the trip

well i´m sorry the oñly thing i have to say is it was a long trip to a hotel the one where i found a scorpion inparticicrally i had so much energy when i came home to the hotel that practicly i was bouncing off the walls we went to pizza hut ate pizza for dinner . the pizza huts down here have soccer in there ball rooms.

the feeling

Hello again i am having a great time i went to a new hotel today and its a nice hotel. guess what there's no scorpions in this one ! well i met somebody who works for cause for hope his name was gustovo and his son gustovo but everybody calls him david, he speaks english and spanish he and his father took us around the town of comeyagua hondorus but the best part was when we went to Nephi's temple it was a dirt mond with stone steps and three degrees of glory whitch are telestial, terrestial, celestial. when we got up there it started to rain and a soothing wind came down on us and you felt like something just was right there and staring at you in loving way i think it was heavenly father who was there then all of the suden i pictured in my mind the wars that were here and i rememebered this is the land of nephi and this is where it all happened on top of the temple there was a tree my mom called it the tree of life as we were walking down and right when i took a step over the last step it stoped raining and i looked back at the temple and saw that it was still raining on the temple.

Then we where going to give out presents to 25 children in one primmary. But when we got there was defanently more than 25 propably 50 primary childeren. So we split up the bags and gave them out then we went to another church were they preformed a program and had made meals. but before on the way to the church mom put her hand over my eyes and said a deep ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh somebodey had gotten hit on the road by a big truck we wrote his license plate down and he new what we were doing so he went into the wrong lane and when a car was coming twords him he went into the write lane and cut somebody off and did that until he was four cars ahead of us i had buckeled my seat belt and looked up then i bowed my head and paryed that the man would be caught and i looked up from my prayer and the truck was right in front of me. the police came as soon as they could and tried to help the women who had been hit and we got the road name the licence plate number and a thats all. but anyways i went and played tag with the younger kids and then we played footbal at the other ward house and every body would wonder witch football to play it was either american or soccer we played american its not like the one we play it looks like smear the quir and we didnt play it with a football no itwas a basketball and it was realy fun.




P.S. BEST DAY EVER!

Faliz Navidad

I woke up early in the morning and noticed that I could see five Oreo cookie packages on the table and all of them had three chocolate kisses on them and underneath them was a note that said, "Merry Christmas from Santa Clause, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho". I thought that was really neat. When I was packing my things I lifted it up my backpack and there was a scorpion underneath it. I saw it and yelled "dang" then it ran under my bed. Then my brother-in-law walked in and we told him about the scorpion. He loves wild life so he looked under the bed and he tried to swoosh the scorpion out then it was stuck in his hat.

I will post more later but have to go!!!

Christmas Eve

All the service projects that we did during the week sort of came to a head on Christmas Eve. They celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve. We made 8 beds with all of the sheets and pillow cases and bought alot of food and candy, then bought our Christmas presents for the primary in Honduras. We also made two houses to give away.

The first house was given to a family the bishop choose because; 1, they were active in the church, 2, the father was having kidney failure and 3, their house didn't look good at all. They had the worst house on the street. The dad is dying. There were a bunch of pigs next door that would come out in the morning and just walk around all over the job site.

The next house was given to a grandmother that was taking care of three kids alone She washes clothes to earn money. She deserved the house because 1, it is hard to buy things without income. 2, She took care of the grandchildren and 3, she was a widow. We gave toy cars and candy to the kids on the street.

There was one house that we didn't build. The lady who lived there her name was Hazel. she was single and had two babies. She was 22 years old and her legs were crippled. They haden't had any food for months and was desperate. We found out about her because she joined the church and was confirmed Sunday as a new member. When we delivered the food she started to hyperventalate and cry and shake because she was so happy and believed she had a chance to live. She asked one of the girls in our group to take her baby home with her. She smilled really big for the picture and was very happy.

