Power Outage and 6-Month Mark

Whoa! So the power has been out here in Ciudad Sandino for most of the afternoon, so we were struggling to find a cyber-cafe with the power on and enough computers for us to write emails until just now, and so I only have 30 minutes until we have to be to an appointment. So this is about to be the lamest email I have sent so far ... and yet ... as of tomorrow, I will have been on my mission for 6 months! I am very happy about hitting my 6-month mark, but I feel like I'm really still just beginning, and 1/4 of something isn't very much, ha ha.

Well, nothing special happened this past week. Elder Rodas and I did bring lots of new people to church yesterday, so hopefully some of them will keep progressing this week. It sure is getting hotter here, and it's rather miserable, so I wouldn't mind a little snow and cold right now.

Sorry, but that is all the time I have today. Pretty lame email, and not enough time for any picture downloads. We're still pushing hard and working away here in Barrio Trinidad!! Oh, one last thing that is kind of exciting -- we just found out (like just barely this very second we found out) that they are going to open a new Managua Nicaragua WEST Mission in June. I don't have much info about it yet, so I will keep you posted. Have a great week everyone!

No Changes, Still Finding People

The family we baptized last week invited us over for dinner.

First off, we had cambios this past week, and neither me nor my companion, Elder Rodas, were changed. So we're in the same area and everything is the same, and we are working hard again trying to find new people to teach. It's exhausting because it seems like I have to do everything as the senior companion, but we are working away!!!

This family is so incredibly humble and they sacrificed quite
a bit to have such a big meal for us, so we were very grateful.

This past week was kind of rough as far as finding any new people to teach. A lot of people will actually tell you they are interested until they have to go to church on Sunday, and then they give excuses and even hide from you.  That's basically how our Sundays go here in Nicaragua. People commit during the week, and then when we pass by Sunday morning on our way to church, nobody is home, or "they have to run an errand,"... so that sucks, but that's the mission and looking for new people to teach -- ha, ha. On a good note, the other missionaries in our ward had some baptisms on Saturday, so we helped them out and that was nice to see and be a part of. Baptisms are the best part of the mission!

Once in a while we do have to burn our 'green trash.'
One of the members brought his machete over and
helped us to cut the waste into smaller pieces.

I was sad to hear about Micheal's Grandma Jensen passing away. I had visited her several times with Micheal, and even though she never remembered my name very well, she did usually remember my face (she had Alzheimer's). I was "Micheal's friend," so that was cool she would recognize me. I sure wish Micheal's family well during this hard time.

Sounds like it has been a pretty warm February in Utah, and you guys are lucky. It is getting hotter here, and we can definitely tell. It's miserable to be outside from about 10:00 AM until about 5:00 PM, and then it is super nice until about 8:00 PM when it's dark. Apparently, everyone here in Nicaragua dreads April because they say that's the season of earthquakes and usually when it is the hottest month of the year, and Ciudad Sandino is incredibly hot... should be fun!

We continue to work with our families we have baptized. Every day we are supposed to visit with at least 4 recent converts or less active families, and we try to visit with the new converts every 2 or 3 days. We actually continue to teach them lessons up until they hit their one-year-mark as members and they are fully active. So we get to continue working with them and teaching them.

Elder Rodas taking a break.

Well, I had a lot of emails today, which was awesome, but I am almost out of time. I also don't have a lot of photos this week -- lo siento!! I hope everyone else is doing well back home.

A Super Awesome Valentine's Day!

We spent Friday evening getting the church decorated and
ready for the wedding and baptisms. Here we are having
a little fun afterwards, ha ha.

Getting ready before the wedding, and this is only some of the crowd.

Hey everyone! Well, I'll start with the super awesome news first.... we had the wedding and baptisms last Saturday!!! And the family was all confirmed in church on Sunday!!! Awesome!!! Elder Rodas and I found this family during our second week of this past cambia, and then they were able to all get baptized this last week of the cambia. This family has definitely been one of the highlights of my mission so far. Thank you everyone for the prayers on behalf of this family, and they are all doing really well. It was definitely a love-filled Valentine's Day on Saturday with the wedding! This couple had been together for 20 years, and they have 4 children together, but they hadn't been able to get married until we helped them out, and they are extremely grateful. This next week, we get to teach them about setting a goal to go to the temple and getting sealed together as a family, which they can do one year from now. After the wedding, I was able to baptize two of the family, and Elder Rodas baptized the other two. One good thing was that there was a huge crowd of members and investigators present to watch the wedding and baptisms -- some said it was the biggest crowd they had ever seen at a baptism in Nicaragua, so it was a super awesome Valentine's Day!!

