Deja Vu and Eclipse de la Luna

This is P., the newest Young Woman in the Barrio Monimbo,
along with Elder Nolasco and me.

This past week was good. We had a baptism and brought a new family to church for the first time! In fact, every area in my district had baptisms this past week, and President told me he's happy with our progress and he told me that I am doing a great job here in Monimbo.

Kind of like Deja Vu all over again -- August 2015.

We looked super hard this past week for some new investigators. We found quite a few, but a lot of them dropped out on Sunday. This time of the year is pretty difficult in the areas with a lot of Catholics. However, we did find a new family that is really cool. They are the familia Jimenez and they are planning to get married and baptized in October. What touched them the most as we were teaching them was the Plan of Salvation because their first daughter died in childbirth, and they were crying as they talked about her. They even came to church Sunday by themselves, which is always a really good sign.

November 2014.

Today for P-Day, we played more soccer in the morning with some of  our Zone. My trainer, Elder Castro, even showed up. He is living here in Masaya now at the home of our lunch citas, so I will be seeing quite a bit of him again.

This next week we don't have any baptisms scheduled, but we do have a few planned for October 10th! Besides, it is General Conference this weekend, and I can't wait to find out who will be called as the 3 new Apostles. However, just like last year, we have to bring 4 investigators with us to be able to attend each session, or else we can't attend, so we will be working extra hard to get people to come with us.

Time is going kind of fast here in my new district and it is hard to believe I have already been here 2 weeks! It is a little bit different having Hermanas in my district (there are 3 Hermanas). I have to remember to be sensitive with them and stuff, but these Hermanas in my district are super obedient. They just baptized 4 people last Saturday, and then they have 5 or 6 more scheduled for October 10th! These Hermanas are almost done with their missions, so I have to make sure they don't get "frito" as they say here in Nicaragua. Still, these Hermanas are pretty cool and a lot of fun.

A view from Nicaragua of the lunar eclipse last night.

I heard from Elder Rushton that last Saturday they baptized another one of my old investigators back in Bluefields. This lady was so awesome, and she cried when I left Bluefields... it would have been so neat to see her get baptized. She is going to be a really active, incredibly strong member of the church.

We did get a chance to see the lunar eclipse last night as well. It was pretty cool. Also, I can't believe how tall my little brother is looking in the pictures from home, but on the other hand, I am pretty sure I have grown a little bit also because I had to have a lady in our ward extend my suit pants a little longer this past week. Thanks again to everyone for your emails and letters. They mean a lot to me!

The Zona Masaya -- lots of familiar faces, including my brother, Elder Sanchez on the far left,
who trained with me in Masaya at the start of our missions.

Adios, Bluefields -- Back to Masaya!

Back to Masaya, Nicaragua, but this time in Monimbo.

Pics of my new apartment

Our bathroom....

So this past week was cambios, and sure enough, I was transferred from Bluefields and now I am back in Masaya again, which is the zone where I first started my mission. This time I am in an area called Monimbo, which is the neighbor area next to the Zone Leader's area (which was my first area). As a result, I already know a ton of ward members, and it is still the same lunch cita and the same lady that helps with our laundry. I got to know a lot of this zone last time I was here because I was always going out on splits with the Zone Leaders, and I even already slept in this apartment once before! One other good thing is that Masaya is not as hot and muggy as Bluefields, so I am not sweating nearly as much (it is still really hot, though).

My new companion is named Elder Nolasco and he is from El Salvador. He started his mission the same time I did and he even trained in the Masaya Zone like I did, but in a different area. So Elder Nolasco has been in a little trouble in the past with the Mission President, but it's not really been his fault as his senior companions have not been the most motivated to work. So President Russell told me at cambios that I need to help shape him up!

Our study area....

I am still a district leader here, and our district consists of the Zone Leaders and their companions, my area, and then another area with a trio of sisters. Both of the Zone Leaders are super cool, and one of them, Elder Kleiner, was one of my Zone Leaders when I was in Sandino, so its gonna be a blast! Also, Elder Salmeron, who was my last companion in Sandino, is a companion of one of the Zone Leaders here, so I am his district leader and I am always around him again.

There are lots of Catholics here in Masaya and it seems
like they are always having these parades or processionals.

Another thing that President Russell told me at cambios is that he knows that the problems our district was having in Bluefields weren't really me and Elder Rushton's fault, but being the district leader there was a learning process for me to grow. So now he told me to tear it up in Masaya also and I'm feeling a lot better about the whole transfer now. Yesterday, a new stake presidency was called here in Masaya, and now some of the wards are temporarily without a bishop, including the ward I am in, so President Russell was telling be that he will be coming to Masaya quite a bit the next several weeks to train the new leadership.

