Needles Turning Into Diamonds

Feliz Dia de los Muertas!

This week was a pretty good week even though we didn't have a baptism, but we found an awesome new family. Last week, one of the APs (Assistants to the President) came to our zone to pump up all the investigators scheduled for baptism this week. Well, the AP came to our area and got our investigator, F., all excited and ready to be baptized on Saturday. Well, after we returned from our Multi-Mission Conference on Saturday afternoon, we basically ran the entire way to his house from where the bus dropped us off. We were sweating like crazy and breathing so hard, and then as it turns out, F. had gone to work and wasn't going to get home until about 10:00 PM. He also had to work on Sunday, so we haven't been able to even meet with him since the AP visited, but hopefully we can reconnect and schedule his baptism for next Saturday if he doesn't have to work.

So we found a new family that immediately showed interest in our message. They have been having problems with their only son, who is 16-years-old, and we shared with them how the Gospel blesses families and the importance of marriage (because the parents aren't married). We also talked about the Young Men's Program at church, which they thought would be much better for their son instead of hanging out on the street corners with some of his gangster friends. Although they weren't able to come to church with us yesterday, they are committed to come this Sunday and want to work towards being baptized as a family! So we have a few really positive people we are teaching. Finding good people to teach is tough here in Masaya -- like finding needles in haystacks here, but at least all the needles we have been finding are turning out to be diamonds in the rough because these people seem to have all been prepared for us by the Lord!!!

This makes me miss making a haunted house in our neighborhood every year with Micheal for Halloween.

So at least the Zone Leaders and Hermanas had baptisms this past week, so our district overall is doing really well and we were the top district in the Masaya Zone for this month. President Russell congratulated us at the Multi-Mission Conference, which was pretty cool.

Speaking of the Multi-Mission Conference, it was really good except we had to wake up at 3:30 AM to catch the bus to Managua... and the night before we didn't get to bed until almost 11:00 PM, so it was a super long and hard day! Especially with our baptism falling through when we returned. Still, at the Conference we learned some cool stuff from one of the Church Historians. He talked to us about the history of some of the missions here in Central America, and the growth of the Church here. He also talked to us a lot about what we need to do to help the people here in Nicaragua be blessed with a temple. I was kind of bummed that the Elders from Bluefields didn't come, so I wasn't able to see them, but I saw a lot of other old friends.

So this next week is cambios, and they announced that our Masaya Zone is going to be split in half. We don't know who will be transferred yet. If I get to stay here in Masaya, that would be fine because we have some really cool families we are teaching right now, but if I get transferred, that would be OK also because this area is really tough and I have been in Masaya several months already (counting when I first came to Nicaragua). For P-Day today, we went with a lot of the missionaries in our zone and district and got pizza today and just hung out since we will be having changes this week. I hope everyone has a great Halloween!

Most of our Masaya Zone enjoying some P-Day Pizzas and Coke!