just kidding, my metal chair rocks your couch any day.  I don´t know if you guys told me what to do, but if you didn´t, can you tell me what I should do about my camera?  Just wondering, cause I´m all alone in the world without a camera! But it´s chill, I´m surviving.  Cause you know I don´t leave bullets in the chamber!

I love you all so much!  Thanks for praying for me and supporting me.  I love you guys tons and tons!  Stay strong.  Keep reading the scrips.  

Love Elder Danny Robot Unicorn Harding

I'm a genius! but more of an idiot.

How are you guys!!  I´m glad to hear that life is going good for you guys.  For me it´s going good too!  Oh man all that talk with Tyler about paying his tuition and his housing made me worry about mine too.. Until I remembered...  What tuition?!  Ah man what a life.  In 20 months(and a little) I´m gonna be livin it good.

Today we had an activity as a zone because we were the cleanest Zone in the mission!  So we went to the Zoo, which is basically exactly like the zoo we went to in Peru.  It was pretty neat.  Yeah everything here is pretty much like Peru.  It seems a lot like a mix of Peru and the US.  If I were to describe it I would say that Honduras is Latin with a lot of american influence, while Peru is latin with a lot of European influence.  Well, I´ve never been to Europe, but if I did know anything about it, I would expect it to be more like that.  That´s the best I can describe it haha.  Speaking of cleanest zone, My companion and I also got an email that told us that our house was the cleanest of our zone!  Word yo.  That just goes to show that I don´t leave bullets in the chamber, even when it comes to cleaning.

MOM AND DAD!!!  YOU GUYS ARE IN BIG TROUBLE!  Why in the world are you guys not on a mission?  Try to give me one good reason.  The Ray´s (the senior couple in our mission)  told me that the world is 8000 senior couples short!  And with the new rules for senior missionaries you guys could even be home before I get back!  Think about it.  It´s a good idea.  And the age limit is 40!  So you guys are good to go!

Ok so the reason I´m a genius:  I started to boil water in the morning, and then put it in my bucket so that I could shower.  Now I´m showering with pretty warm water every day!  I feel like such a boss.  Ok so the reason I´m an idiot.  OH man I feel so dumb even saying it.  But I guess it´s a Harding thing to have problems like this..  Well actually there´s good and bad news here.  The bad news.  I lost my camera.  It must have just slipped out of my pocket on the bus.  I didn´t really have very many pictures on it so it´s ok. Plus I still have a memory card and a battery, so i just need a camera!  So yeah, the bad news is I´m now down a camera.  The even better news though is that now one of my Catracho brothers has a sweet new camera!  And photos of a bunch of gringos!  Oh man I´m so happy for him.  He needed it more than me I´m sure. 

You ask if I´m safe in Pedregal?  Let´s just say that Pedregal is an area where sister missionarys aren´t allowed to go.  :)  That´s what I´m talking about.

Ok so you guys gotta send me a picture of your new tv!  And curtis, a picture of the old tv in your apartment.  Do you have the wii wthere?  That´d be sweet.  MOM, how´s it going as primary director?  I bet that´s way fun for you!  Also are you guys going to sell Dad´s dental practice in Provo?  What´s the scoop?  and how are the Mavs doing?  Thanks for writing longer letters today!  I´m gonna run out of lempiras from printing them all!  But that´s a good thing.  So keep sending em long!  I love you all, and I hope you all love life a LOT!

Happy Valentines Day to everybody!  Enjoy the day of LOVE!!  Love everyone. That´s my advice.  Danny out.