Let me tell you, that last panga ride leaving Bluefields last week was a looong and sad ride. Elder Rushton told me that he and my replacement, Elder Bradbeer, did baptize 5 of my old investigators last Saturday in Bluefields, and they have one more of my investigators scheduled for baptism next week, and they brought 14 of my old investigators to church yesterday in Bluefields! The area is still progressing great out there and I am a little sad to not be in Bluefields. Masaya is quite a bit more difficult... the land of the Catholics... and it is a little more difficult to baptize here. When I arrived in my new area last week, we only have 3 little kids that are progressing and will be baptized shortly (hopefully 1 this next Saturday), but Nolasco and I will work hard to find some adults and families to start teaching! My new comp really seems to have the desire to work hard so far, so we are already off to a strong start here.

Caballos, ha ha, giddy up!

Goodbye, Bluefields :(

G. is a 15-year-old, future missionary who returned to Bluefields and was baptized this past week.

Well, unfortunately, I just got the news that I will be transferring this next week for cambios. I'm pretty disappointed and it's all I can think about right now, so I'm having a hard time writing this email. We had as many as 6 baptisms scheduled for last Saturday, but only 1 of them happened. He is a teenager named G. who Elder Passey and I had taught, but he left Bluefields for about 1 month and then came back last week. He is really cool and has a lot of friends with the Young Men in the branch, and he is even talking about serving a mission. 

A cool pic of a rain shower moving into the bay.

Unfortunately, we had to postpone the other 5 baptisms thanks to coffee! So we have to keep working with those investigators and we had to postpone their baptism. Plus, we got word that another guy we were teaching about 2 months ago is returning to Bluefields this week and wants to get baptized next Saturday, but it looks like I won't be here now. We also had a bunch of investigators in church yesterday, and we have some really cool investigators progressing and saying they want to get baptized the end of September and first of October, but again, I won't be here to see it happen.

This is a picture of one of the little, red worms in our drinking water.
We found tons of them in the well and cleaned them all out, but not after
Elder Rushton got sick.

My parents read my companion's blog from last week and he talked about getting sick. We discovered some little, red worms in our drinking water, and he had been sick all week last week. We went to the landlord, and she had her cousin come and help us drain the water well and then clean it out as much as we could. The water is still pretty disgusting in general, but at least the little red bugs are gone. I have been drinking the water the whole I time I have been here and, fortunately, I haven't been sick at all. Elder Rushton also mentioned that he had bed bugs, and yes, I had them also, but I didn't want to say anything so that my Mom would be worried. Those are also gone now, but I will be leaving tomorrow for cambios anyway.

So I finally got the rest of my birthday presents last week when we went to Managua for interviews with our mission president. I can't say my interview went very well because even though Elder Rushton and I have been working hard and keeping the mission rules, he wasn't happy with a few things, like keeping our area book up to date. So kind of a bummer this week. I guess I will let you know next week where I end up and who my new companion will be.

We finally got to try turtle rondon and it was pretty good.

Loma Fresca, Bluefields

This is a cool lake we found in our area.

We worked hard all week this past week and were able to bring 11 investigators to church yesterday. We are hoping to have as many as 6 baptisms this next week. Two of our investigators are returning to Bluefields and we were able to confirm that they will be back. The other four are references of children from less-active families. When the branch asks us to find and teach these kids and their parents, and work to get them coming to church again and the kids to be baptized, we are more than happy to oblige!

Up in the mountains of Loma Fresca, Bluefields

So kind of a short email today because we have to leave in about 90 minutes on a panga headed for Juigalpa. We have interviews with President Russell tomorrow there. Normally he doesn't pull us out of Bluefields but normally just visits every few months, and he is coming in October, but we got called in....

Loma Fresca is located in the other half of our district.
We went on divisions this past week and went up there.
It's basically hiking around looking for shacks in the jungle
on top of the hill like this one.

Other news is that after we finish our emails today, we will be eating lunch with a family in the branch who is going to fix us a typical Bluefields meal called "rondon," and this kind is going to be made with turtle! I'll take some pics and let you know next week how it tastes, but I am super excited to try it! Anyways, sorry for the short email, but we're pushed for time.

A Week Full of Baptisms and Instruction from an Apostle

A beautiful Caribbean sunrise here in Bluefields, Nicaragua!

