This is our House!!!

Our bedroom

The living room.

This our water room with a big font of water.

Our laundry room that we don't use.

My dinner. Bread and juice in a bag.

I love this video!!!

This video is a good example of the story in the scriptures about Jesus Christ. After watching this, think about what the Savior means to you and if you are trying to do the works of the Lord.

The Life of Jesus Christ

¡Tengan a ¡Feliz Año Nuevo!!

Merry Late Christmas! and a Happy New Year!!!

So I’ve been thinking about my Christmases these past years and I realized that this was my 4th Christmas and will be my 4th New Year’s Day in a different country. The past three have been in Mexico! I hope Uncle Jon and Aunt Teresa are having a successful time there and I wish them Feliz Navidad y Feliz Año Nuevo!! I really wish I was there in Mexico building a house for someone and doing service but I realize that I am doing the same thing here in Nicaragua, just in a different manner. I am helping others build an Eternal Family and doing the greatest service I could do by preaching the Gospel.

So now about my week!! We had a good time this week finding new families and new people to teach and bring to church! However, when Sunday arrived, none of them were able to show up... BUT!!! We had 11 people in the church! A new record!! Each week we are getting better and better! I hope that it continues to rise and that we don’t have room in our little Chapel for people to sit!! I will try to take photos of the church this week so you guys can see how small and simple it is. But as we went along our day Sunday morning, passing by all the people that we had talked to during the week, inviting them to come to church with us, none of them were able to go, or said they were going to go and didn’t show up. As the time for church to start arrived, we started to head to the church so we could get the meeting started and a man, F L, stopped us and talked to us on the street outside the last house we had visited. So since it was Sunday, we invited him to come to church and he agreed!!! This was the first time we have had someone accept the invitation and actually did it! So we walked to the church, had an awesome meeting, (My companion and I spoke), and had Sunday school about the Book of Mormon. After church ended, we told F L that we would visit him later that night. He agreed and left. We showed up later that night with the intention of teaching him the 3rd lesson (Gospel of Jesus Christ) and inviting him to be baptized. Because he lives solo, the possibility for baptism was a lot higher than normal because we didn’t have to worry about getting him married to anyone. So we went next door to the neighbor, who is a member, to teach the lesson. We started and the lesson was going very very well. We started talking about baptism and the importance of it and we were just about to ask him to be baptized when he stated something that we hear from a lot of people. He said ''I have already been baptized''. We thought that he had been baptized in a different church so we started to explain why having the right type of baptism is the correct way. Then he said ''I’ve already been baptized into your church''. We stopped; somewhat stunned.... and asked him if he was sure that he was baptized into our church. He said yes and told us the story of how he met the missionaries in Esteli (a different city in Nicaragua) and was baptized by them. All of our hopes for this baptism went down the tube right then! We then redirected the lesson to talk about enduring to the end!! I read a good Conference Talk by Elder Uchtdorf called ''Waiting on the road to Damascus'' that talks a little about this. We were all excited to get a baptism but we didn’t get it, instead we helped a less active member remember why his covenants with the Lord are important and how to continue on the right path. We also figured out this week and J won’t be able to be baptized just yet.... He killed someone awhile back... So the process is a bit more difficult and needs to be more sincere than normal. So we will be working with him for a while. Which means that his family will be waiting to be baptized as well because they want to do it as a family. Our other family, F y A, we decided to stop teaching them. We tried to visit them last night to tell them this but it didn’t go as planned. We stopped outside their house and they had a light on inside. We were deciding exactly what to say to them, and then when we turned to walk into their yard to talk to them. They had turned the light off and wouldn’t answer to our calls. Apparently they didn’t want to talk to us. We really wanted to help them but it seems that they are avoiding us or something. We will see what we can do to visit them again to see what’s up.

I hope everyone had an awesome Christmas and I hope that everyone will have a great New Year’s Day!! Take this New Year and become a new person!!

Here is a link to the talk by Elder Uchtdorf:

Waiting on the Road to Damascus.

¡¡¡Les Amo!!!

ELDER DAUGHERTY

 We played pool in the house of a member last pday.

 At the house of the Pres of the Branch, they have a bunch of baby chickens.