Love, Elder Danny Camp Rock Harding

Just another Week in Honduras

Hey family what´s up!!  This week was alright, but we´re still not having any success!  We have a few investigators though, so that´s good.  Haha so i just sat on the bus next to a mime.. that was sweet.  He didn´t really want to talk to me i think.  haha so that was pretty sweet.
  Oh yeah also with Doterra, the senior couple in our mission does it a little!  The ladies name is Sonya Ray, but her daughter is bigger than her.  Her name is Perla Ray.  She´s from Mexico and I guess helped open up down there.  Do you know them?
   This week we had some difficulties as a companionship.  The first one was a couple of days ago when we were contacting and my companion couldn´t handle getting rejected, so we went back to the house to ¨get water¨ but instead we just stayed there till dinner, which was like 50 minutes away.  So I tried to give him a pep talk like curtis did to his companion that one time but I don´t know if i helped or not.  i probably just did more damage haha, but at least I tried!  So he was really upset that day.   He had told me a couple days earlier that he doesn´t even like his mission!  how sad is that?  I feel bad for him that he doesn´t enjoy it. But I need some advice from you guys and all of the wisdom that you possess.  I feel like he doesn´t really like me, and I want to be able to be his friend, but I also don´t want to just give in to everything that he says.  How can i find a happy medium?  Don´t get me wrong, I love it here! but I just know I can be happier if we got along better.  Also we would have more success!
    Dude you guys never told me what you got for christmas!!  So let me know about that yo.  Also how´s mitt romney doing?  I was thinking about that mormon the other day.  Also mom, I have a question about ground beef.  is it ok if it gets sort of a green tint around the outside when it´s in the fridge?  I hope so, cause if not then I´ll probably die some day soon from eating it.
   Haha that is so funny what Nick said about mothers knowing everything in his talk!  haha it´s totally true too, you guys know everything.
Anyways that´s about it for this week!  Sorry i did´nt have as much time today!  I was a little slackin´.  Anyways, I love you guys, and thank you for your prayers!  They´re always helping me out!

Love, Elder Danny "T-Bone Steak" Harding

Welcome to the Jungle

Ok I only put that title so that you guys would think I got transfered to some crazy place.  Plus it´s a cool song. But yeah, I didn´t get transfered, still good old Pedregal!  No, I didn´t get my Patriarchal Blessing yet or my debit card, but I´ll have patience.  Tanner Johnson said it takes like 3 or 4 weeks to get things here anyways.  Oh yeah one thing the office elders told us is don´t send anything through Fed Ex!  Apparently they cost a lot, and when it gets here I have to pay as well!  haha that funny huh?  But yeah, thanks for sending the quad and hymnal, I´m sure it will get here in time because I´m gonna be with this companion for like 8 more weeks or something since He´s my trainer.  Good old Elder Osorio.  I might try to send pictures in a second.

Uh oh.  Sushi?  really?  Oh man that does bring back bad memories.  20 dollars for a sushi buffet or 20 dollars for a meat buffet... hmmm.. That´s not a hard choice.  Tucanos baby.  But hopefully for you guys mom will soon forget about that strange desire.  I have to tell you guys about the weather here!  it´s basically been perfect the whole time!  haha like mid 70s low 80s with a breeze pretty much every day.  There are some days that it´s a little uncomfortable to walk up hills because it´s hot, but really it´s all good.  Do you guys have snow yet?  Oh man I miss it!  but yeah you guys probably won´t get any this year.  bummer.

We were at this members house and they asked us the strangest question.  The dad was like is it ok to give a blessing to a bad child so that they will behave better?  haha I was just like uummm, I think just a normal prayer should work for that one..  haha that was funny.  Anyways, At that same house there was this clock on the wall, but it was crooked.  So I pushed it so that it wouldn´t be crooked anymore.  How nice of me I thought, I´m helping their clock...  But then when I let go it swung back and fell off the nail that was holding it up and the plastic around the outside totally broke!  haha whoops.  Amen to that clock I guess.  Now that family knows as well as anyone that I don´t leave bullets in the chamber.  I don´t know if I told you guys the good news last week, but we got bumped up from 30 minutes to 40 minutes for internet!  apparently it used to be an hour before I got here, but noone was writing good letter to the pres and only writing a little to the fam and more to the friends, so they changed it to 30 minutes, 20 for family and 10 for the pres.  But now because we´ve been good we get 30 minutes for you guys and 10 for pres.  What a blessing!  But what I don´t understand is how I, with only 30 minutes to type, organize your letters, and thank about what to say, can write more than you guys, who have all day to write and think and ponder!  hahayeah, but Maybe one day it will be all the way back to an hour for us!