Then we gave the toys we bought with the money from somebody in our ward plus the left over toys from McMillian to the Primary in Choluteca. we had a systematic process to fill the bags. One person with the bags would carry the bag and we would fill it with a girl big toy. Then we would put candy, a note book, colored penciles/crayons and like a bouncy ball or something then we would tie the bag and put a ribbon on it. It took so long to cross the border from Chinandega to Choluteca that some of the kids waited three hours for us to get there.

day five\day six

stephen
well i'm sorry i didn't write to my blog yesterday. because i was very tired. i'll just do yestyerday then to day. yesterday we finished making eight beds but me and ammon were playing soccer the whole time. ammon donated a soccer ball to the neighborhood & the ward it so hard to score a goal and even with one ball at my school we play with to. that was very fun.

then we went to the orphanedge to give presents that we had prepared for them. but first they had practiced a christmas pagent and the girls did great. and when they got there presents they were so happy one of the girls asked my dad to sing a christmas song in english so he sang up on the housetop. to help my dad out my family sang to. itwas so much fun.

day six
well today we went to build one of the houses and it was ammons last day he left early to go to the airport. well anyways we almost finished the house today its got four walls atin roof an a cement floor after that i went to give a pinata to the wards with clowns that looked like slash had a tie di acciedent and it spilled in his hair. they would say whats 3+3 then a kid would say 6 and he would say thats a lie! its 33. then we went christmas shopping for the kids in the Choluteca'a Honduras primary to give away on Christmas Eve. They celebrate on Christmas Eve. I don't know what the internet is like in Honduras so I hope I can still post stuff but maybe not. BYE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Day Quattro

Ammon
Fourth full day
Today we went to church where I gave a soccer ball away. I also got some new friends. But it was hard to understand them. In church they greeted us why don’t we do that in the U.S. then we went to the girls orphanage where we gave the stockings away. The girls in the orphanage are lucky because the other girls that don’t have parents or sponsors live on the streets.


Stephen
Well this morning we went to church with the chichigalpa(chi chi galpa) and the church was bran new so it was kind of mixed up. So sacrament was first and then Sunday school. Then class, but I want to talk to you about sacrament. Because you couldn’t understand what they were saying but you could tell it was from the heart it actually meant something to him. Then we were asked to sing in the middle of sacrament and we were to sing silent night. The songs were the same but a different language. But when every body sang in the rows (not cfh ) they belted it out with all their heart and enthusiasm and worries just kind of fade away. Well me and the group that I was in walked up to the podium as reverent as we could and sang silent night as beautiful as possible. After we sang silent night my step brother Rick walked up to the podium and bore his testimony about the church and jesus Christ. Then we went to the orphanage were we toured the beds and where shown the garden. Then we handed out the stockings and smiles of curiousity grew on the girls faces then began to be smiles belief and joy. THANK YOU MCMILLAN ELEMENTRY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IF ONLY YOU WERE THERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.

day three

ammon

today I made a bed for people I thought, again how some people will have beds for christmas and some people will be sleeping on the cold floor. after we ate dinner we went shoping for cloths for the orfanige girls. It sad that they only have two sets of cloths. Sence today is not really the threed day 'this hapened yesterday!

stephen
i have never worked as hard as i did to day i have never worked as hard ever in my whole life. these people work hard every day most of them are poor but poor as in less money they don't have buiseness skills to help them. i realize that we have so much that we didn't earn. but they earn all our stuff and more. but they don't get that they get to work hard every day and try to survive. they are valiant about every thing.

second full day

Ammon
Today we went to a house were we sanded wood for beds, we are lucky in the U.S. I realized that all of us should be grateful for what we have not what we dont have. we went to a Cause for hope office and we were told that when a faimly heard that we were coming they cried, there dad has a kindey problem. a other faimly lives in a len two and we are also building a house for them they cried also. what I am doing is wonderful.

