THE STRENGTH OF OUR YOUTH

"Called to Serve Him Heavenly King of Glory, Chosen Heir To Witness For His Name"

All of these fine young men and women accepted "Calls to Serve" on missions to Honduras.  They glow with goodness, energy and love for the people of Honduras.  This is the La Ceiba Zone.  We left Roatan on a one and a half ferry ride over to the mainland, landing in La Ceiba for a Zone Conference.  These fine young men and women were full of enthusiasm and we loved every minute with them.  They had baptized 22 people so far in the month of September and were hoping for 28 total.  We don't do any baptizing, but we are busy reactiving some pretty special members. 



Back Row: Elder Novoa
 Middle Row: Elders Gonzalez, Salcido, Garcia, Barba, Giles, Dever, Jurado, Hafen,
Ward, Breshears,Vega, Baldwin.
Front Row; Mini missionary, Sister Godoy, Elder and Sister John, Sisters Espinoza and Cuyun.

 

We feel like we have been truly blessed to have received special callings in this branch to work with the youth and their leaders.  We visit many families each week to encourage and strengthen them, but our primary calling is to the youth.  We thought you might want to meet them too.



 DANIEL GARAY

Daniel is the first assistant in the priest quorum  and is also one of my piano students.  He was only ordained one month ago.  He is so thrilled to be a priest.  He has stood in on several other priesthood ordinations, and is preparing to go on a mission.   He lives alone with his mother, Aminda, who also serves as the 2nd counselor in the Young Women's organization.  He is an intelligent, capable young man who speaks English quite well.  He goes to school every day from 7:00 - 1:00 p.m. and then immediately goes to his mother's little, tiny pulperia and works until 6:00 p.m. or so. 

DARITZA ZELAYA

Daritza is LaRae's only active Beehive and is one of our favorites.  She is the daughter of the Young Women's president, Zulema Zelaya and past branch president, Rony Zelaya.  They are a sweet family.  She is their only child and was adopted.  They live at the very top of an extremely steep hill and so she is always begging us for a ride home after MIA or church.  She loves to tease and mess around, but we love her, and she loves us - especially LaRae - to death.  She actually even cleaned her room before we came to visit and eat dinner with them.

HAYLIAL FLORES

Haylial (Hayli) is the young woman in the red striped outfit.  The other young woman in this picture is her friend.  Haylial's story is special to us.  She lives with her family in a little home that lies over the water of La Punta bay.  Neither of her parents are members of the church and so when she comes to church it is without them.  Her mother wants to get baptized but first would have to get married to the man she lives with.  Haylial has the potential to be one of the greatest young women in our ward.  She is well liked, and has an outstanding personality.

 

 

           YESENIA PADILLA

"Jesi" as we call her is LaRae's only active Laurel, but she is really active.  She has been called as the president of her class and takes it seriously.  She makes no bones of the fact that she intends to be the first person in her family to break tradition.  They call her the "tradition breaker."  She fully intends to marry in the temple and serve a mission.  She went with us on a missionary discussion the other day.  We were visiting an inactive returned missionary and his live-in girlfriend.  LaRae and I were giving a discussion on the law of chasity.  She interrupted and said, "I want to say something."  Then she said, "I know that I am young, but I am the president of our young women, and I have a testimony of this precept.  My goal is to marry in the temple."  Believe me, her part of the lesson was the best thing that happened there that night.

 

 

Staring from the left:  CHRISTIAN ZEA, OLIVER FLORES, LARITZA SANTOS, DANIEL AGUILAR, ALEJANDRO WEBSTER, and peaking out, JASSIR FLORES

 

CHRISTIAN ZEA was ordained a priest two weeks ago and is excited.  He was able to stand in on the ordination of Alejandro Webster to the office of a teacher last week and was thrilled and humbled by the opportunity.  He lives with his younger brother, Joshua, and his mother on the top floor of a house that is literally on the beach of Gravel Bay.  They are kind of excited right now because a reference they sent to the missionaries of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, ended up in the baptism of her boyfriend who was baptized today and hopes to soon be able to marry his mom in the temple. 

 

OLIVER FLORES is a teacher and is my best piano student.  He actually is my most dependable young man.  When he says that he is going to be somewhere, he is there, and on time.  And believe me, that is RARE here in Roatan.  He never misses a meeting!  He comes from one of the most active families in the ward and has an older brother who showed him an example of serving a mission.  I have great hopes for him.  His goal is to play his first learned hymn in church in one month. Now, remember, he has only been taking lessons for two months, and he doesn't have a piano in his home. 

 

LARITZA SANTOS lives with her sister in Los Fuertes on the top level of a home that is right on the water.  She is such a sweet young woman.  She is the second counselor in the young women's class presidency.  They live about 10 miles from the church, so it costs them about $3.00 in taxi fare to come to church each time, but she rarely misses any of her Saturday piano, seminary and MIA activities and her Sunday meetings.  Money is hard to come by here on the island.  This is quite a sacrifice, believe me.  As you can see, she is also one of my piano students.

 

DANIEL AGUILAR lives with his family not too far away from the church, but a good 20 minute walk.  His father is a gifted artist, but is not a member of the church although he has taken the discussions several times.  The rest of his family is active.  He speaks English nearly fluently and is always ready to help me with my Spanish.  A very sensitive soul, I am seen him tear up several times as we talk about sacred things in our classes.  I truly love this young man!  His family plans on sending him to the United States in about a year to finish his education.

 

ALEJANDRO WEBSTER is one of our favorite stories.  He and his family were recently reactivated and because he was twelve years old we wanted him to get the priesthood.  However, we couldn't find his baptismal records.  So, he got baptized again!  And he is on fire with the spirit!  This fine young man is so dedicated to the gospel that you can't believe it.  Every one in his family speaks nearly perfect English, but he refuses to speak it.  He says that he doesn't like it.

 

  JASSIR FLORES is Oliver's older brother but we don't know much about him because he is always in school on Sundays.  He will be 19 in a couple of months.

 

 

Here is our next project.  This is the Maria Rivas family.  It was their house that we were climbing to in the last blog.  They live miles away from anyone else and can only be reached by driving a mile over a terrible road and then hiking two more miles through the jungle.  In this family I have three members of the Aaronic Priesthood and LaRae has one young Laurel-aged girl. They are willing to come to church, but getting there would require an incredible sacrifice on their part.  They are so typical of so many of our members - good hearts, kind spirits, incredible poverty.  We already love them and feel a desire to do what we can to help them stand-up and be counted as part of the youth of this royal generation.

 

 

AS YOU CAN SEE... WE HAVE A LOT MORE COMING UP!

 

All in all, LaRae has 17 young women on her rolls and I have 22 young men.  

Some are completely on track, others still need some encouragment.

                         But, they are youth of noble birthright, and we love them all.