So this past week was pretty eventful! We knew we would be leaving on Friday to travel to Managua for the missionary conference and wouldn't be able to have a baptismal service on Saturday, so we planned to get our investigators ready to be baptized earlier in the week!

Here are the two sisters who got baptized on Wednesday night,
along with their mother who doesn't exist
according to the Nicaraguan government.

Me and E. all dressed up and ready to go
before we left his house for the church on Thursday.

First, the family who was closest weren't all able to get baptized because when we tried to get the birth certificate and ID card for the mother, it turns out she doesn't exist in the government records. When she was born (in a tiny shack), her parents never took her to the hospital or doctors, and she never went to school -- ever -- so she was never entered into the system. So now we have to start a very long process with some expensive lawyers to get her officially entered into the government records so that she can get married and then baptized. However, we were able to have a baptism service for her two daughters on Wednesday, and then we had another baptism service on Thursday for her niece and nephew (who live nearby). It was awesome because we had a huge turn-out from the branch to support both baptisms.

Here we are with E. and his sister at their baptism on Thursday night.

On Friday morning, we left Bluefields on another long trip and arrived in Juigalpa later in the afternoon. We spent the rest of the day helping out our Zone Leaders, Elders Hansen and Hartley, in their area. Then we got up super early on Saturday and left for Managua. The missionary conference was incredible because it was conducted by President Russell M. Nelson, who is the president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles (kind of like Peter in the New Testament), and he told lots of cool stories and instruction on the things we need to be teaching the people in Nicaragua so that they can be truly converted and get their own temple one day. He showed us many terms in the Spanish version of the Study Guide in the back of the Spanish Book of Mormon, but he went into a lot of detail on about 10 or so of them. He told us to really teach them about tithing and commit them to pay their tithing because that is the reason they don't have a temple in Nicaragua yet.

President Nelson also shared a cool experience when he and Elder Hales came to Nicaragua many years ago to dedicate the country for missionary work. At the time that they came, Americans weren't being given visas to enter Nicaragua, but they were allowed into the country "for a few hours." So they showed up to the airport unannounced and went to a park in Masaya. Nobody in the whole country knew they were coming, so it was literally just a little group of church leaders that spent a few hours one afternoon and dedicated the land of Nicaragua for missionary work and to open the doors for the teaching of the restored gospel.

Funny thing is we spent about 17 hours traveling for a 2-hour meeting with President Nelson, but it was totally worth it, and I got to shake his hand! After the meeting concluded, they fed us Subway sandwiches, but of course we also had to stop by the McDonald's in Managua to grab something to eat on our way back to Juigalpa. As we left the meeting, our mission president told us not to go back to Bluefields that night, but to wait until early Sunday morning. As a result, we knew we wouldn't make it in time for church Sunday morning so we wouldn't be able to help bring our newly baptized members to church for their confirmations. So let's just say that while we were helping our Zone Leaders in their area again on Saturday night, I was making a ton of phone calls to commit people and members to help bring the new members for their confirmations. So when we got off the pangas on Sunday about 1:00 PM, we were thrilled to find out that we still had 5 of our investigators show up to church, and 2 of the new members were able to make it to church and get confirmed. It wasn't perfect, but it could have been a lot worse! Next week we will get the others confirmed.

This was so incredibly tasty! Hmmmm...good!
A delicious fish and fried tortilla dinner!

So now for September, we are working really hard to find more people to teach, plus we still have another super awesome family we have been teaching that should get baptized a little later this month. Super cool how the work is coming along here in Bluefields!!! This next week we don't have anything too special planned. We are still waiting on a few investigators to return to Bluefields so that they can be baptized... still waiting, so hopefully this week they can get back in town.

More fish for dinner, but this time with teeth! Ack!
I didn't eat this fish though, ha ha, luckily the family didn't offer it to us!

Elder Rushton and I get along really well together -- he is just super crazy, and his Spanish is horrible, but he is really cool and we are working really hard. He is a great missionary, which is why I am so surprised we are both together as companions here in Bluefields, because we are both missionary leaders who have been on our missions for a while, and so it is great to be able to just take advantage and work hard with someone who also loves to work hard. Well, this Thursday will be my official 1-year anniversary of leaving on my mission... crazy, right? The time is flying by now, especially because I love it so much here in Bluefields so it seems to go by even faster!

Bus full of Zone Juigalpa missionaries!

Birthday Dinner at Galeria Aberdeens

Happy birthday to me! Look what I found!!

