GUS.. GUS.. GUS BUS.

Well I think Megan and Lexi are the only ones that will understand my title but whatever haha! Ok so not too much happened this week. I was only in my area for 2 days because I did divisions Tuesday. Went to do divisions Wednesday. Went to San PedroThursday. Did more Divisions Friday and did more divisions Saturday... Yeah what the heck. And I was never in my area for any of the divisions, but I had a good week and learned a lot:) I had a fun time in San Pedro:) We had a leadership Conference and President Dester spoke. So the Spirit was really strong:) I love going to San Pedro so much. It really is such a thrill to be there. Everything is so Crazy and dangerous haha! I was there for like 5 hours and in that 5 hours some old guy grabbed me and was screaming at me to help him haha. I just gave him a little push to get him off me. And that was that. Pretty funny though. So good news with Chenny! She is going to be baptized this Saturday with her daughter! WOOO! But her Husband no.. We are still working on the Word of Wisdom with him. But with time he will be a member of this church! Church this Sunday was great:) Gave a talk (didn't know I had a talk until he called my name at the beginning of sacrament), gave the Sunday School class, and then gave the Elders Quorum lesson, and then did Tithing, and then Cleaned the Whole Church. So it was a fun Sunday:) I love all of you guys so much! Have an awesome week!!

Love Elder Hess

Elder Chapeton (My Trainer)

Elder Perry (One of my BFFs in the Mish)

And Elder Coe De New Zealand. Also my BFF for life;)

No I'm not in Africa

New puppy at the Hernandez home:)

Pollo

Just what everyone wants to find on their bed right before they go to sleep.

I didn't sleep all night because I was so scared... I HATE spiders.

EL ES LA DADIVA

So for Christmas this year the First Presidency of the Church told all the missionaries throughout the world (90,000+ now) to tell everyone about this new video that the Church has made. In English it is called "He is the Gift" in Spanish it is called "He is the Dadiva" it is so spiritual. Our mission president gave us these cards and we are suppose to hand them out to everyone so they can search the link and find the real meaning of Christmas. I think it's such a good video:)

So this week Elder Lopez and I went contacting in some really cool places. We went high up into the mountains and tried to find as many new investigators as we could! It is so crazy how some people live. We found people that live in little boxes basically. Dirt floors and walls made out of branches and mud. I'll have some pictures of where we contacted below. We found some new people so I'm excited to see where they go! This week Elder Lopez and I worked so hard. I swear we have walked an average of 20 marathons a day hahaha. But the Lord always blesses us with strength to press on. There is a video about mission work that talks about what we are to do when times get hard and when we want to sit down and take a rest. It talks about Christ. How his mission on earth was never easy. That when he was crucified and went up to the Spirit World he was determined to come back to earth and continue his glorious work. Christ was and will forever be the only perfect missionary. I will always look up to him and ask for help from him when times get hard out here on the mission. I'm not sure if you guys watched the Christmas Devotional the Church had yesterday but it was awesome. We could only go if investigators came too. So we invited all of our investigators and just about all of them showed up! But one awesome story was we have this family that we are teaching and we invited them to come to the Devotional. The Mom said she could not go because her 3 month old baby was sick. I promised her that if she went God would bless her baby and he would start recovering a lot faster. Well after the Devotional the lady told me... His fever is gone.. She couldn't believe it. I just smiled at her and said, "God loves his children more than we will ever know" That was an awesome experience!! Well I love you all! I'm going to send a lot of pictures for you guys! Oh yeah Elder Lopez and I are getting along really well!! We are always laughing and we teach really really well together. The APs went on divisions with us and they said that we are one of the best companionships in the Mish:) So that's good! I love you all

Love Elder Hess

Nice View

President Dester

Elder Martinez, Elder Chapeton, Elder Hess & Elder Lopez 

FIRST BAPTISM

HELLLOOOO!!! First thing I would like to do is give out some shout outs again! Shout out to Lexi Watts for getting her patriarchal blessing and for getting a scholarship to BYU! Second, GO GO USA! Third Kimi and Nate. You guys are perfect and I'll always look up to you guys. Congratulations on your big day!!!

