THE HEART OF SAN PEDRO SULA...

Alright so everyone knows that I'm serving in the San Pedro Sula Oeste Mission. But I've actually never served in San Pedro Sula.. Until now.. I AM RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE CITY!!!!!! (It is honestly so dangerous it's a joke..) You know how people say that this is the most dangerous city in the world.. Yup, they're right haha! I'm not going to tell you guys what I've seen here (in just 5 days) but it's so insane. I'll tell you guys the stories when I'm home:) So I am serving in the Stake San Pedro Sula, and our ward is called "The San Pedro Ward." It is so awesome. Our church is also the biggest Church in Central America... I'll send a picture of it. It's massive. Also my new comp is Elder Toolson!!! He is the Man! He works so hard. I love it! We talk to EVERYONE on the street! (Unless they have tattoos on their faces..) We are working as hard as we can so that there will be no regrets out here. The only problem with San Pedro Sula is that the people are all Catholic. More Catholic than the Pope. So we actually find ourselves teaching a lot of people about the Great Apostasy. Elder Toolson has 20 months in the mission too! So we are actually going to go home together! I am very excited for this upcoming change:) So this week I had to say good bye to one of my best friends in the mission. Do you guys remember Elder Chapeton? My first companion? Well he just finished his mission this week. When he said Goodbye to me we both just started crying. He helped me so much in my mission. He really did shape me into the missionary that I wanted to be. He showed me how to work and how to have the Spirit with me at all times. When we talked about all the memories we had we both had tears running down our faces. I told him he could live at our house in Utah if he wanted so get ready Mom. Well I'll keep you guys updated on everything that is going on here! I'll see you guys next week.

Elder Chapeton (first companion)

Last Comp (Elder Lorenzana) New Comp (Elder Toolson)

Stake Center San Pedro Sula

SISTER SHARON

Well this week went really well:) I had an awesome meeting with President Dester! I always learn so much from him when I talk to him! Also Sister Sharon was baptized! She is an awesome person! She was a reference from one of her friends! She has always had the faith that this Church was true. One of the main reasons why she was baptized is because she said that she loved seeing how happy all the people in the church were! I love it when people say that about us:) We really are the happiest group of people in the world! I am very excited for her to progress in the church! Also Brother Muñoz is the biggest example that any person in this whole country has given me over these last 19 months... He is amazing. (He is going to the temple in 2 weeks) No matter what happens to him he always has a faith that could move mountains. But I have bad news... I am going to have changes. So I am not going to see him anymore. He has been such a big part in my mission. I am going to miss him so much. At the end of my mission I am going to visit him. I have too!! Also I am very sad that I am going to be leaving Elder Lorenzana... I love him so much. He has been my favorite comp. I already know I'm going to break down crying when I say good bye to him haha! He is the man. I learned so much from him. I hope I get to be friends with him for the rest of my life. He is just a happy person. If I had to describe him in one word it would be happy. I will never forget these 6 weeks we had together! Well that was my week! Things are going great out here!!!!!!

Sister Sharon Baptism

The Crew

Elder Lorenzana takes the best selfie!

THANKSGIVIN'

Well I hope that everyone had an amazing Thanksgiving... Because I know I did! Lets just say that I bought an 18 pound Turkey. HAHA it was so yummy! We had a service day too so we did service for like 5 hours. My buddy Elder Bate and I cut wood with an axe for five hours for our Stake President. I felt like I was in Man town the whole time. I had my blue jeans on while wearing my John Deere hat. It was pretty cool. I'll send some pictures below. And the food was so dang good!! But not as good as the Turkey back at home:) I didn't get as full as last year:( But it was really fun and I felt really good about it after! We invited 3 families from the ward to come over to share thanksgiving with us and they had the Packers game on... NO I did not sit facing the TV hahahaha! Sorry Mom I know I shouldn't of done that. Alright well things are going great over here in good ol´ Yojoa! We got one of our investigators to accept baptism:) So this Saturday we should have a water day:) Also on Thursday when I was buying the Turkey guess who I ran into.... VICTORIA from Las Flores!! I was so happy! She is active and is loving the Church of Jesus Christ:) That is such a blessing to see as a missionary! She even told me that she said the Prayer in Sacrament meeting! I was so proud of her! I'll send you a picture. When she saw me she screamed and said Elder Hess!!!!!! Get over here!! She was so happy:) Seeing her and hearing that she was active made me realize the importance of contacting because we found her from knocking doors. I love her so much!!! Well a lot of other stuff happened this week but I'm going to end this now because I don't want to put everyone to sleep. I love y'all:)