I have to start by saying thank you to all the birthday wishes. I still feel 17!! Just kidding. So, I had a good birthday last Friday, even if it was just kind of a normal day. My district did throw eggs on my head pretty early (they took a video that I'll have to share after the mission) and then we made a nice breakfast. After that, we went to the ATM and took out some of my birthday money and bought some refreshments for our District meeting and divisions (we do that every Friday). I wasn't even in my own area for most of the day, but it was cool that a lot of people still congratulated me and wished me well!

Birthday dinner at Abderdeens. Delicious, but they were out of cheesecake!

Later in the day, I stocked up on some nice American food (I found a place that sells Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Dr. Pepper!!) and I bought some new ties. This next week, I am planning to take some of the money to buy a new watch, and then I will keep some of the money to have some extra spending cash down the road. For dinner, we went to this nice restaurant here in Bluefields that is called Aderdeens. I order a fancy sandwich, which was really good, and then I bought my district all some tres leches cake (ug! they didn't have any cheesecake!). I didn't get any of my packages yet. The Zone Leaders in Juigalpa have one of the packages right now, but they weren't able to get it to me yet. Fortunately, we are headed to Managua later this week and hopefully I should get all of the packages at one time.

This past week was pretty good overall. We had the Zone Leaders come down for two days to do divisions and training. The one that went with us mostly just followed us and watched how we worked. He told us he was impressed and we also had some fun and talked a lot.

Last Saturday, the missionaries in the other half of the branch had two baptisms. This next week, Elder Rushton and I are working to help a couple get married so that we can baptize the wife and their daughter. We have to take out their ID and birth certificate and then pay for the wedding and the paperwork. It is kind of expensive, but they are really cool and want to do it. We also have some other really cool investigators who are progressing and we have some baptisms set up for September, but it is still just hard to get everyone to go to church.

Well, that is about all I have time for this week. I got a lot of people's birthday emails to respond to, so I'll catch y'all next week.

Ready to start out day!

Pan de Coco and Hammocks

Another cool shot of beautiful Bluefields, Nicaragua!

Well, this past week was a great one here in Bluefields!!! Elder Rushton and I have been working really hard, and we were able to have another baptism. Unfortunately, the last cousin wasn't able to get baptized yet, but we did have the two confirmations at church on Sunday. It was a lot of work because some doubts had started creeping in, but we were able to help them work out, and in the end they were super excited to be baptized and confirmed.

One of the cousins we were able to baptize this past week.

Having some fun at the baptism, but watch out for
the little cousin in the shark shirt in front of me!

Another cool story is that awesome family we brought to church the week before, well, they were out of town for the weekend in an outlying community, so they couldn't make it to church yesterday. However, their older boy (the one that is taller than me!), he stayed home so that he could go to the Young Single Adult Activity on Saturday, and then he wanted to be in church on Sunday! It was soooo cool because he showed up to the activity without us even having to invite or remind him, and he even came to church on his own. Once his family gets back tomorrow, we will continue teaching them.

Later today, we are all going to Mauricio's house to learn
how to make Pan de Coco (so then I can make it when I
go back home!). Mauricio was baptized a few weeks ago, and it is
his aunt that makes it in their house and we took photos last time.

My Dad asked about which language they conduct church in on Sundays since they speak Spanish, English Creole, and Miskito here. Most of the church meetings here in Bluefields are in Spanish (almost everyone can at least understand Spanish), like Sacrament Meeting, but during Sunday School they do have a separate class in English Creole. Honestly, there aren't very many members who speak Miskito, but everyone I know in the branch that speaks Miskito can speak Spanish too, anyway.

This past week, we got to eat some lobster again, and this time was even better than the last. I have decided that I love lobster!

This is what they cook the Pan de Coco on.

Also this week we will be having a visit from our Zone Leaders. They come out to Bluefields once a month to visit and work with us for two days, but this will be their first visit since I have been in this area. Today for P-Day, we actually played some basketball at the church. Elder Page has a basketball and a net that we put up on the rim and WOW, I am so rusty!

Anyways, that's about it for last week, and the week ahead seems rather normal, except for my birthday on Friday! Tell everyone back home thanks for all the happy birthday wishes and emails and packages!

Mmmm, Pan de Coco is the best bread I have ever eaten in my life!
It is super thick, and even though they use coconuts, you don't taste
the coconut at all! It is just super amazingly delicious!

Elder Rushton bought a hammock too, so now we're stacked!