One of the balloons you sent me. He loves it!

A huge thing of bananos!!

Me with the sons of one of our families that we are teaching. 

The small home of F y A,  a family we are teaching.

 The sign for the confessions says that it is only open on Thursday from those 2 specific times. Good thing we can confess and be forgiven from our sins anytime during the week and not just when the Lord feels like forgiving us.

A Catholic Church in Matagalpa, Nicaragua.

Una mas semana en Nicaragua

Ok well this week wasn’t as good as it could have been but it taught me a lot of new lessons. We spent all week teaching and preparing our 2 families for baptism. Our family, J y E are SOO close to baptism but when we showed up to have the interviews and finalize all the plans, they weren’t there... And just to top it off, they didn’t go to church either because J was working and E was too cold. So we have been visiting every single day trying to get them to be super pumped for the baptism and to finalize everything with them but it just hasn’t worked out the way we want it to be. Our other family, F y A are just not progressing. Every time we visit them, it seems that all we talk about is our lives and eat food, and then leave. And every time we try to start teaching a lesson, A is either asleep or super busy with her little kids and F is super worried about his little house and other little things. The picture attached is of their house. It’s super small and F is always worried that he will be robbed or something. So yesterday we went to the house of F y A an hour early before church so we could get them ready and to church on time. We got there and it took us 30 mins to talk them into going with is. Then they decided that they needed to eat so they started to cook breakfast for themselves and for us, even though we said we didn’t need anything. Breakfast took about 50 to cook and eat. So we are 20 mins late right then. Then they needed to actually get dressed in good clothes. Another 20 mins. Then they wanted me to take photos of their kids while they were all pretty. That took about 20 mins because F wanted everything to be as perfect as possible in these photos. And he refused to leave until they were done. Now we needed to get a Taxi because they live a little far away from the church and we were late.. So my companion walked down the road to get a Taxi and I stayed with the family to finish getting them ready. While my companion was down the street, F decided that he was going to work instead of going to church. He sells bread in the Bus Terminal. I tried all I could to get him to stay and go to church and then go sell bread after church but he refused to listen and walked away. And A said she didn’t want to go either because she was worried about the house. I talked to her and got her to walk with us to the church because my companion couldn’t get a Taxi for us. When we got halfway there, she wanted to wait for F because she had seen him around the corner. So we looked for him and couldn’t find him. By this time, we were 2 hours late for church. And when we told this to A she didn’t want to go anymore because she didn’t want to show up to nothing. Oh by the way, we had 6 people at church yesterday, not including us. So she decided to walk around and shop so we left her to go to what was left of church. Later that night, we went to visit them. When we showed up, F was trying to fix a toy car for his little girl. So we helped him with that for a bit and then started to talk to him about the Plan of Salvation. By this time, it was about 7pm and A was asleep already. So we talked to F about PreMortal life, how we existed as spirits and lived with God before we were born on the earth. He thought we were joking and refused to believe us for a while. After about 10 mins of talking about this, he was still a little hesitant to believe so we moved on to a different subject. Baptism. He was baptized into the Evangelico church about 3 or 4 years ago. We talked about the importance of baptism and how baptism is only valid through the right way and through the proper authority, the Priesthood. We talked about how other churches have good teachings and good intentions but they don’t have the authority of God. We cited scriptures from the BoM and from the Bible! After all of our efforts to ''persuade'' him, he still thought we were joking and was laughing throughout the entire conversation. We challenged him to ask God through prayer and to find out for himself if it was true since he didn’t want to believe us. We then left, feeling somewhat frustrated and sad. We have decided that if he doesn’t believe us and they aren’t progressing or don’t go to church by next Sunday night, we are going to tell them that we aren’t going to visit them anymore. This is really hard for missionaries to do but we can’t waste our time with families that only want to ''hang out'' with the missionaries and don’t want to listen to our message or work toward eternal life. There are other people that we could be visiting that actually want something of the gospel. Our success as missionaries is not measured by numbers but is measured by how hard we are working to spread His word to others. Even though people may reject our message and refuse to listen, we can still be successful missionaries as long as we tried our hardest to do His work. And that is how I go about doing the Lords work, working as hard as I can to let others know of His love for us and His gospel. I do this every day, all day and will continue to do it for as long as the Lord needs me. I love being here in Nicaragua, where I can experience something that will change my life but mostly to experience the change that the Gospel can make in the lives of His other children!!!!
¡¡¡¡¡Les Amo!!!!!
ELDER DAUGHERTY

    The Branch Pres. wife working on taking the skins off the coffee pods.They grow a ton of coffee and sell it for about 1200 cordobas a sack. Which is about $50.