Alrighty, so this week was very special. I got my first Baptism. Her name is Iris Sulay Afaro Moreno. She is a mother of two and they are both members. We have been teaching her a couple times a week. Randomly the Spirit just told Elder Chapeton and I ¨ASK HER RIGHT NOW TO BE BAPTIZED¨ so I did. And the spirit was so strong. She started crying and said yes. Everyone was so happy. After that I shared my testimony, in my broken Spanish. She started crying again. She then asked, Elder Hess can you baptize me. I couldn't believe it. Tears still come to my eyes when I replay that moment. It was so special. Well on Saturday was when she was baptized, turns out she's scared of the water... The first time I dunked her (that's what they say here) she freaked out and started splashing and caused a huge scene in the font. Well just about nothing was under water so I had to do it again. I was literally dripping wet because of how much she splashed. Second time she did a little better. But she still freaked out and we now have to do it a third time. So the third time I just dunked her as fast as I could so she had no time to freak out. And it worked hahahaha. Oh man it was crazy. After, when I was changing I felt bad that we had to do it 3 times and one of the members came into the bathroom and said ¨are you ok¨ (but in Spanish) I said yeah, I just feel kinda bad. He then said "don't worry, she must of had a lot of sins if you had to do it three times" hahaha oh man I'm still laughing! I literally died and had a laughing attack when he said that to me hahaha!! But all in all it was a very good day. This week was good. I'm always so tired at the end of the day because of all the millions of miles of walking. It's hard work out here but I know this church is true. I have never felt the spirit so strong in my life and I've only been out here for 2 weeks. God is so good and we are all so lucky to be apart of his one and only true church. OK I'm running out of time so I have to end. I love y'all. Be strong and always remember... GO JAZZ!

First Baptism (6/21/14)

HE'S IN HONDURAS

Mom I made it! I'm going to start doing what I've been working for my whole life. This church is true and I know it. The spirit tells me everyday. I love you so much. I hope you get the other email. It has all the info you want in it.

Love Elder Hess

[the other email]

Well I'm going to first start off by saying Happy Father's Day to my Dad. I hope you had the best day in the world. You have better of spent the day fishing. I love you and miss you papa Steve. Second, shout out to the SPURS!!!!!!!!!!!! YESSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!! Third shout out to my boys wearing red white and blue. They better kill Ghana.

Ok so I'm here... And mom and Lexi your not going to like this. There is this part in San Pedro where all the people hate Americans. There has been more Americans murdered there than any other place in Honduras. Valle de Sula, Montefresco. No American has ever served there cause it's so peligroso. Well guess who got called there!!! WOOOOO!! I was so stoked!! All the Missionaries were saying "You're making history!" So I'm stoked! I'll have pictures at the bottom of where I'm serving. The first day I got here I was so tired. I had to wake up at 2:30 in the MTC to catch the plane. When I got here the president was waiting for me. His name is President Dester. The nicest man in the whole entire world. No joke. We loves the missionaries so much. We went to his house and had some meetings and some food and right after they put us to work. I was running on about three hours of sleep. I was literally dead, but I pushed myself so hard to keep on going and finish the day strong! The second day is when I met my comp. Elder Chapeton. He is from Guatemala and speaks very little English. But he's so nice. He always hugs me and says things in Spanish which I think are nice things haha. The second day was my first real day and holy crap it is so hot here... I'm literally going to die of heat stroke. Anyways, we had 7 lessons that day. He did most of the talking. I have no clue what anyone is saying... They talk so dang fast! But Chapeton talks slow for me so I can pick out some words. The spirit was so strong in all the lessons! Even though I had no clue what anyone was saying. 6 weeks in the MTC and they never taught me one word that people actually use. The third day was great too. We had dinner at a member's house and holy goodness the food was unreal. I think I'm going to gain 497 pounds. This day we also challenged a girl to be baptized. And she said yes! I had the biggest smile on my face and  the spirit was so strong. That's been the highlight of my week! The fourth day is when I met Lupe. She is so funny and she loves that I don't know Spanish. She tries so hard to teach me and it's actually been helping! She's inactive but she loves to have the missionaries over. Her son recently passed away so the next lesson I'm going to share my story about loved ones who have passed on and how families can be together forever. I can't wait to share that with her. Sunday was a little scary. For a couple reasons, it was my first day at church! And the bishop in the middle of sacrament said we have a new missionary! Come up and give a talk! Yeah. It was the worst thing in the world. I didn't know what to say and no one laughed at my joke. But other than that church was awesome! All the kids loved talking to me haha! They have so many questions about the States and if I have seen all the famous people haha! We couldn't do much on Sunday cause Honduras played. So we had to stay in our houses. I wanted to go work so bad but the President said it was too dangerous. So I just did a lot of studying and cleaning on Sunday. And the scary part of the days was at night. I don't know what happened but right in front of the house people started shooting. Elder Chapeton and I just hit the floor. It was so scary, but we're all good:) Today not much has happened. It's P day so Chapeton took me to the main part of San Pedro. WOW, I feel like I'm in Haiti again...

This is Elder Liavi everybody, my comp in the MTC. Elder Chapeton and I pulled some weeds for one of our investigators just so we could have a lesson with her. At first she said no but after we asked if we could do some service and then have a lesson she was all for it haha. Oh yeah, and when it rains here... IT RAINS!! Everything floods and you can't open your eyes hahaha. The Lady we helped. The street we live on. Our kitchen, yeah I know, it was like this when I got here. Our Bathroom. We have to shower with cups cause we don't have running water.

[These are the pics Mitch sent. I didn't get all the ones that he talked about in his email. I think we didn't get the end of his email.]

His companion Elder Chapeton

The flooding rain

The lady Mitch helped