After the wedding, then we had the baptisms.
Such an awesome family!!

Otherwise it was a pretty normal week. We were just incredibly busy planning the wedding. The missionaries take care of quite a bit, including talking to the lawyer, getting the cake, inviting the members to be there, getting two witnesses, filling out lots of paperwork, making copies of IDs and such, but it turned out great and I learned a lot during the process. We are now working to find some new, positive people to start teaching.

This is our District, and these guys helped us with the wedding and baptisms.

Today for P-Day, we had to go back to the Immigration Offices in the morning, but this time for an ID for Elder Rodas. The rest of our P-Day today was pretty relaxed. I forgot all about President's Day back home, because obviously, they don't celebrate that as a holiday here in Nicaragua. There were lots of people and couples walking around on Valentine's Day, so they do celebrate that holiday and it is rather popular here. Random thing, by the way, I have seen a handful of kids wearing Jr. Jazz jerseys down here, and it's kind of funny, LOL.

This hoop is about as ghetto as it gets!

As I mentioned, this next week is cambios and Elder Rodas will likely be transferred as he has been here in Ciudad Sandino for three cambios already, and this is the only area he has served in so far on his mission. BUT, anything is possible, so you never know. The cambios are on Wednesday, and we won't find out the changes until Tuesday evening. Thanks for all the updates from home, everyone. I'm doing great -- I'm feeling much better and not sick any more -- got over the stupid cold. I did miss home a lot this week, don't know why, maybe the stress of the baptisms and wedding or something. Anyways, have a great week everyone!!

(Alex didn't say what was going on here. Let's just hope
with the exciting, busy week they had, that the Spirit of God
like a fire was burning, and then they had to go put it out
before someone called the Fire Department.)

Multi-Zone Conference, Fist Bumps, and Dr. Pepper

La Plaza Hugo Chavez in Managua

A patch of green in Managua.

So this past week we had a Multi-Zone Conference that was super cool. Elder Duncan, the Area President of Central America, came and spoke to us. He was really focusing on making sure we are having baptisms and retaining the converts afterwards. That's a huge problem here in Nicaragua -- a lot of converts never go back to church, sometimes even after the Sunday they get confirmed a member of the church. Three zones were at the conference: Managua, Masaya, and Jinotepe. I was so glad Masaya Zone was there because I know just about everyone there, plus a bunch of my friends from the CCM were there also! Nobody has heard anything about our CCM friend, Elder Bronson. He had to go home about a month ago because he was pretty sick, and nobody has heard when, or if, he will be coming back to Nicaragua to finish his mission.

Also this past week, I got a package from my parents that had a copy of our family Christmas slideshow. Oh my gosh -- it was so awesome! That really brought the Christmas spirit, ha ha. I was also really glad they sent me some chocolate. I immediately put it in the freezer to stop melting. I haven't eaten all of it yet, but it tastes so good!

So something kind of funny this week -- I found out this week that I am now officially a Nicaraguan! Today me and my companion went to the Immigration Offices in Managua to get my Cedula, or ID. While we were there in Managua, we were able to go shopping at the Plaza Inter (Mall) they have there. It's all right, but everything there is super expensive! However, we were able to eat lunch at McDonald's and I bought some Dr. Pepper!! Woo hoo!!

I finally found a store here that sells Dr. Pepper, so I stocked up!!

As for our investigators and the work in our area, this Saturday we are hoping to have a marriage of the parents followed by the baptisms for that super positive family we have been working with (the ones with the Mango tree photos last week). It's a lot to plan on for this Saturday, but if all goes well and they pass their baptismal interviews, we will get to see four of them get baptized (the parents and their two daughters)!! The whole family was able to come to church with us this last Sunday, and it was a super awesome experience! So a quick story about this family -- I don't think I had mentioned before, but their family also includes 2 special-needs boys who are aged 18- and 12-years-old. They both have Down Syndrome-like conditions, and they have a really hard time leaving the house. That was part of the challenge of having the whole family go to church together because the boys can't be left alone at home. Well, yesterday was the first time their older son, A., (18-year-old) had left the house in 5 years and he came to church with the rest of the family!! It was such an incredible experience -- everyone in the church was greeting the family and greeting A. -- he went around and gave a fist bump to every person that passed by him, and it was super funny. So this family is really awesome, and if all goes well, we will have a wedding and the 4 baptisms with this family on Saturday!!!