The little boy is her grandson. He likes to tease me every time we go eat at the Branch Pres house.

 This is a coffee plant, one of the million that are in their yard.

 The big bowl is full of the coffee beans, which will be set out to dry once they are clean.

You can see in these pictures how steep the roads are in Matagalpa. The roads are almost the same in La Dalia but our roads are dirt, not pavement. Its like working out everyday.

Week before Christmas

Hola!!
First I would like to apologize because this computer I am using has a really dumb spacebar and doesn’t want to work properly. So forgive me if words are connected. If they aren’t, it is because I have taken the time and gone back through and fixed it!
Now!!! Where to start.... Well yesterday we had more people than last time!!! 2 more actually.... Not that big of an improvement but we are working on it!! We have plans in the making for a big Christmas Party to re-excite the members about attending the church each Sunday. We are also thinking of having another sacrament meeting later in the day so that the members that are working can attend. It will be a process though that may take some time. So we almost had a baptism this past weekend!! The family is J y E with their 5 kids. But E has divorce papers from a previous relationship that aren’t complete. So we are going to work on that this week and get them baptized this weekend! This family is super cool. We have to walk about 10 mins from the church through jungle to get there. The big pig, Chela, should be having chanchitos (baby pigs) in the next couple days or so!! We are having them call us when she starts to have the chanchitos so we can come and help. I will see if I can get some photos. One of their sons works as a shoe shiner during the day in the center of La Dalia. He is 13 yrs. old or so... But he shined my shoes last night and they look super good!! I forgot to take photos.. chocho... anyways, J likes to tease me because I’m gringo and still learning Spanish. He likes to change the words in his sentences so that I don’t understand but the changes are so small that my companion can understand but I have a hard time with it. So I just start talking in English to him and then he stops because he doesn’t understand it!! I’m super excited for this family and hope everything goes well this weekend.
We have another family that we are teaching right now. Their names are F y A with their 2 little kids. I can’t remember the name of their little girl who is almost 3 yrs. old but A just had a baby boy about a month ago and his name is M. The missionaries before us helped name the baby. This family lives in a little house even smaller than the ones that we would see in Mexico. All it is is a little room big enough for a bed and a little outside shade where A cooks. I will try to take photos for next week. But they are accepting of all our teachings but they have a problem with attending church with us. They say they will on Saturday, and then when we show up to help them, they are busy and don’t have time to go. We are working on strengthening their faith on that. They are worried about leaving their house because they don’t want to get robbed. It has already happened once. This is really hard for them to go to church for this reason. They also don’t have electricity so we are working on helping them get that in the near future. Every time we go over to visit with them, even though they are super poor, they somehow find a way to feed us huge plates of food!!! So we try to plan our visits with them when we are hungry, because if you don’t finish everything someone gives you, they get a little offended. So we plan our visits so we can eat all of it! We are working on getting them baptized sometime soon as well. We are relying on the help of the Lord for this because they need the faith sufficient to help them move forward.
¡¡¡Les Amo!!!
ELDER DAUGHERTY

La Dalia, Nicaragua

My new companion.  Elder L and I have tape on our wrists and our legs because we had a lesson during a Zone meeting about unity. We had to do a bunch of random activities together and it was hard but it taught us how we need to work together in the mission to have success.

One of our families that we are teaching and will probably baptize this weekend.

This is their pet pig, Chella!!

The mountains you can see are lower than I am in these pictures.

The little pathway in the jungle is what we walk through everyday to get to some of our families that we teach.

CHANGES!!!!