Love Elder Hess

Thanksgiving in Yojoa

CHANDLER

Well it is so hard to believe that Chandler Webb passed away 2 years ago. I feel like that day was yesterday. That was a really hard day on me 2 years ago. And it is still hard on me 2 years later. I love him to death and I feel so blessed that I have him in my life. He was and still is my Brother. I loved every second with him and he always lifted me up when I was down and put a huge smile on my face. I think 95% of the things we talked about were about the Utah Jazz! I miss him a lot. Well coming to internet today I got many Emails that made me the happiest person on earth. Chandler Webb got his endowments done. What a peaceful feeling that is knowing that he is clean and ready to be standing before Our God. Gracie Amacher sent me a picture with all of the Boys from the Crew standing in front of the Temple after Chandler's endowments. I'm not going to lie, when I was looking at the picture I could not help but cry. I love looking at all of my friends dressed with ties on standing in front of the House of the Lord. I'll send the picture to you guys. I just want to say thank you to Chandler, Brandon, Marsh, Austin, Davis, Parker, Lexi, Kolton, Jordan, Ryan, Braydon, Col and Matt for helping turn me into the man that I am today. I love all of you guys so much. I am the missionary I am today thanks to all of you. Every single one of you guys are part on my family. Thank you, for making me the Elder that I have always wanted to be. I look up to all of you so much. I can't wait to come home and Beat every single one of you guys playing 1 on 1. I love you Chan, you're making me so proud up there. And GO JAZZ!

Well this week Maria got baptized! WOW did I feel like that was a miracle... The missionaries have been passing by her house for 5 years now and she finally decided to get baptized. What a blessing it was. The baptism went great and the following day she received the Holy Ghost. It was amazing. Other than that every thing is going good! I still am trying to improve every single day I am out here. One of the things I really need to work on is to stop drinking Coke. I'm 100% addicted. So if anyone has any tips let me know. Poco a poco va. I love you guys. And I love our Temples.

Baptism of Maria

Crew at Chandler's Endowment

BROTHER MUNOZ

This week went so well for so many reasons! First off, we worked so hard with all of the Members in the ward to try to get some help in our area! We visited just about all of the members in Santa Cruz (the Ward next door) to try to get some help in our area. Because here in Yojoa we only have 3 active members. It's a hard task but we are up for the challenge! Well long story short we had 45 Members come to Yojoa to help us Contact and to Visit the Less Active members in our area. It all went so well! We found around 30 news and visited ALL of the Less active members. It was a very very good Sunday! I am super excited to visit all of the new people that the members found this week!!! OK and now I want to talk about the Brother Muñoz.. He really is the best example to the whole entire world. First I just want to say that since the day we found him, he has not missed a day of Church. He always goes and wears his biggest smile. Brother Muñoz  comes from a very very poor family. This week we learned that he has not eaten for over 5 days. When we were in his house we saw a little fish that was the size of my finger. I asked him what he was going to do with the fish and he told us that he was going to feed it so it would get bigger so he could eat it in about a month. (During all of this it was raining and his house was 100% flooded) We asked him if there was anything that we could do to help him and he said "Lets have a Prayer, because I love praying with you guys!" I was waiting for him to say something like, "I need food" or " I don't have any money"... But no, all he wanted from us was a Prayer. We finished up the lesson and I could not stop thinking about how much faith Bro. Muñoz has.. He has NOTHING in the eyes of the world but in the Eyes of God he has EVERYTHING. He is one of the happiest people that I have ever met. I love him so much and I feel so blessed that he is in my life. I want everyone back at home to remember that the only true happiness comes through this Gospel. The Brother Muñoz is the perfect example for us. He might not have anything, but at the same time he has absolutely everything. I love my mission so much because I love being around people like him. I love you all and I hope you all have an amazing week!!!

