Super Cuisine, Splits, and Service!

This is "soap de reyes," or beef stew. It is made with whole
chunks of vegetables, pumpkin husk, and a very, very,
boney piece of meat... it is actually pretty good.

So, uh, happy Pioneer Day last Friday, on the 24th of July... we didn't do anything... we half forgot, half 'I'm the only one from Utah in the house so nobody else really cared'.... Sounds like everyone back home had a great day running races and watching parades. The pictures of the Sycamores Stake float looked awesome! That's pretty cool that it won an award!

Our investigator, M., is a professional chef who used to work
in fancy hotels in Costa Rica, so his family has connections
with lobster fishermen. He doesn't have his professional kitchen
or fancy tools at home, so it might not look that great, but it
tasted so incredibly good! It was my first time trying lobster,
and it was awesome.

We did have a pretty good week here in good ol' Bluefields. We worked hard and brought a lot of people to church yesterday. The best part is that one of our investigators, M., is super positive. He came to the branch activity last Wednesday, and then he cooked us lobster for dinner last Friday. Then he came to church with us yesterday. We asked him if he would like to be baptized this coming Saturday, August 1st, and he said, "Of course!" So he has already had his baptismal interview and passed. He is even talking with the Branch President about doing a cooking activity (he is a professional chef) with the youth after his baptism, ha ha.

So I have learned how to cut my own pineapple and carve
a bowl out of the husk. It looks pretty cool, and it
makes for a pretty nice breakfast!

Some of our other investigators are asking us to give them more time before we have their baptism, so we had to move some dates a little farther out, but we're still working with them. We also had another group of investigators let us know that they are moving from Bluefields and won't be able to get baptized. We had another really positive investigator who is originally from New Guinea who came to church once and loves to read the Book of Mormon, but he is also moving next week and he is going to Rama, where there isn't a branch of the church yet. We are also still waiting for 3 of our investigators to return to Bluefields and then they plan to get baptized. Still, we should be having a baptism this coming week finally -- my first one in Bluefields!

This past week, I went on a split with the Young Men's President from the branch. He is a returned missionary who just got home in March. He is really cool, as are most of the members that I have met so far. It is amazing how many of them are young, returned missionaries who just got home within the last few years. We always get a ton of references from all of the members, and our Branch President is pretty incredible.

Getting ready to cut down a palm tree for some service.

We really don't schedule time each week to do service here, but this past week we received a call from an hermana who asked us to come help her machete down a palm tree and well out a bunch of water. Cool fact: all of the water here is welled out of the ground. The water we drink, bathe in, and use for everything comes from deep, underground wells. In our house, we have a pump and a container above the house, so when the container runs out, we just flip on the pump and it fills back up. However, almost no one here has their own pump, so they have to use buckets to draw it out every day for drinking and bathing and such.

More service drawing some water up from a well
for a little hermana in our area.

Well, I'm finally starting to feel a little better about things here in Bluefields even though we haven't been able to have as many baptisms here. I've been all uptight since I arrived here because I have been worrying so much about our lack of baptisms, but I decided that I just need to work hard and let the Lord do His part. So, I'm trying not to be so stressed out. And we will finally be having a baptism this week! Otherwise, I'm feeling healthy and I really am happy to be out here. Well, that's about it for this week. I have a bunch of emails to respond to this week (hurray!!), so thanks everyone!

Here we are at night planning out our next day.
I thought I would take a picture to show you how much fun it is!

Who says you can't be comfortable while you call in the daily numbers every night at 10:00?
Ah, the life of a district leader!