A Racist Monkey and Muddy River Beds

I was privileged to help Elder Heileson in my district to baptize
this little, old man who needed a second person to help him in the water.
It was pretty cool and was my first experience ever to just be in the
water to help but not giving the prayer.

Due to unforeseen circumstances beyond our control, I only have about 30 minutes to write today, so I will not be able to respond to everyone's emails and letters.

So thanks for the NBA Finals updates. A lot of the ward members here have been updating us also, but I really don't get to hear the details. Still rooting for the Warriors all the way. I have even seen some Steph Curry jerseys here in Nicaragua -- I might buy one, ha ha.

I took a few pics of some of the cool mud tracks that are created after it rains.

My folks talked about the rain in Utah, and funny they should mention rain... This past week, there have been a ton of crazy, rain-forest storms with the coolest lightning that I have ever seen in my life. Every day it has pretty much rained, and when it rains here, it pours! We usually come home at night completely soaked. Although we try our best to avoid getting wet, a lot of the houses we visit here aren't exactly weather-proof (plastic walls and metal ceilings can only get you so far). Plus, all the dirt roads turn into mud traps, so the new shoes my parents are sending me will be really nice.

These are big rivers while it is raining, and after they dry out, the
people use them as pathways to get around town.

Well, this past week was rather normal. We didn't have our one scheduled baptism last Saturday, and it's likely that she won't get baptized at least for a little while. She and her family are kind of mad at my companion, so they don't want to talk to us until he is gone. So maybe after cambios, which are coming up later this month. I suspect every single companionship in our district will have a change.

Also, after last week in the cyber, all of my photos were deleted, but today I was able to recover them. They are all scattered and not in order any more, and I can't pull them up on the camera, only on the computer. Other than that, I had a pretty normal week with two days of divisions out of my area.

Some of our new investigators we started teaching have this monkey as a pet.

My mom asked a little more about what happened with Elder Salmeron when he was robbed a couple of weeks ago. The robbery wasn't violent. There was a group of 7 "gansters." They didn't actually pull any weapons, but they grabbed him and threatened him by saying they had some weapons. He was smart and just complied with their demands, so he wasn't harmed -- just shook up. That was the first robbery of the missionaries here in this area in in at least 8 months. I am a lot bigger than most of the people here in Nicaragua, so I think some of them are a little scared of me, ha ha. Still, we're being more careful now.

The monkey doesn't like me very much, though, because
I am pretty sure I am the first white person it has ever seen.

We are working hard. I have no idea how many baptisms we might end up with this month, but the district is looking great with lots of commitments. In fact, I have to run and go do some baptismal interviews for the district tonight. Let me just say that I am enjoying the mish a lot -- still rough at times, but I'm really enjoying it and strengthening my testimony more and more of the gospel. I know the Bible 200 times better now than I did before the mission. I want to try and focus on the Book of Mormon, which sadly, we don't use as much as we would like to. Sorry for the short emails this week. Hope everyone is doing well back home. Take care and have a great week!