OH MAN!!!!
I’ve got a lot to tell you guys!! Let’s start with the change meeting. I had changes which meant that I needed to pack all my stuff up because I was being shipped to a different place. Our change meeting was super fun and spiritual, as always, and I got a new companion and a new area. I will be sending photos after this email with all the stuff I’ve been doing and pictures of my area and my new companion. My new companions name is Elder L. He is from El Salvador. He has been in the mission for almost a year and is excited to be with me and be in a new area. My new area is La Dalia, Matagalpa. It is about 4 hours away from Managua and is super high up in the mountains. The city itself is actually higher than the mountains that surround it. Remember how I was complaining about being hot all the time in Chinandega? Well La Dalia is hot during the day but late in the day, all during the night, and in the morning, its super cold!!! I guess that’s what I get for complaining right?! We still have problems with our water and power but it’s not too bad. We have a nice shower but we can only use it if there is water. And when there isn’t water, I shower out of a bucket!! So La Dalia is super fun y vamos a echar fuego aqui. Our Chapel here in La Dalia is about as big as the houses we would build in Mexico. Last Sunday, we had 7 people go to church. The Branch Pres and his wife, the 1st and 2nd counselors and one of their sons, and us, the 2 missionaries. Tons of people right?!?! Well I got to bless the sacrament, my companion passed it, and we both gave talks and helped teach the lesson in Sunday school. My companion and I are going to work hard on getting the other members and the recent converts to start going to church when they are supposed to. We have a bunch of families that we are teaching but we are trying to get to know the area as well so it’s really hard to split up our time with everything that has been going on.

So now to explain the delayed email!!! Sunday night, me and my companion got on a bus and rode for 2 hours to the main city of Matagalpa where we spend the night in the house of some other Elders. In the morning, we got up super early and rode another bus for 2 hours and got on another bus after that and rode for another hour to a big sports center. The Mission had rented this place out for all the missionaries to use for P-Day. There were 2 fields for soccer, one for dodge ball, and one for baseball/kickball, and a big blowup toy. The reason for this big gathering of missionaries was because it was pretty much our Christmas Day with everyone. After our day of playing, we returned to one of the nearby churches and got dressed in church clothes and had a little fireside and dinner. We had a little Christmas program and all the different Zones sang a Christmas song for everyone. Our zone sang Cantan Santos Angeles, which is Hark, the herald angels sing. I think.... Anyways, after that, we had a huge Christmas Dinner!!! With real food!!!! Turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, rolls, etc..... All of it was super good!!!! And then after that, the Mission Pres gave us all a present, one each to every missionary. And then he gave everyone packages that had them!! I got 3 packages. One from the Larson’s, the Brown’s, and from the Family. I love everything you guys gave me and I’m grateful for your love and support. Mom, I split up all the stuff in the package you sent and will be giving the rest of the stuff to Hna. Arredondo as soon as I can. I kept the tie because I have plenty of P-Day shirts. The other Elder will be getting the shirt and half of everything else you gave me. A lot of the other missionaries I was with when I was dividing up the stuff were asking me why I didn’t just keep most of the stuff and leave the rest for the other Elder. I could see how much work you had put into this little package and I know how much you guys love me and I wanted to be able to share that with another Elder that probably doesn’t get packages or doesn’t have a family that supports him. You would think that the other missionaries I was with would have felt the same way but it’s alright. I also got about 11 DearElders. I haven’t read them all but I think that they are all the forwarded letters from Elder Larson. I will find out later tonight when I read them.
I love you all and hope you guys are all enjoying your Christmas Season!!!

Les Amo!!!

Elder Daugherty

PS. Everyone here in Nicaragua has a super hard time saying my name. Sometimes they don’t even try because their tongues are used to making the sound it makes!!!

All the missionaries in Chinandega getting ready to go sing at the Bus Terminal!!

 Santa!!! Actually Elder B. dressed up for all the kids. SUPER HOT day too so it really sucked for him to have to wear it!

 She is the daughter of a member family but she was never baptized. She is 12 yrs old and we taught her and got her all ready for baptism. I was able to conform her on Sunday.

These are the streets of Chinandega during the day when all the little shops are open.

A Trompo that Elder V. gave to me. The trompo is super popular here in Nicaragua. Every one of the little kids have one and play with them all the time in the streets.

Week of Miracles!!

