Te quiero con limon y sal

The best thing that happened to me during this time period being in Honduras, happened this past week. Hannah and I traveled to our local post office to see if a package came. We didn't have high hopes because the mail takes forever to get here. We were happily wrong. We got our package and it was huge! Moey, a friend from school got a package together, filled to the brim with goodies for a little taste of home. She also went out of her way to get others to write us letters and put whatever they wanted into the box. We were like kids in a candy store! There was chocolate, cards, pictures, letters, food, clean and new t-shirts, and so much more! It really meant a lot to us, so thanks every one who put stuff in it!!

We are on our second stay-cation.. Last week some were in the capitol for a lecture series, some others were somewhere else.. and some were in the mountains. There were 4 of us at home. Hannah, Aidan, Roger, and me. It wasn't very relaxing. We found out that a girl in our neighborhood died of cancer and we needed to go to the store for the family to make sure they had food for the time period. They came to our house and the mother, in between sobbing, told us the last few moments she had with her daughter. She was happy that she wasn't suffering anymore, but having her daughter died was still so hard for her. Her daughter was only 19 but had 2 children. We went back to their house where the body was and a group of people visiting the house. They do wake, type services, in the house in which the body is there and people can come as they please. We went to the store and got rice, beans, coffee, and other little foods in order for them to get by and be able to share while people come over. When we came back the house had many people and the mother asked us to pray. We prayed the divine mercy chaplet and just sat and paid our respects to the family. It was difficult to see the body and just think how hard this girl fought. She was finally at peace.

We went on home visits with Yadira who works for the mission with the Becas program and we got to meet a lot of families and finally understand where a lot of these kids come from. It was very eye opening, and a lot of walking! Every family was very welcoming and the kids all in all seemed very happy to see us.

Last weekend we went to the volunteer hours with the Becas program and all the kids. They all came with their Christmas cards ready for their sponsors in the states. They put a lot of time and effort into it and they were so cute. We not have a stack of a ton of cards ready to be translated. We just got done the last ones and now we have more. Sometimes it is very frustrating, but then I think to myself, "I am translating from Spanish to English," pretty impressive. Don't get me wrong, I struggle with Spanish beyond belief, but some times I just have to take a step back and be impressed with what I do know. Not just focus on what I don't know, but rather how far I have come. Animo! (Encouragement! something they say here very frequently!)

Just a quick thought: It was really cool when Hannah and I ran to the supermarket one day and ran into people that we knew from the Army base, makes you feel a little more at home when you are running into people you know..


I don't want to get use to going on home visits when someone has died, but today I found myself doing the same thing. We got a call around 8 this morning when we were sitting down eating breakfast. A little boy had died and it was the younger brother of a girl in the sponsorship program. We asked who it was and they told us his name is Christian and he is Milagro's little brother. We knew exactly who it was. They live about 5 blocks away and Christian was 7 years old and had Down's Syndrome. We would always see him waiting for his bus for his special ed school and he was always so cute. Hannah and Aidan actually were just at his house last week when doing home visits. We knew that people with Down's didn't live very long here because of problems with heart conditions so we figured it was that. We went to the store to get the food for the family. We then picked up Yadira and the social worker who workers for the organization, and headed to the house. While on the short trip, they told us that he died last night of dengue, most likely caused by a mosquito. It was sad, but while in his house and looking at him so peaceful, there was no way that he was suffering, he was such an innocent.


There is a lot of work to do this week and we have the Becas retreat next weekend. It is hard to believe that my birthday is coming up, I am not use to being so hot for my birthday. It is normally a nice fall day but this one will be a little different.

There is so much more to say, but the time has come to end this for now and hopefully rest my head! (I apologize for all grammatical mistakes. I blame it on speaking Spanish most of the time, speaking in English gets hard, I forget sentence structure.)
Love to you all. Animo!