Love Elder Hess

Elder Hess and Elder Lorenzaza

BROTHER MUNOZ BAPTISM

Well I think I had the best Halloween ever out here in Honduras! To start the day off we had 2 amazing lessons in the morning! In the afternoon we also had a couple more awesome lessons. While we were walking to a lesson that we had planned, we walked passed Brother Muñoz house. Guess what he was doing? He was outside reading the Book of Mormon. It was such a good peaceful feeling seeing him Study the Book of Mormon without us being there. I even took a picture from far away haha I'll send it to you! We ended up talking to him for a little bit and just made sure that he was ready to get baptized! He said that everything was perfect! Mas tarde we had his baptism. It went perfect. He gave me the blessing to do the ordinance too. So I felt very blessed. I only had to ¨Dunk¨ him once so that was nice haha! Right after he came out of the Water he turned to me and gave me a BIG BEAR hug. And while he was hugging me he said ¨Thank you, Thank you so much.¨ It was amazing. I love real conversion. It's little experiences like that, that make me love this work. Brother Muñoz, to finish the night off, shared his testimony with us. He said a lot of great things. The part that stuck out the most to me was when he said ¨I am Clean. Thanks to my Savior.¨ I felt the spirit so strong when he shared that with us. It was an amazing Halloween. My comp and I even got dressed up.. we switched Name tags hahahaha! Oh yeah and I have a new companion. His name is Elder Lorenzana. He is the man! He is actually from Honduras so that is kind of cool! We are getting along great and its only been 5 days! I have a really good feeling about this change! He has a lot of energy which is exactly what this work needs! He has 18 months in the mish too! Just like me! And he's a UTAH JAZZ fan so I love him to death. HAHA well that was the highlight of my week! I had a great Halloween:) I love you guys!!!

Love Elder Hess

Baptism of Brother Munoz, Elder Lorenzaba

Brother Munoz

YE ARE THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD

Had a great week this week. To start off this Email I want to talk about a picture that I said I was going to post last week. Well this picture was taken in Copan. The picture is actually kind of famous in the mission! President Dester even asked for it. Well as you can see, the Lady in the picture looks so Happy. She actually had tears running down her face. Her name is Sister Sandra. She was an Atheist her whole life. Not only did she not believe in God. She hated people who did believe in God. Well we knocked on her door one day and we were very stubborn and would not leave her alone until she let us give her a lesson about Our Heavenly Father and his Son Jesus Christ. Well we all now know how it ended. She was converted and was baptized in the Church of Jesus Christ. The only Church the Christ Leads personally. Four months later Sister Sandra is now the Primary President in Copan. She actually called me the other day to let me know about her new calling. She said she loves it because she gets to teach the Gospel in a simple way. She actually said, "I teach the Gospel just like you taught me Elder Hess, in a simple but Powerful way." It made me so happy when she told me that! Alright so I'll go into the picture details now. Sister Sandra was in Darkness for about all of her life. She really was missing the light of Christ. In this picture right after her baptism she has "The light of Christ." Her face is glowing with his light. It's not photo shopped. It's real and it's my favorite mission picture. I love this Gospel. In the New Testament in the Book of Matthew, Chapter 5 versus 14 and 16 say "Ye are the light of the World. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid." "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in Heaven." I know and I testify that Sister Sandra is part of that City on top of the Hill. This is the Church of Jesus Christ, it is the Church he established 2,000 years ago. A Prophet named Joseph Smith Restored this true Church though the Power of our Father and his Son Jesus Christ. I love this Church. But more than anything else. I love my Savior. I know he died for me and bled from every pore. Just for me. And he did the same for you. SHINE YOUR LIGHT. We are the city that is on top of the Hill. We have and know the truth. Share this truth with everyone you can. It will only make you happier. I love my mission. And I love my God for calling me to serve. WE ARE THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD.

Sister Sandra baptism