Happy Nicaraguan Thanksgiving!

Me and Elder Sanchez (my new trainer)

Me and Elder Sanchez (my "brother") -- awesome pals!

First off this past week, we had cambios. Well, we got his with a BIG surprise -- Elder Mehmetoff got transferred! Nobody expected that since he only had one more cambia to go, but they sent him up to Managua to be a Zone Leader there for his last transfer. So, we got a new "dad" to replace him.... so, introducing my new companion: Elder Sanchez! That's right! We have two Elder Sanchez's in one house! He also leaves to go home next cambio, like Mehmetoff, so that guarantees Elder Castro will be here after the next cambio to train the next Zone Leader as well, which means he'll end up being in this one house for almost 7 months! Elder Sanchez is from Guatemala, and because of the confusion with names, I'll be working with him a lot more than Elder Castro going forward. I am also getting along better with Elder Castro now, but I think it is partly because he knows that he will be here in Masay for at least another 6 weeks now, so he has been a little nicer the past few days.

Our Zone Thanksgiving feast

So after that excitement, we had Thanksgiving this past Thursday. As I mentioned last week, we ate together as a Zone in the chapel, and some of the members helped prepare the meal for us. It was a nice gesture, but it didn't quite hit the mark of a traditional Thanksgiving back home. Also, unfortunately it was served a little cold and not much flavoring (like no chili sauce or nada).  So, not necessarily the best Thanksgiving dinner I've ever had, but heck, it's better than nothing!

Where's the turkey? Not happening in Nicaragua.
This was our meal for Thanksgiving.

One day this past week, I had to go with Elder Castro and Elder Benson (one of the APs) and we were gone for the entire day visiting other areas of the zone for baptismal interviews, and that day was suuuper fun driving around in the AP's super nice truck and visiting with the new people is a lot of fun. Then finally, for the last two days, I've been working a lot with Elder Sanchez (my brother, not my trainer) because the Zone Leaders had to visit other areas for interviews and such to help with the baptism craziness that occurs at the end of each month. Unfortunately, no baptisms in our area, but we were finally able to start working here again and we should have some more baptisms coming up in December.

We found a friendly visitor on the wall of our house in our little
backyard area. Ha ha -- don't worry, we killed it after taking the pics,
but it was HUGE and could have easily crawled right into our house!

Thought I would take a pic with my hand in there for size comparison.
This is probably just an average-sized tarantula here in Masaya.

So my Spanish is doing great, but I have been speaking more English lately because we have more Americans in the Zone after the last cambio. Plus, me and Elder Sanchez (my brother) have been working together and when we're not with members or investigators, we speak in English, but I can switch back and forth pretty darn good for only 3 months in the mission (which is probably not saying much, I guess, ha ha). I also noticed that I have this mental alarm clock EVERY morning. I wake up at 6:20 AM every day..., always 6:20..., I don't know why, but it's like a normal thing now.

I was glad to get a package and some letters today. The letters included some of my cousins' blogs on their missions. I love to read them all. My cousin Kaitlyn (Utica New York Mission) has like no time left on her mission (less than 2 weeks), and my other cousin Trevor (Berlin Germany Mission) makes me jealous of how freakin awesome his mission is and reading about all the stuff he gets to do in his mission sounds soooo cool. My mission is definitely different from his... but I enjoy reading all that stuff. I also appreciate all the updates and stuff. So this next week I have an interview with the Mission President (always on the 8th week of your training). Thank you everyone at home for all the emails, letters, and love. Keep them coming! Have a great week!

I also found an interesting friend while strolling through the tienda.