Well, I am running out of time. I have been battling a cold this week. I don't know how or why I caught one because it is actually getting hotter here in Nicaragua, and Ciudad Sandino is known as one of the hottest spots in Managua. Still, I've had a runny nose and sore throat, and it hasn't gotten better yet, ha ha, it's pretty weird. I was super jealous to see the photos of my siblings and Dad at the BYU Men's Volleyball game -- I definitely want to go to some of those games when I get home -- heck, I might even want to try out to be on the team! How cool would that be? I don't think the people in Nicaragua even know what volleyball is and I've never seen any of them playing it. 

Elder Rodas and I in Managua today.

Other then this stupid cold, I'm doing really good right now. I get along OK with Elder Rodas. He is pretty funny, cool, and he makes friends with everyone, but I do have to push him quite a bit. Also, my Spanish is doing really good and people don't believe I have only been on my mission for 5 months now, so I am really happy about that. The Spanish does seem pretty easy now, and I have no problems being out here without being able to use English now. Anyways, I am really enjoying my mission right now and we are having a lot of fun. This week is going to be crazy working with our family for the wedding and baptism, and trying to find new people to teach and bring to church.

No More Coffee, a Fungus, and the Water Tower

No more coffee! So the sisters were able to be baptized this week!

The super positive family we are working with have this huge mango tree.
I helped them pick a few mangoes.

Well, the good news this week is that we had two baptisms! The family we have been working with on their coffee drinking made the switch this week, and the sisters didn't drink any coffee! So their baptisms went great. As for the other 20-year-old girl who was hiding under the bed last week, well, she decided now that she didn't want to be baptized after all, so we had to stop visiting her, and her 23-year-old brother also decided not to be taught any more either -- ha ha. That's OK, because we have a super positive family we are working with right now. The two daughters and their dad have come to church with us, but we're still working on getting their mother to come to church also. They have responded really positively to the teachings and they are on schedule to get baptized probably a little later this month.

It's almost mango season here and soon there will be
mangoes everywhere!

As for the bad news this week, my companion developed this crazy foot fungus and it got so bad that we couldn't leave the house for one whole day because he couldn't walk on it. We had to stay in the house and we were soooo bored! So the next day we went to the hospital to get him checked out. Now he is doing fine and we can work thanks to some medication and a foot cream. The hospital here was surprisingly nice, and they say it's the nicest hospital in Nicaragua. It kind of reminded me of the hospital where my Dad works, although not quite as nice as that, but still good.

Otherwise not a whole lot happened this week. Just a lot of normal teaching appointments and such. Next week, we have a multi-zone conference scheduled for Wednesday and the Area President of Central America is coming to talk to us! No baptisms scheduled this next week, but hopefully a few in a couple of weeks or so. The work is moving along and things are going super well. Thanks everyone back home for the support and updates!

This giant, abandoned water tower is located in the development where
we live. It's pretty cool!

Paraiso! Hanging in my new T-shirt -- ha ha.

Just a Normal Missionary in Ciudad Sandino

My new little mission buddy
goes with me everywhere I go.

First off, I just have to say congrats to my cousin Hollie who just got called to serve a mission to Baton Rouge Louisiana!!! That's so cool!! I never would have thought of Louisiana. I also have to say that my friend Jonny looks kind of silly in his new Culver's hat -- ha ha, but I guess a job is a job (my parents sent me a pic of him).

My parents also mentioned the missionary in Mexico who passed away last week, but I had already saw that as one of the members in our ward showed us a page about that. Kind of scary, but don't worry about me. I'm doing really good, healthy, happy, and working hard! In fact, I have really come to appreciate that our little house is a lot nicer that other houses and this is supposedly the best one in our whole Managua Zone. I'm kind of lucky to have this one, and its actually in a really nice, little neighborhood that has guards at the entrances to keep out the drunks and such, so I have come to really like it!

OK, so my week! Sorry if it seems kind of boring -- not as much to report now that I am no longer with the Zone Leaders. I guess being a normal missionary is a lot less interesting -- ha ha, but I kind of like getting to spend all my time working just in my area, and we do have some stuff going on here.

Me, M., and Elder Rodas.
We always ask who they would like to have perform
the baptism, and they always want the gringos
to do it, ha ha, so I baptized him!

First, we had one baptism!! Of the three kids I was telling you about last week, two of them drank some coffee again..., but we are helping them this week by bringing them some different drinks to drink during the week. We took them a Nicaraguan drink called Pinolillo and we also took them some Cacao, which is my favorite Nicaraguan drink. So hopefully the other two children should be getting baptized this next week. However, their brother, M., was baptized and confirmed last Saturday! That was the big news this past week.