Can you guys figure out Taylor Adams email address and let me know?  Thanks a bunch! 

Anyways that´s all for this week. I hope you guys love life as much as I do!  I´ll try to send pics next week!

Love, Elder Danny "Spaghetti Fingers" Harding

Sunday, January 29, 2012

My third P-Day!

Everything is going well! How´s life with you guys?  I hope you´re loving it!  I have to tell you guys about the buses here!  They´re loco.  They´re all just old school buses from the united states, so they all have random school county names on them.  But on the inside they´re all totally party buses!  They always have loud rap music on and a lot of them have flashing lights in the front that go in time to the music.  One I went on last week even had a tv on playing music videos!  The problem is that it only had worldly music videos if you catch my drift.  haha but not all of them have rap!  This is the good news.  I think that rap is the favorite music here, and then 80´s music from america!  So I´m always hearing some good music too.  It´s pretty sweet.  On one of the buses I heard the song from Hot Rod called two of hearts.  You know the one that´s playing while they´re dancing by the car?  haha it made me lol!

I had my first real interview with the president this week!  I swear it was only like 5 minutes long.  He basically said how are you, ok cool let´s end with a prayer.  just kidding.  But seriously.  He told me that he put me with my companion Elder Osorio to give him more "animo".  That´s sort of like excitement for the work.  So I have to work hard so that I don´t get un-animo.  Sorry, I´m in a hurry.  I got lots of things to say!  haha 

Oh here´s something funny.  When my companion got to this area, Pedregal, him and  the other elder were new to the area.  So they didn´t know any of the investigators. So naturally, they just put all of the investigators in the ancient investigator section and decided to start from scratch.  haha I don´t understand that, but I want to try to find them this week.  I was just like whaaat?

One day this week I prayed that we would find a family, and that very day we did!  It was like Heavenly Father was saying "yeah, I´m here, just ask for me and use my power!"  It was pretty sweet.  The only problem is that I forgot to pray that they would be interested in our message. :)  haha so we taught the whole first lesson, and then when we asked if we could leave a book of mormon so they could pray about it, the dad just straight up said no!  I was dumbfounded!  Cause that   hasn´t happened yet that they answer so straightforward.  Normally they just say yes, take the book, and then hide from us when we come back.  It´s pretty funny.  You guys all rock!  Thanks for everything, and keep on partying

oh one more thing!  The other day we found a bullet in the street!  It was cool.  I kept it.  It showed me that there are people here just like me.  Cause I don´t leave bullets in the chamber.  You know that.  Thanks for raising me!  You guys did a good job I think.  


Love, Elder "Beast from the Middle East" Harding



Hello My Friends!!

I have some really bad news for you guys...   Mom this is gonna come as a shock to you..  But this past week I was walking down the dangerous streets of Honduras, down a back alley because we had to hurry back because we were out late teaching a lesson.  And then a thug came out and totally shot me and I died.  It was horrific...

Haha just kidding!!!  I only said that cause Mom said she was worried.  Funny right??!!?!? :):):)  But mom, if you REALLY want to get worried just search "Honduras" on google.  there´s actually an area in our mission where gringos aren´t allowed to go cause we´ll get capped!  haha Anyways, lifes good here.  The first two days were pretty tough for me.  The first day I was like what the heck am I doing in Honduras right now?  And I just felt really weird.  Probably it was a mixture of sadness loneliness and homesickness, mixed with a little culture shock. And as you all know, I haven´t had emotions for at least 2 and a half years, so it was weird to finally feel them again.  But I´m used to it now, and everything is all good!  I´m pretty much adjusted by now.  The hardest thing is waking up at 6:30 every morning and forcing myself to exercise, and then getting in the shower and forcing myself to dump`the first bucket of cold water on my head.  Yeah, only cold water here.  And we only have running water once every two days or so.  We do have a shower head though!  So when the water is running we can take a normal shower that´s cold.  Well we might be able to take a warm one actually.. There´s an outlet in the shower and some wires that go to the shower head, so maybe those heat up the water.  I haven´t tried it yet.  I think ours might be broken.  It seems dangerous to me anyways.  But I guess whatever floats your boat!  Or should I say: whatever warms your water!  :)

