A Few More Weeks In Rivas with a House Full of Guatemalans

Me and my new companion, Elder Cuyan.

Well, we had cambios this past week and I got a new companion. His name is Elder Cuyan from Guatemala City, Guatemala, and he has been out on his mission for 17 months now. I actually knew him already as he was in the other district in Rivas for the past 3 months and he was even in our apartment a few times on divisions with the other District Leader. Anyway, the Assistants to thePresident called me the day after cambios and told me that I am training him to be a District Leader. I am getting along well with Elder Cuyan. He is kind of funny and he is a great teacher with experience, so I think the next 6 weeks with him will be good. Elder Cuyan and I did find a new family to teach on our first day together here in Rivas, and they even came with us to church on Sunday.

Elder Foster, who was in our apartment with us, well he got transferred to my old area in Bluefields, so I'm pretty excited for him. So now I am the only American in the apartment with the other three Elders all from Guatemala. So it's pretty much just pure Spanish here now 24/7.

I also got some new Hermanas in my district. One is a super awesome, Sister Training Leader named Hermana Fraire and she is from Arkansas. We actually helped them have a wedding and baptism the middle of this past week. We lost two days of work in our own area, but we were able to help them get a family married and baptized! Last Thursday, they were still a little unsure about getting married on Saturday although the husband really wanted to get baptized, but the wife was still not sure about baptism. I interviewed them on Thursday and as I visited with her, she decided to at least get married, so we decided to do have the wedding that same night on Thursday night and her husband wanted to get baptized after the wedding. They had been unsure for the past couple of weeks trying to get them committed to get married, so when she decided to do it we thought we had better do it that night so she wouldn't change her mind again. The next day after the wedding and her husband's baptism, the Zone Leaders came down for our district meetings, and we went and paid the family a visit. Well, the Zone Leaders met with her for almost two hours and when she came out of the interview, she announced, "I'm getting baptized tonight!" So we had two awesome miracles with the Hermanas this past week.

So today my companion and I travelled to Managua and I realized that Rivas is one of the hottest parts of Nicaragua. A lot of the missionaries agree that the temperature in Managua is nowhere near as hot as in Rivas, and today while we were in Managua, I barely broke a sweat. Yet in Rivas, we are sweating all the time. It's almost rainy season here, and so the air pressure is crazy high and even though it is not super sunny, we are drenched with sweat because the of the dang humidity and it is super uncomfortable.

I visited the doctor in Managua and got some medicine for my eye infection today.

So anyway, yeah, we had to go to Managua partly so that I could go to the hospital there and meet with an eye doctor who said I had an infection. He prescribed me some pretty expensive medicines that I have to apply to my eyes for the next 3 months! I also got my package at cambios that had the beef jerky, chocolate almond nuggets, and other candy in it. I shared with my house full of Guatemalans as they had never seen anything like it before, and it was great. They loved the chocolates for sure.

Well, I have 12 other emails to answer today, so I better close. The only thing coming up the next couple of weeks is President Russell will be touring the mission doing his last round of interviews as he will be finishing his time as mission president the end of June. Anyways, the area is still pretty tough looking for new people to teach and the heat, but I think the next 6 weeks will be good.