We have tons of baptisms this week in our Zone!!! Our hard work has paid off and we are seeing the blessings of serving the Lord. Saturday, we baptized L, 12 yrs old, and I was able to confirm her during Sacrament on Sunday. She is part of a member family but hadn’t been baptized. So we taught her and helped her go through all the steps needed for it. I haven’t baptized anyone myself yet, but I get the honor of seeing many people change and come unto the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Our Zone was able to baptize 3 other families this weekend, making our weekend super awesome!!! That gives us about 9 more people added to the wards here in Chinandega. That’s a lot of people to help strengthen the church here. Also, this week, we had little divisions. That means that I went with a different missionary for a few days and worked with them in a different area other than my own. Everyone in the zone did this and our goal was to contact as many families as we could so we could have more families to teach throughout the week. We also tried really hard to get baptism dates with them. This is a lot harder than you think it is. So we worked SUPER hard for 3 days and this weekend we saw the rewards of our work!! Also yesterday, if none of your knew was the Christmas Devotional for the church!! We brought as many families to this as we could and packed our little chapel!!!! The whole devotional was translated into Spanish, which is super different for me. I tried to understand as much as I could and was really spiritually uplifted. And I know that everyone else there felt the spirit too!! If you haven’t had the chance to watch the Christmas Devotional, I ask you to do it!

So lately the whole city of Chinandega has been having problems with the power and the water so sometimes we don’t have power or water to use. Which means that I haven’t been able to shower the past 2 days because we don’t have water.... gross I know but I can’t do anything about it!! and it sucks when we lose power at night because it is so hot and the only way to stay cool is with fans... which need power... So we go by day by day, working our hardest and serving the Lord as hard as we can!!! I’m sure a shower would help me preach the gospel a little better but the Lord has His Hands in all things so it must be this way for a reason. I haven’t figured out why yet but that doesn’t stop me from working!! I love helping to bring people to the gospel and seeing them change their lives to walk on the strait and narrow.

Les Amo!!

Elder Daugherty

Week ? in Nicaragua

Hola familia!!

So yesterday was Stake Conference for Chinandega. We worked super hard to get people to come with us to the conference Saturday and Sunday. The people down here are super nice and accept just about everything you say but as soon as you talk to them about religion, they get all defensive, especially when they attend a different church. SO pretty much all week, all we did was contact a lot of people to get them to come to the conference. That is where I saw Hna Arredondo, Mom. I talked to her about the whole package thing and she said she would send you a message on facebook, which she did. So I wasn’t able to receive any mail or anything of the sort. I will receive all my mail when I go to Managua for the Change Meeting which is next week. It’s a little strange to think about it but Nov 22nd marked 3 months in the mission!! 21 left to go!! The time has flown by so fast and I have a hard time trying to catch up with everything!! Our family of E and S are doing really good! S is having a little problem with understanding some of the doctrine, like all the basic stuff, which is really hard to get her to understand more basically than it already is. She has been praying every night with E BUT!!!! She hasn’t been reading the scriptures. THIS IS SUPER IMPORTANT!! If you are not reading the scriptures every single day, I advise you to start now! Even if it is just ONE little verse, DO IT!! A lot of members wonder how they can make their lives better. Well the answer is through the scriptures. The scriptures are the word of God and they have everything in them that we need for this life and for the next. We may not realize it but that is the plain truth. If you don’t think the scriptures can help you, then you are dead wrong! I don’t know how else to describe the feelings I have for the scriptures. I didn’t really read them a lot before my mission and I really regret that. So please don’t make the same mistake as me! READ!! I know it can be hard to find time to read the scriptures, but I promise you, that if you make time to read the scriptures, the Lord will bless you in so many ways! Take 5 minutes of your time, which really isn’t that much, and read the words of God. The scriptures have been given to us for a reason so why not us them. We complain about our lives and how hard it is and how we wish it could be better, but we neglect to notice that the answer is available to us and had been for a long time. In this world, we are able to access the scriptures ALOT easier than we think. So just do it! It’s really not that hard if you think about it.

I’m working harder and harder every day, spreading the Gospel to the people of Nicaragua! I love this work and I love the Lord and how He has blessed me in this life.

¡¡¡Les Amo!!!

Elder Daugherty