I heard that we were on TV!!  Is that true?  On when vacations attack.  You guys should look.  Wow it´s weird how much I´m looking forward to reading your letters!  Now I know how Curtis and Tyler always felt.  Sorry for not writing you sometimes..  haha  But seriously, you guys can send me super long letters if you want, I´m not opposed. :) My area is called Pedregal.  It´s pretty small apparently.  But I like it a lot!  The members are all really nice, and we´re getting a bunch of investigators by knocking doors.  The only problem is that they say we can come back but then don´t want us when we return! Those bums.  It´s ok though, because if we taught them and then they rejected it, they would have a bigger condemnation!  so I´m down with rejection.  Ok here´s a newer, better address!  actually it´s the same just much easier, so if you guys could fix it on my facebook and blog that´d be tight!!

Elder Daniel S. Harding
Misión Honduras Comayagüela
Apartado Postal 2625 o 3688
Tegucigalpa, Honduras C.A.

So there it is!  And I think that´s all for this week.  Oh yeah, my companion is from Panama.  Peace out!!

Danny is in Honduras...

Yes I am here in Honduras.  And this keyboard is  very hard so if this letter isn´t up to par then don´t blame me!  Anyways we only have 20 minutes to email you guys and 10 minutes to email the Pres, so I´m gonna do this fast.  And since I got a thousand emails from you guys I had to sort through them a little, so now I´m almost out of time!!  haha but just for the future, can you guys keep picture emails and letter emails seperate?  It would be good so I could print out the letter ones.  Because the president said since we have so little time, that we should print the letters you guys send and then just answer them the next week.  So that´s what <I´m going to do. :)

haha I understand about half the stuff they say here.  But it´s coming along good!   I just gotta talk more.  Here´s some things I was thinking about:

First pg 12 and 13 in Preach My Gospel.  Those are some good pages on how to be member missionaries.  It´s just quotes from each of the presidents of the church.  So read that!!  

My new companions name is.....   Elder Osorio!!  He´s the man.  He´s pretty shy and doesn´t talk a ton, but in the lessons he teaches well, with no hesitation.  He´s just not as loud of a person as I am.   And he´s working hard to learn english and he understands well!  But to help he was trying to get a quadruple combo of the  scrips in english and a normal sized hymnal in english.  I don´t know if it´s possible mom for you to send him one or something?  Whatever you think.

Also what did you guys do with that new debit card that came in the mail?  Just wondering.  And I have a problem.  I can´t find my copy of my Patriarchal Blessing!  Do you know where it  is mom?   I´ve looked in all of my stuff I think.

Here´s something:  I have now eaten sardines!!  They don´t even taste that bad after you get over the taste :)  haha jk jk!  They don´t even taste bad at all!  They just taste like fish. Anyways sorry I have so little time!  I love you all, and maybe I¨ll tell you what being a missionary is like next time =)  haha I can´t believe you guys went to  the Mayan Riviera.  That´s crazy. ç

I just want to leave you with one thought:  Can people  who see you tell a difference in you?  there was a story where this   guy lived in salt lake valley, and said to the prophet ya know, after seeing you and all the  other people, i don´t think you guys are bad.  You guys are just as good as the others!  The prophet said This is    no compliment.  We need to stand out from everyone else.  But that´s all for today!  adios!!

Love, Elder Danny Banana Creme Pie Harding