We also attended a super fun birthday party last night with una hermana that lives in the house of our pensionista where we eat lunch every day. That family is really awesome and all of their children are about our age, and all of them have served missions! 

Oh, how could I almost forget? So we have another 20-year-old girl who we found lost in the records of our area book, and we have been working with her since my first week here in Ciudad Sandino. Well, the District Leader wanted to interview her again -- she has passed two other baptismal interviews previously, but she supposedly has a bad habit of drinking alcohol the night before her baptism, or at least that is what the other missionaries had written in her teaching record. She is actually pretty cool and she seems to love the gospel -- she knows it all and says she wants to get baptized... at least up until the day before her baptism. Her 13-year-old brother also lives with her, and we have been working to help him get prepared to be baptized in two weeks. Well, she was going to get baptized again this past Saturday, but she sent some text messages saying she was super far away and telling us that she drank alcohol again the night before. However, we eventually found her just hiding under her bed and we could tell she really didn't drink. We had the Zone Leaders come and try to help encourage her so she would come get baptized, but it didn't happen again. It's so weird -- she keeps saying she wants to get baptized, and then she keeps backing out -- for three times now! Well, we're going to try again for this next week..., but we don't have a whole lot of hope. We'll work with her and maybe we will see a miracle!

Well that's about it for this week. I am about out of time, as usual. Thank you everyone for your emails and letters! I love the updates of everything! Have a great week!

M.s Baptism.

A Speedy-Walking Chellie

This is our casa. It's actually a really nice little house,
it just gets a lot of dirt that blows in....

Here is our little kitchen area.

Sorry I didn't have much time to write today. I had a lot of emails to read from everybody -- ha ha! Thank you so much to everyone for the advice and words of encouragement. I imagine that this area is just another chapter in my mission story, and I need to try and enjoy it no matter how difficult it gets. I definitely didn't feel I was ready to be a senior companion, but I am learning. It can also be a little annoying when your companion wasn't trained properly, but don't worry, I am not going to get lazy or slack off for nothing. My companion is just going to have to learn how to work!!!!! In fact, my new companion, Elder Rodas, is always telling me how he's glad that he has a "speedy-walking Chellie" that pushes him around (he does walk very slow, so I do literally push him sometimes, ha ha). Thanks again, everyone. It really helps knowing that there are people thinking about you back home. I really appreciate that people are actually reading my blog posts, and I love the comments. They make me super happy!!! :)

This front room is where we study.

OK, so we've been making good progress in the area, and in fact, we already have 3 baptisms scheduled for this Saturday! Long story short, the mother of this family was just baptized in November, and her three children were supposed to be baptized with her, but they accidentally drank some coffee the night before their baptism (the same night as their baptismal interview), so they couldn't get baptized the next day with their mom. When I first arrived here last week, I was looking through our area book because I was so frustrated we didn't have anybody to teach, and I found this family's progress sheets and asked my companion about them. For some reason, after the mother was baptized, they never went back to help the children get baptized. So we went and found them, and we have been working with them all week. We took them to church yesterday and they have another baptism interview tomorrow!!! Maybe there is a reason this family had to wait until now, but it makes me incredibly happy!! We also have been working super hard and we have two new families that we are teaching -- and whole families are super hard to find because it is difficult to find everybody at home at the same time, let alone entire families who actually want to listen and talk to us. So the area is picking up a little bit and we're making some progress. Thanks again everyone for your prayers back home.

So I found out that they also play Angry Birds down here in Nicaragua,
but it's just a little more realistic....

We had Zone Conference this past week and the Mission President came and 'machete'd' us like crazy because this zone was slacking soooo much and not having many baptisms (my new area wasn't the only one with missionaries not working). So we're definitely feeling the pressure to improve FAST, ha ha. BUT, I do have to say, I love my new area. Yes, it's a lot of dirt and not as pretty, but I love the people here. Our bishop is awesome and super funny, and we have some really cool investigators and I have really loved teaching the people here.

So, that's about it for this week, but I'm so happy we have some baptisms coming up, and I'm feeling a LOT better about this new area!!!! I included some photos of our little casa, and today, for P-Day, we played baseball with some other missionaries from our zone and we brought some investigators and ward members and it was super fun.

Playing baseball on P-Day today. My companion, Elder Rodas, is in the blue floral shorts.