stephen
well today we went to a house were we sanded bed frames. the family made beds for a living. Now don't go off thinking that they buy supplies, no they have a friend who cuts wood from the mountains then brings it to the family. We would have blocks of wood and then we cut sand paper and held it together, not with glue we actually had to hold it together. It was realy hard but then we looked at some of the beds already made and they looked great. the family had been in the church for seven years. the father, fifteen days after joining the church declared elders qourum president seven years later he still is. we walked down to the church but on are way we saw a school it was so small it looked like a bathroom stall. They had pets to turtles geese chicens & most of all they had an aligator with turtles on it. you look behind you and there was a volcano with smoke coming out of it.Then we went to a meeting at another cfh office Pres. Jose Marrivia said that when you go home think about the beds. When you sleep on your soft comfy bed fluffing your pillow think about someone who dosen't have a bed. i think he is the greatest religeoes speaker I have ever met. Because he spoke from the heart and thats why it was so great. his prayer is so unselfish he cares about every single one of his people, and i belive that he does care about the city. then we went to town to get a watch. then we went to look for a store and me and ammon ended up geting two pocket knives whitch were awesome by the way then we went to the van and high tailed it to the hotel were we ate dinner with the other group down there. then we played simaller game to wack the mole. You would have sombody in the middle with a rolled up news paper then everybody else would sit in a circle anyways if you where name was called out you would have to say somebodey elses name in the circle if you don't say it before the guy with the news paper you get your it and that was realy fun.

The first full day

Ammon,

Today we went from Managua to Chendaga and on the way we went to a restaurant and when we got out there kids about my age were asking for are soda. I feel bad for kids in Nicaragua because there parents make only like 100 dollars or less a month. Also tonight I went into some peoples house and they were grateful for what they have. They make the best of what can do instead of worrying about what they can’t do. The food here has no sugar. It tastes much different than food does in America. It isn’t very good.

Stephen
It is amazing down here except for the tap water that’s realy bad. well we have gone all over today first we went to the market where I found a canteen that was the shell of a fruit& a leather
hat that makes me look like Indiana Jones. Then we went to a factory that made baseball gloves. My dad bought twelve of them to give to a primary in Choluteca. Then we went to a members house &they had just had a baby that was not going to live for long & they had so much faith in there heavenly father that the family knew he would live.

hearts touched

Wow there is so many people that care & I have found this personally at my elementry school. You are probably wondering why its amasing? People are so caught in money. I like to call it the money trance and when your in the money trance you stop caring about everything and you start thinking about what you have and stock and buissness and what you can get.
It takes a lot of effort to make something happen. Well its no problem for McM illan
Elementry!& this is why, Well at the end of my parent teacher confrence. My parents told my teacher Mrs. Weiss about CFH and she asked if she could do anything and my parents told her about the orphanege down their. after hearing this story you could see a smile trickle on her face that seemed to say I can do this, I can help.

First full day
Well I am sorry for not finishing my last entry so I’m going to finish it now…..
Well Mrs. Wiess told others about cfh. Then we got three classes in the sixth grade to make stockings for the orphanage. So I’m adding a friend to this blog, here he is………..

The meeting

Did you think that my story was over if you did you were wrong! My story has just begun. As I told you Dan Gifford is the owener and founder of Cause For Hope. he has set up a group of families to go to Central America like us. To learn about how the people live there & to do service projects that will help them for a long time. like building latriens.a way you can help is by donating clothes or money every week
if you have anymore ?'s go to: www.CauseForHope.com.but enough of

The Begining

I'm Stephen Colby i'm about eleven years old my mom is an insurance agent & my dad is the owener of davinci advertising. My dad is where it all starts, he is advertising a place called Cause For Hope. Cause For Hope is a charity for the people of Central America. the CFH website is CauseForHope .org but anyways, the leader is Dan Gifford. My dad liked CFH so much that he dissided to join them. In the summer they took my dad to Central America for a week! When me and my mom went to pick him up from the air port we where so lost we where all the way in the other terminal then we finally found my dad. My dad had so many stories to tell well a month had gone by and he decided to tell the familly. The stories where so real, so full of life that I couldn't stop listening. Now where all going to go down to Nicarauga this Christmas.